Review: Xbitlabs 7950 vs 7970 same clocks. Im considering the 7950 even more now.

7970s are barely getting started with overclocking at 1.1Ghz (most can hit ~1.2Ghz with voltage tweaking on air), whereas a 7950 is near the limit it can reach at 1.1Ghz. There is a reason why those chips are not sold as 7970s and have disabled shaders. But yeah the 7950 is a pretty good value for those not looking/can't afford to splurge on a 7970. My upgrade to dual 7970s cost me ~$200 out of pocket though (<3 bitcoin mining) so it didn't really hurt as much as others who spent more.

P.S: If I had to choose any 7950 it would be the one they recommend. The Sapphire 7950 OC has the best cooler of them all, yes even better than the XFX Dual cooler and the PowerColor PCS+. Here are some thermal images of the Sapphire vs the XFX one:

Sapphire idle
sapphireidle.png

XFX idle
xfxidle.png




Sapphire load
sapphireload.png

XFX load
xfxload.png
 
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Hexus.net did one with 7970|7950 @ the same clocks too.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/34761-amd-hd-7950-vs-hd-7970-clocks/

Then you may always compare the two below articles. One has a 7970 @ 1125MHz the other a 7950 @ 1150MHz.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-overclock-guide/16
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-overclock-guide/12

If I were water cooling I'd probably get a 7970, volt it up and swing for the fences.

I doubt most people on air are going to run 1200MHz or greater even if they can do it.

Well, I wouldn't do it on a ref card because you'd likely have to jack the fan up to high levels.

1125|1575 heats my ref 7970 up to 80C when looping the heaven bench with 46% fan speed.
 
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Blacklash said:
Hexus.net did one with 7970|7950 @ the same clocks too.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/34761-amd-hd-7950-vs-hd-7970-clocks/

Then you may always compare the two below articles. One has a 7970 @ 1125MHz the other a 7950 @ 1150MHz.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-overclock-guide/16
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-overclock-guide/12

If were water cooling I'd probably get a 7970, volt it up and swing for the fences.

I doubt most people on air are going to run 1200MHz or greater even if they can do it.

Well, wouldn't do it on a ref card because you'd likely have to jack the fan up to high levels.

1125|1575 heats my ref 7970 up to 80C when looping the heaven bench with 46% fan speed.
Click to expand...

This. The fan noise even at those levels gets to be very high. For anyone wanting to hit up the 79xx series currently I'd recommend going for the Sapphire non-reference cooler model in the xbit article, and oc'ing it. The non-reference cooler has a very low noise level even at higher fan speeds per a Hardware Canucks review I saw, and oc's well. Performance difference isn't that huge between the two at same clocks anyway and a 7970 you're not going to want to run at higher.
 
its interesting because I keep goign back and forth, but it got me thinking. Is the increase in fps really worth it when ill sell the card whent he 8900 series comes out.
lol
 
I have a DC II 7950 in my AMD comp.

If I lock the fan @ 25% and loop the heaven bench I hit 70C @ 1125|1575.

My particular 7950 doesn't do better than 1150MHz.

My ref 7970 will do 1200MHz and I don't run that due to fan speed I need to manage it.
 
I am really torn on this, because the 7950 seems like better value for gaming against the 7970. since i bitcoin mine, i wanted as many stream processors as possible and went for 7970. i also love that i can undervolt my 7970 while overclocking it. 1.043V at 1000mhz. 600mh/sec 73C at 40% fan speed 98% load
 
2wiced said:
how do you like it? I think im going to pull the trigger on a 7950 sapphire OC card.
Click to expand...

It's a great card. The particular one I got only does up to 1150MHz. Luck of the draw. It's very quiet though.

My ref 7970 does 1200MHz and I don't run that because I have to turn the fan up to omfg levels.

@ the same clocks the 7970 is typically around 5FPS faster. 7950 performance is like -25MHz on the 7970. So 1150MHz performs like a 7970 @ 1125.
 
Blacklash said:
It's a great card. The particular one I got only does up to 1150MHz. Luck of the draw. It's very quiet though.

My ref 7970 does 1200MHz and don't run that because I have to turn the fan up to omfg levels.

@ the same clocks the 7970 is typically around 5FPS faster. The 7950 performance is like -25MHz on the 7970. So 1150MHz performs like a 7970 @ 1125.
Click to expand...

wait a second... you have both a 7970 and a 7950?
 
