Best 7950 with the best ability to be overclocked?

[breadswonders]

There are a few 7950 roundups out there, but none of them include a lot of the new models, so I'm wondering which one would be the best, and have the best capabilities. Preferably if you could point one out from this page http://www.memoryexpress.com/Brand/amd/NeverSettleReloaded.Offer.aspx (my local computer store), however, if there is a massively better 7950 that these guys don't carry, feel free to point it out, and please provide some sort of evidence for your claims. If your answer contains no more substance than "I use this card and it works great", you needn't reply. Thanks for any help!

 

[ikes9711]

This card will overclock like crazy... http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX43710

 

[4745454b]

Even though I just bought one you'll want to avoid the Gigabyte cards. Voltage locked from what I hear. The MSI should be could, along with a Sapphire Vapor-X card. The Asus with the DCII cooler on it should also be good.

 

[Novuake]

My Sapphire Dual-X's are great(not as quiet as the Vapor-X though). If you can still find one somewhere.

EDIT : OK I admit I was trolling a bit. My HD7950s are both at 1180 MHz with very little voltage added. They can go more, but running two of them is hot as is. I got the first one to 1260 at one stage before i got uncomfortable.
LOL
This is mine.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX37639

I have also read GREAT review on this one.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42654

 

[breadswonders]

My Sapphire Dual-X's are great(not as quiet as the Vapor-X though). If you can still find one somewhere.

EDIT : OK I admit I was trolling a bit. My HD7950s are both at 1180 MHz with very little voltage added. They can go more, but running two of them is hot as is. I got the first one to 1260 at one stage before i got uncomfortable.
LOL
This is mine.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX37639

I have also read GREAT review on this one.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42654

I read in one of the roundup's that the 7950 iceQ was the most powerful, so I can only speculate that the x2 is even better!

 

[frenchs105]

my sapphire is awesome, runs everything highest settings, just struggles with SSAO on some games

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202006

 

[JJ1217]

I've got the Asus DCII cooler, and I love it.

I'd avoid the Vapor-X if you want to overclock, it has rather bad vrm cooling (Which is peculiar as the 7970 Vapor-X has a beastly cooler), and its also voltage locked. Newer Gigabyte 7950's with the new bios are also voltage locked, however this more than likely won't matter as its overvolted already to 1.25V, you could technically easily get 1.2GHZ on their "stock volts", which is why people seem to think it overclocks better. A standard 7950 voltage is 1.093 V.

The TF3 is pretty good, but rather loud.

 

[Novuake]

My Sapphire Dual-X's are great(not as quiet as the Vapor-X though). If you can still find one somewhere.

EDIT : OK I admit I was trolling a bit. My HD7950s are both at 1180 MHz with very little voltage added. They can go more, but running two of them is hot as is. I got the first one to 1260 at one stage before i got uncomfortable.
LOL
This is mine.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX37639

I have also read GREAT review on this one.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42654

I read in one of the roundup's that the 7950 iceQ was the most powerful, so I can only speculate that the x2 is even better!

Stock its very powerful yes, but that is just cuz it has a very high factory OC. A Sapphire card with the same clock will perform the same. But yes, either of those two cards should exceed 1200MHz.

 

[photonboy]

Asus DC2 (out of stock?)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121716&Tpk=asus%207950&IsVirtualParent=1

The 3-slot solution is due mainly due its large heatsink. A large heatsink allows a more stable overclock at lower noise. The lower the amount of passive (heatsink) cooling you have the greater a fan needs to spin to dissipate heat.

Even a small overclock has a huge impact on the noise level when gaming.

 

[darkspartenwarrior]

Good:7950 Dual-X Boost(cheap, good overclocker)
DirectCuII Asus 7950 Boost(triple slot, quiet, great cooling due to oversized heatsink)
IceQ(Good if you plan to CF in the future because of the blower fan, the x2 is good too)

Bad:Any Gigabyte one(voltage locked)
Any XFX Model(terrible VRM cooling and some are voltage locked)
Vapor-X(bad VRM cooling and voltage locked).

 

[Technocaveman]

i got the cheapest one at mem express in november with the 3 game never settle, was the h.i.s. reference7950 card for 299 + rebate. flashed it to the ghz bios very nice card, if the rest of the stock was binned like this one, its a very good deal with the overclocks i've played with. picking up another next week to xfire. running 3 27's right now, paying on the other 3 for 6 screen eyefinity madness


fx8350 zalaman w/c
gigabyte ga990fxa-ud7
HIS7950 (soon to be 2)
16g gskill 1600
coarsar ax860 psu
60g ssd os 128g ssd games 120gssd more games 3x500gseagates raid5 media 1tb seagate backup media
thermaltake level 10 snow 3x27' asus ve278Q (soon to be 6)