I'm planning on doing a gaming build. Ive been looking at the 7970. I really want a 7970 especially if i can find one that is pretty quiet and runs relatively cool. But I dont want to bet wasting money for a slight performance increase. Ive looked at the benchmarks for nvidia and amd and amd does better on more of the games i plan on getting and im hoping that they will still have the 3 game coupons when i get my card. I read a few things and suggestions on reddit r/buildapc and people on seem to recommend 7970's for higher resolutions and multiple monitors. Well i dont have a top of the line monitor at least i dont think so. Viewsonic VA1930. But my thinking was that i would like to have some room to grow and than say tax season 2014 i could buy a new monitor since ill be using the 2013 money for my pc. But if its really not worth it i would get a 7950.
7970 if you have the $$$$
I will when i start building. thanks
I'm still going to recommend getting a 7950 and overclock it.
Yep, like Commissar said, 7970 if you have the money, if not, a 7950 will do just fine.
You pay for what you get, the performance increase is proportional to the price increase. only way you'd be wasting money is if you bought a 7970 to run something that doesn't require the horsepower.
http://www.hwcompare.com/11427/radeon-hd-7950-vs-radeon-hd-7970/
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/508?vs=550
the 7970 is the better card but its up to you if the extra money is worth the performance boost.