Why you should NEVER buy a Sapphire graphics card..

[grassman]

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

 

[SieB]

Asus FTW

 

[grassman]

Haha it's funny you say that, before my post I was thinking I should just grab another 7870 but the Asus model would match my rig nicely and they don't have BS amateur warranty like Sapphire which makes you think twice about there product.

 

[SieB]

I've had 3 Asus cards and not had a problem with any of them. I bought an Asus 7950 DCUII TOP OC last week, it might be a huge tripple slot beast but it's dead quiet.

Idle the fans spin at 10% and you honestly can't hear them and the temps idle are ~25*c. On load the fans never even go above 30% and even then you can just about hear them and thats with temps around 65*c with an 1150mhz overclock at 1.193v.

 

[grassman]

Yeah I think TTL should really be considering build quality rep warranty etc more into his reviews...

Btw anyone know how I can get in contact with Sapphire? I've already tried email looks like a dead end so far.. Any help would be appreciated navigating on my cellphone is impossibruuuu...

 

[SPS]

Pretty sure that if TTL thought that a product felt tacky he would definitely say so.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Just for the record I have two sapphire 7950s which are both overclocked to the hilt and working perfectly... I'm not aware of any common reliability complaints with them. All the reference AMD coolers are loud though, sapphire or not.

Sorry to hear you are having issues!

 

[Deejeta]

Sapphire are one of the best brands bud with very low failure rates. No brand is immune from the occasional bad card. RMA it. As long as you have a valid invoice/receipt you shouldnt have a drama. In Australia here Sapphire customer & warranty support is really good.

 

[nepas]

Soooooooo, Just because you manage to kill cards in 6 months they are garbage?(How in hell does each card only last 6 months,what are you doing to them,using them as skateboards or something?).

Sapphire seem to have one of the best reps for the AMD cards(I could NOT kill my old 5870,no matter how much I tried),against my XFX card that lasted a week and nearly took the mobo with it,Give me Sapphire any day.

 

[Deejeta]

What is the rest of your rig if you don't mine me asking. What psu are you using?

 

[grassman]

^^ listen kid I've been dealing with computers since I was 4 years old I'm not some run of the mill computer idiot. This is a sub forum for rants I'm here ranting because I'm frustrated I'm not attacking anyone just sharing my own personal experience. I've had plenty of other brand cards that NEVER burned out on me I just for whatever reason have had terrible luck with Sapphire cards in the past and unfortuntley present as well. I'm frustrated as he'll because I work to damn hard to be spending 300 dollars every 6 months on a new card.

^ read sig corsair GS 800v2 the power supply is fine and dandy
Thank you for the actual help/advice unlike others with there weird fanboy vendettas

Pretty sure that if TTL thought that a product felt tacky he would definitely say so.

Oh I'm not saying there tacky I'm saying they look cheap. I remember my old Vodoo 3 and radeon 7000 having a better build quality to them tbh. But hey it's been a bad day / year for me maybe I'm just being a little ott

Edit

Sorry for DP typing a terrible cell phone

 

[grassman]

UPDATE

I have been emailing Sapphire Customer service back and forth for the past 2 weeks and luckily for me they were very kind and helped me out right away I will be sending my card to Hong Kong in a week or 2 for replacement. In the meantime because of the service I was given I have purchased another Sapphire 7870 to crossfire with my other card that should hopefully be in my rig by the new year.

Did Sapphire release a revision 2 card or something? Because this cards like a inch or 2 shorter then my fried one and the PCIe connectors are on the side instead of the top. It looks much nicer! No more stupid sticker labels and the PCB colour isn't cringe worthy like the other. Also believe it or not but the fans are even quieter and I believe the temps are 2-3 degrees lower but its new so hard to say.

BTW can mod change the thread title to why you should instead of should not..

 

[Lollipop]

Why did you buy another Sapphire card?

 

[grassman]

Why did you buy another Sapphire card?

Because when I got a response I went on a hunt for the receipt and couldn't find it but they were kind enough to help me out because of past troubles.

Also that thread about RMAing a ASUS gtx670 and getting a 580 in return made me lul

 

[Eyal]

I almost bought Sapphire 7870. lol
thanks for the warning!

 

[seumasbeathan]

I love Sapphire cards, usually pretty cheap and always very realiable for me

 

[grassman]

Nice I just received notification that my replacement card is being sent to me should be here in a few days woohoooo

Very pleased with the service Hopefully I get a 7870 as a replacement and not something retarded like a 7750 or what not.

 

[grassman]

Received my replacement card today thank god its a 7870 OC edition.

Already messed about with crossfire Far cry 3 at 1080p maxxed out with 4xMSAA only manages 30FPS... I seem to be bottle necking on lack of VRAM at one point it was utilizing 3200mb of vram

Single card 40-50 fps with no in game AA

 

[Master&Puppet]

I seem to be bottle necking on lack of VRAM at one point it was utilizing 3200mb of vram

I presume that you are using MSI AB to measure this? In xfire it will measure total vRAM usage across all the cards so you are only actually using 1600mb per card. The cards can't use more vRAM than they have after all!

Get overclocking - 2 7870s should be good for FC3 I'd imagine!

 

[grassman]

I presume that you are using MSI AB to measure this? In xfire it will measure total vRAM usage across all the cards so you are only actually using 1600mb per card. The cards can't use more vRAM than they have after all!

Get overclocking - 2 7870s should be good for FC3 I'd imagine!

4.6ghz CPU OC

and maxed out the OC on both cards

Overclocking the GPUS made no noticeable difference. Overclocking the CPU on the other hand gave me a few frames and seemed to remove stutters. It's odd though when I unlock frame cap it dips to like 26fps but when i remove framecap I never drop below 36 FPS :huh:

I swear I remember Tom saying he was getting 45 FPS with 4x msaa on a 7950 stock. Surely he's running AA multisample rather than supersample.

btw was Tom trolling when he said xfire / sli only used vram from one card? When I saw it go over that 2gb mark I was thinking to myself wtf either hes wrong / trolling or was using useless in game bench mark tests to tell him how much vram was being used.