I'm look at getting a Radeon 7970, but there seem to be many different versions. Which should I get?

Processor is an Intel i5 3570k, motherboard is Asus P8Z77-V LK. Resolution is 2560x1440.

The alternatives, ordered by most expensive first:

Asus Radeon HD7970 3072MB DirectCUII MATRIX PLATINUM

MSI Radeon HD7970 3072MB Lightning BE

Asus Radeon HD7970 3072MB DirectCUII MATRIX

Asus Radeon HD7970 3072MB DirectCUII OC

Asus Radeon HD7970 3072MB DirectCUII

Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 3072MB Ghz Edition

XFX Radeon HD7970 3072MB Dual Fan GHz-edition (XT2)

Any help is appreciated.

Im no expert but i got the Ghz edition, certainly cant complain.

I have XFX Radeon HD7970 3072MB Dual Fan GHz-edition (XT2)

I'd say you should at least get one with dual fans, helps a lot. This is a great card to overclock.

Basically as long as the card you are buying is overclocked at the factory already, you are good to go. They pick their best samples as those OC editions since they need to be able to handle higher clock speeds and heating. So I would take the cheapest overclocked model.

Thanks for the replies. I don't know which are pre-overclocked, and it's a bit out of my league to do it myself. Which would you recommend?

There are a lot of benchmark reviews on YouTube so it gives time to do something! If I was going to recommend something, I guess theAsus Radeon HD7970 3072MB DirectCUII OC would hit the sweet spot for the card.

@scalpel: XFX Radeon HD7970 3072MB Dual Fan GHz-edition (XT2). That ghz-edition means that it's the updated version of the old 7970 that has been overclocked a bit.

The GHz-edition seems to be the version that's most overclocked, so I guess I'll be getting that. Thanks for the help everyone.

A regular 7970 sits at 925 MHz, then there are subvendors that make overclocked versions of that.

later, AMD released the GHz edition, which as the name infers, is set to 1000 MHz ( 1 GHz )

i have a regular one, and im running it at 1150 MHz, so its not like you need a GHz edition to reach that kind of frequency.

from my point of view, there are two different cards performance-wise, the regular one, and the GHz edition, there are small variations on them, but the performance difference is not worth paying money for.

what might be worth paying for however, is a kick ass cooler, which could help you overclock further, asus dcII and msi twin forzr are some examples.

I don't know about the 7970, but I have an Asus DirectCU II 570 and it's great. Takes a lot of room (triple slot) but it moves a lot of air and it does so very quietly and it sounds like the 7970 is the same way.

I dont buy AMDs but Asus in general is a badass company. If I had to buy my first AMD card (never), it would be with Asus. 

Pick the one with the best cooling. Overclocking at the factory rarely has the much of a difference on performance, and better cooling means you can overclock it if you want, or just enjoy a quieter, cooler card. I'd suggest either an MSI or ASUS, they tend to have really great ATI cards. I'm not super familiar beyond that, because I'm an nVidia guy myself.

Honestly, it's not going to make much of a difference beyond quality. Performance isn't going to suddenly be wayyyyyy better from one version to another. This is coming from someone with a card that is ridiculously overclocked at the factory.

Death to ATI! Kidding. Mosty.

I have the MSI Twin Frozer 7970. It's not on your list of cards but it's pretty stout granted I game on a 16:10 monitor at 1900x1200. The card is not going to have the power to run games at 2560x1440 anymore than a 5700 is going to run a 20in 4:3 monitor.

I run the Sapphire 7970 OC. Dual bios switch between 950 and 1000 and excellent cooling with there dual fan heatsink. Honestly as long as you get one with that type of cooling in mind you should be good to go. Actually I could have ran with a 7950 since I play my computer on my television at 1080p.