Quietest 7970?

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dolorousdave

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 27, 2012
Messages
219
I'm still in the process of deciding whether I want a 7970 or a 680 but during my information gathering I'm having a bit of a hard time finding info on HD7970s other than reference designs. Is there a particular available 7970 that is considered the quietest?

Also, is the GTX680 known to be considerably quieter than any HD7970 or does it all depend on the cooling solution?

Thanks much!
 
I RMA'd mine to Gigabyte because of the coil whine......it's on its way back, we'll see if they changed anything.
 
The quietest of all is the watercooled vid card... it's an investment. You can also get a pretty good overclock

"Coil whine" is not a problem for me, because I use headphones :D
 
For overall quietness at load (especially OC'd load) the 680 is going to be quieter, but good luck finding one if you are stateside. Mostly though the difference is going to come down to whatever aftermarket cooling solution is applied.

The three most quiet 7970's seem to be the Sapphire Dual OC, the MSI Lightning, and ASUS DCII. The MSI and Asus cards use custom PCB (but do not get much better overclocking) the Sapphire uses an extra vrm on a reference board but reviews have somehow still tended to show it clocking slightly better in second bios mode. These all apparently make less noise than reference 680s.

If you get coil whine, which of the three seems to occur most often with the Sapphire card, just send it back for a replacement non-whining card.
 
The Sapphire 7970 is getting some serious loving. I'd consider one if the 7970 ghz edition wasn't so close to being released.
 
The Mac said:
Sapphire OC edition....cant hear a thing, even at 80%
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+1

Drangueos said:
I'm going to buy a Sapphire 7970 OC dual fan.. soon...
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+2

The Mac said:
i love, love love my sapphie 7970 OC. Best card ive ever owned.
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+3

deusofhearts said:
The Sapphire 7970 is getting some serious loving. I'd consider one if the 7970 ghz edition wasn't so close to being released.
Click to expand...

Why wait? That Sapphire card will easily hit 1150 on stock volts, and 1200-1250 with voltage bump. I run mine at CCC max of 1125/1575 on stock volts, auto fans, and its as dead silent as you can get with an air cooled card. Very, very impressive cooler on that thing.
 
Im tempted to send back my gigabyte windforce, not quite at after 50% fan speed and on load i get to 100%, for another.

I'm avoiding sapphire mainly due to its rep and what i've read about their warranty. And they're only two years...so...
 
257Tony said:
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Why wait? That Sapphire card will easily hit 1150 on stock volts, and 1200-1250 with voltage bump. I run mine at CCC max of 1125/1575 on stock volts, auto fans, and its as dead silent as you can get with an air cooled card. Very, very impressive cooler on that thing.
Click to expand...

coil whine?
 
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