High Failure Rate in Radeon 7970s

[dalewb]

Since I'm in the market to get a new high-end Radeon, I've been looking at the offerings on Newegg and what I see has been disturbing. Without going all long-winded, I've seen reported failure rates as high as 50%. XFX is by far the worst offender of DOA and quickly-defective cards. Their "Double D" series of reg and ghz edition 7970s had reported failures at 44 and 50 percent respectively. Gigabyte's GV-R797To-3GD Radeon 7970 Ghz Ed 3GB had 13% of customers report defective cards while ASUS' plain old 7970 saw 39% of customers who wrote a review report a failure.

This is not an exhaustive study. Most of the 7970s I saw for sale (in stock or not) had an average 4-egg review score. And happy customers don't write reviews as often as unhappy ones (it's just human nature). So a study like this doesn't reveal comprehensive truth. It just gives a snapshot.

I almost feel compelled to spend $39 on an extended warranty. Is this just the way things go in graphics cards or are things bad in Radeon land? One thing I would say, at least for Radeon 7000-series cards is stay away from XFX!! They may offer lifetime warranties but that doesn't do you a bit of good if you get multiple cards in a row DOA!

 

[_Hayabusa_]

The way I see it alot of people RMA their GPU thinking that it has died. When really their card is working fine.

I have had both the 680 and now I'm running sapphire v2 7970CF I can tell you I have not had any issues so far with sapphire

 

[Stuka87]

Where are these so called "failure reports" coming from? Because it would require the company conducting the report to contact every single card maker and find out what their RMA numbers are, and out of those RMA's, how many actually failed.

I will not disagree with what you said about XFX. I feel their 7k cards suck, right from the very beginning. They run much hotter and are louder.

I will also say that I feel Sapphire and MSI build the best radeons out there.

 

[videogames101]

xfx sucks now

 

[Piotrsama]

OP, as you already noted.... avoid XFX, go with Sapphire, and you're good to go.
(I have 3 Sapphires all working perfectly)

And as you also said: people with working cards, usually don't bother to go back and write positive reviews.

 

[AnandThenMan]

This is not an exhaustive study.

It's not a study at all. Where is your data?

 

[Annisman*]

I think the op is just looking at newegg user reviews for his numbers.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

General advice: Avoid Newegg reviews.

Also: MSI > Sapphire :ninja:

 

[blastingcap]

Some models of some 7xxx series Radeons had a hardware defect.. can't remember which models but I think the Sapphire 7850 was one of them. Presumably they fixed it now? I think they were using older parts that were causing the problem. I don't care enough about this topic to google it for you, so I'll let someone else talk about it.

 

[Binky]

happy customers don't write reviews as often as unhappy ones (it's just human nature)

This is the only thing you need to know.

 

[KevinH]

Some models of some 7xxx series Radeons had a hardware defect.. can't remember which models but I think the Sapphire 7850 was one of them. Presumably they fixed it now? I think they were using older parts that were causing the problem. I don't care enough about this topic to google it for you, so I'll let someone else talk about it.

It was the Sapphire 7870 a few months ago. They even stated there was a bad batch.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

General advice: Avoid Newegg reviews.

This times a thousand, unless the review is made by a verified owner, usually its just useless.


I also agree with your thoughts on MSI. Though Sapphire and Gigabyte are pretty good too. I just prefer MSI's coolers.

 

[mkmitch]

I bought my first new card in ten years...last year. Its XFX and has worked just fine. Please point me to these reports you are talking about....I don't mind longwindness if its factual and well thought out.

 

[dalewb]

This times a thousand, unless the review is made by a verified owner, usually its just useless.

I've seen a lot of uninformed user reviews on Newegg, but how else can a prospective customer really know the truth about a card's reliability except through the mouths of those who've already purchased them? I can read reviews about video cards, but that doesn't tell me a thing about reliability. I want to know if something I'm interested in has a higher-than-normal failure rate. It's why I purchased a Scion for my car years ago - they are renowned for their high reliability. I don't like having to purchase extended warranties or wonder when something I paid big bucks for is gonna fail. The informed customer is often a happy one, I think. This is common sense, is it not?

 

[Wreckem]

The original XFX DD(not Blacks, which have a different cooler) 7950s have had issues but the issues all involve the shittastic cooler on the card.

The card is fine if you switch coolers. But the stock DD cooler is just horrid and prone to failure.

 

[dalewb]

I bought my first new card in ten years...last year. Its XFX and has worked just fine. Please point me to these reports you are talking about....I don't mind longwindness if its factual and well thought out.

Well, I could publish the document I whipped up this afternoon, but this is the easiest way to get it to you: http://i.imgur.com/umzZwbx.png

It is difficult to obtain 100% accuracy unless one is committed to sifting through hundreds of user reviews one at a time - and I actually did sift through about 300, *quickly*. It would be a simpler matter if there was a 6th review category specficially for RMA complaint reviews, but there is not. Because of this, RMA/failure reviews exist in all but the 4 and 5-egg reviews, and usually only in the 1-eggers. The first entry in my study, the XFX Double D 7970 Ghz Ed., was unusual in that there were RMA reports throughout the bottom 3 review categories. Most of the other cards I looked at had few outside the 1-egg category.

