If these turn out to be extremely close to 7970 performance in games then I will pick up a couple once the price comes down and non-reference coolers are added (still going strong with my GTX 470 Twin Frozr IIs).
They won't at stock speeds.
The 79xx is all about overclocking and as they clock so well it would be criminal not to overclock the 79xx series. I've never known a graphics card like these for clocking. Certainly adds an element of fun being able to get a 30-40% performance boost simply by clocking/flashing your card.