# Should I go for a 7950 crossfire setup



## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

Another one of these questions but I haven't found that clear review that just smacks me and says get the 7950's.  In my system specs you'll see I have 2 6970's in crossfire and I do play 5670 x 1080.  Dead Space 3, Dishonored, and Dirt 3 have played nicely with settings all the way up but I've been toying with getting Tomb Raider and Infinite when they are released.  Do you think the 6970's could handle those two new games or is it time to fork out the money?


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## tokyoduong (Mar 22, 2013)

Unless CF is not working properly, 2x 6970 should be enough. But if you want to play the new games just released at that res then you need to upgrade.


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## digibucc (Mar 22, 2013)

you're talking about spending $600+ in just to max out a few new games. I play 2560x1440 and I had no problem playing tomb raider at almost max settings, looked beautiful, on 2x5850s.

I do not think it's worth it. the amount of money you are considering spending vs the performance increase you will get from it screams NO.  I will upgrading soon, but coming from the 5 series that makes sense. I don't think you'll need to upgrade until the 8 series.

and infinite's recommended as per steam:


> Recommended:
> 
> OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
> Processor: Quad Core Processor/li>
> ...


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## RCoon (Mar 22, 2013)

<- I have 7950 crossfire, rocks the hell out of me.
My upgrade only cost me £40, because i sold my two old 570's and sold the free games on TPU.
Totally worth it, for my 120hz needs.


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## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

I guess that settles it then.  No 7950's since I'm not super worried about power consumption..I have a GTX 465 doing physx since I do still play Batman AC and my daughter plays Alice Madness Returns.  Probably spend my funds on some more ram since I run several VM and a 256GB or 512GB SSD.  Thanks guys for your input.


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> I have two 6950 *unlocked* in Xfire but have thought about side grading to a 7970 due to lower power usage but these cards score higher than a stock 7970 on most benches. I would stick with what you got for now.
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/121009/Capture026513.jpg



You are not scoring higher than a GHZ 7970 @ stock . I can guarantee it.



kenkickr said:


> I guess that settles it then.  No 7950's since I'm not super worried about power consumption..I have a GTX 465 doing physx since I do still play Batman AC and my daughter plays Alice Madness Returns.  Probably spend my funds on some more ram since I run several VM and a 256GB or 512GB SSD.  Thanks guys for your input.



You'll be second-guessing that choice real soon. None of these guys run Eyefinity. They are speaking in terms of single-monitor. If you said single-monitor, and not 5760x1080, then I'd agree with them.


Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu



kenkickr said:


> In my system specs you'll see I have 2 6970's in crossfire and I do play 5670 x 1080.


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## sneekypeet (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> You are not scoring higher than a GHZ 7970 @ stock . I can guarantee it.



I was just going to comment that with a 2600K I get 10.5K stock on my 7950.


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

sneekypeet said:


> I was just going to comment that with a 2600K I get 10.5K stock on my 7950.



but only with CPU OC. should be 10k, or just under, with stock CPU.


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## sneekypeet (Mar 22, 2013)

yes CPU was at 4.5ghz, card was stock, should have specified.


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

sneekypeet said:


> yes CPU was at 4.5ghz, card was stock, should have specified.



Meh. POint was made.

I paly with either 7970, or 7950, or two of each, or a mix of three, or even all four cards.

Eyefinity is a special case, and even dual 7950's aren't quite enough at times, but given the low cost, power savings, and such, they are killer cards that should not be overlooked. Get a 900+ MHz 7950, and you'll have a great card for single monitor, but multi monitor definitely requires two or more. I have a hard time recommending more than two right now, due to driver issues, but hopefully those will get fixed soon.


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## RCoon (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu



Bah I'm an asshat /sadface
This is true, 7950's got way more VRAM, and generally better with more monitors.
Microstutter is definitely noticable in skyrim however, just to bare that one in mind


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## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> You'll be second-guessing that choice real soon. None of these guys run Eyefinity. They are speaking in terms of single-monitor. If you said single-monitor, and not 5760x1080, then I'd agree with them.
> Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu



I was thinking of purchasing the games but that would be stupid if I do purchase 7950's since they come with Crysis 3 and Infinite.  Probably sell the 2nd coupon to get Tomb Raider since that game looks pretty good.  Thanks Cadaveca for understanding my Eyefinity needs and especially pointing that out.  You've convinced me!!!


