Should I buy 7950s or 7970s?

[timk225]

I am mining LiteCoin (BTC difficulty too high to bother with anymore), and I currently have a 7970, 3 6950s, a 6870, and a 6770 hashing a bit over 2.0 Mhash/sec on LiteCoins now.

I have decided to throw 3 more 7000 series cards into my mining operation, and after a lot of eBay research and seeing the prices, I will buy new GPUs with warranties rather than spend $10 less and get someone else's old used hardware.

I can get new 7950s for around $220-$230 at newegg, whereas 7970s don't start until ~$290.

Can 7950's be pimped up enough to provide comparable hash rates to 7970, or would 7970's make enough difference to be worth the extra cost?

I have a 7970 running in my main PC, and at 1000/1500 clocks and 19 intensity on CGMiner 3.3.0 and Windows 7 64 bit, it can touch 650 Khash/sec with no overvolting.

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[samfisher]

I am mining LiteCoin (BTC difficulty too high to bother with anymore), and I currently have a 7970, 3 6950s, a 6870, and a 6770 hashing a bit over 2.0 Mhash/sec on LiteCoins now.

I have decided to throw 3 more 7000 series cards into my mining operation, and after a lot of eBay research and seeing the prices, I will buy new GPUs with warranties rather than spend $10 less and get someone else's old used hardware.

I can get new 7950s for around $220-$230 at newegg, whereas 7970s don't start until ~$290.

Can 7950's be pimped up enough to provide comparable hash rates to 7970, or would 7970's make enough difference to be worth the extra cost?

I have a 7970 running in my main PC, and at 1000/1500 clocks and 19 intensity on CGMiner 3.3.0 and Windows 7 64 bit, it can touch 650 Khash/sec with no overvolting.

MSI 7950 Twin Frozr can do that easily at 1050/1250.  7950s are by far the better dollar/khash.

[crazyates]

People only go with 7970s if they're concerned about absolute performance or density. Typically, 7950s are better bang-for-the-buck, and are one of the most cost effective GPUs out there. They offer 90% of the performance of a 7970 at only 70% of the price, and they usually stay a little cooler.

[zackclark70]

I like my 7950s ( I had 83 at 1 point then sold a load now I have 19 )

I run my 7950s at 1050 core 1250 ram undervolted to 1.050v-1.062v and get 630kh +

[symzzi]

I like my 7950s ( I had 83 at 1 point then sold a load now I have 19 )

I run my 7950s at 1050 core 1250 ram undervolted to 1.050v-1.062v and get 630kh +

How long did it take to shift 64 x second hand 7950's?

[zackclark70]

I like my 7950s ( I had 83 at 1 point then sold a load now I have 19 )

I run my 7950s at 1050 core 1250 ram undervolted to 1.050v-1.062v and get 630kh +

How long did it take to shift 64 x second hand 7950's?

someone offered to buy the complete rigs for more that I paid so I sold them lol

I wasn't going to sell them but the price was to good as I can now build better rigs for less money

[timk225]

Wanna sell a few more 7950s?  What price can you make me on them?  PM me.  Remember that I can buy brand new for a touch over $200 so price accordingly!  

I look on newegg and I see a variety of 7950s, some with single fans and some with dual fans.  Are the twin fan ones any better at cooling or is it just marketing BS?

Undervolting for more performance? I've heard of raising the voltage for overclocking, but how does undervolting help?

From what I've read, 7000 series cards give their best hash rates at a 70% core to memory ratio, is that wrong?  1050/1250 is 84%.

I'll be mining LiteCoins, if that matters.  Scrypt coins, no SHA-256.

[zackclark70]

Wanna sell a few more 7950s?  What price can you make me on them?  PM me.  Remember that I can buy brand new for a touch over $200 so price accordingly!  

I look on newegg and I see a variety of 7950s, some with single fans and some with dual fans.  Are the twin fan ones any better at cooling or is it just marketing BS?

Undervolting for more performance? I've heard of raising the voltage for overclocking, but how does undervolting help?

I am not selling any more lol I will be ordering more in the next couple of weeks as I want to get more rigs up and running the best price I can get here in the uk is £211

[timk225]

What coin are you mining?  How many GPUs?  Total hash rate?  Power usage?  Post photos.  I'd like to see!

[l3jmr]

Im also on the market for new 7950's if you dont mind me highjacking this thread. What would be the best brand? I know that reference cards are best, but where i order t hey dont have them. I have ordered a gigabyte WF3 rev 2.0, 8+6pin wich is supposed to be the newest and i am very dissapointed. I can only get about 580khash on it, and i've seen people that can put the old F43 bios on it get 660khash+ with the older version of this card 6+6pin connectors. The latest card wich has FT0 bios on it (my rotten egg of a card) does not allow/does not work with the older F43 bios anymore.

