Radeon 7950 or 7970?

[eamojoe]

I'm building a new system, and I was wondering what I should get for my GPU. The 7950 looks like it will be able to handle itself fairly well on all the new games coming out for the next year or so, but the 7970 looks pretty good as well. I would really love to play some of the higher end games, like Planetside 2, Battlefield 3, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, and Far Cry 3. If I wanted to get roughly 60 fps (45-70) on those four games, which card do all you think I would need to purchase? It's kinda blowing my budget for the 7970, but then I just need to wait for this month's paycheck. I've already purchased/am set on purchasing:

Corsair Vengeance C70 (case, purchased)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (CPU cooler, purchased)
Intel i5 3570k (CPU, plan on getting)
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 (RAM, purchased)
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750 Watt 80 PLUS Bronze (PSU, plan on getting)
AS Rock ATX Z77 Extreme 4 (Motherboard, plan on getting)
Western Digital Blue 1TB (hard drive, purchased)
Asus 24xDVD-RW OEM Drive (optical drive, purchased)

I currently own a 24-inch 1080p monitor, Windows 7 (64bit), and a mouse and keyboard. The case came with 3 fans, and I believe that's plenty.

Thanks for the input.

 

[darksparten]

There's next to no difference.

A well OC'd 7950 is roughly equivalent to a 7970 for 70-100 dollars less.

A good choice is the Sapphire 7950 Dual-X or the Twin Frozr 7950.

Good luck!

 

[babernet_1]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/far-cry-3-performance-benchmark,3379-6.html

As you can see, even the 7970 will not provide what you need in Far Cry 3. Should I be you, I'd get a 7950 or 670 and after a month or so, get another one and SLI them, then you will be slamming at 60+.

 

[eamojoe]

Best answer selected by eamojoe.

 

[bigcyco1]

The 7950 would be a good choice.I bought my son one he can play any game on high settings and some even ultra.Then theres the HD 7950 DirectCU II Top ASUS has a very powerful version of AMDs Radeon HD 7950 in its portfolio. The factory overclocking, which is no less than 100 MHz, is very well measurable and increases the performance noticeably. Furthermore there is ASUS' DirectCU II cooler which once more did an awesome job.If you should be looking for a very powerful graphics card which comes with a factor overclocking then the ASUS HD 7950 DirectCU II Top definitely can be recommended.The HIS HD 7950 IceQ X² uses a new cooler that was introduced to the company's lineup recently. It also comes with a nice overclock out of the box and highly capable dual 8-pin power inputs.

Pricing is quite reasonable with $320, given that it is just $10 more than a normal HD 7950 reference design card and significantly cheaper than the GTX 670, which offers a similar performance.

Sapphire's HD 7950 Vapor-X comes with a large dual-fan cooler that uses the company's famous vapor-chamber technology. On the Vapor-X you will also find a "Lethal Boost" button which switches to a second BIOS with higher clock speeds. With this BIOS, clocks are increased to 950 MHz GPU and 1250 MHz memory.

 

[Hookster67]

If you are on a budget then there is for sure more bang for your buck getting an AMD 7950 over the 7970. But it is true that an overclocked 7950 is as good as a 7970 but if you can afford a 7970 get the Sapphire 7970 Vapor X ghz edition. I have tried 3 different models and feel this is the best. But back to original question, for sure they are close in performance but a big difference in price if that matters. Also noticed you are planning to get the Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 Mobo, excellent choice. I am new to overclocking and so far it does very well. I tried out the MSI and the Asus Boards which cost about $40 dollars more and I more than happier with the Asrock. Plus it is Tom's Hardware Approved.

Good Luck on your system.

 

[eamojoe]

Thank you sir. I was pretty sure that they was a pretty small difference between the two, but I thought I'd ask you guys just in case. I guess Far Cry 3 will be okay at around 40 fps. It's certainly understandable, especially for such a great looking game. Maybe I will go SLI in like March or something. Thnaks again.