CryptoBadger

Many of you have contacted me recently asking for my opinion of x brand/model of 7950 GPU, given that some of the top choices from my mining hardware guide are sold out everywhere. Thought I’d throw up a quick post with some of the best alternatives for those of you that are looking to build a rig.

Yes, the Radeon 7950 is still the best GPU mining platform (and probably will be for quite some time), assuming you don’t have access to free electricity. Click “read more” for the list.

Top Tier cards

If you can find an MSI TF3 in stock anywhere at a price that isn’t outrageous (a lot of people are trying to sell them for $400-500 given the latest mining rush), absolutely grab it—it’s still the best option. Note that the “BE” (“Boost Edition”) models are not the same cards and will likely result in slightly lower mining speeds than their non-BE counterparts (update: I didn’t mean to give the impression that the BE model is necessarily a bad choice for mining—it’s a fine performer, but given the choice, grab the non-BE model if possible).

The Gigabyte WF3 cards are on par with the MSI cards speed-wise, although there are quite a few reports of blown VRMs on these cards (I experienced one myself, but I’ve also used quite a few of them). Gigabyte does offer a 3-year warranty on the card, and the RMA process is relatively painless, so don’t let that stop you if you’re looking for a top-tier mining card (assuming you can find any in stock).

The Sapphire Vapor-X is what I’ve been using in the mining rigs that I build for customers lately, given that Amazon seems to get new stock in daily. It offers 99% of the speed of the MSI and Gigabyte cards, while offering near silence (at least in comparison to other top mining GPUs). The extremely low noise of these cards is really nice if your rig will be located within earshot. The Vapor-X cards are also constructed like tanks—they’re significantly heavier than other brands—and it’s the only brand of card that I’ve used that I’ve never had to RMA for any reason.

The Sapphire HD 7950 offers the performance of the Vapor-X card without the superior acoustic qualities. It’s also a bit cheaper, so if your rig will be located someplace that you won’t be able to hear it anyway, this might be your best choice.

Edit: If you’re looking for cgminer settings for any of these cards, check out my FAQ entry on the subject.

Other good options

I’ve had several comments from people that are running HIS IceQ cards at 640+ Kh/sec while undervolted without issues, although I haven’t used one myself. The single fan would appear to be a disadvantage when compared to the top tier choices, but the performance of the card seems solid.

I’ve also heard favorable things about the PowerColor HD7950, especially given it’s (typically) low price.

Avoid

Anything by XFX, if you trust the general consensus of the internet mining community. I haven’t used XFX’s cards personally, but there seem to be quite a few people that are unhappy with them.

Non-7950 Options

Perhaps you have access to free (or extremely cheap) electricity, or mining isn’t your primary concern. Here are some options that aren’t based on the Radeon 7950 GPU.

The Radeon R9 280X is probably the best “next generation” GPU choice, although it’s essentially a re-badged 7970. Properly configured, you should see hashrates that are about 10% higher than the 7950 (may improve over time as the drivers mature). You’ll pay for the increased speed with significantly higher power consumption, however. Models from Gigabyte, Sapphire, and MSI should all be good choices.

The Radeon 7970, like the 280X, hashes only slightly faster than a well-configured 7950, but it consumes far more power—generally making it a sub-optimal mining GPU. However, for those of you with free electric, there have been some good deals on these cards recently, with some examples selling for as low as ~$220. At similar prices points, there is probably no reason to choose the 7970 over the 280X.

I’ll also mention the Radeon 7990, although I’m not a huge fan of it for mining (some people do swear by it, though). This is essentially two 7970 GPUs in a single card package, so you can expect 1300+ Kh/sec per card. Sounds great, until you consider the downsides: the massive levels of heat that these things throw around, the extremely high power consumption, and the high up-front cost of the cards. However, if you’re trying to build a rig with the absolute highest GPU density possible, without regard with other considerations, then this is probably your card. The MSI or Sapphire are good choices here.