Sapphire 7950 Overclock Edition Review HD7950

[lVlrK3V1N]

So technically HD 7950 OverClocked its better than Stock HD7970? Nice im getting one!

[00frozenzoo00]

bf3 benachmark only makes sense in mutliplayer -.-

[anthcesana]

@4Th3Truthful Actually I need to RMA my single fan version that I got, as only 3 days after I had it, I started getting artefacts at stock clocks. So I went and grabbed the OC version, and my God, it is sooo quiet! Fans hardly get over like 50%, and temps never above 70C when cranking out a 1200Mhz core speed. But, on my single fan reference card, I had the volts at around 1.250v to get it bench stable in 3DMark 11. I ran games around 1150Mhz to keep it stable. My OC version gets 9200 GPU score!

[4Th3Truthful]

@anthcesana I hope I don't have the same issue that would be terrible.

[irmissslive]

i have AMD Phenom II X4 965 can it keep up with this card?

[atsundowndot]

@irmissslive

Yer.

[anthcesana]

I think I won the silicon lottery...... My single fan 'reference' Sapphire 7950 netted 1215Mhz on the core and 1575Mhz on the memory at 1.250V. Graphics P score in 3D Mark 11 a touch over 9000. Needless to say, I'm fucking impressed. And believe it or not, the single fan cooler is actually pretty quiet below 50% and does a decent job keeping the card around 70C

[4Th3Truthful]

@anthcesana I have one like yours I am yet to play with got a side fan that is going to blow right on the fan of the GPU 130CFM should be good for bench-marking. Did you over-volt both core and memory? I want to be over 9000! Waiting on CPU 3820 in the mail yet.

[RainRood]

Doomtra1n how much for your card?;)

[fxscreamer]

Newegg was out of stock for almost 2 weeks of the XFX 7950, which I had my heart on. I suddenly noticed the Sapphire OC was in stock, and the same price as the non-OC XFX card. After all the reviews, and this video...it may not be the best looking like the XFX, but is certainly the best card overall at this point. I ordered one. I really care about quietness. I'm coming from a 5770. Should be a massive jump.

[BurgerzUK]

forget batman themed case that would look the nuts in my raven 3, lets pull the trigger on two and really peeee my gf off :))))))).

[wtf1992lynx]

WOULD YOU STOP USING THOSE RIDICULOUS EXPENSIVE CPU'S? NO ONE HAS MONEY FOR THAT SHITY HARDWARE! God, what a cock...

[G21SF45]

@wtf1992lynx . Don't be a hater because your broke ass probably still running an overclocked pentium 4 with a onboard graphic card that can only play pacman. By the way your the cock you POS!!!!!!

[wtf1992lynx]

@G21SF45 I have a pretty decent pc asshole, but this is totally unbalanced to the ppl THAT HAVE A DECENT PC INSTEAD OF A RICH FAG'S PC WITH A 1000 DOLLAR CPU. Put some comon sense in that idiot's head.

[mupp33n]

@wtf1992lynx 1000 dollar CPU? Lol? 990X?

[BCMods]

Any reason why the fan isn't spinning on the SB?

[crysis1147852369]

@BCMods because the 7xxx series feature a feature that when the fan isnt needed it stop spinning

[BCMods]

@crysis1147852369 I'm not talking about the GPU you fool xD

[crysis1147852369]

@BCMods oh sry im not perfect =(

[Eyeopeness]

@BCMods If I remember rightly in Tom's awesome review of the Rampage 4E, he suggested that Asus should make it so the fan should only spin up when the chipset gets to a certain temperature (it was always on 100%) or also that it could be disabled completely, as really, it isn't needed by 99% of users and was pretty darn noisy. I'm sure Tom said in a later video that they actually took heed of what he said with a revised bios update to set the SB fan. Either that or he just unplugged it :P

[BCMods]

@Eyeopeness Ahhh, thanks for the explanation :)

[newbrood87]

will this card be compatible with PCI express 2.0 / 2.1

[guitarherofreak161]

@newbrood87 yes and you dont see a performance difference with pci 3.0(2 or 3 fps maybe) my gtx 560 ti twinfrozr 2 oc edition in sli had luckely bricked so i have this card now and trust me it is extremely powerfull

[Anotherhack69]

I plan to build a new PC in April when the 3570k comes out, do you think Nvidia will have anything that's better and around the same cost as the 7950?

