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Best 7950/7970?

A

autolux

n00b
Joined
Sep 3, 2007
Messages
2
Hey there,

just wondering whats regarded as the current best option in the 7900 series? this new crysis/bioshock bundle has me sold.

i have 2x30" lcd's, game on 1, looking at maybe another 30 or scrapping for 4 or 5x23" down the line, so eyefinity is a plus.

i have $300-400 to spend. lower would be better obvs, but dont mind spending on the higher side, but thats another kettle of fish with nvidia card comparisons etc.

want something with solid standard performance for high res gaming (battlefield3, crysis3) as well as overclockability. seem to have a preference for the sapphire range based on what i've read. but confused by the many many cards available from them. eg. the OC, the OCv2, the 925mhz OC edition, the 950mhz OCV2 edition, the Vapor-X edition etc. etc.

any consensus on the clear winner? does it matter?
 
Asus DCU, Gigabyte Windforce, MSI Twin Frozr, HIS IceQ. Take your pick, I would get the cheapest one out of the bunch.at the time, and make sure your current batch isn't voltage locked.

Sapphire is a budget brand. Sometimes they make good cards, sometimes they make really bad cards (7870 anyone?). I would spend an extra $20 to get a Windforce or a Twin Frozr (and I have!).
 
I've a Sapphire Dual X, good card not voltage locked.

I would recommend the HIS 7950 and MSI, heard good things about these.

Also the HIS 7970 (both ICEQ and GHz editions) and the Vapor X 7970s seem to be good.

And like poster above said, check to see if the card you're looking to get is voltage locked. To the best of my knowledge the cards I listed above are not, but please do your research.
 
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Very happy with my MSI Twin Frozr. Stays cool and overclocks really high. I would recommend whatever card you go with you re-apply the thermal paste if you have any
 
Check out this HIS brand 7970, I don't think any of them are voltage locked.
 
Eureka! said:
Asus DCU, Gigabyte Windforce, MSI Twin Frozr, HIS IceQ. Take your pick, I would get the cheapest one out of the bunch.at the time, and make sure your current batch isn't voltage locked.

Sapphire is a budget brand. Sometimes they make good cards, sometimes they make really bad cards (7870 anyone?). I would spend an extra $20 to get a Windforce or a Twin Frozr (and I have!).
Click to expand...

Sapphire is a budget brand?Many consider them to have the best amd cards including myself.I would consider His to be a budget brand.I wouldnt touch the asus card way to many lemons and the windforce id stay away from the new revision have them voltage locked.I would stay away from the His Ice-Q as well i actually bought one and got 2 straight rma's when i got the 3rd one that was deffective to had a bad hdmi slot so i just used the dvi got tired of sending them back.
 
Banenwn said:
Sapphire is a budget brand?Many consider them to have the best amd cards including myself.I would consider His to be a budget brand.I wouldnt touch the asus card way to many lemons and the windforce id stay away from the new revision have them voltage locked.I would stay away from the His Ice-Q as well i actually bought one and got 2 straight rma's when i got the 3rd one that was deffective to had a bad hdmi slot so i just used the dvi got tired of sending them back.
Click to expand...

Sounds like user error. You got 3 bad cards in a row huh?....... HIS is a great brand. If I were rating I would go:

1 Diamond 7970 ( add a waterblock and you can get 1360+ on the core)
2 HIS iceQ2 Turbo 7970
3 Sapphire (the pop brand, they are good, except that crazy coil whine.)
 
Nope no user error here been building my own rigs for over 10 years.Guess we all have just had different experince's with different brands.I never got the 7970 his iceq turbo can only go by the 7950 side of things.
 
Banenwn said:
Sapphire is a budget brand?Many consider them to have the best amd cards including myself.I would consider His to be a budget brand.I wouldnt touch the asus card way to many lemons and the windforce id stay away from the new revision have them voltage locked.I would stay away from the His Ice-Q as well i actually bought one and got 2 straight rma's when i got the 3rd one that was deffective to had a bad hdmi slot so i just used the dvi got tired of sending them back.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone considers them to be the best brand. There's a reason why they consistently sell for the lowest price, alongside XFX. Just recently they had the 7870 problem where their cards were black screening. Not to mention, they have cheap PCBs which flex more than most other brands. They have a few good models, but as a whole I distrust Sapphire.

HIS IceQ has one of the coolest cards now. They are kind of the same range as Sapphire but they made headway with their coolers.

Asus, I distrust as well, but the DCU2 is hard to beat, and they usually have custom PCBs, which, when they work, are superior designs.

The Windforce has already gone through a nother revision. Newest BIOS F43 are now voltage unlocked again.

I'd trust Diamond, but I believe they only make reference models.
 
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Eureka! said:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Banenwn

Sapphire is a budget brand?Many consider them to have the best amd cards including myself.I would consider His to be a budget brand.I wouldnt touch the asus card way to many lemons and the windforce id stay away from the new revision have them voltage locked.I would stay away from the His Ice-Q as well i actually bought one and got 2 straight rma's when i got the 3rd one that was deffective to had a bad hdmi slot so i just used the dvi got tired of sending them back.

I don't think anyone considers them to be the best brand. There's a reason why they consistently sell for the lowest price, alongside XFX. Just recently they had the 7870 problem where their cards were black screening. Not to mention, they have cheap PCBs which flex more than most other brands. They have a few good models, but as a whole I distrust Sapphire.

HIS IceQ has one of the coolest cards now. They are kind of the same range as Sapphire but they made headway with their coolers.

Asus, I distrust as well, but the DCU2 is hard to beat, and they usually have custom PCBs, which, when they work, are superior designs.

The Windforce has already gone through a nother revision. Newest BIOS F43 are now voltage unlocked again.

I'd trust Diamond, but I believe they only make reference models.
Click to expand...

actually XFX and Sapphire cards are actually 1 of a higher price cards. just seen a his ICQ 7950 on newegg for 289 that's as cheap as cheap as ive ever seen a7950. not sure were you get your prices but you're just flat out wrong about their prices. there all good if you get a good card that's what it comes down to. and I've owned his iceq I love the cards when they worked. and I disagree with you look around the web many people consider Sapphire being a top tier brand


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Banenwn said:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Eureka!

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1746926

For one thing about XFX... the cheapest 7970 has always been the XFX. The cheapest 7950 is the Sapphire, which goes down to around 250-260 on sale. Just here you can see what people think of XFX alone.




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Click to expand...

they're all the cheapest at 1 time or another. when I bought my XFX 7970 it was the most expensive reference card by far. every time I bought a his I only bought it because it was the cheapest 1 . the sapphire 1 I got is the most expensive 1 on newegg. usually its powercolor anf HIS from what I see are the cheapest 2 cards. like I said they're all good it just depends on if you get a lemon or not.


Posted from Hardforum.com App for Android
 
kinda hard to say which one is best tbh... i've gotten really expensive cards and not been able to oc' them for sh it lol
 
I'm really happy with my Gigabyte 7950. The latest bios is factory clocked to 1000mhz, versus 800mhz on the reference cards, and has unlocked voltage control. I haven't bothered to overclock any further, it drives my single 1920x1200 display just fine. BF3 and Crysis 3 look gorgeous and give a respectable frame rate with lots of eye candy. Puts my old 5870 to shame.
 
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