upgrade video on new rig?

So I built my father a new primary desktop for his house. i5-3570, 16gb 1866 ram, samsung ssd, etc.

Nice little machine. Just out of curiosity I ran a benchmark on it with the stock intel 4000 integrated video. Obviously it was not pretty compaired to my system. Well my father always likes to one up me. And he is in a slightly different financial situation than I am, he decided to get a video card. He said he would buy my saphire 7950 for what they are selling the new ones for about 300. If we did that exchange, would it be worth getting a 7970? or the 680? I see that the 7970 comes with bioshock 3, which I was going to buy anyways. So it really will not wind up costing me much extra... When I built his machine, I picked a good powersupply because I figured this might happen.

A 7970 will be sightly more powerfull than your 7950. if your already used to CCC and AMD drivers, stick with them, 79xx are great cards.

7970 and 680 perform about the same. Small step up from the 7970.

which 7970 would you get, bang for buck being a concideration.

Gigabyte Windforce X3. Should be $380 or so.

is this what you mean? and whats the difference in the two, i see 100mhz clock speed, can't i just overclock it?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125413

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439

Yup, clock speed should be the only difference and you can OC it yourself.

So I was just about to click order on the gigabyte and I found out that they are locking voltages now on those...... So I am either going to go with the Saphire or perhaps this one... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo What are your thoughts of XFX??

I like the lifetime warranty of the XFX is tempting, but it appears to be voltage locked also.... Bugger..

It is factory OC'd a bit higher though.

looks like people are complaining, about all 3 of these manufacturers locking the voltage... Perhaps AMD changed the boards somehow.. Thoughts?

If you can find a rev 1.0 giga 7970 like mine, it is not voltage locked and I almost reached 1300mhz benchmark stable on it. Also rev 1.0's are reference so you can go watercooling later if you want.

Holy cow man, please dont quadruple post! We have an edit button if you need to add to your thoughts.

As far as factory overclocks and what is locked, it seems like its a crapshoot lately. I know the HIS 7970's I have reviewed are not locked... may want to look in to those.