Which is gonna be better? I'm looking for something to run games like Skyrim with a bunch of graphics mods. I'm leaning towards the 7870 GHZ but I'm not sure.
Did you have a budget for this card because if not get two gtx 690's
Honestly graphics mods are best used with lots of ram. they like ram. Who doesn't honestly.
I'm using a gtx 660 in HD 256x256 texture pack minecraft and i'm getting 40 fps. Minecraft is pulling over 1.5 gigs of ram at times with a render distance of 512. So get a card with oodles of ram i've only got 2 gigs but it works nicely.
The 7870 Tahiti LE is a little better, it has more in common with a 7950 (its basic a stripped back 7950 with 250 less stream processors)......but we are talk very little.
But for £30/40 more you can get a full fat 7950 with 3072MB that will help out with the texture pack you want to run.