which 7970 would you get?

M

m4t3y

n00b
Joined
Aug 16, 2013
Messages
40
so I killed my unlocked and OCed 6950 2GB card on saturday and after just a quick research I got the Gigabyte GV-R797OC-3GD on sunday....the reviews (now I know based on 1.0) were pretty good and I liked the heatsink that cools rams really nice (vram temps were the reason I started messing with my old card) so I was checking the ram cooling when choosing a 7970 and based on the pictures for example in this review it looked like a pretty good heatsink to me

also in some other review the card was the coolest and quietest from the tested 7970 cards so at the competitive price it seemed like a good buy since I like GB and use their MBs for many years.

when trying to push the card more I found about this 2.1 revision volt lock and it seems I did not choose well so I'll be returning the card and getting different one...I needed the card fast so I bought at the only local shop that had them readily available and payed a little extra, so if I return the card (I can return any online sale within 14days of purchase) and only add like 15 dollars I can get the 797TO from a cheaper local shop

I definitely won't be keeping the OC, so I either get the TO version (Gigabyte GV-R797TO-3GD) or get some different 7970

not sure though if the TO version will be much better....I was able to raise the VDDC via modified TRIXX from 1110 to 1170 (max allowed by the app, maybe could be modified to allow more) and the best stable I got was 1100MHz, I was able to run at 1150 for a while but after some time it crashed in crysis3. The thing is I am not sure the heatsink can cool any more voltage than that. When on 1170 VDDC the core got up to 78 celisum after about 2h of Crysis 3. My case is very well ventilated, bigtower Sharkoon Rebel12 with three intake fans up front (2x12cm & 1x14cm) and also one side 12cm intake fan blowing fresh air to the GPU. Since the only sensor there is the gpu core I can only hope the rams are ok (I haven't oced them) but since the ram cooling seems really good compared to other cards I don't care that much but I just don't think the core can take more voltage and not get over 80 celsium which seems about the max I would like to see for core. my old 6950 running 6970 stock voltage got to 930 and didn't reach 80 celsium with standard blower fan with modified profile running around 60% in load. In my crysis 3 session the fan on 7970 was running at max most of the time and although it wasn't that loud there's just no more cooling headroom for higher voltage and therefore higher clocks

since it seems gigabyte is keeping the better samples for the GHz edition I could probably get a bit more core clock from the same voltage with better sample but don't think I can get that much past the 1100MHz anyway....hopefully I can get 1150 stable but don't think it will do 1200 without going over 1.2v and that will probably run over 80 on core

what would you guys do? return the OC verision and :
- add about $15 more and take the TO version and hope I can get better sample and get decent oc within reasonable temps
- add about $30 more and take the VAPOR-X GHZ Edition, the Vapor-X cooling seems to similar style for gpu and rams, vrm cooling seems better than gigabyte, based on some review it seems to be more powerful than gigabyte at cooling but at a higher noise, might be a better chance to get good sample from sapphire, also being a reference pcb I could use the Swiftech HD7900-HSF for ram and vrm which could work with my Zalman VF3000A. With $40 for the swiftech it would be $70. but with only 1000MHz granted it might be safer to go with granted 1100 from the TO
- add about $100 more and take the MSI Lightning BE, the Lighting cooling is a different style and has a metal plate for cooling rams and fets so I could actually change the lightning cooler to my Zalman VF3000A and use the original ram/fet cooling and just use different heatsink for the core which might give me more headroom for core oc if the stock lightning cooling won't be good enough to get close to 1200

I need to choose a gpu within a week or so until I can return the OC version


EDIT: seems the swiftech HD7900-HSF heatspreader won't fit under the vf3000, it is 18,5mm tall and under the zalman vf3000a there is only 13mm
 
Here's the thing.

Since you are only getting one card - you obviously are not in the game to get THE BIGGEST SCORE EVER on 3dmark or other benchmarks. Chances are you probably don't have the best processor out there with the fastest RAM to compete with the big boys (or care to compete) in these benchmarks.

At the end of the day, the real-world performance difference between a card that OC's to 1200mhz and one that OC's to 1300 is MAYBE 1-2fps. That isn't going to make or break your gaming experience. If you are in it for the sole purpose of getting the highest benchmark score, then go right ahead and play the card lottery - who knows? Maybe you get a better oc'ing card and maybe you don't.