[Raidori17]

@Anotherhack69 current rumors suggest that nvidia has a video card that will have 30% gtx 580 performance for $350 to $400 and will launch in late march/early april.

[RandomHandGum]

@igorbog88

WTF?

He was asking about a 7950 not a 6870...

[JonasAndStuffDK95]

Hey Tom, would the 7950 be a worthy upgrade from a 5850?

[igorbog88]

@JonasAndStuffDK95

You'll get more ram for high resolutions and games that would demand that.. Make sure to overclock it. 5850 is basically somewhat faster than 6870, ~5870 when oc'd

[ChunQiu100]

Agreed with your review, I ordered and received the Sapphire hd7950 OC today to replace my evga gtx 570 SC. I can confirm that it's quiet, it's well ventilated (56° after half an hour of Heaven run) and it's much faster that my prevoius card which was already quite good.

So thanks it's was a helpful review.

I just have one question, with Furmark, the max temperature is 62° after 15 minutes. Do you think I can get cooler with the Artic Cooling Accelero Xtreme 7970 on ?

[oWhiteMonster]

@ChunQiu100 Those temps are fine

[MrDemonic1711]

temperatures are unreal because you tested without a tower but still nice card!

[TheSmokey2312]

@MrDemonic1711

what do u mean with unreal bad or good?

[irmissslive]

I have AMD Phenom II X4 965 can it keep up with 7950? i going to OC CPU to 3,8 if needed.

[itzLegion]

Hey, i was looking at the PowerColor version, could you do a test on it?

[Qashix10]

Sapphire 7950 OC or PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 PCS+?

[crazychainsaw007]

what's the point of showing gameplay of more then 50 fps? just tell us that it can youtube puts it down to 30 anyway

[vanhodid]

@timetolivecustoms why dont you use in-game fps counter of bf3, get up dev console by using ` then type render.drawfps true

[vanhodid]

what was the temp on the OC'd OC'd 7950?

[MrTurient]

i want it on crossfire

[NateN34]

Eh, not bad. Although it definitely is not double the performance of the old cards like they say.

[stavros5824]

@NateN34 it definetely is more powerful than a couple of 5850's

[crazychainsaw007]

@NateN34 it kinda is 1 6950 does around 30fps maxed out 2 do around 60 this card does around 60

[SirShizuka]

Ew seems my previous replys got lost.This sapphire should have gotten more than gold award compared to the previous two tested, or the other should have had less than gold...

[SirShizuka]

I was wondering... here you have all options maxed out on bf3. What if your aim was to get 120 frames, can a single 7950 oc'd with some options lowered average around 120 frames/ secondes? For exemple textures etc on high, aniso 8, ssao, aa off.

[crazychainsaw007]

@SirShizuka yeah probably but why would u need 120fps? there is a little diferrence between 30 and 60 i can understand that but i dont think ts physically possible to have it make enough of a difference to improve gameplay at 120fps

[I5ZQ8]

@crazychainsaw007 you obviously dont have a 120hz monitor lol

[crazychainsaw007]

@I5ZQ8 i do

[eBombzor]

@crazychainsaw007 Yea, if you ever tried a 120hz monitor, you would know.

[crazychainsaw007]

@eBombzor i do have a 120hz moniter and i dont see a difference from 60 to 120 my ur suffering from a placebo effect

[I5ZQ8]

@crazychainsaw007 so then you are either BLIND...or DONT have a 120Hz monitor.