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

I'll buy your second coupon. 

Eyefinity set-up with 7-series seems much easier, too ,but maybe that's just in driver, I am not sure. I started using Eyefinity with 5870's, and it's come a long way now. BF3 on medium is playable  @ near 60+ FPS all the time on a single card. It will dip below 20 FPS at times though.


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## RCoon (Mar 22, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> I was thinking of purchasing the games but that would be stupid if I do purchase 7950's since they come with Crysis 3 and Infinite.  Probably sell the 2nd coupon to get Tomb Raider since that game looks pretty good.  Thanks Cadaveca for understanding my Eyefinity needs and especially pointing that out.  You've convinced me!!!



I got 16 free games for my two cards, but that included a deal that dabs did alongside the amd deal, im guessing you will get 8 if you bought 2 cards? would certainly pay for some of it if sold.


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## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> I'll buy your second coupon.
> 
> Eyefinity set-up with 7-series seems much easier, too ,but maybe that's just in driver, I am not sure. I started using Eyefinity with 5870's, and it's come a long way now.



Hell I'd trade you the coupon just for Tomb Raider once I get them.  Gonna try to order tonight.


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## RCoon (Mar 22, 2013)

Damn Dave, we're gonna have to start our own 7950 crossfire fan club


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

RCoon said:


> Damn Dave, we're gonna have to start our own 7950 crossfire fan club



Please do. I have played with nearly every BIOS with every driver, and every platform(since I use a pair for my mobo reviews). I know these cards pretty well. I was actually hoping the AMD A10-5800K might make for a decent base platform, but the lack of cache really hurts.


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## RCoon (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Please do. I have played with nearly every BIOS with every driver, and every platform(since I use a pair for my mobo reviews). I know these cards pretty well. I was actually hoping the AMD A10-5800K might make for a decent base platform, but the lack of cache really hurts.



I was at some point hoping to find a compatible BIOS to flash onto my XFX 7950's, but you know they're a dubious model of cards making it precarious...
Maybe the new APU's will be more sensible, jaguar seems to have 1 floating point/1 core anyway


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## ChristTheGreat (Mar 22, 2013)

If you can sell those HD6970 easy, I would go with the HD7950's



cadaveca said:


> but only with CPU OC. should be 10k, or just under, with stock CPU.



I do 9930pts with card at 1200/1400, with i5 2500k @ 4.7ghz.

Damn those i7 gives more score :S


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 22, 2013)

personally just wait for the 8 series to roll out.


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 22, 2013)

Dave

I based my score to the 3dmark11 page. Yes the scores range back and forth but there are a few 7970's around what my cards put out. Yes I know a single 7970 GHZ would do better and I did not see his resolution.


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## ChristTheGreat (Mar 22, 2013)

eidairaman1 said:


> personally just wait for the 8 series to roll out.





if he can. 8 series should be end of the year, so there's a couple of month until there..


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> Dave
> 
> I based my score to the 3dmark11 page. Yes the scores range back and forth but there are a few 7970's around what my cards put out. Yes I know a single 7970 GHZ would do better and I did not see his resolution.
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/130322/clocks.png



bad choice of a source of info. First, they are all using older drivers. secondly, as you can see, my 7950 is there sitting with the 7970's, beating a few, too.

Now, with current betas, 7-series cards got another big boost in performance.* Now the same dual-card combos can get near 16k*, where that was 12.5k. The 6950's simply don't keep up any more.

What's interesting to me, mostly, is that my 7950's have ALWAYS scored with 7970s. Back then, and now. It's why I have said that AMD clearly has driver issues, since day one there has been little reason, to me, to buy 7970, if you are going to overclock, and can hit the same clocks as 7970. Today, that's still true. The extra shaders/whateveryoucall'em just aren't really getting used in benchmarks for sure, and games, it's a per-app thing. There's even MORE performance in a 7970, imho, if they can ever get it working right.

When it comes to Crossfire, scaling is only 65% right now. 6-series is about 95%. Again, if they can get things working right, there's way more potential with this current gen. Unfortunately, it's very hard for me to remain optimistic about AMD fixing their drivers, yet here I sit with four of their high-end VGAs in my rigs.


