Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Video Card + BioShock Infinite + Crysis 3 PC Game Coupons $270 after $20 rebate + Free Shipping

Quote from hanabie : Physical game coupon or digital delivery? Nvm got my answer

Pretty sure they're emailed to you digital key's.

Quote from Twistedshade : Pretty sure they're emailed to you digital key's.

really? saw it on ebay that it had physical coupon. I don't like selling codes on ebay =/

Quote from hanabie : really? saw it on ebay that it had physical coupon. I don't like selling codes on ebay =/

Actually I think i'm mistaken it is physical. I actually got confused and thought by physical, he meant the games themselves.

Already got the XFX 7850 2GB Core Edition with the TombRaider and BioShock + 4GB Memory (for the HTPC beef up project). Am planning to get this 7950 to drive 3 24" Displays (all Display port) and do some serious gaming.. For such very high end games -- like Crysis, Skyrim, etc... -- do I need a very fast CPU and memory too? Sorry but a noob I am at PC gaming,

I have a an Phenom X6 1100T and 32GB DDR3 - 1333 RAM on an ASUS circa early 2012 Mobo that ended its role as a Lab Hypervisor server. The mobo has an onboard HD 4250 Radeon graphics.

Would the above HW support HW gaming with this 7950 at least for the free games I am getting and the higher end games? Or should I need an INTEL K series quad core with a PCIe 3.0 motherboard?

Quote from tsikwa : Already got the XFX 7850 2GB Core Edition with the TombRaider and BioShock + 4GB Memory (for the HTPC beef up project). Am planning to get this 7950 to drive 3 24" Displays (all Display port) and do some serious gaming.. For such very high end games -- like Crysis, Skyrim, etc... -- do I need a very fast CPU and memory too? Sorry but a noob I am at PC gaming, I have a an Phenom X6 1100T and 32GB DDR3 - 1333 RAM on an ASUS circa early 2012 Mobo that ended its role as a Lab Hypervisor server. The mobo has an onboard HD 4250 Radeon graphics. Would the above HW support HW gaming with this 7950 at least for the free games I am getting and the higher end games? Or should I need an INTEL K series quad core with a PCIe 3.0 motherboard?

Nah.. your setup is good.
Wth is HW? 3 x 24" ips or 3x 24" 120hz? or 3x 24" crappy 60hz? If you are going for 3x 24" TN 60hz, I would suggest you to invest on one 27" ips or a 120hz 24" or 27"

Quote from TH0R :

There are idiots on sd talking shit like they have clue

Quote from diznanl : Would this be a substantial upgrade from my XFX 5870? I've got an AMD Phenom X6 1055T @ 3.5Ghz and 8GB 1300Mhz RAM. I've noticed slowdowns in The Witcher 2, heavily modded Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and a few other games. Looking forward to GTAV and want a card that will cut out stutter and slowdown. Is the cooling on the Sapphire better than the XFX? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...6814150588 Thanks!

Quote from yesitsmario : It would be a noticeable upgrade over a 5870, especially when overclocked. However games like Skyrim love CPU power, and would benefit from Intel cpus like the 3570k. I'd recommend you overclock your 1055T to the max to eliminate as much bottleneck possible.

This guy is right, you will definitely need to overclock your processor to see full benefits. The AMD architecture is weak, but they will overclock well hopefully to help make up the difference. Shoot for 3.8Ghz (you may be able to get 4.0 but you will need to run prime95 and afterburner for a while to make sure its stable). Beware the lack of thermal protection, nothing over 4.75V (You can try 5, but it's risky) on the vCore please.

Here: http://www.overclock.net/t/884103...king-guide

OOS. Had been considering picking it up, finally decided to...and gone. blah.

Quote from Germanian : can you upvote this thread? Some douchebag downvoted this great deal and people won't see it now. It's -1.

Wow... Regardless of how good/bad the actual deal is, the way the thread is handled is something else. Personally I don't like the Up/Down Scale beyond a certain point it's just numbers and threads waging war over how they are over the 50% of popularity. Regardless of that, to believe that your thread is somehow "the best" or "just that good" (not actual quotes from anyone) and demand that everyone thumbs up and berrate someone who downvoted the thread is throwing the order of the thread up/down scaling out of balance by your bias.

The downvotes are there for people to participate in, they don't have to explain why they downvoted, and if they want to, they can post a comment.

Quote from moktor : OOS. Had been considering picking it up, finally decided to...and gone. blah.

It is in stock right now at Newegg.

Quote from ohiwastedmylif : It is in stock right now at Newegg.

thanks! Snagged one!

Wow. There is a hell of a lot of bias in this discussion. Nvidia fanboys say that a Radeon GPU is worse than software rendering, and the AMD fanboys say much the same for Nvidia.

I am not on either side. I believe you have to play with the hardware yourself to determine what is best for you and your preferences.

What I will bother to say about this card is that it is not a good deal. There is a Gigabyte brand 7950 that has a stock frequency of 1Ghz for no more than an extra $20. And the reviews all seem to agree that it is cooler than this at the higher speed too.

But the 7950 is not much of an improvement from earlier cards from years ago. I have a 5850 that is about 3/4 the potency of this card. I bought it in early 2010 for ~$230.

Here is the specifications of a stock 5850 [amd.com] card.

And here are the 7950 [amd.com] specifications.

So the 5850 has 1440 Stream Processing Units operating at 725 Mhz. The 7950 has 1792 SPUs at 850 Mhz. Do the math. It is not much of a boost for a card three years newer.

If you are like myself and have an older card, stick with it a while longer. You can disable Antialiasing in most games without being able to notice any degradation in individual frames, and boosting your FPS average by quite a bit.

There are situations where AA helps though, but 99% are BS. Games should never have chain link fences because they require AA to smooth the garbled mess they produce when rendered. If a game you are playing features 3D rendered chain link fences, it merely means the developers sold their souls to GPU makers to increase sales on new GPUs.

The one advantage I know of is that the 7950 has 3 GB of RAM. But how many games are even capable of using that? A few, I am sure, but none that I am aware of.

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Quote from ohiwastedmylif : Well the way it goes around here lately, if you shout real loud and post proof from some unknown third party source, your opinion is gold. Otherwise your opinion is disregarded and you are an ignorant noob. I doubt anyone will see your post since this deal is out dated, but I had the same resistance to it as well. I ended up buying it to switch out my GTX460 but everyone on here likes to call each other idiots for thinking a 2-3 year old card is 75-80% of what this one is. I am going to try it out and see but I am skeptical that this will be that vast of a difference. I am on your side!

You made my day. Just knowing that one singular person read and understood my point was well worth the petty amount of time it took to make it.

I hope the card is good and works well for many years to come. Enjoy it!