First off, I have room in case and the cards will not be bottle necked by anything in my system. I am not going to crossfire, and do not plan on it. I want a card that is quiet and will run under 70c on load and be respectively quiet.
It's a big list, as I really cannot decide. If you have another option that's available in the $300-$350 price range and is better than these, let me know. Also needs to be available in the U.S.
The Asus or MSI; both are fantastic, and will OC like a champ. Personally, I like the MSI card for the reference PCB (I believe), but the Asus is also great :|
I just picked up the 7970 variant of the ASUS card. Like literally JUST ordered it 5 minutes ago. Pretty sure it's going to be quiet. Probably the most quiet one you can get. MSI if you have a major dust problem. Quite good cooling on that one I'm sure. Don't pick us the XFX unless you want it souly for the baller chrome factor. XFX has been skimping on the features which sucks because they're using a non reference PCB. Not even a BIOS switch. Although the output options are nice in my opinion.
Yeah they replaced my 6950 when I was at fault breaking it...I may not have told them I was at fault, but they replaced it. Took about a month. I wonder if their costumer support is getting better or worse since I last used it. I do know they took away the double lifetime warranty unforunately. That's really good for the card's resale value I believe.
I personally have the MSI 7950, and it's a fantastic card. It's very quiet (I can't even hear it over my case fans, even at full load), and cools quite well. The hottest I've seen it go is around 63 celcius, but that's at stock clocks. The Asus card would also be a great option, and probably runs a tad cooler and quieter.
I'd get the XFX or the ASUS. They are both great. If I had to choose one, I'd go for the ASUS. It cools like no other card and overclocks extremely well.
Wait until the GTX 700 series cards come out... AMD might cut the prices down like they did last time.
Any news on when that might be? I will be grabbing a card the first portion of June.
Still not entirely sure which one to grab. They are all pretty good it seems like, just some can come with bad paste. Guess I will just be careful and pick one with a good RMA.
Well, I can tell you that XFX card (I have the exact same one) runs VERY hot at load. Mine peaked at 95c under full load and that's without overclocking it.
The good thing about it, is that it's incredibly silent most of the time. You can't even hear the fans spinning when the card is idling.
I have the MSI Twin Frozr III and I'm highly impressed with it. Under load it usually stays around 66c and there is a massive overclock headroom although be prepared for higher fan speeds to counter the heat when doing this too much. It's nice and quiet and much more stable than my previous 5770 xfx was.