7950 Vapor X Sapphire

[majnu]

Hi,

This card is on offer today for £240 with sleeping dogs and I'll appreciate if anyone who owns one or is in the know how can answer a couple of questions please?

1. How does this exhuast air, is it into the case or does it vent it out the back?
2. I keep hearing that the card is voltage locked yet some people say it's not true and some say it's true. Even on Saaphire's forum a member had a voltage locked card.
3. Would this be the best card for crossfire out of the 7950 range? I'm gaming on a 27" 1440p monitor.

Thanks

 

[Monster_Munch]

Hi,

This card is on offer today for £240 with sleeping dogs and I'll appreciate if anyone who owns one or is in the know how can answer a couple of questions please?

1. How does this exhuast air, is it into the case or does it vent it out the back?
2. I keep hearing that the card is voltage locked yet some people say it's not true and some say it's true. Even on Saaphire's forum a member had a voltage locked card.
3. Would this be the best card for crossfire out of the 7950 range? I'm gaming on a 27" 1440p monitor.

Thanks

I have the 7970 Vapor X which I think uses the same cooler. It vents air both out the back and into the front of the case.

I think the Asus Direct CU II cooler is better in terms of performance and noise, but it uses 3 slots rather than 2 like the vapor x so it might not be as usable for crossfire.

 

[3DVagabond]

The VaporX is also a 2+ slot card. You'll need 2 empty slots in between the cards for crossfire.

IMO it, and the MSI TFIII (Which is a true 2 slot card) are the best of the bunch. If you want a card that exhausts out of the case then the HIS IceQ is the best for that. It's cooler is also 2+ slots.

I haven't heard anything about the VaporX being voltage locked. It uses the "CHiL CHL8228G" voltage control chip which does offer software voltage control and is supported by all of the aftermarket software (Trixx, Afterburner, etc...) If Sapphire has locked it in the BIOS then it can be "fixed" by flashing a BIOS that offers Voltage control on the 2nd BIOS.

 

[majnu]

Thanks for the replies. The DU2 is a great card, but unfortunately isn't priced as handsomely. Monster Munch is your card voltage locked? Have you overclocked it past stock voltages?

I have a 650D case and it has 2X 200mm Spectre Pro Intake fans. One of them being on the side mesh to blow over the cards. For the exhaust I have 2X120mm fans at the top of the case. Hopefully this will be enough to cool the cards.

I have the Z77 Sabertooth and in the manual it says use PCIE 3.0 16 1+2 for best performance. If the card will not fit in the second PCIE 3.0 2 slot and I need to fit it at the bottom will this affect performance?

I have a Titanium HD soundcard in the PCIE slot above the primary graphics slot FYI.

 

[KompuKare]

@majnu

Is that with free delivery (I'm assuming it's from overclockers.co.uk)?

Never bought anything from them since their delivery is too much. I do get free delivery from scan via Hexus but the overclockers forum free delivery offer requires 250 posts so I never bothered... is there 250 posts worths of stuff to talk about on their forum?

 

[majnu]

Yes it's from Overclockers. I have over 250 posts so I get free delivery. I believe that you can also be a member for over 3 months and have less than 250 posts to get free delivery also. But I'm not sure about the details.

 

[Monster_Munch]

Thanks for the replies. The DU2 is a great card, but unfortunately isn't priced as handsomely. Monster Munch is your card voltage locked? Have you overclocked it past stock voltages?

I have a 650D case and it has 2X 200mm Spectre Pro Intake fans. One of them being on the side mesh to blow over the cards. For the exhaust I have 2X120mm fans at the top of the case. Hopefully this will be enough to cool the cards.

I haven't touched the voltage at all. I've only overclocked it a little bit though the catalyst control center.

Your case will be fine I'm sure. The cards don't run very hot or loud when idle but they can get pretty noisy when gaming. If you have an intake fan on the side panel blowing cool air onto the cards it should help to keep them quieter.

 

[KompuKare]

Yes it's from Overclockers. I have over 250 posts so I get free delivery. I believe that you can also be a member for over 3 months and have less than 250 posts to get free delivery also. But I'm not sure about the details.

Yes read it up (there's a sticky on their forum) but it worse than that: 250 posts (not spam) plus 90 days minimum membership.

While there are occasional good threads on the forum (for instance one of the first the 7850 overclocking threads), I think I'd probably only qualify for free postage after a year unless I post like mad.

