So I've had my Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Dual-X Boost for around 5 months. All of a sudden a few weeks ago, my screen went black. I went into safe mode, removed catalyst, and the gpu appeared to function as normal with just the generic drivers. Installed catalyst again, black screen. I tried Linux to see if it were just a Windows issue, nope. Catalyst black screens on Linux as well. Today I popped open the case and found burn marks on one of the vrms on my gpu. Looked through a few forums and found that it is a common problem on these gpus. I am requesting an RMA, not sure if it is covered by Sapphire or not.
I've had the same card for 15 months and everything has worked fine. There's every chance you got a bad card, which happens. It should be covered.
I read that the vrms burn out on some of these whenever they are stressed just a little too much. Mostly happens with mining(which I have never done).
I'm not nearly as great a proponent of Sapphire cards, although I've never owned one. I simply have a set of brands that I have been indoctrinated into trusting by the common culture of the tech community (Asus, MSI, EVGA.)
Their customer support sucks. Never received my rebate even though it was approved.
I have yet to hear one good thing about rebates. I never buy if the price depends on a rebate.
Also, keep in mind that you're not going to find all the people who bought the card posting online saying "Yeah the card preforms how it should without any problems"
You're really only going to hear the people that got bad picks. So don't always think that just because you google an issue that it is a common issue with a component.
Yeah, I really wasn't thinking of that. That's why you see so many bad reviews on Newegg. It's just after only about 20 minutes of research the only issue I have really seen is burnt vrms.
Well, usually the people complaining about burnt VRMs are usually the idiots who pick up cards from companies who build the cards for stock usage and mild overclocking, not for a decent overclock like the way Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, and similar companies build their cards to withstand a decent amount of OC, with higher quality VRM and Capacitors.
And some of the people who write reviews like that are also people who may just not like a company because they had a bad pick, and then forever down vote any products from them.
Basically don't trust reviews unless it's from a reputable source, like someone who's job is reviewing things of these sorts, like the guys at Anandtech and such.
I have the older sibling to that card (Sapphire HD 6950), and as Hikage put it, "Yeah the card preforms how it should without any problems". I don't know about the customer service because I never had any issues with the card, but I wouldn't be surprised if it sucked because that seems pretty much the standard in the tech industry I've noticed.
Damn, called me an idiot lol(I didn't really bother to check into that) I did apply a mild overclock up to 1000mhz, but only left it on for a few days, that was when I first bought the card way back in November. I have left it stock ever since.
Yeah. I guess I just jumped the ship a bit, concluding that the card has obvious vrm problems after only about 20 minutes worth of research. I was just pissed off. Hopefully Sapphire will accept my RMA request within a reasonable amount of time.
That mild of an overclock would not have damaged the card. I'm 99% sure the card failing is not your fault.
I had a hd6870 form Sapphire and it still works to this day in one of my friends computers. I remember I did a rebate for it too and I got it in the mail. I guess you were just unlucky. The rebates are sometimes done by outside company's that they hire.
I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 6790, I have no problems with it what so ever
Aha, no, you're not an idiot for doing a mild overclock, I meant idiots who do a substantial OC on cards that aren't built for it at all.
I spent enough money on this build. I've got no more dough for any more PC stuff right now lol. I was toying with the idea of selling my 7950 while there were those massive price hikes on them due to mining, but in the end decided not to, and thankfully so, because I'd have a pissed customer with an eventually damaged card.
I have that exact card. I OC mine to a consistent 1185 core/1500 memory.
Been OCed for almost a year now.
Yeah like I said, I jumped ship. I was pissed, made a quick conclusion after a couple internet searches. Shame on me lol. I built a relative a pc recently that died due to a power surge just months after being built, and my pc shits out, it gets a little frustrating. All manufacturers have parts that shit out, and I was just unlucky enough to receive one of them.
Just an update, sent off an RMA request today. Sapphire Support has been relatively quick to get back to my emails. I guess I really shouldn't judge a company off a single bad experience.