Quiet 7950 or Stock 7970??

[alex_purice]

OK so I want to buy a new gpu. I'm kinda a quiet freak but I also like to play everything on high, no questions asked. Until recently I wanted to buy a new Asus directcu ii 7950 V2, it's quiet, it's pretty, it's a great performer. Now however I have the opportunity to buy a slightly used saphire 7970(the stock model) at roughly 50 Euros cheaper. How much louder can it be than the Asus model? Will I want to commit suicide after one week of fan noise? Please advise, I would love to hear from someone who has used one of these. My pc currently is: i5 3570k@4.2, Asrock Z77 pro4, D14, Asus Xonar DG, CM Silent Pro 750W, 2x120GB Kingston V200+, 8GB Kingston hyperX Red, CM Storm Stryker(I figured if Tom builds in it, it must be good, and it's AMAZING, 10x Tom.

 

[jamesriley94]

Quiet 7950 any day for me.
AMD stock coolers are so loud to me.

 

[Cody_h4x]

OK so I want to buy a new gpu. I'm kinda a quiet freak but I also like to play everything on high, no questions asked. Until recently I wanted to buy a new Asus directcu ii 7950 V2, it's quiet, it's pretty, it's a great performer. Now however I have the opportunity to buy a slightly used saphire 7970(the stock model) at roughly 50 Euros cheaper. How much louder can it be than the Asus model? Will I want to commit suicide after one week of fan noise? Please advise, I would love to hear from someone who has used one of these. My pc currently is: i5 3570k@4.2, Asrock Z77 pro4, D14, Asus Xonar DG, CM Silent Pro 750W, 2x120GB Kingston V200+, 8GB Kingston hyperX Red, CM Storm Stryker(I figured if Tom builds in it, it must be good, and it's AMAZING, 10x Tom.

Go with the stock 7970, you'll get a ton of power out of it, and it's virtually silent. My buddy has the Sapphire stock cooler, and it's silent except if you manually set the fan speeds to 100% but that's find considering the card never ramps up to that RPM

 

[seumasbeathan]

Dont go stock, always go aftermarket

 

[SieB]

I have the Asus DCII v2 7950 and if it's quiet you want it's defiantly the one you should go for.

 

[SavageCupcake]

Could always get the 7970 then buy an aftermarket cooler after if its a reference board. Thats if your confident with taking the cooler off and don't mind voiding the warranty. otherwise just get the 7950

 

[alex_purice]

I could buy an aftermarket cooler...hmm, I could buy the Alpenföhn Peter 79XX Edition, and fit noctua fans on it to match the d14. That could be sexy?

 

[jamesriley94]

Taking the coolers off AMD cards (in the UK at least) voids the warranty. Not really worth it IMO. You're better off just paying the extra for non-reference to start with

 

[Etlar]

I have a XFX 7970 card, and i cant hear my card in the rig. The only thing i hear in my rig right now is my 200mm fan in the front.

 

[JMMP]

Go with Asus 7950! You can easily overclock it to the same performance as 7970 and still be quiet!

 

[deadbc77]

I say 7970,i have a Sapphire 7970 6GB Toxic GHZ Edition,and a 3gb in the closet next to the GTX 680.Under a good load my 7970 is loud, but runs @67 degrees.It's a beast and worth every penny.

 

[sonrise]

as many people here suggested already, i would go with the quiet 7950 DirectCUII over the reference 7970, stock blower design coolers tend to be really loud, and run hot.
The only reason i would get a reference card is for watercooling purposes, as usually finding blocks for reference cards is a lot easier

 

[| raVen |]

The 7970 stock cooler is not that bad, like a lot of people saying. If you can get 7970 for less than 7950 I wouldn't be thinking twice, and I would buy 7970.

Could always get the 7970 then buy an aftermarket cooler after if its a reference board. Thats if your confident with taking the cooler off and don't mind voiding the warranty. otherwise just get the 7950

When I return my 7970 I told OcUK that I removed the cooler because I was watercooling card, and they said that if they cannot say during testing that cooler was removed, I wouldn't loose warranty. And well I didn't So as long as you know what you doing you safe

 

[alex_purice]

Decisions, decisions...Now I'm thinking to wait another month or two for the 8000 series. What do you guys think? Worth it?

 

[deadbc77]

If you can wait i would,but....if you got the itch to buy a new card nothing going to stop you.That being said,my story goes like this.Back in late December 2011 i had a 6870 with the itch to upgrade.I was playing a mmo, and ask that same question should i buy the 6970.Some one had suggested to wait for the 7970.Having that itch to upgrade i bought the 6970,and in late march 2012 i ended up buying the 7970.All together this year i've bought 3 7970's and one gtx 680.That itch can be expensive.

 

[alex_purice]

Waiting will be hard, as I am now running on the 3570K graphics, with Dota 2 and CS 1.6 to entertain me(which they do thoroughly). How much better are the 8000's? Any major tech strides forward to warrant not playing far cry 3 for 3 months?

 

[Deejeta]

cough cough..... waterblock that thing

 

[alex_purice]

Well, thank you for all the advice, I just bought the ASUS directcu II TOP 7950. It's an ok card, pretty quiet(nothing like the Gigabyte windforce 2 cards, not even close), and it looks the sh*t in my rig. I only overclocked it to 950/1400 for now. Please tell me what's the highest safe overclock for this, I don't really wanna push it to hard. Thanks!

 

[| raVen |]

Well, thank you for all the advice, I just bought the ASUS directcu II TOP 7950. It's an ok card, pretty quiet(nothing like the Gigabyte windforce 2 cards, not even close), and it looks the sh*t in my rig. I only overclocked it to 950/1400 for now. Please tell me what's the highest safe overclock for this, I don't really wanna push it to hard. Thanks!

Just google it mate...
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1679776
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_hd_7950_overclock_guide,1.html

 

[SieB]

Isn't the core 950 at stock? My Asus 7950 DCII is 950/1250 at stock.
Mine does 1150/1500 on 1.187v but BF3 needs 1.197v to run stanle with those clock.