[crazychainsaw007]

@I5ZQ8 or i have a 120hz moniter and im not suffering from a placebo effect

[eBombzor]

@crazychainsaw007 no u dont

[AdityaNair1000]

@crazychainsaw007 little difference between 30 and 60? you are one of the people who think they can't see more than 24FPS

[crazychainsaw007]

@AdityaNair1000 i notice lag at 24 fps but the reason i ike 60 is because i know it will never ever dive below 30 and i notice less drop downs in framerates

[DoomTra1n]

@crazychainsaw007 Play some Quake and tell me that. It's not about SEEING 120 FPS, it's about FEELING 120 FPS, it's just so much smoother and faster. Trust me, for real. Play some Q3 or QLive. Set your Vsync to 30 FPS play like that for a few weeks, than play @ 120 FPS for a few weeks and go back to 30 FPS. YOU WILL notice a HUGE difference. It'll feel like your guy is running in MUD.

I wonder if I can sell my MSI 6970 Lightning to some chump around here, I want a 7000 card :I

[RadauGaming]

@DoomTra1n Only with a 120Hz monitor, shits insane at 120 FPS on 120hz monitors, 60 FPS is still smooth as hell though.

[DoomTra1n]

@RadauGaming I play @ 120 FPS on my 75hz monitor and the tearing isn't THAT bad. And it still FEELS so much better than 60fps. Higher FPS i probably geared to hardcore players in competitive games like Quake , Unreal Tournament and Counter Strike though. Every one else is probably happy @ 60. I can't even stand playing on 90FPS servers haha (still feels a bit sluggish).

[malte2904]

@DoomTra1n how much u want for u card?

[crazychainsaw007]

this card looks great but this is my first time building a pc can you tell me what are acceptable framerates because i cant tell on my pc currently all i know is everything lags so i heard some people say 60 others say 30 then there is arguments on other videos

[Edge0fPain]

@crazychainsaw007

If 30 FPS appears playable to you, then 30 FPS is the minimum acceptable FPS. For me, 30 is playable but I prefer 60.

[InfiniteSaviour49]

@crazychainsaw007 30 fps is good to play with,our human eye can't tell the different between 30 fps or 60 fps, so if your on budget a 6770 or 5770 is okay to play games with around 30-40 fps (battlefield 3),i prefer getting a crossfire setup with cheap cards and get good framerates like the 5870 or the 6770

[SirShizuka]

@crazychainsaw007 If your not too demanding 30 frames minimum is enough, if your slightly hardcore player then you will want 60 frames minimum, if you want the edge on other players you'l need 120 frames. For reference some CS PGM players or near PGM wouldn't accept less than 300 frames/seconde.

[rta5000]

thank you for the review! this looks like a sweet upgrade from my 5850 vaporX

[paan468]

Could any1 tell me which 1 is better ?

The sapphire or the xfx 7950 ?

[Kackwurst777]

@paan468 i would recommend the powercolor pcs+, but if you have to choose between those two i would go for the sapphire one.

[paan468]

@Kackwurst777 wats th epowercolor pcs ?

[Jo3yization]

Avg for BF3 looks more like <50fps rather than 70+ in the full review..

[imCllm]

can you over clock the over clocked version even more ?

[C4ptKrunch]

@imCllm ya...

[Tsinepanos]

The fan pn the motherboard doesnot work ? You unplugged it ?

[mrmactknife]

That cooler needs a TTL disassemblement ;) I'd love to see the die contact surface, also like to see if they've "sinked" up any of the VRAM chips.  Break out ur screwdriver Mr Logan, you know you want to haha

[floflorian]

Let us know if the Sapphire cooler is better than the Asus DirectCU2 and the MSI Twin Frozr 3, when you get a chance to test them all.

[Snake1979xfire]

Meaned 780 or something...

[Snake1979xfire]

Those cards are To Expensive !!!!

Nvidia Comeone trow a 690 or something, so that the prices can drop more, because this is ridiculous, to high priced...

[fataxe1]

for all of you bashing the card for its looks, i give you this: who gives a fuck? this thing is amazing!

[TheAmgarbay]

@fataxe1 I dont bash cards for it's look. I do give a fuck about esthetics and so do a lot of ppl ;)

[Iopipimps]

whats making that sound during the unigine run on 3:44? how close did you put the microphone next to the gpu then?

