XFX 7970 DD Ghost Thermal - Worth it?

[Jarrod]

I have seen these new for £300 and after looking at some reviews, they look quite decent and seem to use the reference PCB with means voltage unlocked. Just wondering if anybody knows something flawed with the actual card before I go ahead and get one?

Cheers in advance

 

[tommybhoy]

I have seen these new for £300 and after looking at some reviews, they look quite decent and seem to use the reference PCB with means voltage unlocked.

It could be the newer cheaper version that's voltage locked and no bios switch.

Just wondering if anybody knows something flawed with the actual card before I go ahead and get one?

XFX support is pretty lousy if it develops a fault.

Remove the cooler and bang goes the warranty-the screws have security stickers.

The DD cooler is flawed in IMHO, it does a good enough job on the core, but the vrms are totally starved of air due to the heatsink blocking airflow, cool running vrms are essential on 79 series gpu overclocking.

If voltage locking isn't a problem, for £12 extra I would jump on this one:


1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7970 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £311.99




Saying all that, a 7950 is far better bang for buck, can be had much cheaper and the performance difference is not noticeable in gaming@1080p when both are overclocked.

 

[Jarrod]

I'd really like one that was voltage unlocked, I was going to go for the Sapphire OC but the offer on that ended. Hmm, 7950s are quite a bit cheaper. I'm coming from 2x 7850s and looking to crossfire some 79xx. Just not sure which card yet :S.

Thanks for the response also Will take it into consideration

 

[imginy]

I got screwed over by xfx and refused warranty on a 6 week old card.

I would avoid them.

 

[Sayso]

I got screwed over by xfx and refused warranty on a 6 week old card.

I would avoid them.

What happened?

 

[SpudMaster]

Just wondering if anybody knows something flawed with the actual card before I go ahead and get one?

Cheers in advance

Volt locked, no bios switch, rubbish cooler and poor support apparently. The one I had for a day before returning it was an awful clocker also

 

[pgi947]

Avoid.

As mentioned above the vrms are starved of meaningful cooling, some thermal imaging shots showed the DD being something like 15-20c hotter over the vrms vs a reference card.

 

[shankly1985]

I keep hearing this about the cooling is bad. I have proof that the cooling is very good, I have my card overclocked 1100/1500 @1.131v temps never pass 66c and the both vrms never pass 70c

Dont know we're all this talk is coming from, yes the customer service is supposed to be bad but the card sure isn't.

 

[shankly1985]

Just done a Heaven bench to test and even this push my card more than me playing Arma 3 because I use Vsync but still the test shows the VRMs are very good.

So my point is dont alway take what some dude reviewing says, what if his case cooling sucks? etc

Here A test of Heaven note how my VRM's are below my core temp

Spoiler

 

[Rexton]

I can comfirm they are voltage locked. I was a bit silly when i first bought the card, I just jumped at the chance at buying a 7950 for £215 with what seemed like a decent cooler.

But no, the vrams are starved of cooling and I can't overclock it more than 990/1350 without artifacts and crashing. I would send it back if I hadn't bought it 3 months ago.

 

[Jarrod]

Hmm, well I don't want to spend that sort of money to take chances on a cooler with a lot of mixed feelings. My case cooling is pretty good to go however, Phantom 410 with a lot of airflow, usually have fans turned up high because I don't hear them at all with my headphones.

I still can't decide whether to get a 7950 or 7970 and even then which card to get lol

 

[Rexton]

Spoiler

How did you get your card stable at those clocks mate? Mine struggles at 990/1350

 

[shankly1985]

I can comfirm they are voltage locked. I was a bit silly when i first bought the card, I just jumped at the chance at buying a 7950 for £215 with what seemed like a decent cooler.

But no, the vrams are starved of cooling and I can't overclock it more than 990/1350 without artifacts and crashing. I would send it back if I hadn't bought it 3 months ago.

My voltage free the fun of buying early but I did paid the price though £320 I paid for my card.
But makes sense seeing its Voltage unlocked and can overclock to 7970 speeds etc.

 

[Rexton]

I still can't decide whether to get a 7950 or 7970 and even then which card to get lol

If it was me and I hadn't already bought the dissapointing XFX I would be going for an MSI or Gigabyte 7950. They get good reviews, reliable UK RMA and good cooling with actual over volt support.

Personally I'm gonna sod this card off in a few months and probably replace it with an 8950 or equivilent depending on how the performance is.

 

[Rexton]

My voltage free the fun of buying early but I did paid the price though £320 I paid for my card.
But makes sense seeing its Voltage unlocked and can overclock to 7970 speeds etc.

Fair enough, it seems your card was probably a much earlier batch than the effected ones then. Mine is entirely voltage locked and would probably explain the price drop of the recent batches.

 

[tommybhoy]

I keep hearing this about the cooling is bad. I have proof that the cooling is very good, I have my card overclocked 1100/1500 @1.131v temps never pass 66c and the both vrms never pass 70c

Dont know we're all this talk is coming from, yes the customer service is supposed to be bad but the card sure isn't.

I don't say it's flawed for no reason when someone asks I'm simply trying to help with no agenda from my part.

If they can get one considerably cheaper(like I did) then it's worth a punt imho.

I have a DD and it wouldn't go past 950MHz 100% stable on the DD cooler despite throwing the kitchen sink at it.

I ripped off the cooler and put a spare AC Extreme on it and it hits 1100MHz 100% stable with the only thing changed being the cooler.

Try putting 1200/1800+ through your card and check what temps your vrms go to.

If you can't get close, then chances are your vrms are getting too hot in turn reducing stability on the core, the higher the core goes, the lower you need to keep the vrms cooled, it's all linked, there's lots of info in the AC thread from a lot of different users pointing in the same direction:

Lower vrm temps=higher core oc's.

 

[shankly1985]

I don't say it's flawed for no reason when someone asks I'm simply trying to help with no agenda from my part.

If they can get one considerably cheaper(like I did) then it's worth a punt imho.

I have a DD and it wouldn't go past 950MHz 100% stable on the DD cooler despite throwing the kitchen sink at it.

I ripped off the cooler and put a spare AC Extreme on it and it hits 1100MHz 100% stable with the only thing changed being the cooler.

Try putting 1200/1800+ through your card and check what temps your vrms go to.

If you can't get close, then chances are your vrms are getting too hot in turn reducing stability on the core, the higher the core goes, the lower you need to keep the vrms cooled, it's all linked, there's lots of info in the AC thread from a lot of different users pointing in the same direction:

Lower vrm temps=higher core oc's.

I dont need 1200/1800+ maybe if you benching, but for gaming 1100/1500 is well enough.
But if you buying a XFX card now and its voltage locked yes I would look at another card.

But all this hate towards XFX is abit wrong, just look at the state MSI put themselves in, you dont see people putting them down.

 

[tommybhoy]

I don't go for the hate, I go for performance/cost and weigh up the caveats that they bring.

If I did I wouldn't have touched XFX despite using loads of Nvidia ones in the past as that was the brand that served me impeccably without a single reason of fault.

I also wouldn't have touched the TFIII that arrived yesterday which has now replaced my DD simply for ease of use setting CrossFired clocks to 1100/1500 in CCC panel without voltage adjustment/disabling ulps or having to depend on seperate 3rd party OC tools.

DD cooler aside(which would be one of the best coolers if it simply had a cutout for vrm cooling), the underlying build quality of the XFX is up there with the rest as I know a user here with a 7950 DD pushing silly numbers northwards of 1390/1950 iirc, with a simple volt mod that costs about £3.



Edit:the voltage mod is sitting under water btw, before anyone does anything silly...