HD 7970's flying off shelves like hotcakes, retailer greed knows no bounds.

[MatTheCat]

You obviously don't understand how a channel works, AMD could sell direct and they would have one sales team doing all the work, or recruit a large number of global distributors and partners and have 100's of sales teams selling your products.

Well.....FYI.

Having done a bit of a read around ont he web, I have discovered that in past iterations of ATI cards, the VTX cards have not been compatible with the MSI Afterburner voltage overclock function!

This for me would be a damn good reason not to buy the card.

These cards cost on average £100 more than the GTX 580 (which has been out for more than a year), but out of the box they certainly dont perform £100 better. However they are known monster overclockers so risking getting a card upon which I couldnt tweak voltages would be a huge no no NO!

 

[Hokum]

VTX, being TUL's budget brand, sometimes get limited features (non programmable voltage control for example) but usually should be pretty usable cards never the less.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Well.....FYI.

Having done a bit of a read around ont he web, I have discovered that in past iterations of ATI cards, the VTX cards have not been compatible with the MSI Afterburner voltage overclock function!

This for me would be a damn good reason not to buy the card.

These cards cost on average £100 more than the GTX 580 (which has been out for more than a year), but out of the box they certainly dont perform £100 better. However they are known monster overclockers so risking getting a card upon which I couldnt tweak voltages would be a huge no no NO!

VTX, being TUL's budget brand, sometimes get limited features (non programmable voltage control for example) but usually should be pretty usable cards never the less.

+1

Don't really understand the relevance to my post but agree with Hokum's post, buy another brand?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Well.....FYI.

Having done a bit of a read around ont he web, I have discovered that in past iterations of ATI cards, the VTX cards have not been compatible with the MSI Afterburner voltage overclock function!

This for me would be a damn good reason not to buy the card.

These cards cost on average £100 more than the GTX 580 (which has been out for more than a year), but out of the box they certainly dont perform £100 better. However they are known monster overclockers so risking getting a card upon which I couldnt tweak voltages would be a huge no no NO!

So go for the Powercolor from EBuyer thats even cheaper??

 

[Hokum]

Heads up the power color has dropped to £416!!

PowerColor HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI Dual Mini.. ...

 

[Jarman]

@ qubit, I dont spend as much as i used to on my pc and usually pick up whatever i need from their deals of the day. I got 16GB of ram at christmas for 52 quid, and I bought a 6950 2gb for £215 a week after release date...they are still this price now. Earlier in the year i picked up my 2500k, 4gb of ram and msi gd53 for about £320, was a very reasonable price.

As i have more than 100 posts on the forum too next day shipping via DPD is free for me, so even if I want something small like heatsink compound, I don't have to wait until I want something else because the shipping cost makes it prohibitively expensive.

I have returned things several times for rma, I find the best thing to do is deal with manufacturer direct if you can, but i've never tried to claim shipping costs back to them - so I can't comment on how good they are at refunding that.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Well.....FYI.

Having done a bit of a read around ont he web, I have discovered that in past iterations of ATI cards, the VTX cards have not been compatible with the MSI Afterburner voltage overclock function!

This for me would be a damn good reason not to buy the card.

These cards cost on average £100 more than the GTX 580 (which has been out for more than a year), but out of the box they certainly dont perform £100 better. However they are known monster overclockers so risking getting a card upon which I couldnt tweak voltages would be a huge no no NO!

i bought a vtx3d 5870 on release day way back when, and allill say is it dosnt matter one jot if its refference design as mine was, in that case its the same as the others , the bios top set gpu and volts were v limited but i just flashed it with an asus ref bios and got it to 1050 on gpu, not bad id buy vtx3d again as its still doin 1050 a year and a bit later no probs obv with waterblock on because the noise from the blower was asmazein at 1050, nowa days i wouldnt have had to bios flash as saphire trixx and AB will dodge the top settings anyway,

later V2 editions are where it gets dodgy not 1st editions

 

[MatTheCat]

Heads up the power color has dropped to £416!!

PowerColor HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI Dual Mini.. ...

Big thanks for this!

Card purchased.....at that price I will just put up with them telling me I live in the Scottish Highlands (I dont), charing me more for postage, and making me wait until the weekend.

 

[Red_Machine]

Are they all made using the same grade of components and same grade of workmansip?

The vendors must surely do more than simply put their stickers on the cooler, otherwise why have vendors at all?

All reference cards are manufactured by either nVIDIA or AMD themselves. The OEMs slap a sticker on, put it in a fancy box and throw in a few bits & bobs. Then they decide on what warranty to give it. The most they do is some BIOS-level overclocks, which you have to pay extra for anyway, so not worth it.

