670 v. 7970, assume for a moment

[tornadog]

lopri, this thread swayed me away from the 670 and I ended up ordering the Sapphire Dual-X 7970 from newegg. Had a 10% off loyalty coupon, so ended up being 460. I should thank you

 

[Cookie Monster]

Just a quick note @CookieMonster: Framebuffer size are determined by the application. (Unless driver AA is applied) Graphics cards cannot magically reduced the amount of memory needed to render a scene developers coded.

What you're seeing is likely less driver overhead from GTX 680 compared to previous generaion NV cards, which indeed had lackluster memory controllers. (admittedly those are some huge difference which makes me wonder) It is a valuable information you've provided, however, and I appreciate it much.

Yeah I think your right hence without any outside optimizations/compression techniques etc all cards would require the same(?) x memory footprint

However this leads me to believe that it could be due to better implementation of memory optimizations in terms of reducing the required memory footprint especially say when higher AA modes are used, only loading textures that are visibly seen in the frame, superior compression technique(?) used etc.

Its an interesting behaviour that at this point in time makes the 2GB vs 3GB point moot unless certain scenarios are used where the Vram limitation will be reached but by then single cards would most likely to struggle.

 

[MrK6]

@MrK6: Do you know what the average expectation for 7970 OC? I haven't paid attention to it much since I haven't been a fan of GPU OC (for daily use), but your clock is unbelievably high. (1350 MHz? Wow) Is there a thread or database as to how others fare when it comes to overclocking Tahiti?

I'm sure MrK6 will chime in but, from what I've seen, most 7970's will hit 1150Mhz pretty easy. A non-reference card with better VRMs and a better cooler will probably hit 1200-1250Mhz. For 1300+ you'd probably need an aftermarket air cooler or watercooling. On the stock reference cooler, mine did 1225Mhz@1.185V.

No convenient database unfortunately but this thread has a lot of overclocking results.

I'd say those are good expectations that Elfear proposed :thumbsup:. I also use hwbot to set expectations for overclocking - http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/radeon_hd_7970/ , under the assumption that users there are really pushing their cards (although some stock results skew the numbers slightly). My clocks are as high as they are since I got a good chip and am on water. What to expect now is still pretty much up to the chip lottery. I would hope that better silicon would yield better overall chips being sold in these cards, but it could be a wash if they're just using the process improvements to get higher yields. If the GHz edition 7970's ever show up, those would be a better card to bet on.

In the end, I still believe what I said regarding the cards being all the same. In general gaming experience, the $50 more you spend for a 7970 or $100 on a GTX 680 really doesn't change much over a GTX 670. If you get a decently overclocking 7970, yes, it will crush anything else out there once it gets to 1300MHz+. I think it's tough to get a gaming stable card that's quiet enough (for me anyway) to play games with without going water. The GTX 680 is pretty much a ripoff now since the GTX 670 is so close to it. In the end, these cards won't have more than 10-15% difference in performance, which is barely perceptible if you compare them side-by-side.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Like MrK6 said, quiet with the reference 7970 is what holds back my overclock. I've gone above 1200MHz. I've seen people on forums state that they game at 1.3GHz on a reference card. But for me the noise becomes completely not worth it. OP, since you are looking at non-reference designs, I would have pretty high expectations for the 7970, I imagine at least 1.2GHz would be a realistic expectation, though higher would certainly be a possibility.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Result:
GTX 670 15W
HD7970 45W
GTX 680 46W

With Ati Tray Tools you can force 2D clocks for multiple monitors as well. I don't have a 7970 to measure its power consumption in this scenario, though. But it should be much more competitive than ^.

Besides, with nothing going on screen, 7970 will enter a deeper sleep mode and will consume close to nothing, whilst that 670 will still be sipping ~15w.

And the additional 1GB of Vram will come in handy in a year or two. 670 is a fine card, though. Like I said ealier, each has its strong points but you make it look like an inferior product, completely omitting its strong points.

 

[lopri]

@Cookie Monster: After checking out a few reviews, your experience seems to be reflected in the numbers, and that is quite intriguing to me. I felt like AMD cards in the past tended to handle memory-intensive situations more "graciously" than NV cards and that also used to show in numbers where AMD cards exceled once higher resolution/AA was applied.

But that trend looks to have changed with GK104 or at least be mitigated to minimum. That's despite the massive bandwidth advantage of Tahiti.

Hmm.. It's very curious.

 

[lopri]

And hardware-level horror stories really stops me from pulling the trigger on the 7970 for now. What's with all this overheating and coil-whine being reported? I thought AMD had fixed or kept it at minimum since the 5870.

The quality control issues I read on these 7970s are pretty bad and should never occur on such an expensive piece of hardware. I mean, even the ASUS DirectCU 7970 has pretty abysmal user reviews with regard to the hardware.

 

[SickBeast]

I think all 3 cards, the 670, the 7970, and the 680 are excellent with the 670 being the best value. I would get whatever is cheapest personally because they will all perform within 10% of one another.

 

[Don Karnage]

Do NOT waste your money on a 7970 unless you can get it cheaper then a 670

 

[lopri]

I think you're wasting your time with 3DMarks (at least as a means of persuading me). I don't remember when the last time I've touched any of them.

