GTX 690 vs. Radeon 7990

[89ycha]

I recently sold my game account for good $$, and trying to upgrade my gpu.
I did some research on 690 and 7990, but it seemed like most of the reviews were not fair. Maybe influenced by the sponsors. Anyways, what's better for gaming purpose?

 

[unkota]

I'd take 690. I wouldn't recommend to buy amd because of stuttering

 

[Jacky60]

The 7990 is quicker and the new drivers sort stuttering if you even notice it.

 

[lehtv]

I would not buy either card. Noisy, hot and two GPUs... why?! Rather get one or two single GPU cards, depending on resolution and requirements, and other hardware. So what are your monitor resolution, image quality requirements, and other hardware (CPU, motherboard, RAM, PSU, Case?

 

[bystander36]

The 690 is not noisy, it is much quieter than two single GPU's, though the 7990 is different.

The crossfire fixes only apply to DX10, DX11 on single displays of resolutions 1600p and lower. Eyefinity does not currently work with the fixes.

What resolution are you using? The choice depends on that more than anything.

 

[3DVagabond]

I would not buy either card. Noisy, hot and two GPUs... why?! Rather get one or two single GPU cards, depending on resolution and requirements, and other hardware. So what are your monitor resolution, image quality requirements, and other hardware (CPU, motherboard, RAM, PSU, Case?

This^. Give us some info, OP, so we can give you informed responses.

 

[lehtv]

The 690 is not noisy, it is much quieter than two single GPU's, though the 7990 is different.

There's no way that a single fan dual GPU card is quieter than two single GPU dual fan cards with space between for breathing room. You were probably comparing the 690 to two reference cards in SLI.

As you can see here, adding another card with a well designed cooler only increases noise levels by a few dBa. The setup still manages to stay quieter than many single GPU setups with non reference coolers.

 

[SPBHM]

The 7990 is quicker and the new drivers sort stuttering if you even notice it.

no, for eyefinity and 4K it's broken, same for DX9 games (like Skyrim and Witcher 2)

the 690 is simply better at the moment because of this, but if you don't care about DX9 and more than 1600P the 7990 should be OK.

 

[powruser]

I personally would get the 7990. I think 2GB of VRAM for a card typically used to game at resolutions higher than 1080p is an issue.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I personally would get the 7990. I think 2GB of VRAM for a card typically used to game at resolutions higher than 1080p is an issue.

No issue here at 2560*1440 with 2GB.

 

[SiliconWars]

Why would you pay $350 for a slower card? The 7990 is a steal at current prices.

 

[Rvenger]

I got my 'Built by AMD' 7990 for $570 with 8 games. With 3gb of memory per GPU. Why would I buy a 2gb GTX 690 for $430 more? That's insane.

 

[lehtv]

Yet why wouldn't you buy two 7950's instead and enjoy a quieter and cooler experience for $150 less than a 7990?

 

[Rvenger]

Because I don't want 2 cards in my system plus I am a fan of reference PCBs. I will probably underclock it for games that I don't need all the power.

 

[bystander36]

There's no way that a single fan dual GPU card is quieter than two single GPU dual fan cards with space between for breathing room. You were probably comparing the 690 to two reference cards in SLI.

As you can see here, adding another card with a well designed cooler only increases noise levels by a few dBa. The setup still manages to stay quieter than many single GPU setups with non reference coolers.

This is a chart that shows both a 680 SLI with space and without space. The one with an * next to it is with space.

It is not a noisy card. I'm sure some aftermarket solutions may be able to beat it, but the card is not noisy as claimed before.

 

[lehtv]

Comparing it to reference cards makes no sense. Why would you buy a reference cards when there are much cooler and quieter options like Asus DirectCu II or MSI Twin Frozr? Compared to such cards, it definitely is noisy as claimed before.

 

[dmoney1980]

Yet why wouldn't you buy two 7950's instead and enjoy a quieter and cooler experience for $150 less than a 7990?

lehtv,

I'm actually considering getting 2 7950's myself (this model - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131458) to play at 1440p. I have a x58 setup and I recently picked up a 6 core Xeon and have it OC'd to 3.6ghz. I'm just worried about stuttering and CPU bottlenecks.

That said, I don't think you can beat the price / performance here. These 7950's OC pretty well.

 

[lehtv]

Price/performance wise you're definitely right, 7950 is unbeatable. I could see GTX 770 4GB SLI making sense as well due to NVIDIA's superior frametimes, but it'd be over twice the price and only a bit faster.

You should be able to eliminate any microstutter by making sure you always play at settings that stay at 60+ fps.

 

[Jacky60]

No issue here at 2560*1440 with 2GB.

