VisionTek 900556 Radeon HD 7970 @ Newegg $369.59 AC FS

Great card. Got it in July when it was front page. Card overclocks to 1125mhz / 1600 with stock bios. Can be flashed to 1ghz bios and overclockable to 1175mhz. Stock cooler does a great job but can be loud beyond 50%.

Link to 1ghz bios is here:

http://legitreviews.com/news/13622/

Please note that this bios uses 60W more power at full load and out benchmarks an nvidia gtx 680 at resolutions 2560 or higher.

does the coupon work on gtx 670?

Link is not there. Thanks for the info. Just grabbed one up right before I posted the deal. Now I have to find a way to make it fit in my case.

Quote from hanabie : does the coupon work on gtx 670?

EVGA 02G-P4-2670-KR GeForce GTX 670 2GB for $369.99
$30 off w/ promo code HARDOCPX815F, ends 8/21

670 with coupon [newegg.com]

Quote from LxMxFxD : Great card. Got it in July when it was front page. Card overclocks to 1125mhz / 1600 with stock bios. Can be flashed to 1ghz bios and overclockable to 1175mhz. Stock cooler does a great job but can be loud beyond 50%. Link to 1ghz bios is here: http://legitreviews.com/news/13622/ Please note that this bios uses 60W more power at full load and out benchmarks an nvidia gtx 680 at resolutions 2560 or higher.

You're really starting to sway me into unloading my 5850 and grabbing this thing. Is the "GHz Edition" worth the extra loot?

Quote from Xymox : You're really starting to sway me into unloading my 5850 and grabbing this thing. Is the "GHz Edition" worth the extra loot?

Get a regular one with a real cooler and use msi afterburner to up the V and get to 1200+ mhz.

Quote from Xymox : You're really starting to sway me into unloading my 5850 and grabbing this thing. Is the "GHz Edition" worth the extra loot?

Not worth paying for. Regular reference cards can just be flashed w/ bios above, then upgrade the cooler if desired. I have this exact card flashed, it runs like a dream.

Edit: or yeah, as above oc regular for similar result.

Quote from Xymox : You're really starting to sway me into unloading my 5850 and grabbing this thing. Is the "GHz Edition" worth the extra loot?

If you play at 1080p your 5850 is probably pretty adequate. If you play beyond that, time to upgrade imho as 1gb cards do not cut it. After getting my 7970 I realized 2gb cards do not cut it (at least at 2560x1440). When flying jets in BF3 my vram is often beyond 2GB. For this reason I feel bad for people buying 670s and 680s because that 2gb of ram is going to bite them down the road.

Quote from LxMxFxD : If you play at 1080p your 5850 is probably pretty adequate. If you play beyond that, time to upgrade imho as 1gb cards do not cut it. After getting my 7970 I realized 2gb cards do not cut it (at least at 2560x1440). When flying jets in BF3 my vram is often beyond 2GB. For this reason I feel bad for people buying 670s and 680s because that 2gb of ram is going to bite them down the road.

Currently 1920x1200 (24"), but looking to upgrade to a larger 27" later this year.

As for the 670, a pricier 4GB version can be had.

out of stock, will coupon work on anything else?

Quote from LxMxFxD : If you play at 1080p your 5850 is probably pretty adequate. If you play beyond that, time to upgrade imho as 1gb cards do not cut it. After getting my 7970 I realized 2gb cards do not cut it (at least at 2560x1440). When flying jets in BF3 my vram is often beyond 2GB. For this reason I feel bad for people buying 670s and 680s because that 2gb of ram is going to bite them down the road.

The vram usage in games such as BF3 and Crysis High Resolution patch has been proven wrong many times. When the cards run out of Vram, the fps will drop to the single digit. Just because GPUZ reports Vram utilization of 2 GB doesn't mean the game is using 2 GB of Vram, it's just games tend to allocate A LOT more Vram than it actually use.

Solid evidence for this is that even the 1.5 GB Vram card such as GTX 580 can beat out the 2 GB Vram card HD 6970 in those games. If the games truly utilize more than 2 GB of Vram, the GTX 580 1.5 GB Vram will drop to single digit fps instead of beating out the 2 GB Vram HD 6970.

Another perfect example: In Crysis 2 High Resolution Patch, GTX 570 with 1.2 GB Vram beats out the HD 6970 2 GB at 1920-1080 Ultra Settings despite the fact that GPUZ reports 2 GB utilization in the game. http://www.guru3d.com/article/cry...nchmarks/9

Again, games tend to allocate A LOT more Vram than they actually use, I wouldn't be surprised to see 2.5 GB Vram allocation reported by GPUZ in system with video card that has 2.5 GB Vram, but the actual performance shows no difference between cards with 2.5 GB Vram and cards with 1.2 GB Vram at resolution up to 1920-1080 max AA/AF.

Only when the resolution increases to 2560-1600 with max AA/AF, then video cards with Vram less than 1.5 GB Vram start to slow down significantly, but this also depends on specific games as well.

Personally, 2GB Vram is plenty up to 2560-1600 resolution. If you play games with 3 monitors or above at eyefinity resolution, then yes 3GB or more is necessary.

pretty good deal

Quote from matt48 : The vram usage in games such as BF3 and Crysis High Resolution patch has been proven wrong many times. When the cards run out of Vram, the fps will drop to the single digit. Just because GPUZ reports Vram utilization of 2 GB doesn't mean the game is using 2 GB of Vram, it's just games tend to allocate A LOT more Vram than it actually use. Solid evidence for this is that even the 1.5 GB Vram card such as GTX 580 can beat out the 2 GB Vram card HD 6970 in those games. If the games truly utilize more than 2 GB of Vram, the GTX 580 1.5 GB Vram will drop to single digit fps instead of beating out the 2 GB Vram HD 6970. Another perfect example: In Crysis 2 High Resolution Patch, GTX 570 with 1.2 GB Vram beats out the HD 6970 2 GB at 1920-1080 Ultra Settings despite the fact that GPUZ reports 2 GB utilization in the game. http://www.guru3d.com/article/cry...nchmarks/9 Again, games tend to allocate A LOT more Vram than they actually use, I wouldn't be surprised to see 2.5 GB Vram allocation reported by GPUZ in system with video card that has 2.5 GB Vram, but the actual performance shows no difference between cards with 2.5 GB Vram and cards with 1.2 GB Vram at resolution up to 1920-1080 max AA/AF. Only when the resolution increases to 2560-1600 with max AA/AF, then video cards with Vram less than 1.5 GB Vram start to slow down significantly, but this also depends on specific games as well. Personally, 2GB Vram is plenty up to 2560-1600 resolution. If you play games with 3 monitors or above at eyefinity resolution, then yes 3GB or more is necessary.

I don't even know where to begin because this post is completely wrong.

Running out of vram will NOT cause single fps numbers in BF3 as BF3 uses system ram when it runs out of VRAM. Since 1600mhz DDR3 is far slower than the DDR5 onboard a gpu you a drop is noticeable but not all the way to single digit.

2GB is absolutely in adequate when viewing the entire map at 2560+ resolutions like when flying a jet. I've seen it and the proof is in the pudding: I get no FPS drops in a 3GB card while I saw plenty on crossfire 6970 2gb cards which is much faster than a single 7970.