 

[lopri]

lopri, this thread swayed me away from the 670 and I ended up ordering the Sapphire Dual-X 7970 from newegg. Had a 10% off loyalty coupon, so ended up being 460. I should thank you

Interesting.. I'm kind of being swayed toward GTX 670 while reading this thread. Cookie Monster single handedly peaked my interest.

 

[Don Karnage]

I think you're wasting your time with 3DMarks (at least as a means of persuading me). I don't remember when the last time I've touched any of them.

I don't care either way. :biggrin:

 

[Gordon Freemen]

I don't care either way. :biggrin:

3DMarks is kinda of not a realistic or accurate benchmarking tool it's more or less a community of gloaters that need to some how justify there outlandish and retarded spending habits on hardware as far as I am concerned.

 

[Gikaseixas]

7970, love mine. It got quite a punch

 

[SickBeast]

These "vs" threads really drag on and turn into flame wars.

These cards are all nearly equal so your personal brand bias is really going to make your choice for you. I would look for a hot deal on one of them and jump on it. That's what I did with my 7850 and it turned out ok (after I installed aftermarket cooling).

 

[crisium]

7970. It has more lifespan, thanks to more memory and more memory bandwidth. And besides games that prefer Nvidia cards, its equal or slightly faster already. It's lead will grow as time goes on.

 

[guskline]

SickBeast's comment on the best deal is a good one. I am NOT going to criticize someone who bought a 7970 eventhough I bought a GTX 680. All are fast cards. Eventhough I run 3 monitors at a combined 5760 x 1080 resolution I chose the Nvdia GTX 680. I doubt even at that resolution that I will "take a back seat" to a 7970.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Interesting.. I'm kind of being swayed toward GTX 670 while reading this thread. Cookie Monster single handedly peaked my interest.

Do I get a cookie?

And with regards to the Vram usage, I agree with what you have said where I think Kepler is doing a better job than both Fermi/GCN cards or atleast on par with GCN. ATi and now AMD had pretty much the advantage here for a very long time, in memory utilization + memory clocks but Im seeing that isn't the case anymore.

In terms of memory bandwidth which is a different story, its clear for me at this moment that Kepler based cards are starved of bandwidth since I see ~200 point difference in heaven just by upping the memory frequency to an effective 7000MHz (YMMV of course).

But with regards to GCN, something else is bottlenecked even before its massive bandwidth advantage comes into play. Ive always wondered why AMD cards don't truly outperform nVIDIA parts when almost all synthetic tests show AMD being ~2x3 times fast in some cases.

 

[Keysplayr]

Really probably should have made a decision by now. There has been plenty of info to consider by many. At this point, it's just dragging it out.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Do I get a cookie?

And with regards to the Vram usage, I agree with what you have said where I think Kepler is doing a better job than both Fermi/GCN cards or atleast on par with GCN. ATi and now AMD had pretty much the advantage here for a very long time, in memory utilization + memory clocks but Im seeing that isn't the case anymore.

In terms of memory bandwidth which is a different story, its clear for me at this moment that Kepler based cards are starved of bandwidth since I see ~200 point difference in heaven just by upping the memory frequency to an effective 7000MHz (YMMV of course).

But with regards to GCN, something else is bottlenecked even before its massive bandwidth advantage comes into play. Ive always wondered why AMD cards don't truly outperform nVIDIA parts when almost all synthetic tests show AMD being ~2x3 times fast in some cases.

I wonder if there are some inefficiencies in the way AMD handled the ROP's and memory controllers?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

If price or power consumption is no object I say a dcii gtx 680 with a voltage mod. 1300+ core easy.

Any other answer is flat out wrong.
If there is a better performing card once we take out price and power do tell.

 

[SlowSpyder]

If price or power consumption is no object I say a dcii gtx 680 with a voltage mod. 1300+ core easy.

Any other answer is flat out wrong.
If there is a better performing card once we take out price and power do tell.

But if the OP doesn't care about power consumption, and 7970's can also reach 1300MHz on the core (generally speaking with voltage and good cooling - OP is looking at non-ref 7970's), then you also get the extra memory. So with that in mind, I think saying any other answer is flat out wrong is a bit much.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

But if the OP doesn't care about power consumption, and 7970's can also reach 1300MHz on the core (generally speaking with voltage and good cooling - OP is looking at non-ref 7970's), then you also get the extra memory. So with that in mind, I think saying any other answer is flat out wrong is a bit much.

A 1300 core on a 7970 on air.. Good luck with that. If you find a 7970 capable of those clocks then you'd need water to cool it. And that's a big big IF.

I semi agree though. If price doesn't matter he should be looking at the lightning 7970 or gtx 680 asus dcii.

 

[Dark Shroud]

If price or power consumption is no object I say a dcii gtx 680 with a voltage mod. 1300+ core easy.

Any other answer is flat out wrong.
If there is a better performing card once we take out price and power do tell.

And when did the 680 start allowing Voltage mods?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

And when did the 680 start allowing Voltage mods?

They didn't. The asus does have a volt mod available if you solder a few places.
Again remember money isn't an object here so a possibly bricked card won't matter.