Any 7950's that arent voltage locked?

Acolyte · 24 Mar 2013 at 10:47

Looking to upgrade my ageing Radeon 6870, have been looking around i think an Nvidia GTX670 or Radeon 7950 wqould suit the bill, but im edging towards the 7950 because they appear to be a decent amount cheaper and when OC'd there isnt much of a gap in performance.

Anyway, are there any 7950's that are still voltage unlocked? From what i have read quite a few were initially, but later revisions have put a stop to that.

All i could really find was that the Sapphire Vapor-X may have unlocked voltage on its non boost BIOS?

Please help

tommybhoy · 24 Mar 2013 at 11:02

1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £275.99

100% voltage unlocked core/vram via His iTool

I bought 2 last week and they are monster oc'ers, but pricey when not on offer.

1 x MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £259.99

Core voltage only unlocked via Trixx, Afterburner added voltage, but it did not apply, perhaps AB will be updated to fix this issue.

1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ X² BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QMC3G2M) with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £259.99

Afaik, it's totaly unlocked via His iTool, but someone else may come in and comment.

MeatLoaf · 24 Mar 2013 at 11:12

My gigabyte ones unlocked. I think its a V1 with 2x6 pin psu plugs.

tommybhoy · 24 Mar 2013 at 11:19

New WF 7950 is bios locked going from users here that bought one recently, but a bios flash to an older bios version unlocks it again-again get confirmation though.

Gregster · 24 Mar 2013 at 11:20

Geeeeez, prices are rocketing up. That HIS card could be had for £220 not so long back.

tommybhoy · 24 Mar 2013 at 11:42

+1,

Quite ridiculous pricing unless bought at the right time on offer when you pay the 'proper' price imo although I never noticed the Ice-Q@£220 greg, but I probably wasn't looking.

Weekly Special price:

One off Weekend Deal:

Ice-Q Launch price@Ocuk:

Gregster · 24 Mar 2013 at 11:59

I know the dollar is stronger against the pound but not that much

tommybhoy · 24 Mar 2013 at 12:11

Yes greg, the exchange rate isn't the issue here, it's a totally different thing OcUK are doing.

spoffle · 24 Mar 2013 at 12:59

tommybhoy said:
Yes greg, the exchange rate isn't the issue here, it's a totally different thing OcUK are doing.

What's even stranger is that the IceQ X2 is cheaper than the regular IceQ when the X2 is by far the better card.

Just to confirm as well Tommy, the X2 is fully unlocked with HIS tool.

kedge · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:05

tommybhoy said:
Quite ridiculous pricing unless bought at the right time on offer.

It's often like this, memory has gone up in price, i have noticed nvidia's gtx680's have increased in price over the last few weeks, on different sites, prices are up and down. Got to strike whilst the iron is hot, mind you, you can get burned both ways, haha.

Acolyte · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:16

So the HIS cards are the ones to go for, for fully unlocked voltage changes, ideal thank you people

So the Ice X2 card is the one to go for really?

spoffle · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:20

Acolyte said:
So the HIS cards are the ones to go for, for fully unlocked voltage changes, ideal thank you people

So the Ice X2 card is the one to go for really?

I would say so. The X2s are great I think, especially for less than the regular IceQ.

They come on a 7970 PCB too.

Andy321 · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:31

I bought this card from OcUK a couple weeks back and it is voltage unlocked

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-275-AS

tommybhoy · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:55

Acolyte said:
So the HIS cards are the ones to go for, for fully unlocked voltage changes, ideal thank you people

So the Ice X2 card is the one to go for really?

While it's cheaper at the moment as it's on offer@£260-normal price is £290-, the X2 is the one to get.

Drollic · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:59

My VTX3d cards unlocked and the cooler is good. Just a shame the memory's rubbish for overclocking!

martos123 · 24 Mar 2013 at 14:18

So, in real world usage, would there be any discernable difference between an Overclocked HIS 7950 X2 and 7970 Gigabyte WF3 (as the 7970 is volt locked)?

Buckster · 24 Mar 2013 at 14:53

good question I was wondering that

with gap of 20-30 quid is a 7970 worth it instead - even if voltage locked ?

imginy · 24 Mar 2013 at 15:59

tommybhoy said:
New WF 7950 is bios locked going from users here that bought one recently, but a bios flash to an older bios version unlocks it again-again get confirmation though.

I been looking into the 7950's recently and there were lots of comments on other forums saying that the newer gigabyte 7950 can't even be flashed to unlock bios.

imginy · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:08

Gregster said:
Geeeeez, prices are rocketing up. That HIS card could be had for £220 not so long back.

Just last week there were 4 decent 7950's up for £240 with crysis and bioshock.

I managed to get my self the asus 7950 top v2 for £240 which I'm really looking forward to getting tomorrow and hopefully mine will be voltage unlocked.

I would have liked to stick with nvidia but the same asus card in a 670 was £100 more and didn't have crysis or bioshock.

I will report back tomorrow if my asus is unlocked

tommybhoy · 24 Mar 2013 at 18:20

martos123 said:
So, in real world usage, would there be any discernable difference between an Overclocked HIS 7950 X2 and 7970 Gigabyte WF3 (as the 7970 is volt locked)?

Buckster said:
good question I was wondering that

with gap of 20-30 quid is a 7970 worth it instead - even if voltage locked ?

Having used both 7970+50@1080p, I doubt your going to see any difference gaming@1080p when both are oc'ed, if one can't cope, the other will be the same for the nominal difference in performance.

You take your chance and hope you get a good clocking 7950 that can hit ~1150MHz+ and you save yourself £40 over a locked WF that may only hit 1060MHz(a user here said his won't budge any further), you might strike lucky though and a WF might go faster though.

imginy said:
Just last week there were 4 decent 7950's up for £240 with crysis and bioshock.

I managed to get my self the asus 7950 top v2 for £240 which I'm really looking forward to getting tomorrow and hopefully mine will be voltage unlocked.

I would have liked to stick with nvidia but the same asus card in a 670 was £100 more and didn't have crysis or bioshock.

I will report back tomorrow if my asus is unlocked

Dodgy game nvidia are playing imho, the price difference for very comparable performance is making folk switch, no where near enough PhysX titles to justify the price difference considering the 79's have extra vram and pose a possible longer lasting purchase if you don't change cards on a yearly cycle or buy a cheaper second hand card down the line for added longevity.

Good luck with the change over and the unlocked voltage imginy.