Budget upgrade for Radeon 7950?

zeazin · Aug 20, 2014

Hi guys, was just wondering if anyone had some advice on a cheapish upgrade for a 7950HD 3gb? My current card decided that a week after warranty ended it should decide to start playing up. Getting texture spikes and it's over heating a bit. Think it's time for a change. I've got about £150 to spend if needed, but cheaper is always better.

The new card doesn't need to be a real upgrade, just something similar. I don't really have any preference between radeon or nvidia.

Any advice would be appreciated

For reference, this is a link to my current card.

http://uk.msi.com/product/vga/R7950_Twin_Frozr_3GD5OC.html#hero-overview

Karsten75 · Aug 20, 2014

I like it if people make their own decisions based on good information.

So I'll leave you with this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

Edit: In case you didn't notice, two links to diff pages of the same article.

Karsten75 · Aug 20, 2014

Also, I've just looked at that Tom's article and the tables are severly neglected. I suggest you lok over at Anandtech, they seem to keep their tables more up-to-date. The AMD Radeon HD 7950 seems to equate roughly to the AMD R9 280X.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7828/amd-announces-radeon-r9-280-radeon-hd-7950b-returns

zeazin · Aug 20, 2014

Thanks for the reply

I've been looking at price performance charts and things for a while and from my cursory research I was struggling to find anything better or the same as what I have for a reasonable cost. I'm not overly well versed in GPU details :s

Karsten75 · Aug 20, 2014

Try this one for size.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-r9280atdfd

IInuyasha74 · Aug 20, 2014

You will probably end up getting an R9 280 from AMD. Unfortunately it isn't an upgrade for you, its pretty much the same card you had with a different name and maybe a small increase in clock speed, but anything that out performs it costs more.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202099&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161456&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125515&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

zeazin · Aug 20, 2014

Karsten75 :

Thanks a lot. Would love that card but it seems the price of that is a good whack more than I can afford at the moment. Talking around £350 for an R9 280X over here in the uk. Components are insanely expensive over here compared the the US

oops, was looking at the 290x. Derp.

Karsten75 · Aug 20, 2014

I just linked you (above) to a good deal from Scan on the Radeon R9 280 which is about a straight match for your current card at "only" UKP 151.

IInuyasha74 · Aug 20, 2014

The AMD R9 280x is much much faster than the AMD HD 7950. The R9 280x is a rebranded AMD Radeon HD 7970 Ghz Edition, while the R9 280 without the "x" is a rebranded AMD Radeon HD 7950. So it is quite a bit more expensive, but the R9 280 might also be out of your budget there.

If it is, unfortunately it doesn't matter what graphics card you buy it will be a step down performance wise. You might try doing some stuff to fix your old card instead.

zeazin · Aug 20, 2014

IInuyasha74 :

Yea, thats roughly the conclusion I was reaching too, hence why I dropped the idea of getting a real upgrade without dropping a lot of money. I'm fairly sure my current card is very very close to death. A few of my more technically minded friends have had a look to see if they could do anything and they couldn't. Shame. I think ~I might just go for the 280. It's painful to pay that much for the same as I currently have, but oh well. Can't always win. Thanks for the suggestions guys. Much appreciated.

IInuyasha74 · Aug 20, 2014

Using the UK Partpicker Karsten75 posted (Big thanks btw, I can never find stuff in other countries to help people), found these two cards.

EIther the R9 270x
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-112170120g

Or the R9 280
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-r9280atdfd

The R9 270x is a fairly big step down performance wise. You lose about 300 stream processors, and I think over 20 TMUs and several ROPs. Its the cheapest R9 270x though so you at least save a little.

The R9 280 like I said is as fast as your old card so no gain, but no lose either.

zeazin · Aug 20, 2014

IInuyasha74 :

Thanks a lot for the advice. I think I'll go for the 280. Roughly in my price range and I was fairly sure I wouldn't get an upgrade for the price. Fairly heartbreaking, but I guess it means I made a good decision on my previous card which is always a good thing.

IInuyasha74 · Aug 20, 2014

zeazin :

Not sure what they tried, but encase they didn't try this, you could and it might make it a little longer. If you clean it extremely well, take off the cooler on the back of the card, and clean off the thermal paste then put new really good thermal paste on that will help cool it.
After that, boot the system and go into Catalyst Control Center. Go to "Performance" and "AMD Overdrive".
Accept the warning thing. Your card is already dying so whats the worst it can do? lol

Anyways the idea is to underclock your graphics card at this point. This will lower your performance, but if you drop it down by maybe 100Mhz, lower the power a little bit the heat will be greatly reduced and the card isn't working nearly as hard anymore. Since its common graphics cards that are aging just can't handle as high of a clock speed anymore when they act as you have described, its a fair chance that this might fix the problem and keep it running.

Performance will go down, but you won't be out a big chunk of cash.

zeazin · Aug 20, 2014

IInuyasha74 :

zeazin :

Not sure what they tried, but encase they didn't try this, you could and it might make it a little longer. If you clean it extremely well, take off the cooler on the back of the card, and clean off the thermal paste then put new really good thermal paste on that will help cool it.
After that, boot the system and go into Catalyst Control Center. Go to "Performance" and "AMD Overdrive".
Accept the warning thing. Your card is already dying so whats the worst it can do? lol

Anyways the idea is to underclock your graphics card at this point. This will lower your performance, but if you drop it down by maybe 100Mhz, lower the power a little bit the heat will be greatly reduced and the card isn't working nearly as hard anymore. Since its common graphics cards that are aging just can't handle as high of a clock speed anymore when they act as you have described, its a fair chance that this might fix the problem and keep it running.

Performance will go down, but you won't be out a big chunk of cash.

Thanks, one of my friends already tried pretty much everything excluding fiddling with solder on it. It's just dying a slow painful death I'm afraid. Been hitting it fairly hard for the past year or so so it's hardly surprising. I've bought myself a 280 now which should be with me on Friday. On the plus side, I get 3 'free' games with it, so I gain something I guess hah. Thanks for the advice.

IInuyasha74 · Aug 20, 2014

Well those games are pretty good lol well enjoy the card.

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