The 7900's: Do they all have reliability issues?

man_from_uncle · 19 Sep 2006 at 19:41

Dear All,

I was one of those early guys to volt mod my 7900gt and boy did/does it fly. Then I got a second one around May/June and choose not to volt mod it till the summer was over. So I've been running them with a moderate overclock (in sig) for 3-4 ish months and (as everyone told me) one of them has started to give up. Still ok about 90% of the time, but it's getting more and more unstable and some games get artifacts almost every time I boot them. Annoyingly it turned out that the cooler, nonvolt modded card was the one that is dying (XFX). But hey, it gave me a good run and I've still got one 7900gt that'll do 650/1700 comfortabley which i'll demote to my second rig.

Now though I want to upgrade and seeing as i've got an SLi motherboard and I like nvidia drivers and their overclocking tools, I'm looking at these new 7900/7950 cards. The 2 i'm looking at most intently are the 7950gt 512mb and the 7900gto. Now I suspect that the GTO will be slightly quicker at stock and that the 7950gt will overclock better, but that's not really what I need help with.

What I want to know is: Are these cards now safe? I will almost certainly go SLi within a couple of months of purchasing either one, and I just don't want to be dealing with the hassel of another unexpected failure that forces me to upgrade again. So does anyone know if they are ok now?

Thanks,

Uncle

Darkwave · 19 Sep 2006 at 19:43

It was just the 7900GTs and a few of the 7900GTXs, the problem has been curbed a bit now but there are still problems with quite a lot of the 7900GTs. All the new models like 7900GS and 7950GT are perfectly fine, including the 7900GTO.

MeatLoaf · 19 Sep 2006 at 19:57

No problems here with a pair of 7900GS cards. Got the 1st one last week and the 2nd one today

man_from_uncle · 19 Sep 2006 at 21:49

Cool, that's all i needed to hear.....

Now of course though, I really want some advice on which new card to get. On paper the 7900gtos and 7950gts are really very similar, they just have different clock speeds and possibley different vram modules. I guess that the gtos were not just speed binned gtxs, but rather gtxs that had question marks over their reliability (which most people put down to the vram), so were either underclocked or had their vram modules switched to lower spec stuff. Hmm, anyone shed any light on this?

The 7950gts though are probably a little bit further down the line in terms of process refinement and MAY overclock better as a result. I assume other than that, the only other difference is that the gtos may have slightly more volts going through the core. You guys got any ideas or thoughts?

Darkwave · 19 Sep 2006 at 21:54

The 7950GTs perform like OCed 7900GTs, and I'm not sure about the 7900GTO but the blurb on OcUK states that it's a few percent behind the 7900GTX performance-wise, which would make it far more powerful if both are at stock.

gurusan · 19 Sep 2006 at 22:04

no problems here with my eVGA 7900GT. Been running it clocked on stock cooler and stock volts at 650/850 for a long time now. It's stable up to 720/1910. Amazing GPU if you ask me.

man_from_uncle · 19 Sep 2006 at 22:15

gurusan said:
no problems here with my eVGA 7900GT. Been running it clocked on stock cooler and stock volts at 650/850 for a long time now. It's stable up to 720/1910. Amazing GPU if you ask me.

I know, my Galaxey one is still fine, it's only my blasted XFX one (which overclocked surprisingly well at stock volts) that is starting to die. I really do love this GPU, it competed with a X1900XT or 7900gtx at a fraction of the price when I first bought one. It is just a shame that they really were unreliable.

Anyway, on paper the 7950gt is very much like an overclocked 7900gt with twice the vram, but then again so is the 7900gtx very much like an overclocked 7900gt with twice the vram. They all use the same core, they just vary the volts running through it. In terms of vram they just use varying qualities. I suspect that the newer 7950gts probably use the same volts on the core and ram as the 7900gts, but are more efficient (due to process improvments). The gtos though look like old gtxs, just with slower ram. That makes me think it's actually been underclocked rather than a product of the latest ram batches.

no_1_dave · 20 Sep 2006 at 00:33

I'd go with the 7950 because its newer so there's more security knowing the problem from before is no longer there.
I remember posting with you in the 7900 GT thread when they first came out. I too have an XFX one v-modded. Luckily though mine still works at 615/1800 without any issues (& can go higher).

