Choosing brand graphics card

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sameo88

Limp Gawd
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sameo88 said:
Looking to buy a new Radeon 7950 from Amazon but cant choose which brand i should actually go with.

Deciding between the gigabyte

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Mini...1QHG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1335181865&sr=8-3

and the xfx

http://www.amazon.com/XFX-FX795ATDF...RT62/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1335182252&sr=8-5

Also would it be worth while paying the extra $30 for the xfx black edition? personally i think it'd be a waste.
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For USD 459 this is the card you should look to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982

Its one heck of a card if u are gonna OC. look at [h] review to get an idea

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/10/sapphire_hd_7970_oc_edition_video_card_review/
 
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Ive never been so sure about the cheaper brands tho! what are their pros and cons?

And id rather not stretch my budget for a 7970
 
sameo88 said:
Ive never been so sure about the cheaper brands tho! what are their pros and cons?

And id rather not stretch my budget for a 7970
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go for Gigabyte HD 7950 OC Windforce . same 3 yr warranty as XFX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414

The 7950 OC models are binned for higher speeds. So the chances of u hitting 1 Ghz on stock voltage are better. don't spend 40 bucks more for XFX Black edition with same perf and warranty.
 
Main difference between the brands is the cooler and warranty period. I would personally go for the Gigabyte.
 
Yeah I was thinking gigabyte for the 3 fans but I think its ugly compared to the xfx
 
sameo88 said:
Yeah I was thinking gigabyte for the 3 fans but I think its ugly compared to the xfx
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There is no point in spending USD 439 for XFX HD 7950 black edition when Sapphire HD 7970 OC is selling for USD 479. thats my opinion.
 
Yeah well I wasn't really considering the black edition anyway. Id just get the standard one.
 
my decision is usually based on the best warranty at the time. I like Visiontek.
 
sameo88 said:
Looking to buy a new Radeon 7950 from Amazon but cant choose which brand i should actually go with.

Deciding between the gigabyte

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Mini...1QHG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1335181865&sr=8-3

and the xfx

http://www.amazon.com/XFX-FX795ATDF...RT62/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1335182252&sr=8-5

Also would it be worth while paying the extra $30 for the xfx black edition? personally i think it'd be a waste.
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From my personal experience, I never had issues with Sapphire and HIS. Gigabyte is pretty good from what I have read on the forums. But I would go with Sapphire first before deciding on another brand. I can't speak for RMAing because I never had any of their videocards fail yet.
 
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There is a thread around here in the past week or so saying to avoid HIS due to poor RMA process. The other brand that gets a lot of negative feedback is PNY, but they do not make AMD cards I do not think. Most of the others have a mix of good and bad feedback from users. The only company that stands out as being well liked by users is EVGA, but again they do not sell AMD cards.
 
Yeah i think Gigabyte or Saphire will be the way to go in this case! I did see that HIS post so yeah i wouldnt be keen on a HIS 7970 despite the fact its only $450
 
Gigabyte 7950 it is. $399 from amazon! I'll be overclocking this bad boy for sure.
 
The best ones as far as feedback for AMD cards seems to be in this order, ASUS/XFX, Sapphire, MSI, gigabyte, powercolor/visiontek, HIS. Unsure about Vtx3d or whatever thier name was. Visiontek/powercolor/his/gigabyte all seem to get about the same reponces, gigabyte no bacuase of failures and such but rather customer service, visiontek/powercolor apprently are horrid overall for lack of customer service etc.

Myself I love ASUS, never had an issue with thier build quality or RMA stuff, the problem I have with asus is sometimes the features described on box not working properly or at all, and thier website for drivers etc which is very slow and takes forever to see new drivers even when users have made tons of complaints sometimes for months if not years before they post an update which may/may not work properly.

Build quality is generally average wtih ASUS compared to some, but they do have very good customer service(in my experience) I think however for the 7k series, the ASUS cards do not shine over the other offerings out there, in that, Sapphire, MSI, Gigabyte, HIS seem to have the best versions/coolers this time around, where XFX and ASUS with the same awesome coolers they used for the 6k series review wise simply are not what they were even though example in XFX case they charge quite the premium for them.
 
I like Sapphire cards. The included accessory bundle is usually awesome and they are very competitive on price.
 
Thing I do not like about MSI, Gigabyte, HIS and some of the others, you usually have to ship them at YOUR COST for them to fix, even when its under warranty, in the case of HIS and possibly gigabyte among others, its over the ocean, so who knows when you get it back, when you get it back, and lo and behold quite a few times I know folks paid out of thier pocket to just have the same part shipped back to them with a note "nothing wrong with it" and yet it could have had sata ports etc hanging off of it :p

Again, I try to deal with those I know of, in my case, XFX and Asus have places here in Canada that does thier warranty stuff, part of the reason I like dealing with them, I think MSI does as well, Gigabyte, and the others, its a shipping charge which really sux the lemon.
 
Well hopefully this card doesn't stuff up like they shouldn't when your paying good money! I like Asus but didnt like the 3 slot cooler and neither did any reviewers I read up on.
 
dont blame you, thier DCII cooler this time around just is not what it once was(do not know why) and to take 3 slots yet not cool as well as some do with 2 slots sux as well :p
 
sameo88 said:
Talonz What's you opinion on your gigabyte 7950? Has it done you well?
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Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you yet. It's been running extremely quiet and cool, but I haven't overclocked it yet (still playing with the 2500k which is new to me).

