The quietest 7970?

[timnswede]

I was looking around for a really quiet 7970 and a lot of people were saying the Sapphire and the Asus, but those threads were a couple months old. Right now I am really leaning towards getting a gigabyte 670 windforce, because I'll take quietness over a couple more FPS. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423

Are there any cards that come close to the 670s quietness? I have a 6870 right now, and that thing screams in the summer.

 

[bigshootr8]

Still remains the same the Sapphire Vapor-X would be my recommendation for the card to get.

Sapphire Vapor-x
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001

However the ASUS coolers lately have been very very quiet
[flash=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/v/Pmv8sigAd-w?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]

I have that gigabyte card I never hear it ever. I don't think you can go wrong with going with a 670 either. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference performance wise unless you were doing something specific multi monitoring as an example.

 

[redeemer]

7970Ghz>670

You're best option would be the Vapor-X

 

[timnswede]

Hey bigshootr8, you've replied to all my questions lol. Sorry about making so many, I just really want to make the best decision possible before dropping $400. I like the ASUS as well, but the gigabyte seems to be the best mix of quietness, coldness, and factory clock speeds for the 670.

Anyways, back to the 7970. I've heard a lot of people say that the Sapphire cards suffer from coil whine. Is that still common or have they fixed that?

 

[timnswede]

Oh and the reason I am considering the 7970 is the because of the extra gb of vRam. 4 GB seems like overkill, 2 GB seems too close for comfort.

 

[bigshootr8]

Yea, I don't feel content without trying to answer all the questions :X The only thing that bothered me about the Gigabyte solution (After the fact) was there customer support is a bit iffy when you call you feel like you are calling a Asian restaurant (picture this) then you send you off to someone to talk to and they aren't all that professional and they told me that a RMA process through them would take a turn around of 4 weeks to get a card back to me. Performance wise its a great bang for your buck its not as expensive as a ASUS.

I read that as well with the 7970 Vapor-X. That people are experiencing that. However, you should know that it depends on your luck with cards sometimes you get it sometimes you don't. And I don't look at it from a 670 v 7970 point of view because the 670 is a bit cheaper then most 7970's of course there are exceptions but the gigabyte solution is a aftermarket cooler and is at a good price where as aftermarket coolers like the vapor-x will cost you more as well as the asus solution.

 

[bigshootr8]

Well it truly depends with the memory situation as well if you play games that use mods you may be better off with a 7970. BY mods I mean heavy intensive games like skyrim. Keep in mind though that both are very capable cards and you wouldn't feel the difference unless you were using mods that would push the envelope on your video ram which in that case yes the 7970. Gigabyte makes the same cooler on the 670 for the 7970 if you like that design as well.

 

[redeemer]

The Vapor X has good cooling for the VRM's, while most manufacturers neglect this. Coil Whine is a luck of the draw, I know that the Gigabyte Windforce cards have Coil Wines issue as well. Kepler will hit the barrier of its 256 bit bus long before it runs out of VRAM.

 

[bigshootr8]

The likelihood that he would run into that issue is quite small and far between a 256 bit bus is more then sufficient. Its the ram that he would run out of. And any card can have coil whine. My card has never coil whined ever. So its almost like the silicon lottery with chips you sometimes get a chip that can be pushed hard in a overclock and sometimes you can't.

 

[timnswede]

I do play Skyrim a lot, but I don't really mod it like crazy. I've also heard that that anti aliasing uses a lot of vram and doesn't really change anything on a 1080p screen so I could turn that down or off. I am mostly just worried about what will happen when the new consoles come out. What I was thinking of doing was getting the gigabyte 670, and then if I ever needed more vRAM, I would SLI with 4 GB version. Would that work?

I would like a 7970, but after this 6870 I really want a quieter card. Would the 7970 be quieter than my single fan 6870 or about the same?

 

[redeemer]

The likelihood that he would run into that issue is quite small and far between a 256 bit bus is more then sufficient. Its the ram that he would run out of. And any card can have coil whine. My card has never coil whined ever. So its almost like the silicon lottery with chips you sometimes get a chip that can be pushed hard in a overclock and sometimes you can't.

