Yes, it is the XFX 7950 core edition. That could explain it...I may have to consider getting a different card in that case. I liked the idea of the lifetime warranty on the XFX, but if I'm getting 20-30% higher temps (which in my mediocre cooling situation means 20-30% lower hashrate), then this is a pretty bad deal.

The hot XFX 7950 is indeed in the first slot. I guess swapping the two cards would be one thing I could try in the meantime.

What 7950 should I be looking at getting instead? The Sapphire? I see there are several different models of the Sapphire 7950, is there a specific one that's better than the others for litecoin mining?

Thanks for the replies guys

I am wondering why I am getting such bad temperatures with my XFX 7950.

I am litecoin mining with guiminer. When I initially got this 7950, I went with all stock settings (no overclocking etc and just using the guiminer recommended settings for a 7950 high usage) and I was able to get about 530-550khash however temps hit nearly 100 after a bit.

Since then I have underclocked and have been mining at around 83°C and getting about 430 khash on the card, which is much worse than I see other people mention. My current settings for this are around 750 mhz gpu core, 300 mhz memory speed, and I voltage dropped to 1.0 (this is underclocked considerably to lower temps). Fan speed is 90-100%. I've tried many many settings but this is the best I'm able to get and stay below 85°C.

My set up is a basic midtower smallish Antec case that is certainly not optimized for cooling, but its not horrible. It has an 80mm intake fan in the front and a 120mm exhaust fan in the back. There's no hard drives or cables in the way of that air flow from the intake to the video cards. I also have a second 7850 video card installed that I mine at the same time with (I get about 320 khash max and it runs much cooler around 55-60°C).

From what I've read, I should be able to get at least 500khash and stay at around 70°C pretty easily on a 7950, even with mediocre cooling and a second card running?