My 7970 arrived :)

My new baby!



Overclocking:
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2821887 - stock everything (925 core/1375 mem)
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2822071 - 1050 core/1500 memory/stock voltage & fan
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2822117 - 1100 core/1500 memory/stock voltage & fan

Temps got to a maximum of 76 which is impressive for a reference cooler and considering how badly ventilated my case + room is (summer is hottt)

Going to try a bit later today to up my fan and voltage and see the max I can go. This is with a reference cooler and everything, may invest in an arctic accelero, or think about water cooling for my next build. CPU is my limitation for benchmarking it seems, but going to wait for ivy bridge before the upgrade.

 

How much did that cost you

 

That card is sexy, I so wish I could afford one but a better audio setup is higher priority atm for me

What are your other system specs?

 

625$ aussie dollars. I was using a 5850 before hand, so the upgrade was more than double for me (and I'm a detail whore, I like playing bf3 at ultra )

- i7 860 oc'd to 3.8 + thermaltake venomous X cooler
- asus p7h55d-m EVO mobo (cheap but alright board, won't go much past 3.9-4ghz on my CPU as the vdroop is ridiculous but whatever)
- g skill cl9 2x4gb kit + ocz obsidian 2x2gb kit (same timings and voltage, so it worked out fine for me)
- WD caviar 1tb HDD + 1tb samsung 103sj + 2 older 5900rpm hard drives which aren't in use.. (I want an OCZ vertex 3 SSD soon for windows + a few games when I have the money)
- Coolermaster 750w (can't remember the model, it's an older one, non modular)
- Dell u2412m (awesome e-ips panel 1920*1200 res is epic for gaming, browsing and graphics work)
- Case is a Windy superx, Japanese brand, very sturdy and soundproof
- Keyboard is logitech mk710 wireless
- Mouse is logitech g9 (not g9x, the original one, still going perfect)
- Speakers are some shitty old ones, onboard sound (fail, I know) but I have a razer carcharias headset for WoW raiding etc.

If I missed anything let me know.

 

Fuck man.. Enjoy the hell out of that.

 

How does that work without burning everything inside your computer to a crisp?

 

I would still go for Nvidia over that. Still, enjoy playing BF3 on Ultra. I can just about do that with my Nvidia 560 ti but I may need to overclock a bit.

 

It's quite a thick aluminium case is what I meant so it isn't very loud. Makes my room a little warm though. Things still stay cool because I have a good heatsink and fan, and the mobo is fairly small + enough air flow in the chassis.

I was thinking of waiting for kepler, but some more recent sources said the gk110 (780) is going to be released much later towards the end of the year and quite frankly I didn't want to wait that long. Plus speculation saying 30% increase over a 7970 is just not solid enough evidence for me to wait. But I'm sure the marketing worked well on a lot of other people. I've used both nvidia and ati/amd over the past 10+ years and happy with whatever one was fastest, and in this case it was the 7970 so I went with it

EDIT: 1150/1575
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2830284

Had to use a custom fan profile which got a little noisy but kept it at a max of 71c during 3d mark!!! Well I don't want to push it much further so I'll assume I can get over 9k without problems and call it a day. Back to running bf3 on 925/1375 which actually has about 15 fps less than 1100/1500 with full 4x msaa enabled, but I'll live.

 

Where'd you get the 7970 from?
I thought the cheapest 7970 in aussie(new) was like $650 from PCCG. haha.

Also, where are you located? if you upgrade CPU I'd be fucking keen in the MOBO, need a new board for my i7 860.

 

I perfer getting the Evga gtx 580 classified

 

Why? they're like the same price but the 7970 performs WAY better. lol.

 

http://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts.aspx?qryPart=13404
there you are turned out to be 625$ delivered to Sydney. If you're in syd then maybe we can arrange something as I'm definitely looking to upgrade as soon as I get the money from work (another month or so).

Meh it's up to like 30% worse in games and a few benchmarks, and that's before overclocking

Yeeep 580's are still at a ridiculous price, it's interesting that they haven't dropped even after 7970 release.

 

Cheers. And fuck, I'm in melbourne. D:

PCCGs 580s have dropped $50 or so. But it's Australia, prices are always retarded, hence the $700+ for a 7970 non reference. -.-

 

Bleh 500$ for a twin frozr 580 is still 100$ over what it should be tbh.. Or maybe not considering the 7970 prices.. when they drop I expect 580s to drop even more.

 

I do agree, but it's Australia, prices won't drop till and equivalent nvidia comes out.

 

I never liked amd cards, always give me glitches in half of the games I have. Not to mention iam a EVGA fan.

 

I'll admit their drivers haven't always been the best, but a big part of that is user installation and other software/hardware problems.

 

Im getting 2X 570 twin frozr in the upcoming few weeks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127582

 

Good luck with driver issues and microstutter when I can overclock and get (nearly) the same frames with one card anyway (which turns out to be cheaper than those in sli).

 

I think I'm going to buy that card to since I have started to get artifacts with my old Nvidia card