I'm in a graphics card quandary at the moment myself.I got a MSI lightning 7970 a couple of weeks ago and it failed after 4 days and a lot of other brand 7970's seem to have problems also.I thought initially my motherboard my have a bad pci-e slot.I found myself standing on the edge of the obis not being able to game or simrace so i panict and started ordering parts and got to the point that i basically wound up ordering most of what i need to build a new machine.I decided to give the GTX 660ti a try in the new build.After a shopping spree at new egg i figured out that my mobo is actually fine so now it looks like my new build will be a nice back up machine or maybe a dedicated sim racing rig.I still need to find a good upgrade for the 2 5770's i had to reinstall and still would like to go in the 7970 direction.FYI
new egg has discontinued the MSI lightning 7970 so it looks like there is a serious problem with that card.Interestingly enough the cheapest 7970 on the market,the Sapphire,seems to be the most reliable with the most favorable reviews so thinking about this card or maybe the Gigabyte witch also has good ratings.New egg has a lot of reviews on all the graphics cards you can read through.
I should have the new machine built in a week or so i will post back in this thread on how the 660ti performs.
The new build:
Case-NZXT Phantom 410
OPTICAL-Lite-on dvd-rom (It was dirt cheep and probably only going to use it once anyway)
Mobo-MSI 970A-G46
CPU-AMD FX 4130 quad core @ 3.8 GHz
CPU COOLER- ARCTIC freezer 13
RAM-8gigs G-skill sniper series @1866
GPU-EVGA GTX 660ti superclocked
PSU-Antec Earthwatts 650 watt (had on hand already from an older machine)
HDD-WD caviar black 1tb
Windows 7 pro OEM (found for only 60 dollars on line in a download version
here)Actually bought windows 7 home and got a free upgrade because its customer appreciation month.
If anyone has any experience with the FX 4130 i would be interested in your comments on how it performs.I realized after i ordered it i could have got a fx six core with L3 cache for only 20 dollars more.It was cheap and 3.8 GHz so i hastily threw it into my cart but i didn't notice it looks like it only has L2 cache.
P.S. I forgot to mention for the 4 days my 7970 worked it worked dam good.BF3 on max settings,no micro stutter or lag just butter smooth performance fps round 60 all the time.Really bums me out the dam thing failed
.I'm on a single screen though not 3 screens.