I had a hard time deciding between the sapphire and the gigabyte 7950. Those two cards seemed to have the best cooling while staying quiet. The gigabyte was a few bucks cheaper so I went for it over the sapphire.
 
Talonz said:
Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you yet. It's been running extremely quiet and cool, but I haven't overclocked it yet (still playing with the 2500k which is new to me).

I had a hard time deciding between the sapphire and the gigabyte 7950. Those two cards seemed to have the best cooling while staying quiet. The gigabyte was a few bucks cheaper so I went for it over the sapphire.
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that's good then. Good to hear some sort of positive feedback on it! I guess you can't really go wrong with the 3 fan cooler
 
sameo88 said:
that's good then. Good to hear some sort of positive feedback on it! I guess you can't really go wrong with the 3 fan cooler
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thats the only thing :p, the sapphire cooler apprently is not quite as formidable, but its size is alot more manageable, they both seem to be able to clock very well. So I it seems to be a, you want the best cooling the gigabyte model, need to save some space but still want a great cooler sapphire. Most of them seem to be able to overclock quite well.

Thing I wonder though is how cool do they keep the memory and the vreg section that is somehting I believe I remember reading on the gigabyte one, though it cools the memory and core quite well, the vregs were not nearly as cool running once clocked up and under load, whereas the sapphire dual fan OC model was very good all round temperatures in that the cooler/baseplate cooled all the parts of the card quite well, and tended to be a hair bit quieter.
 
dragonstongue said:
Thing I do not like about MSI, Gigabyte, HIS and some of the others, you usually have to ship them at YOUR COST for them to fix, even when its under warranty, in the case of HIS and possibly gigabyte among others, its over the ocean, so who knows when you get it back.
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What are you talking about? HIS Warranty / RMA service is in CA
 
RMA might be in CA, but that does not mean it gets fixed there or new parts get stocked from there.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282483-33-nightmare

Personally, if I would have to wait longer then 1 week or so from the time it is in thier hands, that would be the last I ever deal with them, they may have gotten a bad name, however, things like shipping thousands of cards off that had thier clocks off, downgrading cards sent in for warranty support etc.

Anyways, I thought it was HIS that you had to ship overseas hence why RMA service takes so long? My bad
 
sapphire got the best reviews so far, which is odd since i've always avoided them.
i have always chosen xfx first, but their cooling as well as the asus were a let down.
the sapphire had the best cooling hands down, and i ended up with the sapphire 7970
for 459 shipped from amazon 2 days ago. i was going to go with the 7950 but 459 for the 7970 i couldn't resist
 
same here, got my Sapphie 7970 OC last friday for $459.

it Rocks!

Super quiet. even at 80%.

My PS fan is louder
 
I was even gonna save money by getting a 7870. Because my other hardware is getting old i didnt wanna spend big on graphics, that way i can just do a whole new build a few months down the track!
 
I would go with the Sapphire brand.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102963 it has some of the best reviews out there http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/02/21/sapphire_radeon_hd_7950_oc_video_card_review/ 417.86 total cost with shipping,

However there is only $32.13 difference between it and the Sapphire oc 7970, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982, if you can afford a little extra money you might want to think about it.. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/26/sapphire_hd_7870_oc_edition_video_card_review/
I ordered the SAPPHIRE oc 7970 Wednesday should be here on Monday cant wait to try it out... :D
 
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also my amd 955 is at stock speeds. Should I overclock to eliminate any sort of bottleneck? Would it even occur?
 
if its just gaming, 7870 is perfectly fine, overclocked it is easily as fast as other high end cards. The thing it suffers on is its compute abilities(not quite as potent as say a GTX580 or a 7970, but gaming wise, its able to keep up)

I have a 955 C3 steeping, with a good board you can get the cpu running in the ~4.3 Ghz range+(around 1.46v cpu/nb at ~2800(around 1.23v) and HT as close to stock as possible. provided you have a decent cooler, the gain in performance is quite noticeable. For me and a 6870, having both clocked up easily gains me some 15fps average 8 on the low and 18 on the high, so it most certainly can make a difference.
 
dragonstongue said:
if its just gaming, 7870 is perfectly fine, overclocked it is easily as fast as other high end cards. The thing it suffers on is its compute abilities(not quite as potent as say a GTX580 or a 7970, but gaming wise, its able to keep up)

I have a 955 C3 steeping, with a good board you can get the cpu running in the ~4.3 Ghz range+(around 1.46v cpu/nb at ~2800(around 1.23v) and HT as close to stock as possible. provided you have a decent cooler, the gain in performance is quite noticeable. For me and a 6870, having both clocked up easily gains me some 15fps average 8 on the low and 18 on the high, so it most certainly can make a difference.
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Yeah I think I'll be overclocking once I get the card then. See what I can get out of it. I have an antec 920 kuler!
 
Well, the 920 should be able to handle it :p

Clock as high as possible
cpu/nb(memory controller) as high as possible
HT close to stock as possible

This should allow the 955 to breathe very well. The C3 stepping clock alot better/easier with less volts then the C2 stepping chips, and can usually also hit higher speeds on the cpu/nb etc.
 
I would only buy XFX due to lifetime warranty, Black editions and looks.
 
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