I'm actually tempted to write up a review of the card to warn people not to buy the Powercolor 7850.

They have locked down the voltage of the card which severely impacts overclocking. Not only that, but the temps are terrible when running the card even moderately overclocked. The fan makes a very noticeable whining sound as well.

I'm just really disappointed. I'm sure I could have hit 1250mhz on the core with the Asus card with great temps as well.

As you guys know, I love overclocking, and restraining the voltage like this is more than a little irritating for me.

To make matters worse, the developers of Radeon Bios Editor (RBE) have ceased development as AMD is meddling with their work through the drivers.

I'm going to wait for the right moment and go back to nVidia. Depending on how things look, I will probably get a GTX 660, provided that it has at least 2gb of vram and is priced well.

If any of you are interested in the 7850 for $200 shipped I would probably do it.

Sorry for your troubles, GLWTS.

I might have been interested a few days ago, but I've already made moves towards TRI SLi, I think I'm done for the year - hoping for more next year.

Thanks, Balla.

It's just irritating. I've learned some lessons though this though. I'm not buying another video card unless I get it at a brick and mortar store where I can easily return it. I'm also going to make sure I can read a review where overclocking is covered in detail, voltages and all. I will also never buy another reference card again, and I will probably stay away from Powercolor and perhaps even AMD as a whole given their poor driver support and their detrimental actions toward the overclocking community.

Yeah I don't like the lack of voltage control either, others don't use voltage so it doesn't matter but if you do not having it blows hard.

You can never know enough, and should distance yourself from overzealous raving fans as people who are in love often ignore the bad things.

I'm guilty of that myself, I distance myself from the power draw issues of 470s because I've adapted my entire setup around removing it from the equation. I'm looking at a EVGA 470 on Ebay with a EK fullcover block for $170 right now even though Tri SLi isn't something I really need, haha.. Shame on me. I'm only doing it because Ivy is so expensive and I've had the itch I thought I was going to scratch it with Ivy

Are you going to sell it to get a ASUS 7850? I know Don's runs great.

Well, the reality of the matter is I still got a better deal on my card than if I were to have bought a GTX 560 Ti 448. As overzealous as they were, they were correct in stating that the 7850 was the best card in my price range.

I dunno. I'll probably wind up keeping the card in the hopes that bios mods become available. My upgraded cooling arrives this week. I will keep you all posted.

Beast---- Just wait for the 670! It should be out in less than 2 months. (Don't quote me on that!)......... I'm just hoping.

The 670 will be way out of my price range.

At least I only paid $230 for the card. I would be more pissed if I had dropped $270 on a custom version only to find the problems I have discovered. Even the high end cards are affected by the lack of bios tools, AMD's poor drivers, and the lack of support of the enthusiast community.

Sorry to hear your dissatisfaction.

See this is what you get when your snowballed on the forums. Duped by people wildly claiming that you (anyone) can buy any 7850 and overclock it to 680 performance levels (or whatever outrageous crap). They use whatever bull they can to stick you with a lesser performing card that cost more. Stuff like this kinda upsets me. You dont buy a card believing that with overclocking it will be great. You buy a great card (value) and whatever it overclocks is a bonus. The numbers you see around the forums never turn out to be the norm. For some reason they seem to be the exception.........yeah!

People will do anything they can to hype it up. they post a screen shot or a benchmark (3dmark) and want to convince you that its common to get a 200% performance increase out of overclocking with ZERO drawback. Its not so. You can see the same 7850 scenario across countless forums now. They all play out almost exactly the same. Why the more expensive 7850 is the card of choice and how stupid it would be not to buy it. To me its no different than a sales pitch, and the masses flock to it.

As far as powercolor goes, the forums recommend the 7850 period. The 7850> (insert card). Are you saying everything would be better if you had Asus? The 7850 recommendations are not specific to Asus, they recommend any 7850. I think your still thinking you just had bad luck instead of realizing you were snowballed. Your experience is what the average joe gets. Not what these sales pitches are selling. Its a big set up for disappointment. One that can benefit only in the short term but will only hurt in the long run. Set ups for disappointments will make people look the other way for purchases. it really gets to me!!!! Trickery.

I can go on with my complaints and view but really it doesnt help.

SickB,
Personally, what where you reasons for getting the 7950? the expectations? and now you have the reality. How does this differ?

i really dont know SB. They are recomending the 7850 over $200 gtx480s, gtx570s, and the gtx560ti 448. They all perform very close and i just dont thing spending 50-80$ more for a card that performs less (7850) is the way to go. Overclocking is variable. Period. at the same price things are not the same. But you can get these other nvidia cards for cheaper!!!

Well, first of all, I had to buy something *fast* because my GTX 460 died suddenly.

I bought the 7850 because:

- I thought I could max out all my games at 1080p on it (not true)
- I thought 1200mhz on the core was basically guaranteed (not true)
- I thought that the temps would be 60C or lower under load (not true)

The rest of the info I had was fine, but it's those three points that have me quite upset and I regret buying the card at all.