1242 / 1736 is nowhere near an average OC for the 7970… 1125/1575 is average

1242 / 1736 is a very high OC especially for reference 7970s

I agree. It takes a $540-600 HD7970 with after market cooling to reach 1200mhz+ and 1.25V+ to reach 1250mhz+ at reasonable noise levels.  The 11k+ 3dMark 11 scores for the 7970 seem too high assuming full tessellation is enabled in the drivers without optimization. 3DMark11 scores from non-professional reviews for AMD cards shouldn’t be taken seriously since most of those scores have lowered the Tessellation level in the driver control panel. Scouring professional reviews, HD7970 at 1200mhz has can not get 11K score. Regardless, I think the Buyer’s Guide should recommend cards based on gaming performance, not on 3dMark 11 scores in the first place. 
 If someone doesn’t follow videocards, they’d assume HD7970 is the fastest card right now which is definitely not true, not at stock speeds or overclocked vs. overclocked speeds. I am not sure why HD7850 is missing. It’s a pretty good card for $250. 

I think the results at HWbot are reasonable for hardcore overclockers but less so for the average consumer. If you look at some other cards they have such as HD6950/6970, the 930-960mhz for those cards on air is not average for sure. Most 6950/6970 cards won’t reach those clocks without serious overvoltage from their 1.175V and running their fan speeds at 100%. So how useful are those overclocks for real world? At the same time, it’s a good source to go to since the alternative is basing this on 20-30 reviews, which is both unrealistic and unreasonably time consuming.

I think the problem with HWbot is that it clumps reference and non-reference cards together skewing the results beyond a reasonable average. For example, most reference 7970s run at 1125-1175mhz while after market ones do 1200-1260 mhz. As a result, their average of 1203mhz is not unreasonable for all HD7970s on air. However, is that realistic for people buying a $530 reference 7970? Probably not. 

From browsing various forums online, most people are running their reference HD7970s well below 1200mhz. So I’d say 1150mhz is a fair average value for reference cards. $550-600 after market models can do 1200-1260mhz but then it’s unfair to list them under the $530 price level. 

From Newegg:
PowerColor dual fan – $550Sapphire Dual-X – $570
XFX Double Dissipation – $590
Gigabyte WindForce 3X – $595
MSI Lightning – $600

I guess it’s a difficult to say what’s fair since in other categories you list GTX580 with a Windforce cooler that overclocks well, but most 580′s won’t reach 950mhz either.

I suppose if you are going to use 1 database, you can just copy HWBot’s #s for simplicity and people will do their own research if they want more specifics :)

Sorry if we made it more difficult for you.

There is also a list that compiles GPU performance relative to each other. The guy who does it browses reviews and then compiles an average performance for GPUs. It might not be the most accurate list in the world, but the relative performance of the cards is pretty accurate.

So if you ever need a quick check to see if the ranking of cards makes sense, I usually look there:
http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21797&start=0#p41174