SAPPHIRE 100352-3L Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: So far this card has been great for me, Has great cooling, good design, amazing performance plays crysis 3 on High default, also it has a pretty blue LED 'S' on the top that for some reason i like. Came from using Nvidia cards and I am not dissapointed with the performance/price ratio with this card.
The fans are extremely quiet, my computer is about a foot away from me and i cant hear a thing with 5 case fans, the duel fans on the card and the processor cooling.

Cons: the drivers are a bit of a hassle over Nvidia where they automatically download and give you reminders that there are new drivers available.
I cant afford to buy another :(

Other Thoughts: I have not tried overclocking this card yet but with the games i play it isn't necessary.
would recommend the card to anybody who can afford it, you wont be dissapointed

Pros: Must be a good card...I'll never know but sapphire customer service is WAY MUCH BETTER than newegg.ca

Cons: I put only one egg, but its not against sapphire, but against newegg.ca. After spending more than 800$ in 3 weeks at their store, this card arrived DOA (tried in 2 of my rigs who are running great with my other GPU)

So newegg told me they could not process my rma because the little retail sleeve (estimated at .50$ vs a 310$ card) wasn't returned with it. So I contacted sapphire who told me that newegg was supposed to honored their waranty even without that little piece of cardboard. So now I know what we are worth as costumer for them

Other Thoughts: Even if I had great service in the past, I will not buy from newegg again. There are plenty of store online who also have good deals so be advised that newegg don't care at all about fidelity...

Now I have a really expensive paper weight!!!!

Pros: I bought this GPU purely for litecoin mining, as it's overkill for just SC2, and to overclock it. The only real pro for it is that it's the 7950.

- the stock thermal paste is actually really good, replacing it with Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra yielded 1 *C temp drop so that is pretty amazing (so don't replace the TIM).

- No choke whine (most lower end chokes will start whining at 80*C+, not these).

- Has core voltage control*

Cons: - This card has a boost profile button on it, which is quite odd as Off/Default = 925mhz@1.125v, On=925mhz@1.169v.

- Make sure to apply the +50 power fix, with the 925mhz power state, the cards just keep throttling until you do this.

- Sensors only picked up GPU voltage changes with Sapphire Trixx modded 4.4 - not 4.6, so no force constant voltage for increased stability for mining or new trixx updates, not with unofficial Afterburner (so again, no ability for force constant voltage), not with CCC. On top of this, I was only able to adjust core voltage using the boosted profile, which isn't bad, just really weird. I originally thought that you could only apply voltage changes with mod 4.4, but increasing temps proved otherwise and my card was just a really bad overclocker when lots of extra voltage did nothing. This is just weird more than anything. To clarify, you can change voltage with Trixx, but not with unofficial AB, and only mod 4.4 voltage changes on boost profile will show up on other sensors (hwinfo, gpu-z).

- Only able to increase voltage to 1.3v.

- You cannot change memory voltage, and it sucks being limited as an overclocker. I bought this card specifically because I heard it was one of the better cards, but no memory voltage is lame (with both mod Trixx 4.3 and 4.4).

- The card uses the lower end Elpida 60F RAM ICs, not the Hynix of better models, so you won't be able to overclock your RAM that far. You'll be lucky to hit more than 1600mhz.

- The heatsink RATTLES! I think it has something to do with a bad design with either the rear fan or the rear DVI dual outputs, but the heatsink rattles (google "7870 rattling" for an example). You just sort of prod the plastic sheath until it sits in such a way as to not rattle.

- Runs Extremely hot and loud, on stock settings and fan profile it reaches 75*C mining/stress test (21c ambient). Pretty much leaves zero room for overvoltage overclocking. This is likely an issue with 7950s and high end cards in general though, the heatsink has 2 large fans with lots of surface area and the dual-x heatsink is highly rated and supposedly outperforms other 7950s.

- There is no VRM temperature sensor. I have a discrete diode, the VRMs got into the 80s on 1050mhz@Stock 1.168v, which is extremely hot but bearable, as it's similar to GPU temps. They also removed one of the chokes and caps on the VRM - I suspect Sapphire removed an entire phase but I didn't take off the VRM heatsink, as the VRM temps aren't too bad.

This is a 7950 reference design (6+6) with what appears to be a removed phase and cap. My card did not overclock far at all, 1050mhz@1.168v and it needed over 1.27v for 1100 (extra 50mhz). ~60% ASIC score as well (a number that means nothing, but just fyi). This is just luck of the draw though, only a few cards can be gems.

Other Thoughts: I will probably RMA the card due to the rattling cooler, but it'd be a terrible inconvenience to have a month of downtime.

Not all of these issues are Sapphire's faults, but the lack of memory voltage, rattling plastic sheath, Elpida RAM instead of Hynix, lack of VRM temp sensor, a missing choke and cap make this a disappointing card.

The only thing this card has going is voltage control, with Trixx. Should've went with MSi for GPU.

Pros: Overclocks like a beast. I was able to get mine to a stable 1150/1500 @ 1.25. I could bump the voltage but for what? Maybe when i hit a game i can't do ultra settings anymore. Besides overclocking eyefinity is awesome. Coming from an nvidia card using eyefinity is easy and sweet. I'm rocking (3) 27 inch monitors with no issues at all. If your on the fence i can promise you this card is worth the cost. Single monitor my temps usually run 30C idle and 69 C max load. Using 3 monitors idle temp 49C and 74 max load. Which if you ask anyone is not bad. It's super quiet as well.

