I'd get a 7970 now, live today...worry about future when it comes.

However keep in mind that not all 7970's are equal. I wouldn't worry too much about getting the GHz edition but would get one of these 2.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161412
Shown to be best for overclocksing (1250 Mhz on core and 1800+ on memory)

or

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127670

Great overclocker and very silent even at high fan speed.
There is nothing worse than pushing a card to 100% and having it sound like a jet engine.

I know both are out of stock/discontinued at newegg, but if you can find one of these 2, you're getting best bang for the buck.

Stay away from the stock reference design. You will not hear yourself think cause its so loud at 70-80% fan speed.

hehe...yeah should be a fun benchmark.

Here is what to expect - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7viOnx2_UkU

Also I should change case, I bet this cards heats a lot. Is a case with 2 lateral 120mm fans and back fan enough ?

He's in Portugal so I don't think Newegg Canada's stock levels will matter much anyway. Though I agree with your suggestions. And I'd like to offer Gigabyte's Windorce series as well.

Should be OK if you get the MSI card with a twin frozr cooler. That card has an awesome cooler and you can hardly hear it at 50-60% load.

These cards can go pretty high in temps, but I find that I want to keep them cool (70 degrees max) because I can't stand high RPM fan noise. The stock 7970 at 70%+ fan speed makes games unplayable for me when it comes to noise levels... Like a constant vacum cleaner lol.

Windoforce is great (I have a windforce GTX 670) at keeping things cool and overclocking but they do get loud if you're pushing them to 80%+ fan speed.

Here is a comparison of best 7970s backin the day that Toms Hardware did.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-overclock-review,3186-11.html

Sure but that's with an overclock adn that wa sa year ago.   I believe Gigabyte have changed the fans since so they are quieter under the higher OC load.   I don't have a benchmark or link to back it up at the moment though.  I'd have to go searching.

Yeah, if you don't overclock its absolutely fine. And for this card and a single monitor, you definetly won't need to overclock for a while

I personally love to squeeze 100% of the performance from my gear from day 1 lol.

I picked up a 3870k APU and a 6570 Radeon in crossfire last week dirt cheap since they were clearing FM1 motherboards and processors. Fascinating little APU. I've overclocked it so much that the APU alone is running on 2400 Mhz RAM memory (not officially supported)  but the GPU in crossfire can't keep up. So 2200 Mhz is the most they could both run stable.

buy the 7970. i mean, you said you already have problems with the games you play right now and you could change that instantly with the 7970. waiting longer to get something you probably won't really need but having problems with the games you play till the release of the other gpu doesn't sound that great.