Sapphire 7970 $349.99 Free Ship Newegg, link inside.

[Phusius]

SAPPHIRE 100351SR Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5...

Killer deal.

[Jack1n]

Its priced lower than reff design cooled cards,quite a deal.

[Phusius]

Originally Posted by Jack1n

Its priced lower than reff design cooled cards,quite a deal.

Plus the 3 free games. All look like decent games, especially Hitman Absolution and Far Cry 3.

[PatoRodrigues]

That's a real bargain.

Considering that with a small overclock and Catalyst 12.11 you will be getting a card with better performance than a GTX680... can't get better.

[mediasorcerer]

I smell the 8 series coming on, maybe anyhow, that's just fantastic for the money!!!

[mastrdrver]

Is that a 2 slot or 2.5 slot card?

[Phusius]

Originally Posted by mastrdrver

Is that a 2 slot or 2.5 slot card?

2 slot

[Frag Maniac]

Does look tempting. I was considering getting their 7950 that Newegg has for $285 right now, until I saw this.

The only thing that concerns me a bit is one Newegg review on this card and one site review on the dual BIOS version of the same card say they have coil whine at load. Most site reviews on the Dual X dual BIOS version say it's a very quiet card though.

And btw, it's not really 2 slot. The fan shroud hangs over the 2nd slot making it damn near 2.5 slots thick. Some reviews indicate you cannot Crossfire it if your second 16x slot is positioned to be adjacent to a 2 slot card.

[Rei86]

Been eyeing that card ever since the 12.11 release.

[ChristTheGreat]

Originally Posted by Phusius

Plus the 3 free games. All look like decent games, especially Hitman Absolution and Far Cry 3.

4 as it's 4-1

- FarCry3
- HitMan
- Sleeping Dogs
- Medal of Honor WarFighter Limited Edition (20% off digital deluxe)

too bad, not on newegg.ca

[m&m's]

Originally Posted by ChristTheGreat

4 as it's 4-1

- FarCry3
- HitMan
- Sleeping Dogs
- Medal of Honor WarFighter Limited Edition (20% off digital deluxe)

too bad, not on newegg.ca

Not on newegg.ca but NCIX got good deals:

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...X&promoid=1296 $339.99

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=70111&...ure=PowerColor $344.99

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=67547&...e&promoid=1382 $359.99

The PowerColor one looks like a pretty good deal, but in back order...

[ChristTheGreat]

Really not bad at all but I guess I should wait the 8000, for Cysis 3. I think my card can handle Far cry 3. if I can get 160$ for my HD6950, I would surely grab that Powercolor HD7970, that would be a nice performance gain!

[mastrdrver]

Originally Posted by Phusius

2 slot

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

Does look tempting. I was considering getting their 7950 that Newegg has for $285 right now, until I saw this.

The only thing that concerns me a bit is one Newegg review on this card and one site review on the dual BIOS version of the same card say they have coil whine at load. Most site reviews on the Dual X dual BIOS version say it's a very quiet card though.

And btw, it's not really 2 slot. The fan shroud hangs over the 2nd slot making it damn near 2.5 slots thick. Some reviews indicate you cannot Crossfire it if your second 16x slot is positioned to be adjacent to a 2 slot card.

Does anyone have a picture of this card to show if it is 2 or 2.5?

I know in my own experience that I have coil whine on one of my 5870s......only when I use my 650w Antec psu. When I use my Enermax, I have no problem.

[manofthem]

Originally Posted by mastrdrver

Does anyone have a picture of this card to show if it is 2 or 2.5?

I know in my own experience that I have coil whine on one of my 5870s......only when I use my 650w Antec psu. When I use my Enermax, I have no problem.

Bottom post #75 on SD confirms it's a 2.5 slot card.

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by manofthem

Bottom post #75 on SD confirms it's a 2.5 slot card.

so basically 3 slots are wasted...

[Rei86]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

so basically 3 slots are wasted...

its in the newegg reviews that it takes up more than three slots.

Also its no worse than Asus cards.

[Frag Maniac]

No need to check forum chat on whether it's over 2 slots. All you have to do is look at the I/O plate view on Newegg and it's obvious that it's close to 2.5 slots thick. And I think you meant more than 2 slots, not more than 3 Rei. It's not THAT thick. LOL

[Rei86]

Yeah I meant to say more than three slots

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by Rei86

Yeah I meant to say more than three slots

LOL, ???, did you say it wrong again? It ISN'T more than 3 slots, just barely more than 2.

I've measured it on a crop board and the shroud appears to hang out by roughly 1/3 of a slot, so it's about 2.34 slots thick.

[james888]

Thats the card I have. It is 2.5 slots. Very good and quiet cooler
Edit: Not my card. I have the dual bios dual x one.

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by james888

Thats the card I have. It is 2.5 slots. Very good and quiet cooler

Please answer some questions james.

