Asus 7950 or XFX 7970?

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McLubbin

McLubbin

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Feb 1, 2013
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The Asus 7950 and then XFX 7970 are pretty much the same in price.. I would just go with the XFX but I have heard bad things about them..

Which would I be better off doing?

Thanks
 
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marshallbradley

marshallbradley

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Sep 24, 2012
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Please don't go with XFX. The noise/temps on their Double D coolers are pretty bad. I can link you a couple of reviews from decent places, but I've also owned one personally (7950 DD Edition), and I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the worst graphics card experience I have had, and had to sell it on within a month.

Review 1: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5476/amd-radeon-7950-review/17 (most of XFXs 7950s are just binned 7970s. The cooler is exactly the same)

Review 2: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/51347-xfx-hd-7970-3gb-black-edition-double-dissipation-review-12.html (the fact the temps are worse under load than stock is a real turn off)

Review 3: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5314/xfxs-radeon-hd-7970-black-edition-double-dissipation-the-first-semicustom-7970/2

Some reviews are very positive about it though (which I find a bit confusing) claiming it's the 'quietest card they've tested' and what not. Maybe I just had a bad sample, but the multiple forum posts I read about the XFXs "bad noise under load" and mediocre temps, as well as the three reviews above, convinced me that the card was just not that great.

The problem I think stems from the fact that it was the first aftermarket 7970 to be released, and hence (in their rush to release reviews) could only really be compared to the stock 7970 (which of course isn't and shouldn't be any sort of contest). A couple of reviews say stuff like the card had "done well with temperature reductions of 3C under load"... I mean c'mon, no aftermarket card should be that close to stock performance, esp. when it's a 2 fan model.

The ASUS coolers on the other hand are very highly regarded in my opinion. Personally I think the best 7970s out there are the Gigabyte ones, but they don't have the same looks as ASUS/XFX it's true. The one thing I don't like about the ASUS 79xx is that they are triple slot, which is one of the reasons I ended up going with an ASUS GTX 670 in the end.

EDIT: Also you say your PC is currently silent, mine is currently as well. With the XFX 7950 people were complaining of the noise on Skype, during League of Legends which is hardly the most demanding game, and should be EASILY handled by the 7950.

M
 
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McLubbin

McLubbin

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I plan on playing games like CoD and Skyrim/oblivion and BF3 in an eyefinity with three 1600x900 monitors.. I only want high graphics. I dont need to max it out.

And to me those graphs dont look that bad at all.. I understand thats bad for a dual fan heatsink, but I still think it would be acceptable

My case has amazing airflow and even under load it still has never gotten over 40C anywhere

I am only asking these questions and not just going with what you say because all of the reviews I see of it are good...
 
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marshallbradley

marshallbradley

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Eyefinity can increase temperatures by up to 15C IIRC.

Like I said I feel like most of the reviews are comparing it to a stock 7970, which really isn't a very fair comparison.

If it's the same price, wouldn't you rather have something that's good/great rather than merely "acceptable"?

If you do go for the XFX though, do send me a PM and say how the noise/temps are. I'm genuinely interested in whether I had a bad sample, I'm particularly sensitive to noise or it is just a noisy card.

All the best,

M
 
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marshallbradley

marshallbradley

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Yes you probably could. Bear in mind by the same token you can overclock the 7970 to high levels (all 79xx series cards are fairly good overclockers) and overclocking is never guaranteed (really depends on how lucky you get). At stock settings the difference is probably going to be in the region of 10% or so (this is from Tom's Hardware's averaged graphs -- the thing is the higher resolution and the more monitors you add, the better the 7970 will get relative to the 7950).

If you're going for an Eyefinity setup on a single card, you want all the power you can get though. I'd stick with the 7970.

M
 
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McLubbin

McLubbin

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Even though it is XFX? And plus, noise cant really bother me.. I am in a basement full of extremely powerful fans... For er.. Stuff... And I am right next to the gas furnace... Which is loud
 
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marshallbradley

marshallbradley

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Well the PCB itself is going to be exactly the same basically, what's going to limit how far you can overclock (apart from whether or not you get a good chip) is how effective the cooler is. I'd say based on the available knowledge you're more likely to run into temperature issues with the XFX version, and therefore have your overclock limited (as although people tend to disagree whether it is loud or not, the temps are never that amazing). This is pure speculation though, the only first hand knowledge I can impart to you was I had a XFX 7950 which was loud and didn't have great temps :p, everything else depends upon random people on the internet who may or may not have different definitions of "loud" and a "decent temperature".

M
 
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McLubbin

McLubbin

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I don't plan on doing any crazy overclock...75-100mhz max, if at all because it is already the more powerful card..

Thanks for your help. I have a little while to male a decision
 
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