I did this study for my own benefit, no one else's. But as I continued, I was disturbed by how high the failure rate was on some of these cards - and I'm talking about within the last 2 weeks. There's no way in the world I would purchase a product that shows that kind of bad run - whether it is just a bad batch or not. You can't know if it's a bad batch or if the entire product line is flawed.

ANYWAYS, I finally got the Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon 7950 3GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202003). The most recent report of failure by a customer was March 18, with plenty of satisfied customers since. With the money I saved not buying the 7970 I purchased a 1-year extended warranty for $25, which I felt was a good investment based on how much trouble I've read about from customers who've had to deal with Sapphire's RMA system. If the card dies after a year, I'll deal with that system, but at least by then I'll have had some time to enjoy it.

 

[philipma1957]

The original XFX DD(not Blacks, which have a different cooler) 7950s have had issues but the issues all involve the shittastic cooler on the card.

The card is fine if you switch coolers. But the stock DD cooler is just horrid and prone to failure.

your are correct.

the xfx are fine if you void the warranty and pull the cooler.

I have 5 or 6 xfx 7970's. every one the fans failed. but I cool them with a different set of fans and i am fine.

________________________________________________________________________

I have 2x sapphire 7970's they are very good quiet even. twin cooler


I have 1x power color 7990 under clocked it works well for mining. triple cooler

I have 1x power color 7970 reference



I have 1x vision tek reference good.

I have 2x msi reference oc nicest of all.

I have 2x msi 7950's twin frozr work well.

I have 3x sapphire hd 7790 newest card 3 of these in a 3 card mining rig seem to be great. need to wait and see how they hold up.

I would say for pure mining the msi hd7970 reference oc are best.

I am liking the new hd7790's but new so do not know if they will last.

 

[MrK6]

The average Newegg user couldn't point out the power supply in their case if you asked them. Also, your assumption of a 50% failure rate is erroneous: just because you buy a product at Newegg does not mean you are forced to give a review. In general, the people who had products with issues will be the ones to write a (mostly negative) review - sampling bias there.

Anywho, I've tried a few XFX cards over the last four years or so and they've all been crap, so I won't be buying their products again. I don't think you can go wrong with Sapphire or Gigabyte though, just get a good cooler on it.

 

[thilanliyan]

My MSI and HIS 7950s have been good so far. The MSI one has been loaded 24/7 for about a year now and no problems. The HIS ones have been loaded for only about 2 weeks.

 

[Tarvaln]

I have 5 or 6 xfx 7970's. every one the fans failed. but I cool them with a different set of fans and i am fine.

________________________________________________________________________

I have 2x sapphire 7970's they are very good quiet even. twin cooler


I have 1x power color 7990 under clocked it works well for mining. triple cooler

I have 1x power color 7970 reference



I have 1x vision tek reference good.

I have 2x msi reference oc nicest of all.

I have 2x msi 7950's twin frozr work well.

If you ever get tired of looking at any of these send me a PM. I'll take one off your hands and I won't even charge you.

 

[Ayah]

The others are correct, the one time I decided try XFX, I got bit by that decision. Avoid like the plague.

 

[Cloudfire777]

No doubt the 7970Ghz have worse rating than the GTX 680

7970 GHz:
XFX Double D. 34% with 1 or 2 eggs
Sapphire Vapor-x: 15% with 1 or 2 eggs
Gigabyte: 20% with 1 or 2 eggs

GTX 680
Asus: 12% with 1 or 2 eggs
EVGA: 8% with 1 or 2 eggs
Gigabyte: 7% with 1 or 2 eggs

 

[Stuka87]

No doubt the 7970Ghz have worse rating than the GTX 680

7970 GHz:
XFX Double D. 34% with 1 or 2 eggs
Sapphire Vapor-x: 15% with 1 or 2 eggs
Gigabyte: 20% with 1 or 2 eggs

GTX 680
Asus: 12% with 1 or 2 eggs
EVGA: 8% with 1 or 2 eggs
Gigabyte: 7% with 1 or 2 eggs

So do you make it a point to troll any post that mentions AMD?

 

[Cloudfire777]

So do you make it a point to troll any post that mentions AMD?

The MSI 7970 Lightning doesnt do well either. 19% with 1 or 2 eggs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127670

Around 20% for a products is pretty bad. Doesn`t AMD do any quality control on their silicon or do they try to save money everywhere they can and skip that part?

 

[DigitalWolf]

I purchased two Sapphire 7970's when the card first released. So obviously the cards currently available are a bit different than what I purchased.

Both of these cards are still in my "work box" working away on my projects. They are in use every day, pretty much all day.


So that is the only experience I can personally relate regarding 7970's.


*edit* I looked up the one I ordered through Newegg and the invoice date was: 1/8/12. I ordered the second from TigerDirect about 3 days later due to it being out of stock most everywhere. I added this just to give a reference to how long my cards have been in use.