Best 7950?

[papaprek]

As people may have seen in my last post, deciding between GTX 660 Ti or Radeon 7950, I may go with the 7950, I was wondering what the "best" model of the 7950 would be, so far I am looking at the XFX DD model.

[Money]

The XFX DD is notorious for causing crashes and being DOA.

[Money]

I would recommend the Twin Frozr II MSI 7950. http://ncix.com/products/?sku=70088&vpn=R7950%20Twin%20Frozr%203GD5%2FOC&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar

[Dave :)]

I'd recommend the 7950s which have a 7970 PCB:

Sapphire HD7950 OC 950mhz Edition

MSI Twin Frozer III HD7950

Beefy VRMs, etc :P

[ProGearUk]

Ye the twin frozr iii edition is good has a great cooler and if I am right it spins backwards when the PC turns on to get dust out of it. Good card. Good support with the afterburner software. 2 slots. A solid choice for a 7950 not too expensive. Has some overclocking ability if you are into that and will look good in a case and will run cool because of those fans and heat pipes. Got on myself works well in crossfire. Best choice maybe get 2 if you can.

[Mentalguy]

asus does realy good, gigabyte also

[killerx525]

With Asus GPUs they have one of the quietest cooler around and also their circuity is fairly beefy.

[Dim]

I love my Gigabyte OC; three fans really gives it that extra level of awesome ;)

[TechFan@ic]

A couple of things to keep in mind.

The newer Gigabyte cards are voltage locked unfortunately, along with a couple of XFX DD 7970 models (I don't if the 7950 models are affected) and the sapphire dual-X models.

So a lot of the new cards are being voltage locked by the manufacturer.

People have been getting around this by BIOS modding, but with a lot of the voltage locked cards other manufacturers BIOSs don't seem to work.

So they end up modding the BIOS with other BIOSs from the same manufacturer, I know gigabyte has about 3 of them so does XFX.

When modding your BIOS the voltages will remain locked but the default voltages are different with every BIOS mod, so you should just look into the one with the highest default voltage setting.

Or you can just spare yourself the headache and get a voltage unlocked card.

.

The MSI twinfrozr is probably voltage unlocked, but the fans on the twinfrozr are slightly more noisy .

Dual fan powercolor cards are also voltage unlocked but I've heard that they don't have the best VRM cooling so the VRMs might get hot when you overclock.

ASUS DCUII cards are voltage unlocked, they have the best and quietest cooling solutions but they are huge, heavy and they are a bit more expensive.

The sapphire vapor-x is a strange one, some people claim that it's voltage locked others claim that it's not but everyone agrees that it overclocks like a beast even without voltage tweaks.

You should google for "7950 voltage locked" and see what models come up and try to avoid those.

I hope this helped.

[killerx525]

Not all Asus cards are huge, they do have dual slot cards.

[TechFan@ic]

Not all Asus cards are huge, they do have dual slot cards.

Those are reference models, which should be avoided due to noisy fans and coil whining .

[BeyondNight]

A couple of things to keep in mind.

The newer Gigabyte cards are voltage locked unfortunately, along with a couple of XFX DD 7970 models (I don't if the 7950 models are affected) and the sapphire dual-X models.

So a lot of the new cards are being voltage locked by the manufacturer.

People have been getting around this by BIOS modding, but with a lot of the voltage locked cards other manufacturers BIOSs don't seem to work.

So they end up modding the BIOS with other BIOSs from the same manufacturer, I know gigabyte has about 3 of them so does XFX.

When modding your BIOS the voltages will remain locked but the default voltages are different with every BIOS mod, so you should just look into the one with the highest default voltage setting.

Or you can just spare yourself the headache and get a voltage unlocked card.

.

The MSI twinfrozr is probably voltage unlocked, but the fans on the twinfrozr are slightly more noisy .

Dual fan powercolor cards are also voltage unlocked but I've heard that they don't have the best VRM cooling so the VRMs might get hot when you overclock.

ASUS DCUII cards are voltage unlocked, they have the best and quietest cooling solutions but they are huge, heavy and they are a bit more expensive.

The sapphire vapor-x is a strange one, some people claim that it's voltage locked others claim that it's not but everyone agrees that it overclocks like a beast even without voltage tweaks.

You should google for "7950 voltage locked" and see what models come up and try to avoid those.

