You can get them for around the £260 mark if you shop around a little. Amazon has them for that for sure, but I'm not sure how the game bundles would be handled.
hmmm, so getting a hd 7950 that overclocks past 1.1ghz with good cooling is not a bad idea? I'm really trying to control the itch!!! the performance looks tempting, the power consumption too, with a good cooler it'll be pretty quiet as well (although not as quiet as my 480 but meh, I can live with that I guess). I just can't see any other reasonable gpu upgrade atm. other than the 7950 there's the gtx 670 which after overclocking looses out, then there's the hd 7970 and gtx 680 which are more expensive but again, a good hd 7950 will be thereabouts, performance wise. then there's a £400+ gap between these £300 gpus and the gtx 690 and hd 7990. The market doesn't really offer that much atm if I'm honest. EDIT: the HIS IceQ x2 hd 7950 comes with Crysis 3 and "Bioshock". anyone knows which bioshock it is?
My current card is a Sapphire Flex. I've managed to get it to 1130/1700 stable, couldn't tell you about Crysis 3 as I don't own it and don't really intend on getting a copy. I did have an IceQ Boost (The venting design) that could push 1200 core, it's currently sitting in another rig. The Sapphire cards in general seem to do well to be honest, although the best results I've seen from them have been from the newer Vapor X cards (they have two 8 pins if I remember right). I think Pill Monster is running one with decent clocks, could be worth asking him. If the HIS cards are a little too expensive I'd consider them.
If it helps I don't think I've seen anyone on the forum getting less than 1100 on the core for a 7950. Still, upgrading from a 480 is iffy. That said, there doesn't look to be a mainstream/retail GPU release from either Nvidia or AMD anytime soon.
I'm kinda in the same boat Eclap, my 470 at the clocks I'm running isn't too far from a 580. Regardless, the 7950 is tempting at its price point.
@eclap I own a Sapphire 7950. No OC yet. Haven't Oced my system at all actually. I play Witcher 2 All Maxed with ubersampling at 1920x1080 at a 42" TV peaking at about 40fps and about 20-30 continuous. When I disable ubersampling I get 55+. Crysis 3 have no stutters at all so although I do not use fraps I would say I get from 55-70 fps. Dead Space 3 has a constant 60+. Imo, the 7950 is the best buy right now as you pay for a 7950 and you're buying a 7970 if you want to OC.
right, slept on it and the itch is still there. here's why. crysis 3 runs poorly on the gtx 480, would run better on hd 7950. I'm not even a crysis fan but having a game out there that runs bad irks me. makes sense?
a 7950 for Crysis 3 so it doesn't run bad make sense? imo no it doesn't, a 7970 yes, or if you want to dominate it then get two.
well... a good oc on the 7950 would easily put it past 7970 ghz performance. in bf3 such a 7950 gives me around 25fps increase. that's not bad and probably translates to around 10-15 gps in crysis 3.
yes an OCed 7970 for crysis 3, not one at stock clocks, who puts their single card setup at stock clocks anyways. so you're thinking about getting a 7950, it may work but i dunno about maxing out that sweet sweet water.
not even thinking about maxing it. but 45+ fps, on very high no AA. also less power consumption, more vram...
There is no reason to OC a card that can play everything at stock speeds. That way you only start wearing it more and faster. I only think about OCing it for the witcher 2 in order to enable ubersampling but until I start dedicating my play to the game I don't want to OC it. The 7950 plays Crysis 3 without the slightest problem all maxed out at 1080p tested.
the 7950 plays crysis 3 ALL maxed 1080 at what 10fps? OCing cards helps with minimum frames, the faster the core clock the better, same with ram actually. OK i can see you're making great sense here so i got ears for you, lemme ask -can you not afford a 7970 right now? - the menu of the day is get the lesser card and OC it to the higher raged performance one, which is all well and good but what about those high end cards you suppose they're waste of money? Have you seen the 7970 perform in benchies, i've played crysis 3 and know how similar the 7970 is with my own card, i really feel a 7970 would suit you better for this game, it's touching near photorealism in parts dude. it would be worth it to spend that bit more, like a 7970 lightning.
Well. I was wrong. Damn it I get to get confused a lot. First with the 7850 thinking it was the HD8xxxx series and now with this. You are right. I have no idea how the crysis 3 will play. I actually wanted to say Crysis 2. Sorry for the misinformation. I tend to play a lot of games all at once and sometimes I get confused over the numbers. Playing Witcher 2, Far cry 3, Crysis 2, Dead Space 3, BF3, Planetside 2, Diablo 3 and all have numbers at the end.
that's fair play but the 7970 is about £70 more and all I get for that is 4 rops and same oc ability and more power consumption.
