Upgrading from MSI 5770 hawk

[dantzeil]

Hi guys, new on this forum.

Im thinking of upgrading my graphics card and have narrowed it down to a few choices.

MSI 7870 Twin frozr
Powercolor 7870 PCS+

Some other cards in my budget
Sapphire 7850 OC
MSI 7850 OC/Power edition
Powercolor 7850 PCS+
Sapphire 7870 Ghz edition (non OC version)
MSI 7870 HAWK

Since Im probably from a different region as compared to all of you, I decided it would be best to just post all my possible choices. I was initially settled on the powercolor 7870 but the msi's price had dropped recently. I read up on reviews and one thing bothering me was how some of them mentioned that the msi one tended to be slightly noisy at times while the powercolor one tended to be slightly on the warmer side.

Can anyone advise me? Which is the most stable and balanced card? Im NOT going to do any overclocking. The HAWK is slightly out of my budget and since I wont be overclocking, I thought the new features would not be of any use to me. However if it does not have the noise problem like the OC version then I might consider it.

Im a heavy gamer. PSU should be Andyson F500m, CPU is AMD phenom 2 x4 925 on a MSI G45(?) motherboard. The Nvidea cards in this price range are less powerful according to the GPU hierarchy here. 660ti onwards is very expensive, even more expensive than the 7950 here. Monitor resolution is 1920x1080

All help is appreciated!

 

[dantzeil]

Bump?

 

[dantzeil]

Can anyone help?

 

[dscudella]

For a single monitor @ 1920x1080 either the 7850 2gb or 7870 are great choices (7870 being the obvious better of the two). The MSI TwinFROZR cooler is among the best along with the Sapphire Vapor-X. If you're not going to OC (it really is quite easy) you could pay for the factory OC cards.

 

[dantzeil]

Hi thanks so much for your reply.

Yup I know the twin frozr ones are great in temperatures but the thing concerning me is the noise

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_radeon_hd_7870_twinfrozr_iii_oc_review,9.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_7870_HAWK/27.html

These two reviews pointed out that the card gets really noisy under load and considering that Im a heavy gamer, I dont really want that. Well Im not really interested in overclocking, prefer a card that will give me good performance straight out of the box.

 

[dscudella]

If you're NOT going to OC then I would stay away from MSI. Get the Sapphire. They are an awesome brand that really pride themselves on making quality products.

 

[dantzeil]

Hmmm I see, ok then I'll get the sapphire! Thanks for your help!

 

[dantzeil]

Best answer selected by Dantzeil.