I hope this helped.

Where did you hear the Gigabyte Cards and others are voltage locked ? do you have a source ?

[TechFan@ic]

A couple of things to keep in mind.

The newer Gigabyte cards are voltage locked unfortunately, along with a couple of XFX DD 7970 models (I don't if the 7950 models are affected) and the sapphire dual-X models.

So a lot of the new cards are being voltage locked by the manufacturer.

People have been getting around this by BIOS modding, but with a lot of the voltage locked cards other manufacturers BIOSs don't seem to work.

So they end up modding the BIOS with other BIOSs from the same manufacturer, I know gigabyte has about 3 of them so does XFX.

When modding your BIOS the voltages will remain locked but the default voltages are different with every BIOS mod, so you should just look into the one with the highest default voltage setting.

Or you can just spare yourself the headache and get a voltage unlocked card.

.

The MSI twinfrozr is probably voltage unlocked, but the fans on the twinfrozr are slightly more noisy .

Dual fan powercolor cards are also voltage unlocked but I've heard that they don't have the best VRM cooling so the VRMs might get hot when you overclock.

ASUS DCUII cards are voltage unlocked, they have the best and quietest cooling solutions but they are huge, heavy and they are a bit more expensive.

The sapphire vapor-x is a strange one, some people claim that it's voltage locked others claim that it's not but everyone agrees that it overclocks like a beast even without voltage tweaks.

You should google for "7950 voltage locked" and see what models come up and try to avoid those.

I hope this helped.

I've put a lot of research into 7950s lately because I wanted to buy one for a friend.

A lot of googling around and the comments on newegg suggest that a lot of the newer models are coming with locked voltages and people have been getting around this with BIOS modding to increase the default voltage.

[TechFan@ic]

I apologize for almost forgetting to mention HIS cards, HIS 7950 turbo cards are voltage unlocked.

[killerx525]

Not all Asus cards are huge, they do have dual slot cards.

You forgot about these :P

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/AMD_Series/EAH6950_DCII2DI4S1GD5/

[TechFan@ic]

Not all Asus cards are huge, they do have dual slot cards.

Those aren't 7950s .

[Ghost]

I would advise against the XFX DD.

Apart from that I can only speculate that MSI is best

[Dim]

I love my Gigabyte OC; three fans really gives it that extra level of awesome ;)

Question' date=' is it noisy? and loud?[/quote']

Nahh man. My system fans are hell-noisy though.

I think noisy and loud are the same thing ;P

[Umeshwarnath]

sapphire cards are awesome...i know to people running their "sapphire hd 7950 oc @ 1200/1400 @1.28 and 1.3 volts no problems encountered!!

i personally have a sapphire hd 6970 and i have had no issues!!

they are prices very well !!

get the sapphire hd 7950 oc !!

[TechFan@ic]

The best 7950 is the DCUii , but it's also the largest, heaviest and most expensive , the sapphire dual-x, XFX double D, MSI twinfrozr and the gigabyte windofrce 3x all have equally good cooling, while the XFX has the best build quality and best warranty out of the bunch.

[BCreation]

I agree with Money. The Twin Frozr 7950 will do you well. Another great option would be something from Asus or Sapphire because they are known to be very quiet under load and at idle. Just remember that if you buy from Asus, it is a 3 slot cooler.

[Sauber-C10]

MSI twin frozr 7950 is good, ive had no troubles with the xfx DD black edition 7950 and it overclocked just fine, but yeah all the big brand card makes are pretty much the same msi, xfx, asus, and saphire and gigabyte are pretty good aswell these days so i hear

[Nozbit]

My 2 cents...

I bought an HIS HD 7950 Boost with the iceQ cooler just after Christmas. Out the box it comes with 925Mhz on the core. Running with a 3570k at 4.4Ghz it scores 7953 at stock in 3d mark. I've overclocked to 1100Mhz and which scores 9291 in 3d mark. I've not tried to push it any further than this yet..

I know these figures aren't the be all and end all but it gives you a decent idea of what the card can do. The hottest the card has got was 74 degrees after a 3 hour session playing planetside 2 with everything running at max.

The voltage is also unlocked.

[Nirmal]

I bought a MSI win frozer III 7950 recently and i must say a am very impressed at how quiet it is so it defiantly gets my recommendation.