I went with the Sapphire 7950 OC and am very happy I went with it over a 7970. The OC's cooler blows away the reference cooler and was $120 less than a 7970 with a non reference cooler, if I could even find one in stock. All the reviews I have seen state that the 7970's and 50's perform within 2-8% (average around 4%) of each other at the same clocks.

HUGE upgrade from my unlocked 6950 (970/5500) at 1600p. 7950 is a fantastic overclocker as well with my testing and is nice and quiet. 1260/7000 @ 1.25v will work for 3dMark11 and Heaven, but need to tone it down some to run games like Crysis2 or BF3 artifact free. Happy spot that is crash and artifact free so far appears to be 1180/6900 @1.2v for everything I have thrown at it so far. I use a custom fan profile using Trixx and temps have never busted 70C while staying pretty quiet. Have not tried over 1.25v yet.

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2792242 - 9459 (would easily score even higher if I had a 2600k proc)
 
jhatfie said:
I went with the Sapphire 7950 OC and am very happy I went with it over a 7970. The OC's cooler blows away the reference cooler and was $120 less than a 7970 with a non reference cooler, if I could even find one in stock. All the reviews I have seen state that the 7970's and 50's perform within 2-8% (average around 4%) of each other at the same clocks.

HUGE upgrade from my unlocked 6950 (970/5500) at 1600p. 7950 is a fantastic overclocker as well with my testing and is nice and quiet. 1260/7000 @ 1.25v will work for 3dMark11 and Heaven, but need to tone it down some to run games like Crysis2 or BF3 artifact free. Happy spot that is crash and artifact free so far appears to be 1180/6900 @1.2v for everything I have thrown at it so far. I use a custom fan profile using Trixx and temps have never busted 70C while staying pretty quiet. Have not tried over 1.25v yet.

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2792242 - 9459 (would easily score even higher if I had a 2600k proc)
Click to expand...


Blah. Im wanting one. I have a 7970 preordered on amazon. But I think im going to cancel that and order a 7950
 
Grats jhatfie, that's one heck of an OC on a 7950.

My 7950 just does 1150MHz @ 1.2. It's plenty fast though and I keep the fan locked @ 25% so it's darn quiet too.
 
GoldenTiger said:
This. The fan noise even at those levels gets to be very high. For anyone wanting to hit up the 79xx series currently I'd recommend going for the Sapphire non-reference cooler model in the xbit article, and oc'ing it. The non-reference cooler has a very low noise level even at higher fan speeds per a Hardware Canucks review I saw, and oc's well. Performance difference isn't that huge between the two at same clocks anyway and a 7970 you're not going to want to run at higher.
Click to expand...

Noise is a non issue for me. I had 6970s in crossfire, THAT was noisy and the cards ran hotter to boot. In comparison my [email protected] max reach only 70C with fan at 40% using a custom profile in afterburner during normal gaming.
 
jhatfie said:
I went with the Sapphire 7950 OC and am very happy I went with it over a 7970. The OC's cooler blows away the reference cooler and was $120 less than a 7970 with a non reference cooler, if I could even find one in stock. All the reviews I have seen state that the 7970's and 50's perform within 2-8% (average around 4%) of each other at the same clocks.

HUGE upgrade from my unlocked 6950 (970/5500) at 1600p. 7950 is a fantastic overclocker as well with my testing and is nice and quiet. 1260/7000 @ 1.25v will work for 3dMark11 and Heaven
Click to expand...

How do you get the memory past 1600? Bios or what?
 
Those who have issue with temp on 7970, you really need to redo the thermal paste..

For mine, the temp is under 75c with 35-40% fan while having 1200/1600 with 1.28v
 
in practical reality a 7950 OC to 1100mhz or such is the better choice if one decides between the cards. I doubt anyone would notice difference in actual use.
at same clocks its a 2-5% difference depending on game.
those frames in difference wont be noticeable.
 
Lorien, is that sapphire set to auto fan speeds? or rather, what were you using to put that much of a load on it? I have a sapphire OC clocked to 1000mhz core, fans @ 65% and playing bf3 I don't get over 44*C
 
7950 Sapphire non-OC model. Will probably add a 2nd for crossfire in the future after a price drop.
 
Not Yet Shipped:
1 item - delivery estimate: February 22, 2012

My Sapphire 7950 OC will be here wednesday
 
glad to see you've finally purchased a card. you've been waffling back and forth since january 9th.
 
