MSI R7950 Twin Frozr III 3GB vs Visiontek 7970 3GB REFERENCE CARD

tw23

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Okay, the Visiontek 7970 is only $370 on sale and you get three games. The downside is that it is a REFERENCE CARD, so I WOULD NOT BE OVERCLOCKING IT (sorry for caps - just wanted to emphasize that...)

The 7950 is the Twin Frozr III (also comes with three games) and I WILL BE OVERCLOCKING IT... And it's only $310 (so a $60 difference)... I need help deciding if it is worth the extra $60, or will an oc 7950 beat a reference 7970?

Thanks ;) .
-tw23
 

kevin83

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Yeah I would personally go with the msi 7950, I'm a huge fan of the cooler on those cards, it's much more powerful capable than coolers on comparable cards.
Also the performance of a 7950 with the overclocks you would do would be similar to the performance of the 7970 which you say you wouldn't overclock much.
 

tw23

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Because it's a reference fan right?
It doesn't cool that good?
 

bavman

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7970 generally don't get that hot anyways. There was a review on toms a while ago that overclocked a ref visiontek 7970 and it maxes out at 82*C which isnt bad at all.
 



reference cards are gpus with a fan and design that was built in accordance to AMD's original design. These usually have a bad cooling(because its usually a single fan with a moderately small heatsink) but since they are usually pushed out first during manufacturing, they are usually the ones that are produced the best, possibly overclocking better than the aftermarket cooler alternatives, albeit to reach the overclocking potential, you may possibly have to change the cooler
 

mulberry

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When i'm looking at a list of cards, say, on Newegg, how will i know which ones are reference and which aren't? I know some say factory overclocked but what about the others?
 

tw23

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It will show the AMD/nVidia logo near the PCB...