HD 7950 costs

[colaturka]

Hey guys, I'm from Belgium in Europe and while I was searching for 7950 hd cards, I found that the boost version of the sapphire hd 7950 costs much more than the core hd 7950 ( sometimes even more than the vapor x 7950) and this is not only reflected in one site but on several sites. Is this normal and why would the boost version ever be cheaper?

Oh, and one more thing. Is the vapor-x boost edition worth the extra investment of 10 € over the normal hd 7950 boost edition? Merci

 

[JJ1217]

Because the Sapphire Boost 7950 with the brown PCB is actually a 7970 PCB. Depends on the model, there are two 7950 boost variants. One with a blue PCB (7950) and one with a brown/black (7970). The 7970 PCB requires one 8 pin and 6 pin rather than dual 6 pins. Its better at overclocking.

If I could, I would skip the Vapor-X 7950. Absolutely terrible cooling on the VRM's, I've seen threads of people hitting 90 degrees + on it on stock clocks. The Dual X cooler on the 7950 Boost is one of the best coolers around, because of its fantastic VRM cooling and GPU cooling. It'll probably improve the life as well. But remember Sapphire cards come with 2 years warranty as compared to the standard three, so put that into consideration.

 

[colaturka]

Because the Sapphire Boost 7950 with the brown PCB is actually a 7970 PCB. Depends on the model, there are two 7950 boost variants. One with a blue PCB (7950) and one with a brown/black (7970). The 7970 PCB requires one 8 pin and 6 pin rather than dual 6 pins. Its better at overclocking.

If I could, I would skip the Vapor-X 7950. Absolutely terrible cooling on the VRM's, I've seen threads of people hitting 90 degrees + on it on stock clocks. The Dual X cooler on the 7950 Boost is one of the best coolers around, because of its fantastic VRM cooling and GPU cooling. It'll probably improve the life as well. But remember Sapphire cards come with 2 years warranty as compared to the standard three, so put that into consideration.

Strange, I heard from many people that is has better cooling and sapphire itself says vapor x tech is their best cooling system. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202003 look at overview

 

[colaturka]

I thought the vapor x hd 7950 would be better because they're basicly the same price and it says it has advanced cooling technology but I'm the noob here

 

[JJ1217]

GPU cooling wise, it is superior, but all round cooling it isn't that great. All these reviews always look at the temperature of the actual GPU, not of the other components. You can type in 7950 Vapor-X VRM in google and find a bunch of articles explaining it a bit more.

Also, the newer Vapor-X 7950's are voltage locked I believe.

 

[colaturka]

GPU cooling wise, it is superior, but all round cooling it isn't that great. All these reviews always look at the temperature of the actual GPU, not of the other components. You can type in 7950 Vapor-X VRM in google and find a bunch of articles explaining it a bit more.

Also, the newer Vapor-X 7950's are voltage locked I believe.

What's the difference between GPU cooling and all around cooling? Isn't the Gpu cooling the only cooling concerning the gpu? Also what does being voltage locked imply and are there any where it says they are? Thanks.

 

[JJ1217]

Well you have the actual GPU, and then you have the components on the PCB. Just cooling the GPU will overheat the other components because they have no cooling. Vapor-X is terrible for VRM cooling, while Dual-X is one of the best.

Voltage locks mean you cannot alter the voltage, which is useful if you overclock your card. Not a necessity, but can be useful for overclocking.

 

[tlg]

Few things for you:
1) GPU cooling = cooling on the core of the GPU. There are however other components on a card that produce ALOT of heat and need cooling, such as the VRMs. I dont know about the Vapor-X in particular but I have heard similar stories about the Asus DCUII cooler on the 7970 cards and also on the XFX DD cooler cards. As a matter of fact, I own an XFX with their aftermarket DD cooler and the horror stories you can find online about this cooler are wrong since my VRMs are never above 70c.

2)the BOOST or GHz editions are NOT WORTH your money. They have 100% the same potential as the old cards and many times have locked voltage. These cards have different BIOS and sometimes revised PCBs, but you will notice in reviews that any card using the same Catalyst driver and the same clock speeds will have equal performance with others. BOOST and GHz edition is only marketing.

3) In fact, I would advise against buying the cards that have the BOOST feature because this causes throttling issues, bad frametime issues etc. while you could just overclock the card yourself easily. BOOST was just AMD's answer to nVidia's identical feature, but it seems that AMD did a poor job with the optimisation of this feature.

 

[colaturka]

Well you have the actual GPU, and then you have the components on the PCB. Just cooling the GPU will overheat the components because they have no cooling. Vapor-X is terrible for VRM cooling, while Dual-X is one of the best.

Voltage locks mean you cannot alter the voltage, which is useful if you overclock your card. Not a necessity, but can be useful for overclocking.

Strange, heard from alot of experts and from reviews the vapor-x has a very good cooling system. Are there any threads or topics that you can link me to concerning this? Thanks alot for your help so far.

 

[colaturka]

Few things for you:
1) GPU cooling = cooling on the core of the GPU. There are however other components on a card that produce ALOT of heat and need cooling, such as the VRMs. I dont know about the Vapor-X in particular but I have heard similar stories about the Asus DCUII cooler on the 7970 cards and also on the XFX DD cooler cards. As a matter of fact, I own an XFX with their aftermarket DD cooler and the horror stories you can find online about this cooler are wrong since my VRMs are never above 70c.

2)the BOOST or GHz editions are NOT WORTH your money. They have 100% the same potential as the old cards and many times have locked voltage. These cards have different BIOS and sometimes revised PCBs, but you will notice in reviews that any card using the same Catalyst driver and the same clock speeds will have equal performance with others. BOOST and GHz edition is only marketing.

3) In fact, I would advise against buying the cards that have the BOOST feature because this causes throttling issues, bad frametime issues etc. while you could just overclock the card yourself easily. BOOST was just AMD's answer to nVidia's identical feature, but it seems that AMD did a poor job with the optimisation of this feature.

But you can easily overclock the HD 7950 with boost right, the boosted ones come much cheaper for me.
http://www.ldlc.be/navigation/sapphire+hd+7950/