HD 7950 series

[fuelairbomb]

Which is the best HD7950 (best base clock and boost clock) available right now on the market?

[iSuzak]

i would say the xfx card for their lifetime waranty

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150588

[TechFan@ic]

It's a tie between the HIS IceQ X2 & the Sapphire Vapor-X, the HIS card however has much better VRM cooling & slightly better GPU cooling which in turn will allow for higher overclocks.

The downside is the larger size of the IceQ cooler.

[fuelairbomb]

I've been reading online that HIS tend to become noisy on full load, that's why I might opt for the Sapphire Vapor-X. So between the XFX and Sapphire Vapor-X which is better in terms of overclocking and core clock rate?

[iSuzak]

The xfx version is 900Mhz And the Vapor-X is 950Mhz (with boost) for the stock core clock.

Also it seems like the Vapor-X have better cooling. I don't really know about the overclocking potential of those two, but it should be around the same.

With that said the Vapor-X seems to be better but for me a lifetime waranty is a big plus.

[TechFan@ic]

I've been reading online that HIS tend to become noisy on full load' date=' that's why I might opt for the Sapphire Vapor-X. So between the XFX and Sapphire Vapor-X which is better in terms of overclocking and core clock rate?[/quote']

The older Vapor-X cards have serious VRM overheating issues due to an issue with the thermal pads not being installed correctly creating a dead air space between them and the VRMs.

Sapphire reportedly fixed this issue with the latest card revision, but whether you get the latest revision or the older faulty one is going to depend largely on luck, since the faulty models are still available in stock at retailers.

The XFX DD Black Edition is one of the best overclockers out now but the HIS IceQ X2 reigns supreme as the 7950 overclocking king.

Overclocking results on default 7950 voltage for the XFX.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/51109-xfx-hd-7950-black-edition-double-dissipation-review-13.html

Overclocking results on default 7950 voltage for the HIS @ the bottom of the page.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/59265-his-hd-7970-iceq-x-hd-7950-iceq-x-review.html

There is a very huge downside to the XFX DD cooler however, while very quiet it actually doesn't offer better cooling performance than the reference blower style AMD fan.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/51109-xfx-hd-7950-black-edition-double-dissipation-review-12.html

While the HIS model exhibits both quieter operation and better temperatures than the reference design cooler.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/59265-his-hd-7970-iceq-x-hd-7950-iceq-x-review-13.html

If you find the HIS 7950 IceQ X too bulky or perhaps unattractive, I would recommend getting the Sapphire Dual-X instead of the Vapor-X due to the aforementioned VRM heat issue.

[fuelairbomb]

Thanks for the all the comments and recommendations