Which HD 7970 to go with

[death791]

Hi all, I plan on picking up a 7970 Graphic card on friday and I was wondering which looks like the better card to go with.

XFX Double D Black Edition
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150586

Or

Diamond Double Black Diamond Edition Overclocked http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103210

Both cards are just about the same as far as overclocked and the price is just about the same as well just the XFX Card has dual fan to the Single fan on the Diamond Model.

The Diamond also comes with cables I will be needing for Eyefinity which is nice as well, overall I just need help with whats the better brand to go with. thanks alot!

 

[Ranger12]

XFX is a more mainstream brand. I've had two XFX cards over the year and they were great. I ant speak for Diamond. Hopefully someone else can chime in with their experiences.

 

[Zilpha]

XFX is a good brand but be careful if you ever have to put in a warranty claim. They have some... interesting... policies on their website that aren't particularly clear when you input your information. They have a field for a shipping address, and before my RMA was issued they asked me to make sure that all my address information was correct and accurate as they couldn't change anything about shipping when the RMA was processed. So I made sure that my billing address and shipping addresss were complete and correct.

When they were done with the RMA they sent me a notification that the replacement card had shipped, but they used my billing address to ship to. What?

The "shipping address" field isn't actually used. They use the Billing address field, and I went back and forth with them for days trying to get it sorted. You have to email them with the address you want if it's after the RMA was processed with the ticket number as the subject, but three emails later they still claimed they weren't getting it - in the end it's going to be hit or miss whether I can get to the fedex facility to sign for it before they ship it back to XFX. I'm working on week 4 of being without my card, btw.

The brand is good as far as quality, but based on my experience I'm not sure I'm going to personally buy another XFX card. I'd just never seen anything quite like this.

 

[fimbles]

If they are both similar spec I would go for the dual fan version, just because the cooling fans look much easier to remove and clean than the shrouded version.

Also bear in mind the dual fan version pumps hot air in to your case, the single fan one pumps hot air out the back of your case.

With decent airflow in your case this should not be much of an issue.

 

[LNCPapa]

I've had a terrible experience with XFX Warranty - so I'd go for the Diamond card personally. Their warranty can't be any worse.

 

[dividebyzero]

I'd second the dodgy XFX warranty situation. On the other hand Diamond aren't the best either - like some other vendors, I'm not entirely sure that they spend any time binning GPU's for their OC ability - that is to say that they just seem to apply an overclocked BIOS to a random batch of cards and hope for the best.
I'd be more inclined to look at the tier-1 vendors. Sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. You could include Hightech (HIS) if you're in the U.S. - HIS's RMA/warranty is handled by a third party (Lexy Pacific), and their quality of support largely depends on what geographic distribution area you fall under.

 

[death791]

Thank you all for the reply's and info, I currently have the XFX Pro Series 1050w Power supply and Xfx products are very nice in my opinion so im starting to think just go with the Xfx card over the Diamond, but with the Diamond blowing the hot air out the back of the case maybe better then having the Xfx card blowing the hot air in my case, and in the future I plan on crossfiring two 7970 so would the top card be blowing the hot air on my bottom card in crossfire? Btw im currently running 8 140mm fan inside a Nzxt switch 810 case so then again air flow shouldnt really be to big of a issue, what do you guys think?

 

[dividebyzero]

Sounds fine. Cards like the XFX dual fan blow air the majority of the air out the back too-with some air being forced out from the open side of the shroud (cover) - which is the side that faces the motherboard.
Are the 140mm fans FN-140RB's - the stock fans that the Switch 810 cames equipped with? If so, then four,eight or twenty-eight - it doesn't really matter since they don't move much air and rely on the large internal air volume to keep temps under control. There's a reason why a reasonably priced chassis still manages to come equipped with four 140mm fans. If you're worried about temps and air flow, substitute some higher airflow/higher static pressure fans in the upper of the two front chassis fan positions and the upper harddrive bay (basically the two fans that bracket the top harddrive caddy). I use Koolance dual ball bearing fans (each being 108cfm and push about 4-5 x as much as the NXZT's).

 

[death791]

Nice setup man I plan on going with a water cooling setup very similar to your heres a picture of how my rig is setup atm, the 2 in the hard drive cases and the 2 in the very front are the nzxt fans that came with the case and the 3 on top and the rear fan are apevia's I believe they are called but the 4 stock nzxt fans I plan on replacing very soon.

http://killingroads791.host56.com/Picture 4.jpg
http://killingroads791.host56.com/Picture 5.jpg

sorry about the pictures btw just from a old webcam

 

[dividebyzero]

It sounds like you're on to it. No one I know with a Switch 810 kept the fans for much longer than it took to unhook them from the fan hookup board. Having a better class of fan in line with the graphics cards makes for a good temp drop. Good luck.

 

[slh28]

This Gigabyte one is cheaper and better, the Diamond one has a reference cooler which gets very noisy. Can't see the pic of the XFX one, but Gigabyte's cooling solution is very good.

 

[PC nerd]

Gigabyte, ASUS and Sapphire excellent, reliable companies to go with.

Great coolers too.