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I have a 7970 as well and have seen exactly what you're seeing. I've tried both the beta drivers and the revised 13.9 drivers. The revised ones have seem to stop most of the issues. I see this in no other game. There have been constant problems in this games graphics engine since beta with textures doing what you've shown here. I even posted several screen shots to no avail in the beta forums. I'm surprised everyone here says bad card, yet no one has asked, "do you see this in any other game?" That would be a better question than just "RMA it".
I see no change in the artifacts OC'd or at stock clocks. There are some other things you should look into. Make sure your PSU is up to spec for the card. This game loves to run cards at 100% for no reason, then bog in areas where it just had no issues. There are lots of threads about graphic issues with this game. Search the web as well. I'm running just fine on the revised version of 13.9 which came out in late Sept if I remember right. Check all your bases on your PC as well. But I'm in the camp that this is the game causing your problems, not the card.
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Well the reason is that a faulty card might only artifact in one or two games, and be fine in others. It doesn't mean it isn't faulty. When a card is artifacting and you can't find a solution within reasonable time, then the best thing to do is to return the card.