If you are only getting this to play games - for fuck's sake turn off the FPS counter and turn off all the crap you have around your screen and PLAY THE GAME AND ENJOY IT. The difference that 100mhz would make is absolutely minuscule and irrelevant. So ask yourself this:

How much is it worth your money and your TIME to maybe, possibly get a card that does 100MHZ more on the overclock that will do absolutely nothing for you in terms of gameplay?
 
If you absolutely NEED a volt unlocked card, I believe the Sapphire Dual-X 7970 has unlocked voltage. I just received my Asus 7970 DirectCU II yesterday (voltage locked) yesterday and I'm LOVING it. I set it to GHz edition speeds and is rock stable at default voltage (haven't tried overclocking higher). Depends on the price to decide what you should go for. My DCII I got for $268 AR/free ship. I only wanted GHz edition speeds so the voltage lock wasn't a huge deal for me. I'm almost certain that the reference 7970's have unlocked voltage so you could consider those as well as the Sapphire Dual-X model.
 
I would go for the Sapphire VAPOR-X but I go for better cooling over quieter fans. I wouldn't grab the Lightning BE unless you were going to be hitting it with LN2 because that is where it really excels.

Phishy714 does have a valid point that the real-world performance is pretty low in games with only 100MHz difference, so unless you are benchmarking like mad and find that to be your fun, just grab the TO or the VAPOR-X and get to gaming!
 
hehe yeah maybe I should turn the fraps off and just enjoy that it runs decent enough...I don't really care about benchmarks at all....I usually only run a benchmark when I get a new hw to see the difference but that's about it...I only care about how the games run

I have [email protected] which is nothing special but imho enough for gaming and to feed a single gpu

more than anything it is just that I got used to pushing the hw a bit to get more value out of it and I usually don't even go too high with the voltages....I usually settle with what I can get out of the hw at only slight increase in voltages...I guess it's more about the good feeling of maximizing the value by running it at what you consider safe and what suits your preference so I am kinda disappointed to get a subpar sample that won't oc much and also I don't like the gigabyte policy on the card I got...I'd rather have it not limited by factory to be able to test what the card itself can do

as I said I don't think the gigabyte cooler can take much more voltage than what I was able to do with TRIXX....I don't really need 1200+MHz card, it's just that I see if I push the card a bit more the crysis 3 performance really gets better and the clocks other seem to get the 7970 cards to would be really nice..

In like 90% of the games I would be happy with either 1000 or 1100 MHz but just because todays games run well on 1GHz doesn't mean I won't miss those extra 100 or 200 MHz in a year or two...and actually every 50Hz step up did significantly increase the framerate....since I have just 1920x1200 it's not a big deal to get 40 instead of 50 but on 2560 the difference between 19 and 24 can make or break the gameplay experience

only reason I am tempted to go for lightning is to be able to use the VF3000 that I got since I think it could work a little better than the stock 2-slot cooling so I could OC more while keeping the temps where I want them to be while not being too loud to be instrusive

I liked the asus until I saw the pathetic ram cooling, not what you would expect from such a high end card....since my vrams were overheating on the 6950 it was a factor for me when choosing a new one....seems though the heatsinks that cover both the core and ram kinda limits the core cooling more than I would think
 
Last edited:
Deal on reference and water cool. HD7950 has been a much better value based on performance and price. $250 price range for deal on n HD7970 and $200 and below for HD7950.
 
yeah I would probably get more from a watercooled 6950...I was seriously considering watercooling setup few years ago, had the whole build planned to see the budget but in the end I didn't switch to water...the cpus today are quite manageable with decent heatsink and the graphic cards are getting some better cooling as well compared to few years ago so it's possible to build an air cooled system without too much noise and decent performance without having to deal with the hassle and cost of WC

I don't exactly like having to mess with the pc but I don't mind thinking of how to improve it and do some little modding (functional, not for looks) but it seems I am not always sucessfull so not sure if I want to mess with WC ;o]
I've totally disassembled and repasted few notebooks and gpus and had great success but when I repasted the 6950 it didn't help as much as I was expecting from previous video cards experience so I got zalman vf3000a together with ZM-RHS69 for VRM and Primecooler PC-RHS2 (the bigger ones) for VRAM but although the install looked good when I put the card back it was just black. I've put additional smaller heatsinks on some chips on the card (apart from the VRAMs) and guess some might have shorted the card.
I did some pictures during the installation so I might write what I did and add some photos and have others tell me what I did wrong that killed my card ;o]
 
