XFX Double D FX-797A-TDBC Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: Card is cheap

Cons: the "ghost' thermal solution is not very good, and the card runs louder and hotter than a Gigabyte 7970 I also have installed.

The card also will NOT work if installed in crossfire, as the upper card quickly overheats and shuts down.

The metal shroud on the heatsink will short out and kill other cards installed directly below it. Shroud should have been made of plastic or at least covered in clear plastic to prevent this horrible design mistake.

Despite all of these negatives, the card eventually died on me after a few weeks of use.

Pros: Run basically every game on max settings, doesn't get too hot usually in the range of 60-70 celcius when running graphic intensive games like the Witcher 2 and Crysis 3. It also isn't very loud which is a plus, only get loud when the fans are above 50%.

Cons: There aren't really that many cons as it is a great card but recently these past two months after have the card for about 9 months the card has been artifacting like crazy where a whole monitor will get these gray lines all across the screen and won't go away until I reset my PC. It is disappointing that this happens as other than this I have been extremely happy with the card, but sadly with this problem that ruins my gaming experience I can't justify recommending this card to anyone and I will mostly buy a Nvidia card for my next one.

Other Thoughts: Other than the artifacting of the card it is an extremely nice looking and powerful card, but it seems to be a common problem that this card has from looking at the other reviews on this site.

Pros: Great when it works

Cons: Failed after 50 days. I put in a ticket with XFX USA and so far have no response. The card is only 50 days old. apparently it is sucking the power supplies dry. TX650 died completely, a new 800W Cooler Master gold PS worked for a week but now the card is unusable. I have nothing from XFX on ticket T1304270024.

Other Thoughts: I bought XFX products because of the great double lifetime warranty but it is not useful if they never respond.

Pros: Better than the 680 which I replaced.
Runs all my games on Ultra. (BF3, ARMA2, Metro 2033)
Great design

Cons: Really expensive, earlier drivers kinda limited its performance.

Pros: Not many when it worked. Performed slightly better than my 5870 Crossfire I "upgraded" from.

The heatsink/fans SEEMED impressive, but obviously didn't do its job.

Cons: Where to begin? SUPER hot, rather loud (when it worked), oh and died 2 hours after my return window closed.

Also, out of the box had several loose screws some of which being the primary screws around the actual GPU. Should have sent it back right then and there, but I had faith that the unit would work fine.

It did for 30 days and 2 hours.

I started getting the black screen of death shortly after opening any 3D program. I started troubleshooting to see exactly what caused it and apparently the heatsink was failing because the temperatures shot from idling around 55*C to emergency shutoff within a few seconds. The last time I ran the test, I heard a pop and then the card ceased to function.

I'll follow up after the support process, but I've already ordered an EVGA GTX 680. I've been an ATI fanboy since the 90s and this was the last straw.

Other Thoughts: Read our reviews. Heed them. The ONLY reason I bought this card is because it was the only 7970 in stock at the time. Save yourself a headache (and in my case $450) and wait or buy something else entirely.

My wife's PC has one of the original Visiontek 7970s from release week still running strong. Fairly certain it was stronger this this one out of the box.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello, We are sorry you had trouble with your card. If you have any further questions, please contact us at neweggsupport@xfxforce.com. Thank you

Pros: It might run great, but is far from reliable.

Cons: Thermo problems, artifacts, etc.

My original card would cut off both HDMI and DVI outputs when it got to around 75 degreesC, so I RMAed it. The RMA replacement they sent me had bad artifacts on the HDMI output when playing Guild Wars 2, so I RMAed it. The RMA replacement I recently received frequently throws a whole screen of textures up on the HDMI monitor when starting IE10 or watching a video in that browser.

I might suspect my computer, but it worked fine with a eVga Classified GTX560Ti448 while waiting on the RMAs. I also have tried multiple drivers (qualified and beta) with no difference in the problems.

Other Thoughts: Support from this company has not been great in my experience. Not only do you have to pay shipping to returned defective warrantied products, but also have to pay shipping to return the bad RMA replacements they send you.

Their support website also recently switched from a mostly functional site with good response times to a very confusing site with many problems.

The only good thing I can say about support is that the neweggsupport@xfxforce.com email gets quick responses.

Manufacturer Response:

Hey Bob, if you have any questions about the status of your rma, email me at.. well you know where :) . Thanks.

Pros: Card performed well when it was not artifacting

Cons: Once this card started artifcating it went downhill from there, now it artifacts while on my desktop or on webpages, trying to rma the card but have not gotten a response yet. will most likely not use xfx or recommend in the near future as this is terrible customer service.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello, At this time our support systems are all but caught up. If you havent been taken care of, please email me at neweggsupport@xfxforce.com and I will be happy to help you. Thank you

Pros: Runs pretty much anything maxed out, I turn off AA at 1920x1080 for most stuff and get 60+ FPS BF3 MWO Bio Inf etc.

Runs triple monitors 5760x1080 okay for most games that can support it.

Cons: Wow it gets HOT. 90C? seriously?

Most of the time if I run a game that taxes it, or don't run frame limiters on older games it will hover in the low 80's Celsius. Bioshock infinity makes it cry and run high 80's and hits 90C... At which point I have to shut it down or dial back graphics.

Games that are easier on the card like Guildwars 2 runs low to mid 70'sC

The card Idles at 60C

Bad probe? Bad heatsink contact? Something is wrong with this thing and emails to XFX have gone unanswered.

Other Thoughts: The card fans run at max quite a bit. My cause has good ventilation with 8 fans moving air through, intake in front exhaust in the rear. Cables are managed so do not interfere. Internal case temp using a probe is about 30 Celsius while my card is baking.

The cpu and chipset are liquid cooled and the heat exchanger is mounted outside and away from the case. My processor 1090T @ 4.2 runs at the hottest 46C. Idles in 22-23C range.

XFX hasn't offered any assistance, I was told 90C is normal.

While I have no problems with the performance, I find these temperatures below par compared to the competition, and the DOUBLE D was supposed to be better at cooling with less noise. That is a lie. The thing whines like crazy because the fans are running 80% plus most of the time just to keep the card from melting. I feel like I got a dud and the manufacturer hasn't helped.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello, We are sorry you had trouble with your card. If you have any further questions, please contact us at neweggsupport@xfxforce.com. Thank you

Pros: Runs games smooth. It is a well built card and comes with a clock of 1000. Handles any game I throw at it magnificently. The "buzzing/whining noise" I mention below has actually improved with time. XFX support PRE changing their support site was excellent.

Cons: SO hot. I have a Mining Rig with 3 Sapphire 7950s going at a consistent 70 to 75 C, hashing at 1800 about 600 each. I can overclock the sapphires higher then the xfx with a lower temp. Whenever I mine with the 7970 it runs 80C + with a terrible hash of 370. Oh and when the fans go above 75% they start with a TERRIBLE whining noise while the Sapphires make very little sound at 80% fan. Also I should mention that I RMAed this card twice already for artifacting/buzzing coil whine and am in the process of RMAing again. XFX seems to have lost my ticket number when they took down their support website, and have been pending with the resubmitted ticket for 2 weeks.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello, please contact me at neweggsupport@xfxforce.com to get this issue escalated. Thank you

Pros: Plays everything on high with fluid FPS.

Cons: Hot!!! Made in China. One of two fans going out after 5 months.

Other Thoughts: after 5 months one of the two fans on the card is going out and has started to buzz loudly. This really annoys me do to the price of the card. For $400 it should have been built in Taiwan Or Japan using parts sourced from those countries. Since xFx saved money and built it in china i'm having to waste my time and money to fix it or enjoy the hassle of the RMA process.