Cons: Wish i could afford 2 and do some crossfire but guess i'll have to wait until prices drop a little.

Pros: Price to Performance, among the best you can get for $250-$400 card range.

Excellent performance, 7.9 windows performance index, 8000+ graphics score in 3dmark11

Slightly smaller then other 7950's

Sim City 5, BF3, StarCraft2 never dipping below 36 fps on max settings. But I do have trouble on BF3 if I AA x16 or x8 with frame skips in tons of action.

Cons: *Heatsink is worse then the 2L, noticeably so, only 4 copper tubes in it instead of the 2L's 6, Im running them both in crossfire and the 2L runs much cooler.

*Default clock runs it hot. If your running hot download the latest CCC (13.5 beta) and turn it down. Since I have 2 and don't need max performance to play SC2/LoL and stream I run them both in crossfire with slower clocks.

*Installation CD that came with was a very old driver version (CCC 12.1, the current version is 13.5). Meh.

*Fan when running 60%+ is loudest item in build, and since my case has a mesh side, it doesn't dampen the noise at all. Sounds like a DVD burner going 100%. But since I will have 2 of these in crossfire I don't think i'll hear it often.

Other Thoughts: Only reason I have 2 7950's is because the first Sapphire HD 7950 started artifacting badly and eventually not being seen by the motherboard shortly after installation. I mistakenly thought it was the motherboard itself at first, and RMA'd it like an idiot, and by the time the 2nd motherboard got here, I couldnt RMA the card to newegg.So i'm waiting on Sapphire RMA right now so I bought the 3L card to use until then and eventually crossfire since the 2L was out of stock. As an owner of both the 2L performed just as well at a much lower temperature. I would get that instead if it wasn't out of stock.

Having 2 gaming coupons now, I can't use them both and see no way to give the other to a friend, since they are linked to your receipt/origin/steam account. I emailed AMD about it and they have not been helpful. Keep that in mind if you are thinking about buying 2 7000+ series products to crossfire.

Pros: I upgraded from a 6870, and it is significantly better in every aspect. Plays Crysis 3 completely maxed at 20-30 fps. I have maxed every other game I've tried with it no problem. It just barely peaks over 60 degrees celcius using stock automatic fan speeds on Furmark burn in test. Who needs the Vapor-X, honestly? I also noticed that they actually did a good job with thermal paste. Most GPUs come with paste just globbed on there but not this one. The fans are quiet up until around 60%, but it never needs to go that high without overclocking.

Cons: Ugly chrome piece on the corner. Meh, who cares.

Other Thoughts: It's big. I have a small case compared to most other Mid-ATX, so I'm sure it will fit in most cases.

Pros: When it worked, was getting great framerates in FC3, and it was preforming exactly how i wanted.

Cons: First of all the top screw flange(?) for where it mounts to the case, but not whole mount, was bent at a 90 degree angle but it didnt really seem like the card was that affected, so i carefully bent it back so it could fit in my case.

Impossible driver issues. Finally, after a few driver sweeps and re-installation of CCC 13.4. Got it to work, played on it for a half hour, exited out to tweak some settings but before could do anything all the sudden catalyst did not recognize the driver and lines started scratching across my desktop. Then black. Popped in my old 5770, which worked fine btw, uninstalled EVERTHING, did driver sweeps, lots of on and offs, finally got the 7950 to work again. Played for an additional 3 or so hours and it preformed perfectly! Exited out of my game (FC3), ate dinner, came back............ and blackness. Ok, i know the drivers are fine this time, maybe just a restart is in order.........NOPE. Now there was absolutely NO OUTPUT FROM THE CARD. I check everything with my old cards, and they were fine. I even formatted and re-installed windows.......NOTHING. So I gave up, and now am RMA'ing this disappointment.

Other Thoughts: Maybe I didn't hit the video card lottery or to say the least got the exact opposite. Maybe the UPS guy dropped kicked the packed to my door from the back of his truck. I don't know, but after dropping over 300 bucks, it really sucks being disappointed.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Sorry to hear about the issue you are going through with this newly purchase graphics card. Contact newegg.com and let them know if your card has been damage by shipping, because what you describe is not normal for this card.

Pros: under load the card stays around 33C which is by far one of the coldest running cards I've ever ran from stock heat sink on gpu. Under high load and crisis 3 in full 1080p it went up to 49C. I do have great air flow in my PC and an H80 running cold on top of my AMD FX 8350 as that may help with the extra cool"ness". I recommend this card for anyone that is on a budget and expects todays games to run on full having 3gb GDDR5 to push with a 386-bit bus @ pci-e x16 3.0 you'll be good for a while, i'm pretty sure this card would work great in pair under crossfire aswell. All I can say is that I bought this GPU and i'm impressed with sapphires ability to keep this card cool even under stressful loads.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: All are in my "PROS" section

Pros: The card is priced really good.

Cons: The card wouldn't crossfire with my sapphire radeon 7950 already installed, though I didn't have a problem returning it. New eggs customer service sucked when it came to shipping the item back to me.

Other Thoughts: I will update this when card gets here in a week, when it should have been here next day shipping.

Pros: This card performs amazing well for digital currency mining! This card runs very cool!

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: This card can achieve around 600Gh/s for BTC mining when pushed to 1150MHz graphics core/1100MHz Memory. I'm very please with this card. It performs similarly to the "2L" model as well.