MSI 7950 vs XFX DD 7950 Quick reply please

[unRaveled]

Which graphics card would you think would perform better? I know that XFX has the lifetime warranty but is the graphics card performance well? Please help me decide.

I game at 1920x1080. I might get multiple monitor in the future. I play first person shooters (battlefield 3, etc), RPGs (Skyrim, etc), and tons more.

The XFX 7950 says that it needs a minimum of 650 watt psu. Does this mean that a 750w psu won't be enough to overclock and crossfire in the future?

http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=67748&vpn=FX795ATDFC&manufacture=XFX&promoid=1254

http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=70088&vpn=R7950%20Twin%20Frozr%203GD5%2FOC&manufacture=MSI/MicroStar&promoid=1254

 

[stant1rm]

I, from personally experience, can tell you that XFX builds great cards and backs them up with great support! It's easily worth the $5 premium, and it's performance is about the same.

The reason AMD recommends a 650W PSU is for all the people who have crappy PSU's rated at 650W. A good 430W PSU can run a single 7950. What brand of PSU do you have?

 

[unRaveled]

i was thinking about pc power and cooling or corsair 750w.

 

[stant1rm]

Either one of those would be great.

PC Power and Cooling is very expensive, but for good reason. They make the best PSU's out there. Seeing as the only truly future proof components you'll ever buy are the case and powersupply, it's worth spending a little extra on a good one.

Corsair is still however very good quality and very respectable. It would also make for a good unit, especially if the PC Power and Cooling unit is out of your budget. For what a 750W PC Power and Cooling supply would cost right now though, I would say get that one.

They are $109 on Newegg with a $20 rebate. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703027

At that kind of price, you absolutely should get it over the Corsair.

 

[unRaveled]

Here's another card I found.
It's the HIS IceQ X 7870 ghz edition.
It's on sale for 289.99. After mail in rebate it's 259.99 plus a 6% off promo code.
Should I get this instead of the 7950's?

 

[stant1rm]

It's entirely up, the 7950 performs much better then the 7870, even a GHz edition. I agree that's a good deal, but I personally find the extra performance worth the money. Here's a few charts to illustrate the performance gap. Most pundits agree that the 7950 is better value and worth the slight premium.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/D/Q/337454/original/0103%203DMark.png

http://media.bestofmicro.com/D/R/337455/original/0702%20Crysis2%20DX11.png

 

[unRaveled]

Alright thanks I think I'll get the 7950 but I'm still not sure which one.
I know that XFX has a life time warranty but does the performance go on par with the MSI 7950? I've heard that MSI cooling system is great. Also can the XFX overclock well? I'm not really sure. My first time.

 

[SinisterSalad]

I have the MSI 7950 Twin FROZR. It has 6+8 pin power connectors instead of two 6 pins. I can only imagine this would benefit OC'ing. I haven't tried it myself yet, as I just got the card.

 

[unRaveled]

Mind testing it and report back . It'd be really helpful!

 

[SinisterSalad]

I'm @ work, won't be home til later tonight.

 

[unRaveled]

aw alright..

 

[stant1rm]

I have an XFX 6970 and then cooling superb. I was able to push it to 1GHz Core Clock. However, MSI's Twin Frozr Cooling is even better and if overclocking is on the agenda, it will be perfect.
I myself like the protection a lifetime warranty gives you however. This is one of those, 6 of one, half dozen of the other situations. If you're looking for maximum performance and aren't keeping the card more then 2 years, get the MSI. If you're building the PC and don't plan on upgrading for awhile (3 or 4 years), get the XFX.

 

[unRaveled]

Do you know how much the cooling temps difference by?

 

[stant1rm]

My XFX hits 81C under full load while overclocked. I imagine the MSI is closer to 75-76C. You should know that to hit 1GHz, no matter what card you chose, you must have very good airflow in your case. I have one 120MM fan pulling cool air in and blowing over the chip and one above that pulling hot air off the chip.

 

[unRaveled]

I ordered the zalman z11 plus. It has like 4 led fans and it said that its air flow is pretty good. I've seen reviews and stuff. And also is 81C a lot for overclocking to 1Ghz?

 

[stant1rm]

80-81 is pretty normal temps for a video card. When it starts hitting 95C or up it gets scary. Part of it just depends on the card. My Radeon HD 4850 hit 85C under full load, my GeForce 9800GT hit 91C. Neither one really worried me, and both of those cards still work.
At stock speeds, partially due to my good air setup, my cards maxes out at about 76C. So a 120MHz overclock adds 5C to the temps, well worth in my opinion.

 

[unRaveled]

Hey I know this is irrelevant to the topic but how much did it cost to build your pc? I want to compare to my PC build. Is $1200 a good pc build with the 7950 in it?

 

[stant1rm]

Well, I kinda wheeled and dealed to put mine together. Lemme give you the whole rundown, because it's kinda a cool story.

Last March I was walking in the park when I found a diamond engagement ring. I turned it in to the local police department, and they kept it for 90 days. After 90 days the ring went unclaimed and it was given back to me. I had it appraised for about $650. However, because it was an older style it didn't sell very quickly.

