Cards, cards, cards... Help me! :)

[Vid Nikolic]

So, I have been looking at the forums, and I did not get the answer I was searching for, but in fact, some forums say "go for this" and other "go for that for sure". And my "that" and "this" are cards:

Gigabyte GV-R797TO-3GD 389euros = 511$
MSI AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384bit R7970 Lightning - 407e = 535$

First one is GHz edition 1100 core, 6ghz memory, but they say its locked, and that MSI is quieter, but its overclockable starting 1070 stock, 5.6ghz memory.
What do you think, by price and performance, what is better?

P.S. in play is also 680, its not that more expensive, but I have heard with a little OC 7970 can beat it and its not worth paying that extra money for 680.

 

[Norlag]

Actually, the 7970 beats the 680 at stock speeds in a surprising number of benchmarks and tests.

I assume you mean to overclock, so the msi would probably be your best bet. If you aren't certainly go for the gigabyte.

 

[Vid Nikolic]

Yup, that was why I only asked about 7970, I was reading threads on this forum before posting, and I saw that lot of you are reccomending 7970, and that tomshardware has chosen it for the best single gpu on this gen. But I added 680 just to be sure about it.
Note that Msi Lightning is not Ghz, but people do say it OC-s good, and yeah, I plan to oc, not at start since I'm playing on 1920x1080, but when the need for it comes in some games. I also plan to add another when this one starts getting obsolete, if that changes the choice.

 

[Norlag]

Yep the msi lightning cards tend to be very good in the overclocking department, so I would say go for it. You can boost it to over 1GHz easily so that's not an issue.

 

[Vid Nikolic]

Yeah, I saw people getting 1200 easy on stock voltage I think. That's why I asked. Its a bit more expensive, but not that much, and they say its a bit quieter since Gigabyte one makes some noise. That is not important to me as performance, but they say Lightning is acctualy colder and still quieter, so investing in that is nice.

 

[Vid Nikolic]

Sry for double post, but will this Seasonic 850AM, 850W be enough for dual 7970 Lightning oc-ed a bit, 16 gigs ram, i5 3570k or i7 3770k, both I would go as high as 4.0ghz, no benchmarking, just want good speed for gaming, and I don't think any higher is needed, with Noctua NH-D14:
http://www.seasonicusa.com/M12II-Bronze-650-750-850.htm

http://www.emmi.rs/napajanja-i-dodatni-ventilatori-napajanje-850w-seasonic-ss-850am.11.html?productId=21661

 

[Norlag]

No, sorry 850 watts would not be good enough for 2 overclocked 7970s.

I like to have a good bit of overhead with power, so I would get a larder psu.

btw you can use a wattage calculator to estimate about how much power your system will require. (I use newegg's)

 

[Vid Nikolic]

You sure? Got people all over telling otherwise. They say even a 750W is ok on stock, but for a little OC headroom get 850W, and I think Seasonic is a quality PSU, has 840w on 12v rail...