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Replacing dodgy 7850 (Recommendations)

Footyslayer

Footyslayer

Footyslayer

Associate
Joined
16 Mar 2009
Posts
1,934
Hi everyone,

My Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 is going back Monday on an RMA. It just won''t run stable on anything. Looked into adjusting settings on it but as my rig is pre-overclocked I'm not messing with the bios.

Anyway, I should get £157 back and do not want another version of this card. I have had a think and I am willing to add another £140 to that to give me about £300 for a new card so here I am asking for recommendations!

I am now leaning towards Nvidia after this hassle but to be honest I am not overly fussy as long as I get a stable card which can play the current best games very well.

My PSU is a Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply.

Should I be worried about *B Grade*?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-003-KF&groupid=595&catid=683&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-321-GI&groupid=595&catid=683&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-048-HS&tool=3

Or should I go slightly over budget for this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-095-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2294

Actually I am so lost on all the options :D

Lets say £300 and of course I am open to suggestions :)
 
How long have you had it? If it's under 14 days just return it under the satisfaction guarantee, or under 7 days DSR, that way you can't be burned by the "no fault found" result :rolleyes:
 
Well its upto you and as you havent a clue with overclocking it's probably best you rma it.
Your motherboard bios is totally seperate from your gpu clock and voltage settings.

I don't see the point in b grade unless theres money to be saved. My housemate and me took a risk on a bgrade sapphire 7850 2gb for £119 and its a beast, clocks 1175@1400m.
the 670 is a good card but I wouldnt part my money with it.
 
d_brennen said:
How long have you had it? If it's under 14 days just return it under the satisfaction guarantee, or under 7 days DSR, that way you can't be burned by the "no fault found" result :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I started the RMA within the 14 days, it is just over that now.

Davedree said:
Well its upto you and as you havent a clue with overclocking it's probably best you rma it.
Your motherboard bios is totally seperate from your gpu clock and voltage settings.

I don't see the point in b grade unless theres money to be saved. My housemate and me took a risk on a bgrade sapphire 7850 2gb for £119 and its a beast, clocks 1175@1400m.
the 670 is a good card but I wouldnt part my money with it.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say I havn't a clue, I have an understanding of overclocking. However The 7850 has many problems, a quick google search will tell you that. I would rather get a card that does not have all this hassle. I shouldn't have to spend hours which I have trawling the net for solutions.

You don't see the point in B grade yet bought one? Is that an endorsement? Of course I want to save as much money as possible, is B grade fully guaranteed etc?

As I say I am happy to pay up to £300 so the 670 fits in that.

However I am still open to further suggestions and help :)
 
Footyslayer said:
I started the RMA within the 14 days, it is just over that now.



I wouldn't say I havn't a clue, I have an understanding of overclocking. However The 7850 has many problems, a quick google search will tell you that. I would rather get a card that does not have all this hassle. I shouldn't have to spend hours which I have trawling the net for solutions.

You don't see the point in B grade yet bought one? Is that an endorsement? Of course I want to save as much money as possible, is B grade fully guaranteed etc?

As I say I am happy to pay up to £300 so the 670 fits in that.

However I am still open to further suggestions and help :)
Click to expand...

Without making it personal, i'm sorry if came across harsh, but from your posts it sounds like you have a basic understanding of overclocking, as you even bought a preoverclocked system in the first place, also just because its pre-overclocked it doesn't mean the system could be stable at its settings.
hence why a member on here was provding help in checking or changing your system memory settings to see if the bsod was still present.

I'd say some 7850s have problems, in particular gigabyte 7850s seem to be the worst. But that doesnt mean all 7850s are faulty or unstable, neither does it mean that AMD/Ati should be avoided. Some Sapphire 7870's had problems with a blacksod due to faulty capacitors. Ms had a batch of bad 7950's. But these are board partners which manufacture their own pcbs or modify Amd reference pcbs, and people need to learn the difference between Amd and this.

It maybe your card is faulty and I'm sure it'll get sorted, overclockers have great customer service. As for me not seeing the point in b grade but yet I bought one. No If you re-read my original comment I said that B grade is only viable if the item is cheaper than than normal retail item.
Hence the saph 7850 I bought was £119.99 instead of £150+.
 
Ah right, yeah I have a basic understanding but sorting out the graphics issue over the last 3-4 days has given me some experience on the voltage etc, I do very much appreciate all help I get. I did increase the voltage and the card gradually became more stable but I am getting the issue still.

How I see it is that if I have paid for something then I want it to work without me having to find fixes myself, I have tried for a few days and it is still doing my head in. So as I started the RMA after 12 days I should be ok, the card will arrive back to overclockers on Tuesday but as I say the RMA was started within 14 days.

I am not against AMD at all, I have used their products for 5+ years and I am actually leaning towards the 7970 at the moment.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-048-HS&tool=3

Of course though I will buy b grade if it is cheaper than the normal model. My question is how reliable is B grade, should i worry? As I like this...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-321-GI&groupid=595&catid=683&subcat=

But as that is another Gigabyte windforce albeit a better card I am a little hesitant.

I really do appreciate the help and advice I receive, I hope I didn't come across rude and as I have stated I am still open to suggestions on other cards or a pointer on the best one out of the ones I looked a :)
 
Yeah it should work from the word go or at least a little tweak should fix it,
the frustration of it not working is understandable. You haven't come across rude at all, if more then its me who has !

I've seen a lot of posts where people suffering probs with amd/ati cards, state thats it never amd again stick to what i know, nvidia never gave me problems etc.


The reason i say saving with bgrade etc,, is because sometimes the prices of b grade items are more than the normal retail version item.

I've seen reports that the later gigabyte wf 7970s are voltage locked. However i don't own the hardware and so you'd best ask someone who knows, or do some more research.
The earlier sapphire 7950s (pre boost bios) were the best, but the vapour-x I feel are cheapily made.

If I had a choice between a 7950, 670 or 7970, for the money I would look for a 7950 and hope it clocked quite well. But a 670 will work straight out the box and you'd be just as happy but you're paying for it.
 
Last edited:
I ordered a new PC last year and went with GI GTX670 Windforce 2mb. Now I do not have the time or thougth to overclock, so ordered a good a card as I could afford. Have to say delighted with it, driver updates all smooth so far - good Benchmarks.

Play BF3 a lot, and get very good frames on ULTRA (always over 60FPS - cannot tell as more as 60hz monitor - vsync).

Good luck.
 
Footyslayer said:
The 7850 has many problems, a quick google search will tell you that.
Click to expand...

The problem in this statement is that you could google any model of card and add "problem" next to the model number and the results will make you wary of buying any make or model of card again.
You wont find many results for all the 1000's of happy card owners out there though.
 
Wh00pS said:
The problem in this statement is that you could google any model of card and add "problem" next to the model number and the results will make you wary of buying any make or model of card again.
You wont find many results for all the 1000's of happy card owners out there though.
Click to expand...

This is true, but there does seem to be a lot if the problems I am getting with this card. It is a common theme with this card where as other cards have varying issues.

I suppose I should have worded it better :)
 
Footyslayer said:
This is true, but there does seem to be a lot if the problems I am getting with this card. It is a common theme with this card where as other cards have varying issues.

I suppose I should have worded it better :)
Click to expand...

I'm not having a pop m8, and i would have returned the card just as you have :)
I was just saying googling problems on the tinternet is a bit like doing a search on headaches leaves you thinking you have a brain tumour :D
 
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