The 6970 is slower than the 5870 in some older games like NWN2. It also has lower max theoretical FLOP performance (2.72 GFLOP vs 2.7 GFLOPs).
Some brute force performance is lower, like texture decompression
Last edited:
I don't deny that the value of Titan is abysmal. Yet Fx1 seems to think that 20% improvement over the 680 is somehow bad when that kind of thing has always happened with refreshes in the past. And we don't know the price of the 780 yet.
The 6970 was never slower than the 5870 btw, don't know where you got that.
Well the time has come to pay the Piper for me. I guess it's karma for the 8800gt glory days and the price wars after that. The fact is, I'm a buyer right now in a seller's market. A gimped Titan and commensurately gimped price is the sweet spot for me. My GTX 580's are hitting up against a V-RAM problem ever since I got the 2560x1440 monitor. The Titan isn't worth it for me, but I'd pay $700 or a bit more for a cut down version and OC it to the hilt.
If you want to trash my reasoning, maybe read about cardinal vs. ordinal utility before you do.
Where have I said that it would be wise to upgrade from a 680 to a 780? Because that is where your 20% come from. No one in their right mind would do that.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
The 6990 was based on 40nm tech, the 7970 is based on 28nm tech. In contrast, the 680 and 780 and Titan are all based on the same node. Aside from that you're also wrong on the performance. The 7970 GHz is not really faster than the 6990. I certainly is no upgrade in terms of fps. And the fact that you compare AFR to single GPU fps-wise proves how clueless you are since that comparison is badly flawed.
And finally we don't know when 20nm will hit in 2014. If 28nm is any indication of things to come, 20nm GPUs will get quite expensive in the beginning. I wouldn't hold my breath for affordable 20nm GPUs until late 2014 - 18 months after the 780 is released. What price do you put on 18 months gaming fun?
7970 bests the 6990 in nearly every game. Thats a £600 Dual GPU which was beaten by a £270-£350 Single GPU. That is a seriously better GPU. Just because the FPS is the same doesnt mean its not a huge upgrade in GPU performance.
You wouldnt sell a 6990 for a 7970 obviously but 2x7970 is twice as fast as the 6990.
You cant win with the 780 GTX. Its going to be expensive because its new and the performance is going to be marginally better than the 680 and in 12 months its likely to half as fast as the 880 GTX which makes it pretty much worthless when budget 800 series cards are going to be significantly faster.
28nm chips were not that much more expensive than they are now. 20nm is ahead of schedule from TSMC which means its possible AMD are going to drop a serious upgrade while you are still paying off the credit card for the 780 GTX which suddenly becomes worthless and slow in comparison.
Its a poor purchase no matter how you spin it.
Source for your claim about 6990 vs 7970 GHz?
I can provide numbers, can you?
http://www.techspot.com/review/546-amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/
And now AFTER I've mentioned it, you say that fps isn't the only relevant performance metric...nice thinking for yourself there, buddy.
You still neglect the 28nm vs 40nm argument.
The 7970 (non GHz) was $549 at release, so yes, it WAS expensive. Do you know the price of the 780? Please post a link. "It's new" is a stupid non-argument. Wafer prices for 28nm in the beginning of 2012 were very high:
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...y-with-tsmc-claims-22nm-essentially-worthless
Just because TMSC claims they're ahead of schedule doesn't mean anything. First, they could exaggerate, second it says nothing about mass production and its volume and most importantly about price. Don't be so naive.
And since you seem to have so much information, please tell us: When will the 800 series appear and how much will it cost? And on what process node will the HD8000 series be manufactures (and I don't mean the OEM stutt, I mean the real successor) and how much will that cost? Will you cry foul, too, when that is only 20% faster?
What is your point about the 6990? The 6990 is like the 690 GTX! will the 780 GTX come even close? No it bloody wont be in even in the same league. The 7970 managed a near 100% performance upgrade over the previous single GPU performance 6970.
The only GPU's worth buying are when they come with a die shrink. 20nm will be here in 2014 and with it a new range of GPU with significant transistor increases. Just like every other process shrink thats happened over the last decade.
Either AMD or Nvidia will have a 20nm chip thats around the normal pricing range of flagship GPU's If you buy on day 1 you will pay more but thats life. At least you will see serious performance increases and not some paltry 20%
Oh and the 780 GTX will be just as expensive as the 880 GTX because this is Nvidia and Nvidia dont pass any savings on from increased yields. They will launch the 780 GTX like its some big launch when basically they are just left over chips from GK110 with broken parts.
Also for the record i wouldnt buy a brand new AMD 28nm GPU either.
Well, the 6970 did suck, it was only about 10% faster than a 5870 in DX10+, and slower than the 5870 in DX9...that was probably the first flagship generation that there was no point to upgrading.
The 285 was not a big upgrade over the 280, but it merely supplanted to 280's price, rather than costing more than its original msrp.
GTX Titan is probably relatively probably the worst value per dollar Nvidia has ever offered in its history, consider the relationship between the 7970 GHz edition and the GTX Titan...now think back to the 8800 Ultra ($649) vs 8800 GTX ($499) days. Imagine the 8800 Ultra is about 5%-10% faster than it really was, and cost $1,250 instead of $649. That's the kind of value the GTX Titan is offering.
We do know NVIDIA has wanted to push up towards the $1000 graphics card segment for a while
Source for your claim about 6990 vs 7970 GHz?
I can provide numbers, can you?
http://www.techspot.com/review/546-amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/
And now AFTER I've mentioned it, you say that fps isn't the only relevant performance metric...nice thinking for yourself there, buddy.
You still neglect the 28nm vs 40nm argument.
The 7970 (non GHz) was $549 at release, so yes, it WAS expensive. Do you know the price of the 780? Please post a link. "It's new" is a stupid non-argument. Wafer prices for 28nm in the beginning of 2012 were very high:
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...y-with-tsmc-claims-22nm-essentially-worthless
Just because TMSC claims they're ahead of schedule doesn't mean anything. First, they could exaggerate, second it says nothing about mass production and its volume and most importantly about price. Don't be so naive.
And since you seem to have so much information, please tell us: When will the 800 series appear and how much will it cost? And on what process node will the HD8000 series be manufactures (and I don't mean the OEM stutt, I mean the real successor) and how much will that cost? Will you cry foul, too, when that is only 20% faster?
Source for your claim about 6990 vs 7970 GHz?
May I ask which games you're playing where v-ram limitations come into play? I use overclocked 580s in SLI with an overclocked 2600k as well, and haven't had problems yet. At 2560x1440, though, I don't tend to crank AA much at all (sometimes leaving it off entirely). What settings do you use?
I'm getting upgrade fever too, but I'm trying to hold off for a very significant shift - not Titan-esque, maybe something after the new generation of consoles that will push gaming to a new era.