So my friend bought this card becuase it was on sale: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026
He hasn't bought any other parts yet but he knows what he wants. Anyways, he wants to overclock this card on stock voltage. He plans on reaching something around what these guys reached: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_hd_7950_overclock_guide,2.html
He needs to know what powersupply would be good for his needs. He will only be overclocking the GPU. I know alot of people recommend the Lepa 650w, but sadly it isn't in canada. And please use newegg for the links.
Thanks :D
*Rest of planned build*
FX 6300
ASUS M5A97 R2.0
8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws
Corsair 200r
And he has an HDD.
No optical drive needed.
Since the Lepa G 650 isn't available, I would look into a Rosewill Capstone 650, XFX Pro 550, or even A Seasonic G 550. They are all fantastic PSUs that I would power any single card system with.
Sapphire has locked voltages, but can overclock to a slightly higher core, but lower memory clock. (The core is the important one)
https://teksyndicate.com/forum/overclocking/sapphire-7950-oc/144654
I got that using a crap raidmax 730Watt PSU.
Wow. 9 FPS increase for free :P That sounds very good.
As for the PSU, he's stuck between the XFX 550 and the Capstone 650. Is the Gold Certified and 650w worth it? The capstone will also leave alot of not needed cables lying around in the case.
You should be able to crack the voltage lock with MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner gave me an extra 0.1v overclocking room compaired to GPU tweak with my Asus HD 7870 DCII V2.
Sapphire have become some of the worst overclock nazis because of people damaging their cards then expecting Sapphire to replace it with an RMA for free.
It does not matter since he is OCing on stock voltage.
There is a Capstone-M model that is semi-modular; same PSU internally, just semi-modular.
I saw that. But it's 120 dollars :/ He prefers under 90 bucks. He is probably going to go with the XFX 550.
Thats prety much my setup, cpu at 4.2 for summer 4.4 when its cooler. My xfx7950 at 950mhz. XFX550w handels it but if i could go back I would get a 650w for some wiggle room.
Oh thats very cool. Since this is the overclocking forum I might as well ask, is buying a Hyper 212 (I saw it on your profile) worth it? And is overclocking your CPU worth it?
Yes and yes, at stock cpu settings(3.5ghz) I feel it holds back the 7950, at 4.2ghz the difference is High or Very High settings on Crysis 3 with vsync 60fps. Ambent temp is 26c, prime95 temps no higher than 57c. I may add an other fan to the 212 and try to get back up to 4.4ghz or just wait til Fall when its back cooler temps outside. So yes, in short, its like hotrodding our pc.
He got convinced and is now planning on buying a hyper 212 EVO (1 dollar more expensive). And I believe it comes with the thermal paste pre installed or does it come with thermal paste in a tube?
It comes with a tube, if I remember correctly. But youll want some MX4 or AS5..
Trixx is the only program that lets you adjust the voltage. I have the dual X 7950 boost and it works for me.