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which 7970?

justalex81

justalex81

justalex81

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Joined
17 Oct 2010
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493
Location
Welling
I've been reading the reviews and keeping an eye on the prices for the 7970. I have a few questions if i may:

Is the reference cooling system any good? I keep reading reviews about coil whine or buzzing. Is this only on certain cards or all reference cards?

If i'm better off with a card with an upgraded cooling design, which one should i get without it costing a fortune? there's so many to choose from!
 
I have a Gigabyte 7970, cooling is fine, no whine or buzzing - was purchased on release.
 
MSI Lightning is down to £360 atm.

Probably worth that over a basic £300 one if you're into overclocking, but the normal £80 premium is perhaps pushing it.
 
I gave up with the 7 series. Had several 7970's (non were reference) but all suffered from coil whine.

I've now picked a 670 windforce. Perfect, quiet, no buzzing. Not quite as fast as the 7970 OC'd, but a fair compromise.

I heard the ASUS DirectCU II 7970 is one of the few which doesn't whine. It's a shame it's one of the most expensive and takes 3 slots.
 
well i have gone with the MSI HD7970 OC that's on offer here at ocuk. Some searching on tinternet suggests msi is up there with the best of them so we'll see.
 
From my experience, avoid XFX like the plague. They don't seem to test their overclocks and their RMA was a joke. They just sent my card back to me without doing anything, and without testing if it even works at their overclocked speeds.

I have the VTX3D, I have lots of coil whine but it doesn't bother me unless I was to game without sound. If you put your ear to your pc you might hear some coil whine romper but it's not bad. I felt the stock cooler was crap and quite noisy under load, I couldn't overclock without it reaching 83c and then shutting down. I put an Accelero on mine and now the temps never go above 56c and that's at 1300/1600 1260mV. Currently run at stock though.

Tried to ask VTX3D what the voltage/temp ratings were on the memory/pwm and they were just patronizing claiming it's already running at optimal speed and that I shouldn't even attempt to overclock. :D

Good choice on the lightning 7970.
 
ive got a gigabyte windforce 3x 7970 and it whines only in high fps situations tho [200fps for ex] even my 6950 hd used to whine in the same situations

tbh for the performance a little coil whine is nothing to complain about :)
 
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