[LomboyProjects]

i might just stick with the 7970. i want 60 FPS ON FUCKIN EVERYTHING MWAHAHAHAHA ---- POWER!!!!

[TheSurroundGaming]

@LomboyProjects muahahahhahahahaha

[thecubanmann]

nice vid very detailed

[Dachi1991]

lololol I thought that was mr. strawberry randomly hitting keys.

[PcandTech]

BUT WHY BLUE PCB SAPPHIRE!

[allstars190]

this sapphire card is fuckin ugly---->XFX FTW

[27ground]

WOW! I have the his 6950 ice q turbo x card and this scores almost 2000 points on 3d mark 11 maybe when they come down a little in price will I pick this up man oh man this card is a beast!

[AirSoftWorlds]

The fan sound level test really isn't all useful due to the fact that everybody has different speakers to hear them.

[TheVlatko666]

you geting 45-50 fps i metro 2033, but when u are outside u will get 30 max.

[ps3qtr]

what is the program u using to show gpu, mem and fps? its rly cool

[CrossTechTips]

@ps3qtr AFTERBURNER

[SupremeAmerican]

BRUSH YO TEETH HOMEY

[gimiesome]

@SupremeAmerican  "USA Unlimited Supply of Assholes"...

[jh3496]

Was BF:3 @ Max? If so DAYUMMM.

[jordan010203]

Hey guys this is TinyTomLogan back with another video for us! yay!! :D

[Blackspur100]

@Articfreeez bloody hell that reply was for @DontClickMexD

Sorry :P

[Blackspur100]

@Articfreeez That is way too hot for stock, mine is OC'ed at 4.5Ghz and I have the same idle temps and lower load temps than that..

[Purepromedia]

@Articfreeez Your not very good with computers are you? BIOS temps always read the average between the cores so it's always lower. ( LESS ACCURATE ) Core Temp / Real temp reads the core temperatures from Tmax, so the higher the temps the more accurate it is. on an Asus board around 60C = usually around 65-70C on the middle cores, and sometimes even 15C difference. SO NEVER trust your bios temps.

[PCTechTalks]

great video but why didnt you do a crysis warhead benchmark :S?

i understand that it can only utilize dx10 but it is still a very power hungry game :P

[nobodypersonsomeone]

Can anyone confirm if the 7950 unlocks to a 7970?

[integratable]

@nobodypersonsomeone it doesnt. Diferent pcb.

[SuicidalZebra]

@nobodypersonsomeone I agree with @integratable, It doesn't unlock to a HD7970. Best you can do is flash a BIOS with tighter memory timings and then overclock, but you won't be able to get those additional shaders :(

[stonecoldtrk]

those fans are pretty darn BIG, look even bigger than the xfx version

[GamesArt86]

Now do the Eyefinity test pls! =)

[piotrus5552]

What is psu?

[zalmanusa]

@piotrus5552 Power supply unit.

[piotrus5552]

@zalmanusa

I know :D

But i ask about model ;)

[Verithiell]

is it better than gtx 580?

[LordJummy]

@Verithiell yes

[SFseis]

@Verithiell Yes. But not that much better. So if you have a 580 you probably wanna keep it.

[captaincough]

@Verithiell better then a stock 590 and that's a dual GPU

[Verithiell]

@captaincough even 7970 aint better than 590...

[stonecoldtrk]

@Verithiell nope but when ttl overclocked the 7970 it came very very close to the 590 and 6990

[Verithiell]

@stonecoldtrk ye but some guy tells bullshit that 7950 is better than 590...

[stonecoldtrk]

@Verithiell lol

[captaincough]

@Verithiell Ya and I just PM'ed you proof.

[Verithiell]

@captaincough i dotn believe its better than 590. No way. You can find lots of things in the internet, although u shoudltn rly trust them.