Buying a card today with only 2GB ram is plain silly. We're seeing BF4 and Skyrim modded go way over 2GB already. I wouldn't buy any GPU with less than 3GB today and would really like 6GB per GPU. RAM is one of the few limiting factors for a card and usually towards the end of a cards life RAM starts to limit things.

 

[lehtv]

You have to keep in mind though that if you intend to play on constant 60 fps, there's a certain lower limit to how powerful your GPU needs to be in order to actually make use of more than 2GB VRAM in a particular game. For example, a GTX 770 is almost twice the speed compared to a 7850, yet they have the same 2GB of VRAM. With the 7850, you wouldn't ever need more than that, whereas with the GTX 770 you could definitely use more than that.

 

[bystander36]

You have to keep in mind though that if you intend to play on constant 60 fps, there's a certain lower limit to how powerful your GPU needs to be in order to actually make use of more than 2GB VRAM in a particular game. For example, a GTX 770 is almost twice the speed compared to a 7850, yet they have the same 2GB of VRAM. With the 7850, you wouldn't ever need more than that, whereas with the GTX 770 you could definitely use more than that.

Mind showing an example of where the 770 2Gb doesn't have enough VRAM using an unmodded game?

The only places it is needed is with mods and with extremely high resolutions with 2 or 3 in SLI. Even then the FPS are questionable to use those settings.

These GPU vram usage results taken from MSI Afterburner or what ever do not show you what is needed, only what was used. You see the benchmarks giving the same results between 2Gb and 4Gb cards, regardless of what the usage says.

 

[deaner]

I just upgraded from a AMD 5970 ( 1GB Ram per GPU ) because of the VRAM expected and now seen in the BF4 Beta. I went the 7990 route - price vs performance is sick at the moment. It is actually quieter than my 5970 was and performs incredibly.

I like Nvidia cards as well - but for the performance I can get for $580 after rebate ( 8 free games) is just top notch....at the moment

EDIT: OH and for the naysayers regarding AMD Drivers and stuttering? For the record - I have no micro stutter issues right now.

 

[lehtv]

Mind showing an example of where the 770 2Gb doesn't have enough VRAM using an unmodded game?

Why do you want an unmodded game? I didnt make any claims about unmodded games. My remark was based mostly on my own experience of modded Skyrim using 2300mb or so of my 7950's VRAM. Running such settings wouldn't be viable on a 7850, for instance, so its being limited to 2GB would therefore be a non-issue.

In any case.
- Fact: RAGE uses well over 2GB with texture detail at max set in the config (wouldn't really call that modding, it's just a setting not available in the menu unless they updated the menu)
- Based on some remarks in this thread, BF4 may use over 2GB at 1080p on settings the 770 can benefit from.
- Here's a GameGPU.ru graph showing over 2GB VRAM use in CoH2 1080p low AA.
- I've also read Crysis 3 can use over 2GB on 1080p, can't really find anything concrete on that.

EDIT: OH and for the naysayers regarding AMD Drivers and stuttering? For the record - I have no micro stutter issues right now.

Framerate and refresh rate?

Also, just because you can't see it doesn't mean others can't see it. Whether microstutter is a problem is very much dependent on the person's acuity to small visual inconsistencies.

 

[ZGR]

If you are going flagship, I would get the R9 290X since that is the newest and essentially the most powerful single gpu. Otherwise, I would try the GTX 780. Both would be great for Crossfire/SLI if you need more performance.

If the R9 290X is awfully overpriced, I would jump for the 7990.

 

[bystander36]

Why do you want an unmodded game? I didnt make any claims about unmodded games. My remark was based mostly on my own experience of modded Skyrim using 2300mb or so of my 7950's VRAM. Running such settings wouldn't be viable on a 7850, for instance, so its being limited to 2GB would therefore be a non-issue.

In any case.
- Fact: RAGE uses well over 2GB with texture detail at max set in the config (wouldn't really call that modding, it's just a setting not available in the menu unless they updated the menu)
- Based on some remarks in this thread, BF4 may use over 2GB at 1080p on settings the 770 can benefit from.
- Here's a GameGPU.ru graph showing over 2GB VRAM use in CoH2 1080p low AA.
- I've also read Crysis 3 can use over 2GB on 1080p, can't really find anything concrete on that..

I doubt many people mod games much, but yes, if you are into modding Skyrim, you need more than 2Gb.

BF4 shows it uses more than 2Gb, but the benchmarks show no ill effects from not having more than 2Gb. The 2Gb cards have no lower minimums or averages than any of the 3Gb cards. This is why I said you need to show more than GPU vram usage, but it is clear that if there is more vram available, memory management may just not clear out unused vram.