Don't get the dual x unless u can find an old model dual x oc edition used with the brown reference PCB. The blue PCB version (I have) has horrible vdroop. Like less than 1.2v actual under load when set to 1.3v its really bad. I'd go for the 1100mhz version wf3 from gigabyte. Voltage is locked but at 1.25v so no worries about getting more out of it. Lightning is really nice to or any MSI card for that matter. Well other than reference.
 
I have the Asus DC II 7970, just got it yesterday. Put it to 1050/6000 (GHz Edition clocks) and no problems with RAM cooling.

I got it at Newegg the other day when they had it for $309.99 w/ free shipping, $20 rebate and an extra 7% off coupon code, so $268 all in.

Just as fast in games as the $450 4GB GTX 770 I RMAd that coil whined like crazy. Actually scores higher in Firestrike. 7600 at GHz edition clocks vs 7400 for the GTX 770 at 1189 boost clock.
 
I guess it can run ok (and more room for core cooling at least and I rarely oc ram) but I just don't like it when I know can be done much better...the Zalman 7950 which has VF3000A actually has no ram cooling at all even though they sell the VF3000 heatsink with them
but just because someone sells that doesn't mean I'd buy it....btw does your card have temp sensor on memory? I hate the cheap build quality of my card that it has no temp sensors, only for the core...guess amd here is to blame and all reference cards are like that...my 6950 had 5 temp sensors and the 7970 has just one, that's some stupid cost cutting considering we're talking about their flagship single core model (one of the good reasons to buy the lightning)

it was a great deal though you got, it cost $542 here locally at a cheap shop ;o[
almost as much as the lightning be
 
Last edited:
MSI R7970 TF 3GD5/OC BE is 325.6 euro here in the cheapest stone shop and 308.5 in the cheapest eshop

Czech Republic, yeah this whole country is a fucking rip off
 
gpuz, hwinfo both showed all the temps on my 6950 and on 7970 only shows the core
 
HOODedDutchman said:
lol nice good choice. I've never seen a wf3 cooler go past 70 let alone 78. maybe yours had a bad mount or your case has bad airflow. I had a 670 wf3 and at close to 1300mhz and 1.212v bios it never went above 65 on auto fan. Maybe if you made custom fan profile it would bring the temps down slightly. Takes a pretty high rpm for wf3 to get loud. Mine runs under 70 at 1.25v 1175mhz and wf3 cooler is far superior to dual x imo.
Click to expand...

did answer some of that already ;o]

case:
m4t3y said:
My case is very well ventilated, bigtower Sharkoon Rebel12 with three intake fans up front (2x12cm & 1x14cm) and also one side 12cm intake fan blowing fresh air to the GPU.
Click to expand...
fan profile:
m4t3y said:
In my crysis 3 session the fan on 7970 was running at max most of the time and although it wasn't that loud there's just no more cooling headroom for higher voltage and therefore higher clocks
Click to expand...

I just hope I'll get a better one, maybe it's as you said a bad [email protected] is not that bad achievement if the temps were a lot lower and I had more headroom for more voltage...I would be pretty happy with your sample ;o]
 
Last edited:
Gotta be a bad mount. 1.17v is stock 7970 voltage. no way it should be getting even close to that hot with that cooler on stock voltage.
 
m4t3y said:
gpuz, hwinfo both showed all the temps on my 6950 and on 7970 only shows the core
Click to expand...


Just check both GPU-Z and HWINFO but unfortunately neither shows the RAM temperatures (nor VRM temperatures for that matter). Not really concerned about either to be honest. I have the card set at GHz Edition clock speeds (1050/6000) and GPU temperatures are perfectly fine and the card is rock stable/no artifacts/no crashes in everything I've thrown at it so far. Not going to push it past stock GHz Edition speeds, so should be fine.

