First time poster and first time OC customer.

[paulsmith316]

Hi, guys first time poster, and bit of a lurker tbh!

Am looking for a bit of a help if anyone can lend me some expertise. Am currently in the middle of wanting to get a new graphics card for Mists of Pandaria, and I stumbled across this one, that this company is selling.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-HS

And for me that ticks all the boxes, good price and good reviews etc.

Am gonna try and get it ordered by the end of the day. But I've a few questions, and some of them WILL be dumb, so please don't hurt me

1.Firstly, the current card I have is a Sapphire 6870 on a Foxconn Flaming Blade GTI (with i7 950) with a Xigmatex Asgard case. Gut feeling says I should have enough room, but anyone foresee any potential issues?

2. And this is the one that am concerned about. Installing it. I'll be honest, am not that technically minded, I've replaced RAM, CPU, HDD etc but i've never done a graphics card, mostly due to lack of confidence! My father who is an engineer installed the Radeon for me.

Would it be a case of removing the old card and the pins from the PSU and PCI slot and just slipping in the new card into the slot with the old pins from the 6870?

I know these questions are quite simple and trivial to some of you experts, but quite daunting to me. Though I hope you'd understand, we all had to start somewhere!

Thanks for any help, and look for forward to ordering from OCUK.

 

[Nickolp1974]

Hello and welcome to the forums
your case says it will support upto 330mm and the above gfx card is 280mm so answer is yes it will fit.
to your second question, remove power cables to gfx card, press pci-e slot retainer if it has one and remove card, do the opposite to re install.
and i would remove old drivers by uninstalling and then use something like driver sweeper to clean the system of display drivers(amd) then install the new 12.11 beta's, great performance boost with these.
and your done.

 

[paulsmith316]

Hi, and thanks for the welcome,

That's good to know, always good to try and get a second opinion! I suspected it could be as simple (hopefully!) as that.

And yeah, the 12.11 beta drivers are very good. Breathed a bit of a life into my 6870 and BF3.

Thanks!

 

[Idleman]

The 7950 is about 11" long.
Before installing, you want to remove all existing ATI drivers. Make sure the card is properly seated. Connect your PCIE connectors, turn on the PC, then download and install the latest drivers from ati.

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

 

[Jakus]

As your bright enough to ask first I'm sure you will have no problems but I will give you a couple of pointers.

Power off PC and if it has a switch on the PSU turn it off but leave the cable in then press the PC power button a couple of times (to drain any capacitors)

Touch something metal on the PC with the back of your hand (this will discharge any static from you as with the mains cable still in the case will be earthed)

Clean dust and debris from around old card and connectors

Undo the screw/screws that retain the cards metal bracket to the case.
at the other end of the cards connection figures/pCI slot there is a shoulder that is retained by a plastic slide clip or spring clip, figure out how to release it (DO NOT USE METAL SCREWDRIVERS ETC) also any external power connectors work out where the retaining clip is and be sure to press it to allow the connector to be removed.

The card should be free to pull out perpendicular to the slot, depending on that retaining clip it may be a 2 hand job

That's about it, try not to touch components on the board, support power connectors (if they need a little force) etc..

Finally after new card is in, turn on power and start up and check the GFX cards fan is spinning and there are no strange light on before refitting the side panel .