[captaincough]

@Verithiell That was pretty much the only scenario a 7950 beats a 590 but 3Dmark11 is a good indicator of what to expect from a GPU. That site I gave you a link to is one of the best and does very good testing. OC3D is also a very good site and one of my favorites.

As was mentioned in this video you might get a 7950 that does overclock as well so OC performance is not guaranteed. If I were to choose between a 590 or a 7950 I would choose a 590 but definitely not a 580.

[murphy7801]

@captaincough Your an idiot a 590 cost alot more than a 580 and 7950. The 7950 are similar in performance to a gtx 580. TBH for the cost of a 590 but the extra cash in get either 2 580's or 7950's.

[captaincough]

@murphy7801 Hey bug off mind your business, you don't understand! so I will explain. The conversation I was having I was trying to prove a point. The other gentlemen asked if a 7950 was better than a 580, I replied, a 7950 is better then a 590. I over stated that and meant the 7950 can beet a 590 in a single scenario (I provided a link in a PM) The point I was making is of course it's better than a 580. I was not considering price with my statement.

I think the 590 is a waste of a card.

[arys64]

If anybody knows what is the program he uses for displaying the FPS during gameplay?

[brandonb56]

@arys64 afterburner

[PingPangification]

@arys64 he uses both MSI afterburner with the on screen display enabled and a program called Fraps

[Tangylives]

@arys64 Fraps and afterburner. He says so in the video, if you bothered to watch it.

[SFseis]

@arys64 Fraps

[klote2314]

there is no use in running a benchmark if you cant show other gpu's benchmarks next to it

[PhatboyHD88]

Thanks Tom Awesome as always !!!!

[TheGamesHD]

at 3:49, was that squeaking sound from the gpu?

[stroberts11]

Best looking cooler ever!

[arjun10able]

will it beat next gen console??

[xbasz]

@arjun10able Yes.

[RiptorSLO]

GTA 4 benchmark plz

[raheemisbad]

yo logan, with this card can i play on high settings with decent AA and get a constant 60fps on 64 player online maps?

[ioaus09]

For Crossfire, do you recommend getting both with stock cooler or aftermarket cooler?, My 2nd slot is the same distance as your 3rd red slot from the GPU (inc. the slot used for the GPu)

[club4ghz]

yeah you could screw dirt 3 and do gta 4 instead

[childrenofbodomfan74]

@club4ghz why would he want to do that? gta is an unoptimized piece of shit. i'd rather have him benchmark games that run properly, even if they are not that demanding and show high scores

[club4ghz]

@childrenofbodomfan74 it is optimized how it is it have graphic settings if lag for you means your pc sucks and you can go optimize it yourself for your hardware gta 4 is most played games of all times and have tons of graphical mods i want to see benchmarks on it its the only game that make sens of upgrading hardware this days dirt 3 can run on 8800gt so its pointless to bench it

[club4ghz]

wish you do the gta 4 gameplay also with all settings to max its more demanding then bf3

[th4970]

@club4ghz

GTA 4 is not good for benchmarking, it has crappy optimization and it is a CPU oriented game.

[club4ghz]

@th4970 its demanding need lots of gpu memory for textures and strong gpu shader for rendering day and night shadows there is no other game out there with so many high quality shadows and never was its also cpu demanding in my opinion its the best game for benchmark but not with benchmark in game which does not say shit with a simple gameplay

[th4970]

@club4ghz

GTA 4 doesn't even look that good as vanilla, so all the heavy work it needs for it's textures and shadows is a result of bad optimization. This makes it a crappy benchmark, because it can't probably even take the full advantage of hardware it is given.

Better can be achieved with good optimization, take a look at the original Crysis. It didn't have the reputation of the playable benchmark for nothing.

[MrShadowhearth]

hey tom, how are the power consumption on 7950? what really makes 7970 special for me its how great it is with power! you dont need a monster psu to run those even in CF! so how do 7950 stand on that?!

