Bitcoin Forum

When asking for advice on a rig in other areas, I was told that if I was planning on running the video card 24/7 100%, like for bitcoin mining, I should definitely get an XFX 6950 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150524) as opposed to the Sapphire 6950 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102949) I was planning on getting, because it would have a lifetime warranty if I bust it mining, and is also more sturdy overall.

This seems like solid advice, but I got it from people who knew a lot about computer rigs, but not as much about bitcoin mining, just that it meant running the card constantly on full. Does anyone here know if XFX has lower/higher Mhash/s, or if it just wouldn't matter as long as they had the same specs? Sapphire 6950 will supposedly have about 360 Mhash/s.

Thanks in advance. :)

Performance should be basically identical, they both started from AMD reference designs and likely didn't muck with anything but PCB positioning and the BIOS.

XFX does have a great warranty, and from what I've read they're pretty relaxed about replacing pebkac issues like hosing the BIOS (at least in North America)

I have 4 of the XFX cards and get ~360mh/s like you mentioned of the Sapphires, so that's probably proof enough.

I have a couple of Sapphire 5830s that are solid cards as well, both manufacturers seem to have their siht together.

For me (if i buy more cards anyway) it comes down to this:

$ / performance
Warranty
Cooler design

The ideal card for me in that case is an XFX 6950 with a standard turbine fan cooler (sucks air in the rear of the card, blows out the back of your case).  Unfortunately that card doesn't exist - virtually all of the 1GB 6950's use multi-fan or blow-everywhere style coolers.  Several of the 2GB models do, but the extra VRAM isn't worthwhile for mining.

Thanks a ton, I wasn't expecting to hear from someone who actually owned the card. Do you have an address I could send 0.1 bitcoin or so to?

I've never had problems with sapphire cards and they do overclock easily. That being said with no reviews for that particular card and many positive ones for the xfx I would buy the xfx.

Thanks too. :) tipped a dollar's worth in bitcoin. (.07)

People here are so generous :)

Added to my sig. since I keep getting asked for it ;)

Tipped! Thanks again :)

My experience with XFX is that they are rubbish. Well my 5870's are. Cant volt mod non reference designs where sapphire have trixx, there own overclocking program :) Easy winner.

And 5850 is better than 6950 and 6970. If you get the right 5850 its even better than the 5870's. Why? new 6 series as less stream processors, uses more power and generates less coins due to these factors. 5 series is WAY better than 6 series. By a fair distance. A new revision of shapphires xtreme cards do 1015/300 at clock volts. Trix wont volt mod this YET! that 420mhash if you were wondering with phatk kernal.

I hear 5 series is a rareity in the US though....

I might agree with you if I had any plans to do anything so complex. I'd probably break the thing. :P


Yeah, I tried pretty hard to find 5850s for a reasonable price that wouldn't cancel out the benefits.

From what I've read on the forum, people prefer Sapphire over XFX because Sapphires clock better for mining. I've found this to be true as well. I have two 5850s, one XFX and one Sapphire. At stock voltage, the limit for the XFX card is about 925/425, while for the Sapphire the limit is about 950/300 (I actually haven't tried a lower memory clock on the Sapphire, but the XFX freezes when I try to clock it at 400). The Sapphire does about 375 Mh/s and 350 for the XFX. Not a huge difference, but significant. The difference is mitigated a little by the fact that the XFX will actually produce shares at a higher rate than the Sapphire at the same clock setting (and same Mh/s). It actually took me a little while to tune the Sapphire for a higher share rate than the XFX. But currently the Sapphire's share/hour rate is about 7% higher than the XFX. Also, the Sapphire has a much better cooler. So, going on my experience and what others have reported, I recommend Sapphire over XFX, but it isn't a huge difference IMO.

thank you, sorry for the delay in that it took me a bit to figure out who did that :)