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## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

eidairaman1 said:


> personally just wait for the 8 series to roll out.



The problem is I have the money now and I thought AMD wasn't releasing til the end of the year which usually means we'll see them available the beginning of next year.


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> bad choice of a source of info. First, they are all using older drivers. secondly, as you can see, my 7950 is there sitting with the 7970's, beating a few, too.
> 
> Now, with current betas, 7-series cards got another big boost in performance.* Now the same dual-card combos can get near 16k*, where that was 12.5k. The 6950's simply don't keep up any more.
> 
> ...



Very true, I forgot to factor in those drivers that increased the 7xxx series so much. I think the 7950s/7970s would be the way to go.


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> The problem is I have the money now and I thought AMD wasn't releasing til the end of the year which usually means we'll see them available the beginning of next year.



The 7970 GHz will remain the top model for the rest of the year, according to AMD. The lower-end GPUs will get updates, the first of which was launched today, the 7790. I do not expect anything other than an official reference 7990 card at the high-end. AMD was pretty forthcoming with that sort of info just before the Titan launch. They were pretty open that they could care less about the Titan cards, and weren't going to release anything to compete with it. I glad they didn't.


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## digibucc (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Buy the 7950's. What a bunch of asshats, they didn't even read your post fully.:shadedshu Thanks guys, for your AWESOME help.:shadedshu



I read the post, I knew he was using eyefinity, I still don't think it's worth $600+ to upgrade from 6970s. You're welcome


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 22, 2013)

digibucc said:


> I read the post, I knew he was using eyefinity, I still don't think it's worth $600+ to upgrade from 6970s. You're welcome



Yea I too did not like being called an asshat but if he can factor in the price of selling the 6950s and the length of time the 7xxx series will last then it will be worth it in the long run so dave is right (not the ass hat part LOL )


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## digibucc (Mar 22, 2013)

yeah then you're looking at a $300 upgrade, which would definitely be reasonable. that i did not think of, but that doesn't mean i'm an asshat  dave's just gotta be having a bad day.... or else


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 22, 2013)

digibucc said:


> yeah then you're looking at a $300 upgrade, which would definitely be reasonable. that i did not think of, but that doesn't mean i'm an asshat  dave's just gotta be having a bad day.... or else



Its dave, if it ain't ass hats its penises of random Chinese take out dinner voices


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## digibucc (Mar 22, 2013)

lol


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

digibucc said:


> I read the post, I knew he was using eyefinity, I still don't think it's worth $600+ to upgrade from 6970s. You're welcome



Do you really take me all that seriously? You shouldn't. Perfect example of why.  Brandon gets it.

Anyway, TombRaider is BARELY playable with dual 7950's in Eyefinity. I doubt 6950's are capable. I'll find out about Bioshock when it releases. That reminds me..RE6 is today, I should fire it up.

OF course, you can drop details and such, but I don't think that's what Kenkicker here was asking.

With selling old hardware and games from AMD's current promos, this upgrade is virtually free. I see no reason to not do it, at all, for an Eyefinity user, and waiting much longer to upgrade is only going to make it cost more as value for the 6950s drops, as Brandon kinda mentioned. You can get 7950's for $269 or so, so even you're $300 is a bit high, I think. If you sell al lteh games, and for a decent amount, that drops to an easy $150 or so.

AMD cards are holding high resale value because of GPU crunching. They  aren't so good at FAH...but...anything else...especially password hacking...or should I say Bitcoin?


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## digibucc (Mar 22, 2013)

yeah that's much better than I had in my head... My last 3 upgrades my parts have gone to family so I haven't sold crap, I guess I kinda forgot that was possible  Once you take that into account you are definitely right, and I would go for it myself.

as for you dave... i know you're just an asshat yourself, I'll make sure to just ignore it from now on


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## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Anyway, TombRaider is BARELY playable with dual 7950's in Eyefinity. I doubt 6950's are capable. I'll find out about Bioshock when it releases. That reminds me..RE6 is today, I should fire it up.



So now your trying to talk me into 3 

I debated going to 3 6970's but the price people want for them on ebay is so close to just buying a 7950.