So since gigabyte is out of the question for me...wich one should i get? I was looking at sapphire, power color or XFX wich are the cheapest. 190-210EUR. I have a sapphire 7970 wich i am very happy with, it runs 760khash over night so im leaning towards Sapphire 7950 boost. Any advice/suggestion/experience would be appreciated.

[zackclark70]

Im also on the market for new 7950's if you dont mind me highjacking this thread. What would be the best brand? I know that reference cards are best, but where i order t hey dont have them. I have ordered a gigabyte WF3 rev 2.0, 8+6pin wich is supposed to be the newest and i am very dissapointed. I can only get about 580khash on it, and i've seen people that can put the old F43 bios on it get 660khash+ with the older version of this card 6+6pin connectors. The latest card wich has FT0 bios on it (my rotten egg of a card) does not allow/does not work with the older F43 bios anymore.

So since gigabyte is out of the question for me...wich one should i get? I was looking at sapphire, power color or XFX wich are the cheapest. 190-210EUR. I have a sapphire 7970 wich i am very happy with, it runs 760khash over night so im leaning towards Sapphire 7950 boost. Any advice/suggestion/experience would be appreciated.

I only use sapphire varorx cards

[l3jmr]

I heared that those have crappy stock bios and you have to replace it with regular one from sapphire boost is that true? How much khash are you geting from 1 card?

[zackclark70]

I heared that those have crappy stock bios and you have to replace it with regular one from sapphire boost is that true? How much khash are you geting from 1 card?

I never changed to bios and get 630kh+ 1050core 1250 ram 1.050v-1.062v

[l3jmr]

Im running my gigabyte on 1080/1500 for 580khash, -g2 I -13 cus anything above that intensity is generating HW errors :\

[timk225]

I've been running Windows 7 64 bit, Radeon 12.8 drivers, and AMD SDK 2.7.  Is there a better driver / sdk combination for the 7950 GPUs?

Also, are single or dual fan GPUs any better than the other for cooling purposes?

I'd like to see more details on what settings people are using on their 7950s and what hash rate they are getting for Scrypt coins / LiteCoin.

[zackclark70]

I've been running Windows 7 64 bit, Radeon 12.8 drivers, and AMD SDK 2.7.  Is there a better driver / sdk combination for the 7950 GPUs?

Also, are single or dual fan GPUs any better than the other for cooling purposes?

I'd like to see more details on what settings people are using on their 7950s and what hash rate they are getting for Scrypt coins / LiteCoin.

I like 7950 vapour x cards but have a look around the forum there are hundreds of posts about it


( xfx cards suck )

[samfisher]

I've been running Windows 7 64 bit, Radeon 12.8 drivers, and AMD SDK 2.7.  Is there a better driver / sdk combination for the 7950 GPUs?

Also, are single or dual fan GPUs any better than the other for cooling purposes?

I'd like to see more details on what settings people are using on their 7950s and what hash rate they are getting for Scrypt coins / LiteCoin.

I'm using the 13.8 BETA drivers with the included SDK and hashing with no issues on my Vapor-X.  Hash rate remains the same as previous versions.

[crazyates]

I've been running Windows 7 64 bit, Radeon 12.8 drivers, and AMD SDK 2.7.  Is there a better driver / sdk combination for the 7950 GPUs?

Also, are single or dual fan GPUs any better than the other for cooling purposes?

I'd like to see more details on what settings people are using on their 7950s and what hash rate they are getting for Scrypt coins / LiteCoin.

I'm using the 13.8 BETA drivers with the included SDK and hashing with no issues on my Vapor-X.  Hash rate remains the same as previous versions.

You prolly haven't updated your .bin files? Delete your .bin files and recompile them before you say there's no difference between driver/SDK versions.

[RChevalier]

For me, the 7970s give around 660 at 72C average.  The 7950s give around 630 at 68C average.  Both cards are all undervolted to 1048, and the 7970s draw around 25-30W more according to my killawatt.  Between the higher initial cost, increased power consumption, higher heat output and thus louder noise (although most don't care about that), all for 30KH/s more, I actually regret buying the 7970s.  My recommendation goes for the 7950s.

[l3jmr]

I cant get my gigabyte over 580khash while my sapphire 7970 runs at 740khash with no crazy overclocking. Here the difference is 160khash. I've done some research and the new, latest model of gigabytes suck, that's why i was asking wich brand to get.

7950(540khash), 1080/1500, 1.090v, -g2 - i13 -tc 8192




7970(740khash). 1080/1500,  1.131v, -g2 -13 -tc 8192