Why you should NEVER buy a Sapphire graphics card..

[Master&Puppet]

Interesting - I haven't got a copy of FC3 yet. I'm surprised that it you found it CPU bounded! I've found that micro-stuttering is often solved by using vsync, have you given that a go?

Yea that was the: 7950 Royal King FC3 performance examplar.He ran the Royal King at stock which means it had a factory overclock (GPU Clock: 880 MHz; GPU Boost clock: 930 MHz) so it's going to be probably 10-20% faster than you can get on a 7870 with a big overclock I'd guess. That might explain some figures.

Na he was right when he was talking about the xfire vRAM. AMD cards use alternate frame rendering. I.e. Card A renders frames 1,3,5,7,9... whilst card B renders frame 2,4,6,8,10... etc. Each frame is only rendered by a single card (therefore only has access to one card's worth of vRAM) but because the other card is rendering the next frame each card has twice as long to do it's work which theoretically therefore doubles the FPS.

When MSI AB measures the vRAM use you can see how it gets confused because it sees 4GB of vRAM being used to make the frames at the same time (even though the cards are working on separate frames). In reality you've just got 2x2gb working on separate frames. If you added a third card AB would see up to 6gb of vRAM being used etc.

 

[grassman]

Yeah I tried other vsyncs like Dynamic but not in game vsync I'll give that a shot and do some more experiments.


edit

yeah but I'm using 2 cards hes using one, Still doesn't make sense

 

[JMMP]

........btw was Tom trolling when he said xfire / sli only used vram from one card?......QUOTE]

Nop!!! he was not trolling! It´s true! That´s way we all say to buy always the bigger ram versión cards to be future proof and run games more "smoothly" at higher resolutions!!

 

[grassman]

So all frames are going to card 1's VRAM? If that's the case then surely it is a Vram bottleneck.

 

[MattyMatt]

So all frames are going to card 1's VRAM?

Yes and no, both cards have the exact same vram states so that both cards can access the same info. If you had independent states you would double the vram, but currently that would create an even larger bottleneck as the access times would be too slow if card 2 needed info only card 1 had in vram. Maybe with pcie 5 the standard will be fast enough, we will see. Or a better sli/xfire bridge...

 

[grassman]

Yes and no, both cards have the exact same vram states so that both cards can access the same info. If you had independent states you would double the vram, but currently that would create an even larger bottleneck as the access times would be too slow if card 2 needed info only card 1 had in vram. Maybe with pcie 5 the standard will be fast enough, we will see. Or a better sli/xfire bridge...

That should't be to difficult though considering we have Sata III now.. Or use some kind of dedicated RAM dedicated for transferring info between each card. :huh: It's possible just not viable / affordable atm I guess. But it's odd considering Intel have pretty much everything on the CPU already and don't leave much room for mobo vendors to outclass there competitors.

 

[MattyMatt]

SATA600 has nothing to do with this (and also it is really, really slow), its all PCIe and how it works. Access times just arent low enough. Transfer speeds arent high enough. The card has to first figure out that it doesnt have the data, then speak to the controller, then to the other card, then read the data from that card into its on memory so that it can manipulate it. That is a lot of time wasted when they can just both have the same information from the get go. I know it seems dumb, but trust me, this is the possible solution with current limitations.

 

[Blade of Grass]

using them as skateboards or something?

as skateboards or something?

or something?

something?

Win.

But seriously, how do you manage to kill them so quickly? are you gaming 24/7 in an oven?

 

[grassman]

Yeah I game in a oven skate park dude.. Like wtf?

Just because you guys are newbz and have only had a few builds doesn't make you some know it all's like what are you 13? Maybe you should read the entire posts before jumping to some stupid conclusions.

Anyhow swapped for 7970 micro were annoying the heck outta me.

 

[Blade of Grass]

Yeah I game in a oven skate park dude.. Like wtf?

Just because you guys are newbz and have only had a few builds doesn't make you some know it all's like what are you 13? Maybe you should read the entire posts before jumping to some stupid conclusions.

Anyhow swapped for 7970 micro were annoying the heck outta me.

Calm down, it was just a joke.

 

[SnW]

Bad luck mate , i wish you much better luck with GPU's,
nobody deserves that kind of bad luck

Greetings, Ray.....

 

[Rich_]

Have sapphire 6750 and 6870 that show no signs of issues...... had them over 2 years... Guess sapphire only works if you dont rub ur socks on the carpet while giving the video card a full massage with one hand and overclock it with the other... shame on sapphire.....

 

[SeekaX]

We'll let's start of 5-7 years ago... I purchased a Sapphire x1300 it ran beautifuly for six months... Burned out in 6 months with no OC.. Sooo in panic mode I grabbed a sapphire x1650 pro again ran beautifully.. For 6 months, again no OC.