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

digibucc said:


> as for you dave... i know you're just an asshat yourself, I'll make sure to just ignore it from now on




Heh. As you know, when it comes to business, I'm all business. But yeah, I'm a bit rough around the edges when it's not business. That's just my personality, and I'm not gonna hide who I am.  I don't really mean anything by such comments anyway, other than to grab attention.



kenkickr said:


> So now your trying to talk me into 3
> 
> I debated going to 3 6970's but the price people want for them on ebay is so close to just buying a 7950.



I cannot recommend 3 cards right now, due to driver issues. I have four cards.

And yeah, like I said, because of GPU crunching, high-end AMD cards are really good, far better than NVidia right now, due to them having lots of internal cache. The lower-end models don't have that cache, just like low-end CPUs, so those cards have not retained their value. Seriously, AMD has always had a very good design for compute, but NVidia's muscle In the gaming market and in FAH made everyone ignore them. I started GPU crunching when it was first available, on AMD card, not Nvidia, so I knew what was going on, but whatever. Today, programmers are really maing use of compute, so that cannot be hidden.


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 22, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> So now your trying to talk me into 3
> 
> I debated going to 3 6970's but the price people want for them on ebay is so close to just buying a 7950.



LOL I will sell you two! HAHA 4 6950's (If a motherboard would handle that) would be interesting.


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## digibucc (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Heh. As you know, when it comes to business, I'm all business. But yeah, I'm a bit rough around the edges when it's not business. That's just my personality, and I'm not gonna hide who I am.  I don't really mean anything by such comments anyway, other than to grab attention.



yeah I get it, I knew you were... funny  but I guess I never saw it come out like that before, it's really no big deal i do much worse more often


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## kenkickr (Mar 22, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> LOL I will sell you two! HAHA 4 6950's (If a motherboard would handle that) would be interesting.



My board would definitely handle 2 more video cards as long as I pull the GTX 465 but my daughter likes the physx in Alice:Madness Returns.


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> LOL I will sell you two! HAHA 4 6950's (If a motherboard would handle that) would be interesting.



remember...I sold you my fourth.


3 6950's is OK, but again ,there is still some issues with drivers, but not as nearly as much s the 7-series seems to have. Of course, using Eyefinity is only going to make that even more of an issue. I so wish AMD has just released the MST boxes for Eyefinity.


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> remember...I sold you my fourth.
> 
> 
> 3 6950's is OK, but again ,there is still some issues with drivers, but not as nearly as much s the 7-series seems to have. Of course, using Eyefinity is only going to make that even more of an issue. I so wish AMD has just released the MST boxes for Eyefinity.



OH YEA!!! I totally forgot about you having four! HAHAHA!


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## cadaveca (Mar 22, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> OH YEA!!! I totally forgot about you having four! HAHAHA!



I've run 4 GPUs of every generation since the 3870x2. I prefer separate cards rather than two on a stick, so that I get the chance to easily try every config by simply removing cards. Now we've got boards like the ASUS Maximus V Extreme that allows disabling GPUs with switches on the board, too, but still, the biggest issue that MUST be dealt with when going over two cards is the heat these GPUs produce when loaded fully. All these aftermarket coolers dump their heat inside the case, which increases the temps at each card just by heating the ambient air, never mind by convection. I don't see any point at all to watercooling a CPU, but GPUs...you really gotta when going over two cards. That increases the cost substantially.



digibucc said:


> it's really no big deal i do much worse more often



I quit smoking.





Seriously though. I'm chemically different.


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## suraswami (Mar 22, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> So now your trying to talk me into 3
> 
> I debated going to 3 6970's but the price people want for them on ebay is so close to just buying a 7950.



I have Sapphire 6970 just 29 days old and Gigabyte Windforce 7950 3 days old.  Trying to decide which one to keep.

With new 13.1 drivers I see better performance on 6970 even on BF3 Ultra settings (almost close to 7950), in certain maps 7950 struggles during start of the game like goes near to 30 FPS and then climb back to 60s.  6970 I don't see that.

pm me, I will give you pretty good deal


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 22, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> The problem is I have the money now and I thought AMD wasn't releasing til the end of the year which usually means we'll see them available the beginning of next year.



well put that money in a piggy bank


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 23, 2013)

Well ken, I jumped on the same bandwagon as you! I have a 7970 on its way tomorrow! I am excited


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## kenkickr (Mar 23, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> Well ken, I jumped on the same bandwagon as you! I have a 7970 on its way tomorrow! I am excited



Awesome.  I just purchased the Gigabyte 7950.  Once I get some money for the 6970's then I'll get another.


