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Buy 7950 now or wait for new series?

Drollic

Drollic

Drollic

Soldato
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Long story short - my vtx3d 7950 had bad Elpida memory chips that didn't run at stock properly. Returned to where I got Pc from and they replaced with a reference card as can't guarantee brands. I don't mind this as they do make you aware and it's a bit of a lottery. The Pc was a good price also.

Do I sell the card and buy a better reduced price 7950 for better overclocking and sell the games, or do I hold out for the new generation. I'll be gaming at 1920*1080 and am thinking the new version of the 7950 is likely to be around 280-320, which is around 100 more than current 7950 prices. Any advice?
 
We don't know yet if AMD will launch a 7950 replacement immediately. You could buy another 7950 and run them in Crossfire? That's going to beat anything that AMD releases as a single card.
 
Not going to crossfire as don't want the noise, hassle or extra cost. I didn't realise a replacement might not be at launch though?
 
We know the 7970 replacement is coming, and there are rumours of a lower spec card too.

If you want the best performance you could sell your card and get one of the 7970 deals, like the MSI Twin Frozr that was up at £240. Overclocked they're quite a bit ahead of a 7950.
 
Your predicament is similar to mine in that I don't know whether to buy another 7950 now to xfire with my existing one or wait for the 'new' series and see what they bring. My thinking is the 9950\70 will be expensive, only 10-20% better and much less powerful than xfire 7950. Currently on Ocuk the cheapest 7950 is £170, way less than the 'new' gen will be so its a gamble, the 7950 may come down even more and for 1080p gaming its hard to beat. I just don't know. :confused:
 
teppic said:
We don't know yet if AMD will launch a 7950 replacement immediately. You could buy another 7950 and run them in Crossfire? That's going to beat anything that AMD releases as a single card.
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Yep, agree teppic, I was thinking about the Gigabyte 7990 offer and would love to have one, but my sensible head says xfire 7950 for £170 is the way to go. :)
 
rolypolyman said:
Yep, agree teppic, I was thinking about the Gigabyte 7990 offer and would love to have one, but my sensible head says xfire 7950 for £170 is the way to go. :)
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I was tempted by the 7990 myself. On 1080p two 7950s is more power than you'd use, it'll run anything you can throw it at it at max - LtMatt put up some benchmarks the other day with the most demanding games at a much higher res.
 
I think I'm going to go for the Powercolour 7950 as the reviews seem good and it's the same cooler as on my vtx3d card which was decent. No boost issues and it uses hynix chips.
 
Just one thing to consider running crossfired 7950 is the heat.. if it aint blowers it may be an issue. It has been for me to a point where i would get artifacts in games after very long gameplay sessions of like BF3. This is in a well ventilated Corsair Carbide 540 air. Just keep it in mind..
 
skidmarks said:
Yes but they use hynix chips instead of Elpida. The vtx3d card was otherwise decent. Shame the memory ran 1230 max...
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This is why I usually don't recommend people buying VTX cards...they always cut corners where people fail to notice until it's too late. Also for some of their cards despite having "custom coolers", their temp is worse than the reference cooler.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
This is why I usually don't recommend people buying VTX cards...they always cut corners where people fail to notice until it's too late. Also for some of their cards despite having "custom coolers", their temp is worse than the reference cooler.
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I didn't get to choose the card as above but the cooler was pretty good. Agree with the corner cutting though and that was the case with mine and the vram.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
This is why I usually don't recommend people buying VTX cards...they always cut corners where people fail to notice until it's too late. Also for some of their cards despite having "custom coolers", their temp is worse than the reference cooler.
Click to expand...

Tbh, the reference cooler on my MSI 7970OC was better than the dual-x cooler on my last sapphire 7950.
It's just that the noise it made was beyond ridiculous :D
 
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