VisionTek Radeon HD 6950s are GARBAGE!

[gnarcoinguy]

Just a warning to everyone, do NOT order the VisionTek Radeon HD 6950 900599 series, they are complete garbage.  I've had 6 out or 6 cards fail within the last 2 weeks (all brand new), and in three different machines. 

I had two fail right away and initially thought it must just be a fluke, and sent them back to Visiontek (still waiting for a replacement).  In the meantime my other 4 died completely within a day or so of each other, I have since shipped them all back to TD and am waiting for a full refund.  I only wish I sent the original two back to TD for a refund as well, since unless Visiontek sends me an entire different product it will surely be shit just like these.

Just a friendly warning, don't get burned like I did. 

[gnarcoinguy]

Update my friend ordered one as well and his just died, roughly 2 week max lifespan on these cards.  What utter pieces of shit.  So far inspite of it all Visiontek has refused to acknowledge they have a bad set of cards out there, and claim it was probably just a 'fluke.'  7/7 cards is NOT a fluke, its a disaster. 

You've all been warned.  I imagine I'm not the only one to have these problems.

[CoinHoarder]

The $169 price tag wasn't an indicator of quality? 

I thought about buying a mountain of these, but after reading reviews I decided not to. Sorry for your luck.

[flyingmonkeycrap]

Wow thats terrible...how did they get out of quality control....or maybe they dont have any.

[gnarcoinguy]

The $169 price tag wasn't an indicator of quality?  

I thought about buying a mountain of these, but after reading reviews I decided not to. Sorry for your luck.

I thought I was the cleverest guy out there and when I calculated out the $169 price and the 430khash rate as being the best possible bang for your buck...  

Guess I learned my lesson.

[gnarcoinguy]

Wow thats terrible...how did they get out of quality control....or maybe they dont have any.

Well their inability to acknowledge a SERIOUS problem is what really bothers me.  I guess I'll see what they come up with on this RMA.... I suspect they will send me more junk though.  A good rule of thumb is probably to never buy visiontek anything ever again....

[Starlightbreaker]

i thought visiontek is already well known as junk shit?

well, the price tag isn't really lying.

[testerx]

There must be something seriously wrong with your setup if you're killing all these cards.  I don't know if you use shoddy PSUs or a shoddy motherboard or you simply haven't bothered to invest in cooling but even piece of crap cards don't have a 100% failure rate.  Mining is hard on hardware, you have to invest in proper cooling and power. 

[datguyian]

A couple of weeks ago, Tiger Direct had some visiontek 7950's on sale for at least $50 bucks cheaper than the rest of the 7950's (I want to say they were going for $269 plus mail in rebates to make the m $249), so I jumped for them. After reading a bunch of "visiontek sucks for mining" reviews,  I decided not to. I ended up going with 2 Sapphire Vapor-X 7950's that were going for $290 on newegg (including a rebate I need to send off). Finally got my rig going last night, and absolutely satisfied so far. Averaging 640kh/s on both right now.

Temps aren't bad (I don't think)... averaging 69C on the lower card and 59C on the higher card. I had some issues at first, but once I got all of the settings where they needed to be, no freezes or reboots after 24 hours. I'm still waiting on my risers to come in... I would expect them to both be around 60C at worst once I get them, and will also be adding a box fan (open air rig).

Maybe when you get your other two in from visiontek sell them on ebay and then buy one or two Sapphire 7950's

[gnarcoinguy]

There must be something seriously wrong with your setup if you're killing all these cards.  I don't know if you use shoddy PSUs or a shoddy motherboard or you simply haven't bothered to invest in cooling but even piece of crap cards don't have a 100% failure rate.  Mining is hard on hardware, you have to invest in proper cooling and power.  

Nope, 3 different setups.  Good solid setups in fact, in different physical locations. Including my buddy it would be 4 different computers they have died in.  They are junk cards.  Same rig has 5850s in it now after those died as happy as they ever were.  The sad truth is Visiontek let out a batch of complete crap, and should've never sold them.  The cards received maximum cooling as well, and ran in the 65C arena under full load.  

This is why I'm so outraged, it should be impossible for all of them to fail under these circumstances, but yet it happened.  Clearly a serious problem with this batch of cards.

[gnarcoinguy]

A couple of weeks ago, Tiger Direct had some visiontek 7950's on sale for at least $50 bucks cheaper than the rest of the 7950's (I want to say they were going for $269 plus mail in rebates to make the m $249), so I jumped for them. After reading a bunch of "visiontek sucks for mining" reviews,  I decided not to. I ended up going with 2 Sapphire Vapor-X 7950's that were going for $290 on newegg (including a rebate I need to send off). Finally got my rig going last night, and absolutely satisfied so far. Averaging 640kh/s on both right now.

Temps aren't bad (I don't think)... averaging 69C on the lower card and 59C on the higher card. I had some issues at first, but once I got all of the settings where they needed to be, no freezes or reboots after 24 hours. I'm still waiting on my risers to come in... I would expect them to both be around 60C at worst once I get them, and will also be adding a box fan (open air rig).

Maybe when you get your other two in from visiontek sell them on ebay and then buy one or two Sapphire 7950's

Ended up ordering a couple of these 7950s from the egg instead,http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202030

I'm still not sure what to do about the 2 that are out at visiontek, unless I receive a completely different model number I will probably take your advice and sell them on ebay and buy another 7950.  I've heard good things about the Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X's as well as the 4L model. 

[notaek]

I got a few of these and mine have been running fine for a while now.  I get up to 460khash on some of these cards.  I'm really glad I bought them.

Plus, some of them came unlocked which is kind of weird but it is nice for mining.