Porter_ said:
glad to see you've finally purchased a card. you've been waffling back and forth since january 9th.
Click to expand...

Porter,

lol! yes I have. My friend let me borrow his 6950 unlocked to 6970 to hold me over.

my original plan was to purchase a 7970 then stick a water block on it and include it in my loop. After calculating costs, even though I had the money to do it I could not get my self to pull the trigger. So I ended up selling my water cooling system and purchasing a 7950.

Overall im happy with my decision. Just gotta wait for it to arrive. Ive been working long hours at work, got a 12 hour shift tomorrow and tuesday so, the card will come just in time :).

but yea its been a month or so.lol
 
I have the same decision to make. Theres a deal on the 7950OC Sapphire till tomorrow afternoon at £355, cheapest anywhere in UK. But they also have the sapphire 7970 at £419 also cheapest.

Not sure whether to wait after im back from holiday end of the month and buy it or now since its so cheap. But not quite sure which one yet, i play at 1440p...
 
masscrazy said:
I have the same decision to make. Theres a deal on the 7950OC Sapphire till tomorrow afternoon at £355, cheapest anywhere in UK. But they also have the sapphire 7970 at £419 also cheapest.

Not sure whether to wait after im back from holiday end of the month and buy it or now since its so cheap. But not quite sure which one yet, i play at 1440p...
Click to expand...

well...

I saved around 100-120 bucks (custom cooled 7970 cost diff). So to me that was a large enough sum to save. It all depends how long you will keep the card. I will be selling the card later on, in probably a year or less.

You cant go wrong with either one. I spent a whole month going back and forth, and I ended up going with the 7950.
 
I would love to WC my 7950. But with that comes a whole loop, as i have nothing.

Does anyone have any WC results for the 7950?
 
Little more fooling got my Sapphire 7950 OC a little higher. Additional voltage over 1.25v does not seem to net me much if anything extra even though temps are still pretty low.

1260/1787 @ 1.25v
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2799763 - P9507
 
I was pretty much dead set on a 7970, but this thread is really making me think about getting one of the OC versions of the 7950... If I can get lucky and hit high clocks then it will be killer. Decisions decisions...
 
I have Sapphire 7950 OC version, it runs everything I play on max@2560x1600@60fps so I am not going to overclock yet but I tried going to 1100mhz in catalyst and it froze my computer. I guess I'd need to up the voltage, oh well.
 
It sucks that many 7950s can be overclocked past my 7970 ;p. I can only get to 1100 core without artifacting, although I can get 1700 memory. I haven't really tried my card at really high voltages, though, as I dont want to use a fan speed above 46%.
 
krakerman said:
I was pretty much dead set on a 7970, but this thread is really making me think about getting one of the OC versions of the 7950... If I can get lucky and hit high clocks then it will be killer. Decisions decisions...
Click to expand...

Yes this thread has made me question the 7970. I think I'll wait till im back from holiday and make a decision. If the new 7970s with custom coolers are out and nearer the price of current 7970s then I'll definitely go for that.
 
shansoft said:
Those who have issue with temp on 7970, you really need to redo the thermal paste..

For mine, the temp is under 75c with 35-40% fan while having 1200/1600 with 1.28v
Click to expand...

You sure you know what youre talking about?
Some of us have redone thermal paste with either no change in temps, or a drop of 1-2C at most.

Just because your card runs cool doesn't mean others will run cool.
Mine is 78-79C in Heaven benchmark at 1150/1700 and 1.175v, and 60% fan speed.

Cards with higher ASIC quality tend to run cooler (less leakage) than cards with lower ASIC, although every card is different, so that's not a hard rule...some might find 70% cards running super cool. Mine runs hot and thermal paste isn't goiing to change matters (already put MX-4 on mine--TWICE. Temp change was 1C higher or lower...default paste originally was just fine).

BTW your card runs cool, but you need a lot more volts. I can do heaven at 81C, 1200/1700 at 1.231v and 65% fan speed.. Just FYI.
 
Finally got my Sapphire 7950 replaced my 5870. Could not be happier going to wait till EK releases there waterblock before i really try and push it.
 
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