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## anubis44 (Mar 23, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> Awesome.  I just purchased the Gigabyte 7950.  Once I get some money for the 6970's then I'll get another.



Good man. That's what I bought, too. Flashed mine using Gigabyte 7970 bios to 1GHz core/1375 memory. You can overclock more with software, but I like booting up with 1GHz on the core just to start with. Thinking of grabbing another one for crossfire.


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## suraswami (Mar 23, 2013)

anubis44 said:


> Good man. That's what I bought, too. Flashed mine using Gigabyte 7970 bios to 1GHz core/1375 memory. You can overclock more with software, but I like booting up with 1GHz on the core just to start with. Thinking of grabbing another one for crossfire.



can u unlock to a 7970?


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 23, 2013)

suraswami said:


> can u unlock to a 7970?



no, there is no extra pipes/shaders to unlock, if you have a factory card you can maybe attempt to put the GHz Edition firmware on


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 23, 2013)

After the discussion with dave today I think I will leave mine at stock bios cause of the issues that flashing could cause. 925Mhz is fine for me but I believe it should do 1Ghz on stock voltage.


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 24, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> After the discussion with dave today I think I will leave mine at stock bios cause of the issues that flashing could cause. 925Mhz is fine for me but I believe it should do 1Ghz on stock voltage.



yeah why break something that is already working?

normally youd have to increase voltage to sustain certain clocks.


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## cdawall (Mar 24, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> Awesome.  I just purchased the Gigabyte 7950.  Once I get some money for the 6970's then I'll get another.



Why the GB card?


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## cadaveca (Mar 24, 2013)

cdawall said:


> Why the GB card?



cheap, 900 MHz stock, might come with 1000 MHz BIOS stock on second BIOS. Also has better PWM than other cards.


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## cdawall (Mar 24, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> cheap, 900 MHz stock, might come with 1000 MHz BIOS stock on second BIOS. Also has better PWM than other cards.



Good reasoning I was just curious I looked at that one as well as the Sapphire one that I ended up with. The shorter card is nice to deal with in my smaller midtower.  Has voltages open to 1.3v on mine so I think it was an ok choice.


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## cadaveca (Mar 24, 2013)

cdawall said:


> Good reasoning I was just curious I looked at that one as well as the Sapphire one that I ended up with. The shorter card is nice to deal with in my smaller midtower.  Has voltages open to 1.3v on mine so I think it was an ok choice.



There aren't as many custom PCBs with the 7950's, so overall the experience is pretty level for everyone. There's a few cards with BIOSes that prevent volt control, but I think they can be avoided. Eventually, I suppose that's all that'll be left.

NOthing wrong with going with Sapphire either, same 1000 MHz BIOS lottery, but they have one left MOSFET per phase. IF ya get older stock, you might get 7970 PCB, and of course, those clock the best, since that PCB has higher TDP limit.


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## cdawall (Mar 24, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> There aren't as many custom PCBs with the 7950's, so overall the experience is pretty level for everyone. There's a few cards with BIOSes that prevent volt control, but I think they can be avoided. Eventually, I suppose that's all that'll be left.
> 
> NOthing wrong with going with Sapphire either, same 1000 MHz BIOS lottery, but they have one left MOSFET per phase. IF ya get older stock, you might get 7970 PCB, and of course, those clock the best, since that PCB has higher TDP limit.



it still gets up to 1200mhz with 1.27v. I never tried higher since it gets rather hot here I chose to stick with 1150 and 1.26v on the card as temps were best.


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## cadaveca (Mar 24, 2013)

cdawall said:


> it still gets up to 1200mhz with 1.27v. I never tried higher since it gets rather hot here I chose to stick with 1150 and 1.26v on the card as temps were best.



My one GB Windforce card does 1300 MHz with that voltage. It's just luck of the draw. Getting 1200 MHz, with new-stock cards, IMHO, is pretty darn good. Many cards won't even bench at that(and by bench I mean it artifacts, but doesn't lose scores in benchmarks).

