When I got my 7970 it was that or nothing really. They were incredibly scarce and there was a lot of price gouging going on. I paid £430, the RRP of the card but most were going for £460+
I read in reviews that the cooler was quiet and the card was cool. God only knows where they got that from ! I clocked it to 1000mhz on the low stock volts and the fan was constantly spinning up and making a right old racket.
TBH it wasn't much quieter than the 480s I had. Terrible cooler.
Thankfully when I got my 670 I caught a lucky break, as it was on special on Scan for £314 when they were all £340+ and it came with a lovely cooler.
My current SLI set up hardly ever spins up and even when it does it's very hard to distinguish. Which is nice, because even after an hour of Valley looped it's never been over 73c.