Bandwidth is the key factor here, as you can clearly see in benchmarks 4GB on a Kepler cards provides little benefit over in 2GB cards since its it the bandwidth that chokes. You have to understand it is bandwidth that feeds the GPU internally, in any case 256 bit bus width provides enough bandwidth in most cases.

 

[bigshootr8]

Well course if you put a higher ram card like the 7970 with a higher memory bit that would be the case yes. The added benefit would be that he would have more ram to draw from but lest bet honest here if the man is only running on a 1920x1080 display which my stab at it is a yes. He isn't going to run into this issue. Also furthermore, the difference wont be felt.

Metaphor:
two cars are being sold one can go 80 the other can go 82 and can fit more people (fit in relation to the memory bit) if the car is 2000 dollars more expensive then the 80 mile car and what you are caring about is speed you won't pay the 2000 dollars for the 82 mile in hour car.

Its all about what you are currently using what you intend to use and what will best serve your needs without getting something that you will never use. And that is my goal when I give advice to people because people are looking for the best solution that will serve them not necessarily the best solution.

 

[bigshootr8]

Also, if you play Skyrim a lot then I would go with AMD unless there was a NVIDIA title you played I would go with the AMD solution. Skyrim has done better with a AMD solution do to the memory (bit, and capacity) You may not mod much but you will get the better solution for that game with them. Not that Nvidia can't do it just that its better on the other side.

 

[bigcyco1]

The card your looking at is a good choice.

 

[bigshootr8]

Thanks for coming and replying to this thread big lol when people dump on nvidia it feels nice to have someone that can look at it from both sides.

 

[timnswede]

Since the gigabyte 7970 uses the same cooling as the 670 (it looks like) would the noise be about the same? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125413

 

[bigshootr8]

given the cooler yes it would be around the same. the only time it gets noisy is when you push the fan speed but given how the newer generation cards are they don't typically generate much heat and therefore the fans wont spin at a higher rpm.

 

[timnswede]

OK. As long as it is quieter than my 6870 I'll be happy. I do want the Sapphire, but I'm kind of worried about the coil whine. Also how are AMD drivers nowadays? I've heard bad things about them before, but it looks like they've gotten better.

 

[bigshootr8]

They've gotten better the AMD Drivers. Both series of cards have issues. There was a windows movie maker bug that plagued my nvidia card for a little where I couldn't upload to youtube through it. I like the way nvidia handles there drivers personally how its setup how things look. However AMD does a pretty decent job as well.

 

[bigshootr8]

It most certainly should be quieter as well.

 

[timnswede]

OK thanks. One last thing, not sure if you know this, but if I got coil whine do most companies cover that in the warranty?

 

[redeemer]

Well course if you put a higher ram card like the 7970 with a higher memory bit that would be the case yes. The added benefit would be that he would have more ram to draw from but lest bet honest here if the man is only running on a 1920x1080 display which my stab at it is a yes. He isn't going to run into this issue. Also furthermore, the difference wont be felt.

Metaphor:
two cars are being sold one can go 80 the other can go 82 and can fit more people (fit in relation to the memory bit) if the car is 2000 dollars more expensive then the 80 mile car and what you are caring about is speed you won't pay the 2000 dollars for the 82 mile in hour car.

Its all about what you are currently using what you intend to use and what will best serve your needs without getting something that you will never use. And that is my goal when I give advice to people because people are looking for the best solution that will serve them not necessarily the best solution.

Quite the metaphor there

Simplified

A maxed out mem bus means it cannot use the additional VRAM ...there much better!

 

[redeemer]

The card your looking at is a good choice.

The Vapor X is an excellent card but it aint worth $100 more than than MSI 670 PE

 

[bigshootr8]

Right and that was all I was trying to get across If you want the best of the best for skyrim it would be the 7970 then the 670

 

[redeemer]

Right and that was all I was trying to get across If you want the best of the best for skyrim it would be the 7970 then the 670

Your exactly right it really depends on your needs both are excellent cards, though I would put MSI build quality a head of ASUS and Sapphire