I looked at a deconstruction of the cooler on my card and I can see a metal plate w/ heatsink fins that attaches to the VRMs and RAM chips, so it should provide some decent cooling.

asus-hd7970-directcuii-top-1.jpg
 
yeah it's better than the asus matrix which doesn't cover some of the vrams chips at all but still not perfect...on the picture I posted earlier you can see some of those rams are only covered by about half of their size and frankly quite unnecessarily...the flattered parts of the heatpipes where they touch the core are unnecessarily long, much longer than the contact area needed so they could make them shorter there and raise the heatpipes before they get too close to the vrams...than they could fully cover the rams with the heatspreader

as I said such half-ish designs kinda bug me, so I'd rather choose a different better designed one...knowing that I would frankly be concerned about the temps and would definitely want to know what temp they run at especially if you want to OC them...I usually don't OC vrams, they usually get very hot even on stock clock and the performance gain is not worth it imho, OCing the core is what is mostly responsible for better framerates in games
 
I have returned the 797OC today and got 797TO instead and it's not much better

on everything stock 1100/1500/1.256v it got to 83 after about 10mins ingame (crysis3) running fan on 100%

starting to think all gigabyte 7970s are crap or I would have been exteremely unlucky and get another sample with badly mounted heatsink which seems unlikely

actually the shop where I wanted to buy it got the last expected batch of 17 cards cancelled and their supplier said it's not available anymore...I got it in another shop (where I got the 797OC) where they still had few left of the 797TO cards

thinking of trying to replace the thermal paste...I don't think it has any sort of warranty sticker on the cooler and the guy on the RMA did look at the card closely bud surely he would not recognize if I opened it and replace the thermal grease so I could give the card a last chance and see if I can live with it...the noise is little better than how my reference 6950 sounded when it had to run it at cca 65% to keep the vrams around 80
 
I'd repaste for sure. Very weird to say the least. My buddy has 1 in an nzxt phantom and he lives in 1 of the hottest spots in the US with no air condition (somewhere in southern california in desert) and his never breaks 70°C. Honestly tty to remount if that doesn't work there's something wrong with your airflow or something lol. Its like 1 of the best coolers on the market. If not the best. Worst case scenario buy an accelero lol if that doesn't get your temps below 70°C nothing will. Had 1 on my 580 and never broke 60. Played bf4 last night for 4 hours on auto fan and afterburner max reading was 63. Wf3 has to be better than dual x.
 
Yeah I would try re-pasting and remounting the cooler, as dutchman mentioned. I had an overheating tf3 7950, that was easily fixed by doing that.
 
might as well do it if I don't find any sort of sticker that would void the warranty

my ambient is 26.9 now and think there is enough airflow, my hdds (7 normal + one ssd) are all 27-30 degrees, cpu idling all cores 33-35 and the gpu on idle 0,950v and 25% fan is 37 degrees

if that fails I would either have to live with it or cough up for the lightning and put the vf3000a on it

btw I tried to undervolt it but even when I change the vddc in trixx the gpuz still shows 1.256 under load....with the 797OC the gpuz showed real changes between 1.110 and 1.170 when I was changing it in trixx....I cannot set anything higher in trixx than what is already the stock voltage so I cannot try if the voltage is locked upwards as well
 
m4t3y said:
might as well do it if I don't find any sort of sticker that would void the warranty

my ambient is 26.9 now and think there is enough airflow, my hdds (7 normal + one ssd) are all 27-30 degrees, cpu idling all cores 33-35 and the gpu on idle 0,950v and 25% fan is 37 degrees

if that fails I would either have to live with it or cough up for the lightning and put the vf3000a on it

btw I tried to undervolt it but even when I change the vddc in trixx the gpuz still shows 1.256 under load....with the 797OC the gpuz showed real changes between 1.110 and 1.170 when I was changing it in trixx....I cannot set anything higher in trixx than what is already the stock voltage so I cannot try if the voltage is locked upwards as well
Click to expand...