Technically, when oyu think about it, that 1200 MHz is 400 MHz over the stock 800 MHz clocks the original 7950 shipped with, while the new BOOST GPUs are 925 MHz stock (those GPUs tend to come with the 1000 MHz BIOS).

I think many people forget that the 7970 was already "refreshed" with the GHz edition, and that these are actually a different chip (XT2 vs XT). That makes hitting those higher clocks less impressive overall, since I feel that this process from TSMC overall is capable of 1100 MHz with decent voltage. XT2 chips ship with 1.25 V and 1050 MHz for the 7970s... so that voltage you use, for a XT2 chip, is fine...stock, even.

The problem is that some cards will have pretty noisy VRM at those clocks. It's almost like all chips are capable, and OEMs are binning on VRM noise.  That's not really the case, but...funny.


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## cdawall (Mar 24, 2013)

Stock on my card was 1.25v it is a boost version I have not tried the second bios to see what it stocked with just installed trixx and kicked it up to what was normal floating around online. I am curious if it could hit 1300 with 1.3v, but since I am overseas don't really want to risk smoking anything even if it is a minor risk.

my card if your curious link non-reference PCB that's .6" shorter than OE. Not much, but keeps it out of my HDD's.


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## cadaveca (Mar 24, 2013)

That looks like "reference" analog 7970 GHz PCB, maybe, the dual 8-pin gives it away, MOSFET config would fill out the rest.

You might be good using 7970 GHz BIOSes, even.

You can run GHz BIOSes on original non-BOOST cards, but they don't clock as well as they do with the stock BIOS for some reason. It's like there is a different TDP limit, almost, but maybe that's just the boosted voltage.

I feel 1.3V should be fine for BOOST cards, especially if that's a 7970 PCB. Would have to see the PCB naked to know. My 7970 Matrix does 1.3 V with the buttons on the card, and you should know how tight ASUS is with that stuff now.  7970 DCUII TOP max voltage for them is 1.125 V, 1.175 V for non-TOP.  Pretty stupid for a card that has built-in solder points for volt mods to only allow +0.01V with that soldering, but that's how it is.


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## cdawall (Mar 24, 2013)

It only has dual 6 pins installed...I know it has the dual 8 pin solder points however. It is shorter than the stock 7950 no idea if they just removed things or not. I will have to try 1.3v and see how it does. Hopefully I can kick some more out of it with good temps. Considering in crysis 3 it doesn't break 55C I feel like it will be fine as long as the VRM's stay cool.


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## radrok (Mar 24, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> That looks like "reference" analog 7970 GHz PCB, maybe, the dual 8-pin gives it away, MOSFET config would fill out the rest.
> 
> You might be good using 7970 GHz BIOSes, even.
> 
> ...



Can you go over 1.3V with your Matrix card? I recall someone getting 1.4v with Sapphire Trixx on some cards.

I might be mistaken though.


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## cadaveca (Mar 24, 2013)

radrok said:


> Can you go over 1.3V with your Matrix card? I recall someone getting 1.4v with Sapphire Trixx on some cards.
> 
> I might be mistaken though.



Oh yeah, no problemo with that, but that's what it does stock with HARDWARE, not software. The Matrix cards have voltage that is adjustable using buttons on the card itself, goes from 1.25 V to 1.3 V, in like 8 steps or something. I suppose it might be possible to get that programmed for higher, I actually haven't had much time to play with stuff recently and just got that card a little while ago. I'll have more time coming up real soon though, spring break next week. 

Anyway, you can "burn" higher settings into the BIOS apparently, I'm eager to get playing with it on the Maximus V Extreme, since it plugs into that board for hardware control of the voltages, too. I'll be posting more about that alter though, in a thread I have already going. Eventually we'll see about LN2, that's more about having the time right now. I got the ram, board, VGA...and maybe a good chip...


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## kenkickr (Mar 28, 2013)

Received one of the Gigabyte 7950's yesterday and I guess Rev 2 has a 8+6 PCI-E power setup compared to the pic that was on Newegg.  Not a big deal but hopefully I'll get some playing time this weekend, after putting more interior doors up.


