All Sapphire 7950s (11196-19-20G) are not suitable for mining?

[induktor]

The problem with Sapphire is only with the model 11196-19-20G and only with specific Serial numbers.  Vapor editions have more quality components except with the fans that i think are holy crap in most Sapphire cards.

Huh!, didn't knew that, none of my cards are 19-20G, and yes, I agree vaporX fans are CRAP.
I only have 3 vaporx cards, that I bought them months ago for testing, crap!, the fan died, and have to replaced with server quality fans.

That didn't happened with OC Boost, and Flex models which fans are better, still they require to disassemble them and oil the bearings every other month, but other than that, they are almost....good.
The real shitty fans are the MSI's R9 ones, geez!, I bought 10 cards to test them out, all of the fans died within 30 days!, unbelievable!.

[lapja]

I had bought 7 actually from this famous 11196-19-20G serie, SN A13510xxxxxxxx

Thay ran fine 24/7 for a few days... then one after the other 6 out of 7 were out.  Three of them in the spectacular purple smoke fashion described above. 

In the begining I was suspecting power variations and I ran out and bought a power stabiliser.  But that did not prevent another 7950 to burn right before my eyes.

Power supplies (by the way two of them do not work any longer following the purple somke episodes) were 80 plus gold or platinum. I did not overclock my cards while mining and tried to keep them as cool as possible with latteral fans blowing on both sides.  Temperatures stayed always below 68° C.

I checked out in the internet and apparently there are several similar stories with these cards. 

I had also several 270x from Sapphire in the same rigs that the faulty 7950 and they seem to run fine despite the sparks and smoke that burnt the 7950.

I also have other cards and not a single one of my other cards have had a glitch. I am not an expert but clearly the 7950 (or at least the 11196-19-20G serie) are unreliable compared to other models. 

[SaRmY]

I have recently news about the subject...
The online store returned me the money that I paid for three fried gpus because Sapphire failed to repair these cards since more than 6 weeks working in it so the problem it's more gravely than I suspected.

[lapja]

I explained to the store that these cards were all burning even though held at optimum conditions. They apparently tested them and they sent me today 3 replacements but with Sapphire R9 280 instead of HD 7950.  (Not the 280X version!).  i think it is essentially the same card but just a different series.

I still have another 3 burned 7950 cards to send back, but they said that it would be ok to replace those too with R9 280.

The fact is that the HD 7950s fire up at a whopping 300 W against 220 W for the R9 280, while having a slightly higher hashrate.  So I'm happy to exchange them.

[SaRmY]

I explained to the store that these cards were all burning even though held at optimum conditions. They apparently tested them and they sent me today 3 replacements but with Sapphire R9 280 instead of HD 7950.  (Not the 280X version!).  i think it is essentially the same card but just a different series.

I still have another 3 burned 7950 cards to send back, but they said that it would be ok to replace those too with R9 280.

The fact is that the HD 7950s fire up at a whopping 300 W against 220 W for the R9 280, while having a slightly higher hashrate.  So I'm happy to exchange them.

Yeah, you had luck with the change because the R9 280 has a bit more hashrate than the 7950 and I'm sure that has more quality.

[SpeedDemon13]

A lot of people forget to have good core components, ie. PSU, MB, etc. A PSU can ruin the whole system, ie. burnt gpu cards. Don't go cheap on the PSU especially.

[Handofmidas]

Update: In my previous post all my cards were working. Now all three A1351 cards are dead.

[hulk]

I explained to the store that these cards were all burning even though held at optimum conditions. They apparently tested them and they sent me today 3 replacements but with Sapphire R9 280 instead of HD 7950.  (Not the 280X version!).  i think it is essentially the same card but just a different series.

I still have another 3 burned 7950 cards to send back, but they said that it would be ok to replace those too with R9 280.

The fact is that the HD 7950s fire up at a whopping 300 W against 220 W for the R9 280, while having a slightly higher hashrate.  So I'm happy to exchange them.

But the problem is R9 280 cost cheaper then R9 280x. So they should do like partial refund or some free accessories..