Ya that sounds like its the paste. If you idling that low with low fan and then your running that hot with max fan under load that seams like thermal paste to me. It won't void your warrantee with most companies. Just be careful.
 
played some time with the new 797TO and it got to 86 after some time playing crysis3 when I tried it on 1170mhz...took the side panel off to have a look at the card while running at load and noticed it helped the temps a bit and only got to 82 while it was running crysis for few minites...the card blows a lot of air and the intake fan could have worked against it a bit rather than helping so I rotated it to make it an exhaust fan...with the rotated fan and the panel closed the temps stayed at 82 so little improvement there

decided to repaste it if I can get some more improvement by that so I opened the card. the contact didn't look too bad but there was quite thick layer of thermal material, especially noticed when I started getting it off with arcticlean and q-tips. repasted it with recently bought noctua nt-h1, did fit it gently and precisely in place and tightened progressively and quite snug

sadly I don't think it has helped much...usually the card still gets too hot over time that it reaches 80-82 degrees and starts to automatically underclock to 1050

even on stock 1100 after some time it overheats so much that it starts automatically throttling itself...the increased and unlowerable voltage makes it worse than than the 797OC which could run on 1.17v at 1100MHz stable as well and thanks to the lower voltage stayed at 78 on long session and didn't downclock itself as this card does

 
Last edited:
I meant that too, not sure why I wrote 6950, guess a typo from owning it until a week ago
 
Sux man I don't know why its getting so hot. Nobody else I've seen with this card has any heat issues at all.
 
did some small changes to improve the airflow a bit

I have installed new round right angle sata cables I have received this week


reorganized my hdds to free a slot right below the gpu to bring more fresh air to the video card, also left the slot above it free to bring some air to the cpu


blocked the side vent holes in the case to improve the vacuum effect of the exhaust fans which could help improve getting the hot air out


after a lot of tidying up and routing cables the case went from this mess


to this


not really expecting some real improvement but I guess it would not hurt....haven't really tested it yet...seems my gpu idle went a bit down, from 37 to 35 but it might as well be a slightly lower ambient temp....we'll see if it has any effect on the temps under load
 
decided to go for sapphire 280x toxic, the new series are actually cheaper here than the GHz 7970s...I can get the toxic a bit cheaper than the 797OC, also ordered it at a cheaper shop so I saved additional 50 usd by that...so the final price was 400usd which is a great price here compared to 550 for the lightning and 650 including the accelero so quite a difference that is not worth it if the toxic will run cool enough to be at least stable stock

it is still not in stock (added just 2 days ago) but better ordered right at the start, the prices only go up in my country (that why the 7970s are more expensive than the new 280x cards) and better chance getting good cards at first revision than later
 
Last edited:
ive owned 2 sapphire 7950 dual x and 2 7970's.I havent had one not hit atleast 1160mhz overlcocked without even touching voltage and had 2 that hit 1200 mhz no voltage tweak.I really dont understand why anyone would get the ghz edition 7970 when you can just get a plain one an oc easily to match speeds
 
the r280x toxic is actually like 7usd cheaper here than the cheapest 7970 with 925mhz ;o]
 
And with more oc potential, yeah?
 
guess it has more oc potential due to better cooling, also comes granted with 1150 which not every 7970 can run stable

guess it depends from card to card if you can go past 1150, most reviewed toxic samples did go to 1200+ but anandtech wasn't able to oc their card at all....if it runs cool enough on 1150 it will be a great deal and would be happy with that
 
If anything then for the cooler. I see what you mean though with the price being high. XFX also has a nice cooler, oc potential is unknown though, haven't tried yet!
 
BYOGamingPC said:
The Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC with Boost is the best choice for a great OC'er, cooler, brand, support, and price.

Even better, get the Sapphire Radeon R9 280X which is the same price but the equivalent of the 7970 GHz Ed.

XFX makes great PSU's but terrible GPU's. I don't even consider XFX when looking for a graphics card. They have terrible cooling, run hot, and loud.
Click to expand...

Both those cards suck. The original sapphire oc with brown reference pcb was good. The pcb design is subpar on the blue pcb sapphire design. They have horrible vdroop. Even with 1.3v the actual voltage is under 1.2v causing thek to overclock like garbage. Ive had 2 I wouldnt recommend to anyone. Msi is where its at for unlocked voltage and great vrm design. Asus matrix platinum is great to, but the support is being questioned a lot lately. Reference pcb sapphire is great. Seams the dual x boost 7950s are still coming with reference pcb (amd near pcie lane) which im surprised at considering all of there 7970s have moved to non reference pcb.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top