1. Do you have that exact same card, or the dual BIOS "Dual X" version?
2. Do you get any coil whine at all?
3. Are you using HDMI?
4. If using HDMI, is HDMI audio working? Is it passing through multichannel PCM?
5. Any problems on your Vizio TV as far as being able to switch between TV and PC inputs?
6. Do you use a receiver, or do you connect your PC to the TV using it's main HDMI input?
7. Any driver problems at all?
8. Any OCing problems, and what are you using to OC with?

I ask because I tried an MSI 660 Ti PE OC recently with my Panasonic TC-L32U3 TV and had problems. NCP started showing my TV as not HDCP capable, whereas with my GTS 250 it always shows it as HDCP capable. On HDMI I got BSOD when switching from TV to PC inputs, and the Nvidia HD Audio device was showing as unplugged in W7 Sound panel, so I couldn't use HDMI audio. It also wouldn't even boot to desktop on DVI.

I took my PC tower with the 660 Ti to my friend's place and it booted to desktop on his 5 yr old Dynex TV and switched from TV to PC fine. We only tried it on his TV using his DVI to HDMI cable, because his TV is wall mounted and it's kinda hard to reach the HDMI ports.

Depending on your answers, I may try this card. The 660 Ti once booted to desktop gamed fairly well, and I could workaround the BSOD and lack of HDMI audio via pulling the HDMI cable out of the GPU and plugging it back and and using an optical audio cable, but pulling the cable out every time I switch from TV to PC is unacceptable really.

In the off chance my TV has to be used with the PC on it's main ARC HDMI input (which I currently reserve for my receiver) to get full HDCP compatibility, I may try this device to connect both receiver and PC to the TV's main input. MASSCOOL HS-MA103 Mini HDMI Amplifier Switch 3 in ...

[james888]

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

Please answer a few questions.

1. Do you have that exact same card, or the dual BIOS "Dual X" version?
2. Do you get any coil whine at all?
3. Are you using HDMI?
4. If using HDMI, is HDMI audio working? Is it passing through multichannel PCM?
5. Any problems on your Vizio TV as far as being able to switch between TV and PC inputs?
6. Any driver problems at all?
7. Any OCing problems, and what are you using to OC with?

1. Well I thought it was my exact card. I checked again. I have the dual bios dual x version. So some of the following may not valid.
2. I have had no coil whine. I seen review saying my card had bad coil whine. I got none of it.
3. Yes. Hdmi
4.Audio works for me. I don't know about multichannel pcm.
5. Not sure what problems I have. I tell it what input I want and it goes to that.
6. Never a driver problem.
7. Was a reletive breeze to overclock. Mine didn't want to go past 1175mhz though. I have seen others with my same card get to 1300mhz though. I used saphire trixx because I got the same overclock I did with AB and trixx has a lot less bells and whistles that I don't use.

Other things to note. The cooler is very very quiet. Almost as quiet as my artic accellero with both at 100% fan. My card ended up having a problem after I moved. It is currently on its way to saphire for RMA.

Any other questions.

[Frag Maniac]

Thanks james.

If you're using HDMI audio then your W7 Sound panel must be showing an AMD HD Audio device ready for use, which you selected as your default sound device. There is also an option to configure it on that page of the sound panel to how many channels you want. For instance if you use a 5.1 receiver you can set it to 5.1. PCM is "Pulse Code Modulation". It's a lossless (uncompressed) binary audio carrier signal. It was designed to easily adapt to a variety of digital encoding methods.

Games will typically output their audio via a PCM stereo signal. It can then be converted by Windows to 5.1 or 7.1 PCM in the Windows sound panel. Some sound cards can also encode the stereo PCM signal with 5.1 DTS or Dolby Digital via DTS Connect of Dolby Digital LIVE if they have it, but this also compresses the audio signal, whereas PCM is lossless.

On coil whine, since only one customer has mentioned it on this card, and one review site on yours, I have the feeling it's probably something on their end regarding interference from other components or something.

On OCing, what you indicated seems to be the case. It's hit and miss from what I've read. It can range anywhere from 18% to 30% or more.

What exactly was the problem you had after moving that made you RMA the card? This has me hesitant.

[james888]

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

Thanks james.
On coil whine, since only one customer has mentioned it on this card, and one review site on yours, I have the feeling it's probably something on their end regarding interference from other components or something.

On OCing, what you indicated seems to be the case. It's hit and miss from what I've read. It can range anywhere from 18% to 30% or more.

What exactly was the problem you had after moving that made you RMA the card? This has me hesitant.

Ya. I never got coil whine even during loading screens.

I had a 81% asic rating too. If that helps you in any way.

[Frag Maniac]

Again james, can you elaborate on what problems you had with your 7970 that caused you to RMA it?

From my understanding ASIC ratings are a lot like PSU efficiency ratings. Anything over 80% is pretty good.

WTF, I just checked and the price of this card just shot up $30!!!

DAMN!

Think I'll just wait and check holiday pricing now.