Best 7970 for overclocking?

[Murderotica926]

Alright I have had it with low-quality, pathetic-overclocking GPUs. My XFX 6950 sucked at overclocking. I heard Sapphire had a good rep so then I bought a Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X. It sucked at overclocking too, hitting only 1175 even though it was a premium, custom card that cost another $70 more than a normal 7970. ASIC rating of 63.4. It died and I got a replacement. The 2nd one was even worse. OC ceiling of 1150 and ASIC of 53.6. To make things worse, it squeals like a pig at high frame rates and rattles like a jackhammer at normal frame rates with heavy load (at stock clocks!!). The thing just sounds like it's about to explode!

I've had enough. I'm going to try to get what I can out of this thing on ebay, and I'm buying my next GPU from Newegg (not SuperBiiz) so I have a 30-day "return for any reason" warranty. I will not settle for a 7970 that clocks less than 1250-1300.

So I need to know, what brand and what model 7970 is known for being the best overclocker?

 

[Cyanide Reverse]

Get a factory clocked version that is pretty high so OC'ing is easy to do and you can overclock higher, also make sure it isn't voltage locked and the gigabyte's are good.

 

[Murderotica926]

Get a factory clocked version that is pretty high so OC'ing is easy to do and you can overclock higher, also make sure it isn't voltage locked and the gigabyte's are good.

Mine were factory overclocked to 1050 and had unlocked voltage. So that alone isn't enough to convince me a card has a good chance to reach 1250-1300. I have heard good things about Gigabyte cards though

 

[Cyanide Reverse]

Get a factory clocked version that is pretty high so OC'ing is easy to do and you can overclock higher, also make sure it isn't voltage locked and the gigabyte's are good.

Mine were factory overclocked to 1050 and had unlocked voltage. So that alone isn't enough to convince me a card has a good chance to reach 1250-1300. I have heard good things about Gigabyte cards though

Gigabyte cards have excellent cooling and are barely audible at 55% fan speed, MSI and Sapphire are also good choices.