 

[H82LUZ73]

Reference cards From AMD are to AMD specs ,Either Sapphire or Diamond makes them ,Then sells them bulk to ASUS,MSI ,Power Cooler/TUL,XFX They all are the same.. also those manufactures just slap a fan shroud decal on them to distinguish them from the rest.Now for cards with say that XFX Black Edition that has better parts like vmr,caps ect....beefed up basically from the AMD reference.And to answer the question why ?Well AMD /ATI have always done it this way,Ounce the first batch gets sold then the Likes of Sapphire/ASUS/TUL/XFX have it in the contracts to make their own pcb `s.......

 

[20mmrain]

I dont know what the complaint is with this thread as far as 'E-trailers gouging people" But that is what happens when a new card comes out every time. Wait a couple weeks things will be better especially when the HD7950 releases. Then there will be some competition between cards even if they are the same brand.
As far as them flying off the shelves yeah even at this price tag I am really impressed they sold this quickly.... I thought for sure since the higher price you wouldn't see them go as quick.

 

[Hokum]

Now back to £447... the prices are going like yoyos!

 

[scaminatrix]

I dont know what the complaint is with this thread as far as 'E-trailers gouging people" But that is what happens when a new card comes out every time. Wait a couple weeks things will be better especially when the HD7950 releases. Then there will be some competition between cards even if they are the same brand.
As far as them flying off the shelves yeah even at this price tag I am really impressed they sold this quickly.... I thought for sure since the higher price you wouldn't see them go as quick.

Tbh, if I watched the price of an item rise by £60 while I was refreshing the page I would be p*ssed too

That's the problem here, they were already up at Scan for £470. Then they upped the price to £530 while everyone was ordering.

 

[btarunr]

Sorry I didn't go through the replies, but VTX3D is a TUL subsidiary like PowerColor. It's a safe brand.

VTX, being TUL's budget brand, sometimes get limited features (non programmable voltage control for example) but usually should be pretty usable cards never the less.

The HD 7970 that VTX3D is selling is as capable as that 530 GBP (lolwut? $1060??) card that Scam.co.uk is selling.

 

[scaminatrix]

The HD 7970 that VTX3D is selling is as capable as that 530 GBP (lolwut? $1060??) card that Scam.co.uk is selling.

well put even though I at first thought it was a joke about me

 

[the54thvoid]

Now back to £447... the prices are going like yoyos!

God knows what the prices on yoyotech are like then...

 

[MatTheCat]

Now back to £447... the prices are going like yoyos!

Yeah..I noticed that.

But thanks to you I got mine for £416 which is probably what the price will normalise at 2-3 weeks down the line when all those chomping at the bit for the latest and greatest have had thier blow-out and the market is characterised by more considered purchasers.....

...and even that price is too expensive but with the lack of any competition.........

 

[the54thvoid]

...and even that price is too expensive but with the lack of any competition.........

Not really. Consider it's performance against the prior king of single cards. The GTX 580 is still selling at £370 right through to £500+. £416 is reasonable for a card that trounces the rest and is more frugal with the power bill.

ps where do you live for an e-tailer to call it the highlands?

 

[MatTheCat]

Not really. Consider it's performance against the prior king of single cards. The GTX 580 is still selling at £370 right through to £500+. £416 is reasonable for a card that trounces the rest and is more frugal with the power bill.

Yeah, but the GTX 580 is over a year old and i definitely wouldnt say that the HD7970 exactly trounces the rest. When I upgrade anything major such as a GPU, I want to see huge improvements. Because I am upgrading from a 5850 (also a monster overclocker), I will indeed see huge improvements of probably around 70-80% real world performance gains, which is about the same improvement as I have always seen with every gfx card upgrade in the past 5 years.

It has went something like this:

OCT 2006: ATI X1900XT 256MB, Cost £190

JUL 2008: ATI 4870 512MB, Cost £200, peformance increase ~70-80%

MAR 2010 ATI 5850 1GB, Cost £220, performance increase ~70-80%

JAN 2012 AMD 7970 3GB, Cost £420, (expected) performance increase ~ 70-80%

Now what is the one striking anomalie in my past GPU upgrade activity?

ps where do you live for an e-tailer to call it the highlands?

Just outside Perth!

.......ebuyer c0cksuck3rs...........still full credit to them (or the n00b employee) who accidentally hit the '1' key instead of the '4', (I paid £416 instead of the proper £446) allowing me to get the 7970 for as close to a fair price as will be possible for the forseeable future.

 

[Grings]

Not really. Consider it's performance against the prior king of single cards. The GTX 580 is still selling at £370 right through to £500+. £416 is reasonable for a card that trounces the rest and is more frugal with the power bill.

ps where do you live for an e-tailer to call it the highlands?

£370? for a 3gb one?