Graphics Card for New build

[rob_jeffers]

Hello All,

It has been a while since I have tinkered around with PC's. As a hobby which I miss very much, I have decided to get back into custom PC's, and I will be starting with a fresh rig. Albiet a couple of HDDs, Case and PSU.

Ive decided to cheat a little and will be purchasing a Motherboard bunle which consists of

Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0, D-Sub/ DVI-D/ HDMI, ATX
Intel Core i5 3570K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 6MB Smart Cache, 34x Ratio, 77W, Retail
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black Low Profile, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 CPU Cooler Intel 775/1155/1156/1366 AMD 939/AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+

But now I am stumped about which GFX card to buy, and need some honest opinions. I have read around these boards and over the internet in general but havent really had any specific awnsers.

The card I am looking at is this

Gigabyte AMD 7970 OC - Windforce 3x

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-gigabyte-radeon-hd-7970-overclocked-5500mhz-gddr5-1000mhz-dvi-i-hdmi-2x-mini-displayport.

Firstly, is this edition of the chipset the same as the GHz Edition or just the standard chipset overclocked...

Secondly, at £340 am I really getting the best value over performance. I have heard the Nvidia gtx 670 highly recommended. But which chipset is going to be better mainly for Playing BF3 High Settings at 1080p. At the same time have roughly a 2 year performance life.

If the GTX 670 is better, what cards would you reccomend, or features worth looking out for?

 

[auntarie]

You'll probably be better off with this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127685

It performs better than the 7970 and is at a better price (I think). As for features- PhysX is being used more and more in games nowadays. Also, adaptive vsync. With that kind of gaming power you'll probably need it.

 

[geekapproved]

The 7970 GHZ is much faster than the GTX670 but is more expensive.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=618

Even the regular 7970 is faster than a regular 670, but ANY 7970 can be clocked to a ghz and also any GTX670 can be overclocked.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=508

The regular 7970 is going for about $410 AR with the GHZ going about $430.

 

[Deemo13]

Which power supply?

 

[Guest]

The 7970 GHZ is much faster than the GTX670 but is more expensive.

Even the regular 7970 is faster than a regular 670.

It is not "MUCH faster". In all the benchmarks I have seen at 1080p, including all the ones on this site, show the 670 as faster than a reference 7970, and slightly behind a GHz edition 7970. But nothing too extreme, obviously depending on the title and other hardware in the system. Plus you get borderlands 2 free($60) with 660ti and 670 purchases.

Just for reference:

 

[auntarie]

It is not "MUCH faster". In all the benchmarks I have seen at 1080p, including all the ones on this site, show the 670 as faster than a reference 7970, and slightly behind a GHz edition 7970. But nothing too extreme, obviously depending on the title and other hardware in the system. Plus you get borderlands 2 free($60) with 660ti and 670 purchases.

Just for reference:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/U/3/336747/original/gtx 670 vs 7970 1920.png

Yeah, I'd go with the 670 just for the free copy of Borderlands 2. I'm a huge fan

 

[geofelt]

The graphics card market is very competitive at any price point.

The GTX670 and 7970 are comparable cards.
There are factory overclocked versions of each which sell for a bit more like EVGA GTX670 FTW and the 7970OC.
You will get what you pay for in performance from each.
Any performance difference between similarly priced cards will be hard to detect in normal gameplay. A synthetic benchmark can show minor differences, but even then, the results differ by game and what type of eye candy..
Since the newer 28nm based cards take less power and run cooler, I would not pay much extra for fancy coolers; the stock coolers do the job.

I think it comes down to being either a AMD or Nvidia fan and your preference for the drivers.

A GTX670 needs only a 500w psu, and a 7970 still needs only 550w.
Buy a quality psu from seasonic, xfx,Antec, Corsair, or PC P&C to name a few.

The rest of your parts look fine and appropriate.

 

[geekapproved]

It is not "MUCH faster". In all the benchmarks I have seen at 1080p, including all the ones on this site, show the 670 as faster than a reference 7970, and slightly behind a GHz edition 7970. But nothing too extreme, obviously depending on the title and other hardware in the system. Plus you get borderlands 2 free($60) with 660ti and 670 purchases.

Just for reference:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/U/3/336747/original/gtx 670 vs 7970 1920.png

Apparently you didn't read the Anandtech Bench charts I posted.

 

[jtenorj]

Cheapest HD7970 in the UK with a decent cooler:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007IA6QLM/?tag=pcp0f-21

Cheapest gtx670 in the UK with a decent cooler:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-gigabyte-gtx-670-windforce-2x-28nm-pcie-30-%28x16%29-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-941mhz-boost-1019mhz-cores-13

Both will overclock, but with gtx670 you have iffy turbo speeds. A decent 7970 will overclock
better than a 7970ghz ed. and outperform a gtx680 for sure. However, a decent hd7950
overclocked will beat a 7970 and play games at 3x1080p. Even a good hd7870 might let you
run games like bf3 at 1080p with high settings(overclocked of course). All these 28nm
cards beg you to oc the gpu. Here is the Cheapest hd7950 in the UK with a decent cooler:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-xfx-radeon-hd-7950-double-d-ghost-hcell-5000mhz-gddr5-28nm-gpu-800mhz-1792-cores-dl-dvi-i-hdmi-m

here are 3 hd7870s with decent coolers for 166.66 ex VAT, 199.99 inc VAT:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-162-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-296-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-051-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

 

[rob_jeffers]

Thanks for all of your input so far... However there has been a slight change of plan.

What tickled me about the Gigabyte 7970 OC was its scores in the benchmarks on here and elsewhere...

I went to go and order the Gigabyte card today and Scan had told me that they cannot get any more in stock and that its possibly end of line (it has been on pre-order for at least 3 weeks)... I need to buy from scan because im planning on paying via finance...

The chap on the phone recommended this instead.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-hd-7970-oc-5500mhz-gddr5-1010mhz-2048-cores-dp-dl-dvi-i-hdmi

Spec wise the same as the Gigabyte card, although it will be much quiter but probably run hotter and have less room for further OC'ing.

Being honest, I dont think I will over clock which is why I am interested in a factory over clock.

Now my biggest concern is that I cannot find any benchmarks or even reviews on this card, and I am unsure of MSI as a brand.

Would I expect this card to be on par with the likes of similar 670's?

Also, I will be salvaging the old PSU from my previous comp, which is a OCZ (i think) and at least 600w