Now let's fast forward to 2012.. The 7xxx series is released great cards with great temps I decided to grab a refrence AMD 7870.. Never burned out ran beautifully only problem I had with it was the fan sounded like a damn vacuum.. BTW I did OC this card never fried or gave me any problems other then the fan. We'll one day I decided I was fed up with the fan and swapped it for a Sapphire 7870.... Performance wise same BS but the fan thank god was sooo quiet! I never OC'ed it and 6 months in hey guess what its DEAD! Wtf do these things have a time bomb built into them? Looking at the PCB it just looks sooo damn cheap I swear I remember seeing more proper looking cards 12 years ago! I'm in shock that TTL would ever gold award these things with a cheap ass looking PCB like that! Sorry for the typos typing from cellphone *sigh*

We'll now onto the aftermath...

I can't get a hold of any Sapphire reps so I can tell them how they scammed me out of$ 900 with there cheap ass -snip- PCB.

That's where I am at so far I will keep you guys updated.. Atm I'm looking at grabbing a GTX 660, 660TI, 670 or radeon 7850, 7870, 7950 just waiting for my next pay...

Unless a miracle happens it's looking like I will be snubbed by sapphire yet AGAIN! Think you should start a smear campaign on Sapphire TTL same lengths as thermaltacky

i've got a 6870 from sapphire for a year now, it overclocked okay and hasn't let me down ever. still i'm gonna replace it, ordered my 7950 Direct CU2 TOP V2 yesterday

 

[grassman]

Have sapphire 6750 and 6870 that show no signs of issues...... had them over 2 years... Guess sapphire only works if you dont rub ur socks on the carpet while giving the video card a full massage with one hand and overclock it with the other... shame on sapphire.....

Cool story bro

 

[Kangaru]

i ran a sapphire x1650 pro for like 9 years. still works, just retired that computer.

 

[DmXtReMe]

yea, i have had 2 or 3 sapphire cards although they all have been Vapour X models never had an issue with any of them. Oh i have also sold a shitload of Sapphire cards over the years.

But to be honest you can't shit bag a company on 2 video card failures really. Doing a quick google search would tell you if there was a major issue with a particular card. The fact you have had to failure's could just be a bit of bad luck.

That being said sapphire like most companies don't have alot of empathy when it comes to RMA"s but aslong as they honor the RMA and replace or fix it whats the issue. Reading through the thread you got a replacement even when you didn't have a receipt.

As for calling upon TTL to start a witch hunt or boycott well that's just plain stupid being that TTL do reviews for many different product brands and that sort of thing wouldn't sit too well with other branded companies should it ever get out that he is sand bagin on Sapphire.

 

[alienware]

I wouldn't buy a Sapphire anything.

I bought a motherboard a couple of years back and got completely screwed because it didn't do what it said it did. IE - "Supports all Phenom X4 processors". It didn't and I got screwed out of a restocking fee.

Until these companies offer proper UK support with people who can speak English they can shove off tbh.

 

[SeekaX]

I wouldn't buy a Sapphire anything.

I bought a motherboard a couple of years back and got completely screwed because it didn't do what it said it did. IE - "Supports all Phenom X4 processors". It didn't and I got screwed out of a restocking fee.

Until these companies offer proper UK support with people who can speak English they can shove off tbh.

sapphire makes mainboards?

 

[seumasbeathan]

The simple fact of the matter is that Sapphire are a very reputable company known for reliability, if some of you have had problems then it is simply bad luck

 

[alienware]

sapphire makes mainboards?

Yeah and they're absolutely bloody awful. The last one I remember was a X58 board that only did Crossfire and cost more than the equivalent Asus or Gigabyte. They're usually complete wastes of space.

The simple fact of the matter is that Sapphire are a very reputable company known for reliability, if some of you have had problems then it is simply bad luck

Bullshine. Most of their cards are stock cards supplied by AMD that they just put a sticker on or change the cooler. So the reliability isn't even down to them. Secondly they have a completely and utterly non existent RMA service so you have to go back to your retailer meaning you have to wait whilst your retailer returns it to them in the far east. This can take up to three months.

Their customer support is basically non existent as they can't even speak English. I tried in vain for over two weeks to explain the issue I was having to which they would reply "Try the latest bios". However, I had already explained I wasn't even getting POST and no display so they basically didn't even understand what I was saying to them.

All of this would be fine and well if it wasn't for the fact that there ARE companies out there who DO look after their customers in the case of a problem. No company is ever going to be able to put out a product that never goes wrong so it all comes down to the support and satisfaction you get when you do have a problem.

Gigabyte do it right. They have RMA departments in every country that they sell products in meaning you don't even have to go back to the retailer. MSI have a RMA base in Holland which is a bit of a pain but they certainly look after you when things go wrong. Case in point - about a month back I bought a MSI motherboard and the SLI bridge didn't work properly. I was getting flickering. I sent them an email and four days later two new bridges arrived with an apology note.

KFA2 are also UK based for UK customers.

Sapphire don't have an RMA base anywhere. Like many other companies who can't be bothered they just make you go back to the retailer who then has to send it to them and it takes ages. There's no actual customer support they just leave that all to the re-sellers of their product.