 

[majnu]

Just make a few posts in general section every day and you'll soon have enough posts. :thumbsup:

Card ordered along with a Seasonic 860W PSU. I'm sure that there will be a bios to unlock voltages if it is voltage locked. If I have no problems overclocking the card and can hit 1100 on stock volts then I may just get another.

1200 core clock is a nice figure to have :awe:

 

[paperfist]

How quiet is this card under load?

I was going to order one soon, but it looks like newegg pulled them/ran out of them

 

[majnu]

How quiet is this card under load?

I was going to order one soon, but it looks like newegg pulled them/ran out of them

I've not received it yet, it's due tomorow. But I'll be able to test it and run benches properly on Friday due to work commitments.

 

[paperfist]

I've not received it yet, it's due tomorow. But I'll be able to test it and run benches properly on Friday due to work commitments.

Thanks I'd like to hear the results! Though I still can't seem to find any for sale, but at least newegg has them listed as auto-notify now instead of discontinued.

 

[pabs]

To reiterate what Monster_Munch said, the 7970 Vapor-X is not quiet under load. Comparing it to a 7950 Dual-X, the Vapor-X is louder using the *auto* fan profile but not significantly so. This may be due to a more aggressive fan profile, but even at 60% fan speed (the speed which the fan ramps up to when I'm playing GW2) I can hear it quite clearly.

If you really cherish silence, I've read good things about the Powercolor PCS+ 7950 from another AT member and the Asus DC2 coolers have been positively reviewed with regard to noise. Problem with the DC2 models is that there were some reports of faulty contact with the cooler when it first launched on the 79XX series, I have no idea on the status of those issues, but even looking at NE reviews it wasn't the best rated card at the time of my purchase.

 

[paperfist]

To reiterate what Monster_Munch said, the 7970 Vapor-X is not quiet under load. Comparing it to a 7950 Dual-X, the Vapor-X is louder using the *auto* fan profile but not significantly so. This may be due to a more aggressive fan profile, but even at 60% fan speed (the speed which the fan ramps up to when I'm playing GW2) I can hear it quite clearly.

If you really cherish silence, I've read good things about the Powercolor PCS+ 7950 from another AT member and the Asus DC2 coolers have been positively reviewed with regard to noise. Problem with the DC2 models is that there were some reports of faulty contact with the cooler when it first launched on the 79XX series, I have no idea on the status of those issues, but even looking at NE reviews it wasn't the best rated card at the time of my purchase.

Thanks for the feedback.

Is it possible to swap out any of these GPU fans or coolers for quieter ones?

 

[zaydq]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2259333

I know you're looking at a Sapphire card, but my thread has alot of overclocking and bench information on MSI's TFIII 7950 that could relate to your Sapphire.

and my sig has a 3dmark11 score with my 7950 at 1200 core clock

 

[paperfist]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2259333

I know you're looking at a Sapphire card, but my thread has alot of overclocking and bench information on MSI's TFIII 7950 that could relate to your Sapphire.

and my sig has a 3dmark11 score with my 7950 at 1200 core clock

Wow how can you say no to that price?

It's funny though, MSI has been around since dirt, but my mind won't let me picture it as a graphics card company.

Still the price! I have to consider it, thanks

 

[Fire&Blood]

Problem with the DC2 models is that there were some reports of faulty contact with the cooler when it first launched on the 79XX series, I have no idea on the status of those issues, but even looking at NE reviews it wasn't the best rated card at the time of my purchase.

Yeah, a friend of mine bought one in Eastern Europe, paid a small fortune (~$700 7970 for DC2, at launch) and he went through hell and lost like 15% in the process of returning the card. Any high tech merchandise makes the retailers act shady over there.

I'm very happy with my TF3 but I was very tempted by the Sapphire version. I normally weigh heavily on cooling/noise/price in that order but the price drop on the MSI and the PCB caught me off guard. I would like to see how a high ASIC card compares, to mine, most of the ones I saw on the web were below 70%.

One of the posters in VC&G has a card with a >95% ASIC rating with a stock sub 1v voltage, would I like to borrow that one.

 

[zaydq]

The msi TF3s in my thread were consistently mid high 80s in terms of asic or higher. These are with 7970pcbs. I heard sapphire's new cards are similar.