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## cadaveca (Mar 28, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> Received one of the Gigabyte 7950's yesterday and I guess Rev 2 has a 8+6 PCI-E power setup compared to the pic that was on Newegg.  Not a big deal but hopefully I'll get some playing time this weekend, after putting more interior doors up.



That's a down-binned 7970, with 7970 PCB. Nice buy, really, lucky guy!


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## kenkickr (Mar 28, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> That's a down-binned 7970, with 7970 PCB. Nice buy, really, lucky guy!



Hopefully the 2nd one is like this.  I'll find out tomorrow.


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## RCoon (Mar 28, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> That's a down-binned 7970, with 7970 PCB. Nice buy, really, lucky guy!



Both of my 7950's are on the 7970 PCB with 6+8pin, though i dont think its quite so lucky anymore, as most of the XFX DD 7950's have come with them. You have to buy an older second hand model to get a dual 6 pin pcb version.


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## cadaveca (Mar 28, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> Hopefully the 2nd one is like this.  I'll find out tomorrow.



Don't forget I'll take your second coupon! 

You'd get real lucky to get two 7970 PCBs. Make sure to chec kboth BIOSes, as there is good chance you got 1000 MHz BIOS on second BIOS.



RCoon said:


> Both of my 7950's are on the 7970 PCB with 6+8pin, though i dont think its quite so lucky anymore, as most of the XFX DD 7950's have come with them. You have to buy an older second hand model to get a dual 6 pin pcb version.



XFX cards are different.


I know, for a fact, that all of the recently arrived Gigabyte cards at my local retailer are dual 6-pin, actually. So what kenkicker got was either old stock, or really really new. Gigabyte doesn't have 100's of models of the same card like XFX does. They have five models only. 2x 7950(stock and windforce OC), and 3x 7970(stock, windforce OC, and super OC).


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## kenkickr (Mar 28, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Don't forget I'll take your second coupon!
> 
> You'd get real lucky to get two 7970 PCBs. Make sure to chec kboth BIOSes, as there is good chance you got 1000 MHz BIOS on second BIOS.



It does have the 1Ghz bios and I haven't forgotten buddy


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## kenkickr (Mar 30, 2013)

Received the 2nd one today and yet again it's 6+8.  Apparently after reading a bunch last night this is the new boost 7950 windforce.


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## cadaveca (Mar 30, 2013)

Awesome stuff. When we gonna get some pictures and benchmarks ?


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 30, 2013)

Mine came in today as well ken! Thanks to dave he helped me with the card and I got it cooling good and clocked at boost clocks!

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/458055
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6295342


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## Jstn7477 (Mar 30, 2013)

kenkickr said:


> Received the 2nd one today and yet again it's 6+8.  Apparently after reading a bunch last night this is the new boost 7950 windforce.



Pics please? I ordered a Windforce 7950 2 months ago and it was a 1.0 (dual 6 pins) with a 1000MHz non-boost BIOS (which I sent to cadaveca), default voltage was 1.25v (I think) and it overclocked like crap (literally needed 1.25v at 1125MHz or it would freeze up with the "stripes of death"). Interestingly, I flashed my XFX DD 7950 with the BIOS from that card and it was still defaulting to 0.975v unless my Afterburner was screwed up.


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## Cotton_Cup (Mar 30, 2013)

looks really awesome.


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## digibucc (Mar 30, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> That's a down-binned 7970, with 7970 PCB. Nice buy, really, lucky guy!



wait what? both my GB windforces that just arrived are 8+6, is that the only qualifying factor? you convinced me to upgrade without even trying


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## cadaveca (Mar 30, 2013)

digibucc said:


> wait what? both my GB windforces that just arrived are 8+6, is that the only qualifying factor? you convinced me to upgrade without even trying






Cards have dual BIOS, good cards will have 1000 MHz GPU/ 1250 MHz ram BIOS and 900 MHz GPU/ 1250 MHZ ram BIOS. Not all cards get that BIOS 1000 MHz, so the "free upgrade" simply requires a switch be flipped.


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## kenkickr (Apr 12, 2013)

Sorry it took awhile but here is pics of the card and some benchmarks in crossfire @ 1150/1450.  








I believe this is the voltage control since I can't find a single Chil chip


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## kenkickr (Apr 12, 2013)




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