The single link dvi could be a problem as I game at 120hz, £450 for the card, £100 for block and backplate, another £80 for an active display port adaptor, the cost is mounting. Do any manufacturers cherry pick their oc edition cards? Also these ghz edition cards are supposed to have a higher yield, sure that means better clocks? Or are we back at marketing with the ghz cards?
I could gamble on a standard ref card, but the last 7970 I had was a shocking clocker, could barely reach ccc limits.
i fooled around with mine for ages, and the one thing that killed the OC was if i turned down the case fans in BIOS, especially the new fan on the PCI slots.
the card seems very sensative to this, it also cools down very quickly when the fans suddenly kick in... it handled 1.3 ok, but failed at 1.25 with the case fans turned right down..
it's not the card fans that are the problem, it's poor ventilation underneath the card, it really kills it..... case fans are now quite loud, but at least the cooler is quiet


.... because that really is bloody noisy on full Prime, but on 4.4 is still very cool, maybe the lapping was a good idea after all, who knows !!!
i never realised any of this, the card really is a sensative bad tempered beast compared to my old GT 8800, the two lower case fans will deffo need to be on full speed all the time.
i might have to redo my case interior, i'm very suspicious of the soundproofing on the case floor, it's too thick and rough textured, i think it's slowing down the air flow.....uuuum
it's about 10mm deep, it's blocking about 5mm of the fans lower blade, something tells me the case floor should be polished and shiny... yes ok