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CF 5850 to 7950 3GB

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

ChrisD.

Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
Posts
35,330
Specifically this one:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-291-SP

Running at 1920*1200, with a view of going to 2560x1440.

So, what can I expect from the card compared to my trusty 5850's? Will it use less power, put out less heat, be quieter and more powerful?

Will I finally be able to crank BF3 to the max?

And is it worth doing a rebuild? Or just driver clean and download the new driver?

Rest of the rig is an i7-2600k @ 4.5, 16 GB RAM, Crucial M4 etc.
 
Yes you'll be able to max BF3 no problem. It would be cooler and quieter than your crossfire 5850's. Don't need to rebuild - just uninstall the drivers, reboot, power down, replace card and install drivers. Wouldn't bother driver cleaning if you aren't having problems.
 
You might be pushing it with a 7950 at that res, maxed out in BF3. It'll drop to what I'd deem unplayable at times. You could sacrifice some MSAA though to drastically improve performance plus the card is hugely overclockable.
 
Well I'm not sure when I'd get a new monitor, just trying to futureproof myself. I felt a 7970 is overkill for my current setup and I couldn't justify the extra outlay, so the 7950 OC 3GB seemed the ideal middle ground. I'm also happy about not having the reference cooler, I've never been a fan and after reading reviews, I think I've made the right choice.

Now the anticipation for its delivery!
 
My gigabyte 7950 comes factory oc'd at 900 the same as the saffire and i have mine at 1040 core and 1500 memory . THis is at stock volts in ccc ,i hav'nt played with volts yet but at 1040/1550 it scores just over 1800 in heavan 3 benchmark ..From what i have read with a voltage tweek they should go a futher 100-200 mhz .
 
You're card may be after throttling itself due to not getting enough power. Try increasing your volts .005mv at a time and move the power slider to +15%. Moving the power slider will give the card more power to draw from and this lets you increase voltage, be careful though.
 
I have also gone from 5850Xfire to a single 7950, running it at 950MHz/1500MHz. I suspect it will go further easily but havent tried or need to.
Regarding how much of an upgrade it actually is, probably not a huge amount in raw power terms, but it certainly feels smoother in games, especially BF3 with AA enabled which I suspect comes down to VRAM. Theres always the option of 7950 crossfire at a later date as well :D
 
MilanoChris said:
Hmm, 7669 3D Mark 11 before, now it's 7470.

1000/1350.

I expected better?
Click to expand...

I wouldnt read too much into 3D Mark figures. My 6870CF did 31289 GPU points in vantage compared to my 580 which did 27883 and my 7970 which did 33327 at stock.

Gameplay wise, both of the single cards were miles better than the CF setup.
 
Hmm true I guess.

I can't notice a performance difference in SWTOR, not tried BF3 yet.

I do think thought that the colours and lighting seem better, but that could be my imagination.
 
The new card owns BF3. 1920*1200, everything on max, didn't drop below 40 fps on Caspian 64 player. No noise from the fans on the card, max temp 64 degrees C and it uses less power than the previous two 5850's. Plus now my room isn't a sauna.

Happy days.
 
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