I ended up trading the ring for a 320GB PS3, Kindle Fire, and a shotgun of all things. Later down the road I was browsing Craigslist and saw PC with a 22" HD LCD TV being sold for $150. Because I had wanted a small tv for the PS3 anyway, and my parents needed a little desktop, I want ahead and bought it.

I ended up browsing craigslist again and noticed someone was selling a PC with a Phenom II X6 1055T, 8GB, 1TB HDD, and EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1GB. I offered to trade him my PS3 and TV for the PC, and he even threw in a 20" LCD Monitor, Logitech Gaming Mouse and Z-Board.

I was pretty happy with the PC, until I noticed someone selling his XFX Radeon HD 6970 on craigslist. Filled with technolust, I offered him my GTX 460 and a Antec 850W PSU I had lying around. He threw in a Corsair H60 water cooler and I was pretty happy.

Until (I know this is a major theme here), someone local in the listed his Intel Core i5 2500K, ASUS Sabertooth Mobo, 16GB G.Skill RAM, Corsair H80 water cooler, 850W Cooler Master Silent Pro PSU, mid tower case, 2 Velociraptor 300GB hard drives and Radeon 5770 for $500.

I promptly sold my current Phenom II rig (Minus 6970, and 1TB hard drive, I put in a Radeon HD 4870X2 and 500GB drive instead) for $550 to my friend and that is the story of how I ended up with a badass rig.

So, I actually only $100 of my own money on this PC. And that my friend is epic win.

However $1200 is probably a good deal. Go ahead and post the rest of what you're thinking of getting.

 

[stant1rm]

Oh and here's the crazy thing, the HP monitor I already had, the one I got with first PC, and the one I got with second are all identical. So I also ended up with an Eyefinity display.

All for $100 out of my own pocket.

 

[unRaveled]

@stant1rm wow that is a cool story. All that awesomeness for $100? You lucky fella.

@jallenlabs The PC power and cooling 750w one is made my seasonic and it's a pretty good psu.

Also here is my parts that I'm getting:

CPU : i5 2500k (already have it)
CPU Cooler:Cooler master hyper 212 +
Ram:G.Skill Ripjaws 8gb (2x4gb)
Mobo:ASRock Extreme4
Video Card:Either the XFX or MSI 7950 (LOL still didn't decide one although the lifetime warranty does seem nice! Free replacement!)
Hard Drive:Seagate Barracuda 1tb (have)
Monitor:Asus VH238H (have)
Case:Zalman Z11 Plus (have)
Wireless internet usb
rosewill anti static wristband
some cheap microsoft 600 keyboard and mouse
PSUC Power and cooling 750w
OS:Windows 7 OEM edition
Optical Drive: Asus 24x

Also I'm thinking about getting an ssd? Should I get one now or wait later on?
There is the crucial m4 128gb for 109.99 and the OCZ vertex 3 240gb for 140 something.
Your thoughts?

 

[stant1rm]

I would get a smaller SSD to use as boot drive, and keep one game you play a lot of on. OCZ makes a good drive for $60.

Other then that this PC is amazing, as mine is very, very, similar. The cooler master is a great cooler and will let you take that 2500K to 4.2GHz and above.

The PC Power and Cooling Unit is a great choice looking forward and will serve you very, very well.

My recommendation stands for the XFX Card. They make great cards and support them for as long as you own it. Go ahead, pull the trigger on this build and enjoy

 

[unRaveled]

Thanks man. Also you got anymore tips to lower the price of the build without changing the build's performance much? I'm not really sure if I should spend this much when maybe next year they would release better gears for less price? I'm so frustrated about if I should lower the price of the build and upgrade over the years or just use this build and play with it for the next 4+ years? Do you think this PC would last long? I know that's a stupid question because you can't predict the life of hardwares but just a prediction?

 

[stant1rm]

You've already go most of the parts. And the i5 2500K is overkill for games anyway, so you can just upgrade the GPU every couple years if that really worries you. To give you an idea of how long you can game with that rig, I built a PC in 2007 I think, that had a AMD Athlon 64 5200+, 4GB DDR2 RAM, and a GeForce 9800GTX+. I can still play most modern games on med-high settings, and get 30FPS+ at 1080.

It won't be top of the line for that long, but it will be very usable

 

[unRaveled]

Alright thanks. Your very helpful and insightful. I'm not sure if I should get a SSD. Could I get it later and then move the windows 7 over to the ssd in the future? Would that benefit anything? Also you think the computer would last for about 4 years or more? I know I'm very worrisome and asking a lot of questions lol.

 

[stant1rm]

Passing on the SSD is a good way to cut money now. However you can't just copy and paste your windows installation on to the SSD from the HDD later down the road.

There are two ways to move your windows installation -

Delete enough data off your HDD to get it to point of where your entire HDD will fit on you SSD (so if you have a 1TB HDD, and 400GB filled, but only 60GB SSD, you should delete about 350GB of data minimum). Then clone the entire drive to you SSD. There's a number of free programs to do this. Then format the HDD and you'll be good to go.

Or, what I recommend. Back up your HDD. Format it. Install a fresh copy of windows on to the SSD.