VisionTek HD 7970 (Aftermarket Cooler or Warranty)

[lordyuber]

Ok as many of you may have known, last night TomsHardware posted the tiger direct deal for the VisionTek 7970 (and what a deal it was). After seeing the deal i just had to pull the trigger. I'm upgrading from the fairly efficient and fairly cool MSI 560ti twin frozr, a great card but definitely showing its age considering its 1 gb memory. Anyways my main concern here is the VisionTek 7970 and its sure to be terrible reference cooler. I know its going to be overly hot and overly loud during load... which is unacceptable, specially if i ever feel the need to overclock. Because of this I am considering a few things....

1. Get nothing, stay with reference cooler and keep lifetime warranty

2. Gelid ICY VISION-A and a lose of warranty

3. Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME and a lose of warranty

If you were in my situation, what you guys do? Will I really need to consider the warranty issue or is that just a matter discretion <_<

I really don't want to deal with that garbage reference cooler, and much prefer an aftermarket cooler like the ones mentioned above... but at the same time the warranty is very important to me.

 

[manyee]

Make sure you check whether you get the 3 year warranty OR the lifetime warranty.
There are 2 versions of Visiontek 7970 card.
I bought one from the older deal that includes BF3 & Shogun, thinking it's lifetime warranty but after receiving the card. The box clearly stated 3 years warranty.

Also FYI, I rma the first card because it's randomly giving me black screen and max out the fan. The first card is very loud but cool faster & better. The replacement card never died at all and surprisingly the fan is less loud but the temp is around 5 C higher than the first card at idle. Also it cools down slower.

I assume you haven't received your card yet. So why don't you try it first and see whether you need to upgrade the cooler or not.
If your computer in a full AC room, I don't think you'll need to upgrade.
Mine with reference cooler here in CA with this crazy summer's temp around 100F outside, the highest the temp went after OCing to 1150/1575 was 84C and idle at 44-45C

 

[lordyuber]

Thanks for the information. Yes i also found mines to be a three year warranty card, which is good enough I suppose. In any case, I received my card yesterday and found it to be surprisingly cool, although a bit loud. Under load it remains a steady 62, and never goes above 66 which i'm pleased about. So far the card hasn't shown any bad signs of dying out... I can only hope things stay that way.

Considering how cool its running atm, i'm an upgrade is unnecessary.... at least for now.