[myfunkychannel]

when you were playing BF3 how did you get those statistics showing on the upper left. I know the one on upper right is from Fraps

[badboybenno]

@myfunkychannel MSI Afterburner on-screen - download latest from guru3d.com

[mrnormalnormal]

Hey great Test! Would you get the Sapphire or XFX? The xfx looks way better but if the sapphire is so much more silent I´ll get the sapphire... Which would you get?

[deantew]

no question its a great card and well done tom, im just not sure if i would like all that black plastic in my rig, a bit of detailing on the visable face would have been nice

[slizza90]

I think AMD are in trouble this round if this is all they could come up with out the 28nm line.

If Kepler doesn't completely out class these cards then Nvidia have really screwed up.

[Prowler1]

sounds grate, so does that means there will be no Toxic Version ?

[skjimon]

WHY THE HELL DOES THE PCB COLLOR MATHER? AND IF NOT WHY DO YOU MENTION IT?

[badenielsen]

@skjimon Cause someone wants to make a pc build and a blue pcb might stick out a bit, if i had a black and orange or what ever colour i had, a blue pcb wouldnt fit, would it?

[skjimon]

@badenielsen how does the collor affect the hardware or performance?

[HydraGoesPro]

@skjimon There isn't a backplate for it. So if your rig is a black and red theme, you'll have a bright blue card in the middle of it...

[Cone419]

3:41 I love that (no)sound

[chocolatetie2]

4th

[TheAmgarbay]

3rd

[chocolatetie2]

why did you smile all creepy @0:50

[badenielsen]

@chocolatetie2 cause hes creepy?:-p

[jo05dk]

So far the winner for me. The cooler decides it. You don't come across many good stock coolers, and this one clearly does the job amazingly well.

Thumbs up for Sapphire. they did good on this one:)

[highreed]

Nice 7950 vids tiny tom. Is there any benefit buying an oc card when u could save a bit of money by doing it urself? Are the oc versions the better chip lottery winners?

[Derbixrace]

you need to start using a platinum awards for those things who stands out :)

[gamerro25]

all this games use over 1000MB of video ram and the stupid consules have ONLY 256MB. gggrrrrr

[SuperSayanFitness]

@gamerro25 console games are remade for the shitty specs

[gamerro25]

@SuperSayanFitness i know but why would anybody buy a new video card when every card can play the console games:(. i was thinking for 2 x 7970 but there is no point!

[Jinto117]

@gamerro25 More frames in a game basically and there is never anything wrong with more frames.

[gamerro25]

@Jinto117 i have 2 x 6970 and i get "to many fps " at 1080P ;)

[Jinto117]

@gamerro25 Blasphemy! You can never have too many frames per second.

[DontClickMexD]

I have an i5 2500 (Non-K) @ 3.3Ghz with the hottest core at 89 Degrees?

I am using the Intel Stock Cooler. Is this normal?

I am also thinking of getting one of these graphics card, Will my CPU bottleneck?

Also I have the old Generation x16 PCI-E slot, Will this also bottleneck?

[HippehMac]

@DontClickMexD Are your temps from peak, or at idle? Either way, that's high. Methinks you've got a hot chip.

Your CPU is fast enough to not cause any discernible bottlenecks.

Your PCIe lanes are MORE than what is needed. There are videos showing a 6990 running on the x4 lane and it makes less than 5fps difference.

[DontClickMexD]

@HippehMac The temps are with Prime 95 Running with Large FFTs

[HippehMac]

@DontClickMexD At those clocks even with the stock cooler it shouldn't be getting that hot. Still, Prime 95 is a major stress test, i guess. Invest in an after market cooler - a good one will run cooler and quieter.

[Ri1seAgainst]

@DontClickMexD uhm are you sure its hitting 89degrees? what case do you have because thats really really high, you won't get any bottlenecking issues at all you could probably run two or 3 without bottlenecking, also get a hyper 212 evo or some good cheap aftermarker heatsink because those temps are crazy high I'm using a stock cooled it 2500k @ 3.3ghz and under 100% load it hits 54 C unless you meant 89 F

[DontClickMexD]

@Ri1seAgainst It is 89 Degrees Celsius on the hottest Core measured with RealTemp