But yea, if I were to buy today i'd get a 7950 GT

Iraklis F.C. · 9 Oct 2006 at 07:57

hi , just to inform you my 2 days old evga 7900gt gonne mad. artifacts everywhere, even at default @ 3dmark06 , call of juarez etc

Heatsinked · 9 Oct 2006 at 14:45

7900 GTO @ GTX speeds.

Zero issues.

Not all 7900's are rubbish, despite what other members may say.

LoadsaMoney · 9 Oct 2006 at 15:59

The newer 7900's like the GTO's, GS, and the 7950's all have the same problems as far as im aware, im sure ive read quite a few of em borked.

Heatsinked · 9 Oct 2006 at 16:02

I have heard of a few MSI Retail 7900 GTO's breaking. My card is an OEM 7900 GTO's which OcUK featured on "This Week Only" a fortnight ago.

Damn it, I really hope mine is from a good batch.

LoadsaMoney, do you have a link to posts which describe the MSI 7900GTO problems?

likwid · 25 Oct 2006 at 15:25

My Galaxy 7900GS has had problems since day one. Demanding games such as Fear run with plenty of geometric artifacts and exiting the game results in the display flashing on and off until reboot. 3dmark06 deep freeze results in the same problem.

Currently looking to buy a new card before i RMA this but not sure what to get now. Swaying toward nvidia for their linux drivers.

Darkwave · 25 Oct 2006 at 15:32

likwid · 25 Oct 2006 at 15:47

My posting was resultant of a search for the experiences of others on this subject. In all honesty i didn't look at the date of the last post, but actually i don't care if it's a couple of weeks old; the topic is still relevant.

Obviously you do care as you've chose to post one of the many cretinous forum images favoured by social misfits who have nothing better to do than post compulsively on webforums.

Darkwave · 25 Oct 2006 at 15:48

likwid said:
My posting was resultant of a search for the experiences of others on this subject. In all honesty i didn't look at the date of the last post, but actually i don't care if it's a couple of weeks old; the topic is still relevant.

Obviously you do care as you've chose to post one of the many cretinous forum images favoured by social misfits who have nothing better to do than post compulsively on webforums.

It was joke, get a sense of humour. :rolleyes:

Somebody will no doubt come along with real input, or you have just continued an argument that will make this thread burst into flames (at which point you might regret posting in it.)

Also, I made it. It took all of two minutes.

man_from_uncle · 25 Oct 2006 at 18:01

Well this gives me the opportunity to let others know what I did after hearing those varying responses.

I did nothing! I didn't upgrade, though I was within an ace of getting a pair of 7900gtos when they were just over £150 each after VAT.

Still, the more surprising thing is that strangely enough, my cards don't appear to be getting any worse. In fact I've sort of isolated the issue to be related to AF and as long as I set AF to 'applications controlled' 95% of what problems I did have, just disappeared.

Recently I've been playing Company of Heros, Oblivion, Caesar IV, CivRome, Dawn of War, Serious Sam II and Prey. And they all still play really well with virtually no issue. I still get the odd artifact on Company of Heroes (a flickering bomb crater most often), but just scrolling away and returning seems to fix it. Even Prey which used to love artifacting, seems.......fine.

I am also back up to 550/1600.

Cyber-Mav · 25 Oct 2006 at 18:45

Ulfhedjinn said:
It was just the 7900GTs and a few of the 7900GTXs, the problem has been curbed a bit now but there are still problems with quite a lot of the 7900GTs. All the new models like 7900GS and 7950GT are perfectly fine, including the 7900GTO.

i got a dodgey 7900gs.

Darkwave · 25 Oct 2006 at 19:04

Cyber-Mav said:
i got a dodgey 7900gs.

I stand corrected. There have also been some reports of GTOs (the ones that are rebadged GTXs with the same old Samsung RAM) failing too, but the last time I mentioned it I was publicly flogged by bitter owners (even though theirs worked fine :confused:

) so I won't get into that again.

Cyber-Mav · 25 Oct 2006 at 19:05

yea, i gave nvidia a final chance but they borked with with a busted 7900gs hence i made the move to ati.