Seriously considering going from GTX 580 to Radeon 7970

[AdamK47]

I have concerns and perhaps some of you can answer some questions.

How is CrossFire scaling? I've read some reviews where it shows scaling with these new cards not being all that great. How prevalent is this problem?

Another question I have relates to per application profiles. Now that AMD has FINALLY given users the option to create/edit profiles, how well does it work. Can CrossFire be forced now? I know there are tools that can spoof the drivers to force CrossFire, but being able to do it though the driver directly without having a tool loaded in memory is ideal.

My other question relates to MLAA. How is overall compatability with MLAA. Does it work in any Direct3D and OpenGL game?

 

[Borealis7]

look here for Xfire scaling:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7970_CrossFire/

100% scaling!

as you can see, scaling is very good except in PhysX games (i.e. Batman AC) or where Xfire is broken (Skyrim, Civ V) which bring the overall average down, so depends on what games you play you could benefit greatly from Xfire.

about MLAA, its a post-processing effect, and should work on anything irregardless of application, even your windows desktop! (blurred text as a side effect in severe cases)

 

[Madcatatlas]

aslong as its not a cpu dependant game, the cards will scale just aswell in higher resolutions?

 

[Borealis7]

aslong as its not a cpu dependant game, the cards will scale just aswell in higher resolutions?

in theory, yes. but because we don't live in a perfect world and i'm not married to a supermodel then no, not always the case.

higher resolutions should make the scenario less CPU dependent. i guess it all comes down to the level of parallelism that is implemented in the game's engine, the cards drivers, and DirectX's scheduling mechanisms.

 

[Grooveriding]

I plan to make a similar move once there are custom 7970 cards available. Need those custom cards as I want a minimum of 1200core, preferably 1300 since I am aiming to go down from 3 cards to 2.

If you make the switch, please share some benchmark comparisons!

Per MLAA it works in any game AFAIK. Also FXAA works on AMD cards as well As well, you can use custom FXAA injectors to force it in games if you want.

 

[blackened23]

I have concerns and perhaps some of you can answer some questions.

How is CrossFire scaling? I've read some reviews where it shows scaling with these new cards not being all that great. How prevalent is this problem?

Another question I have relates to per application profiles. Now that AMD has FINALLY given users the option to create/edit profiles, how well does it work. Can CrossFire be forced now? I know there are tools that can spoof the drivers to force CrossFire, but being able to do it though the driver directly without having a tool loaded in memory is ideal.

My other question relates to MLAA. How is overall compatability with MLAA. Does it work in any Direct3D and OpenGL game?

Which 580 do you have now?

Here's my objective take on it:

If you're using a 27" screen, 120hz screen, or triple monitor it is worth it. If you're using 1080p, GTX 580 should be more than enough. Anti aliasing with the AMD CCC is a bit different, you have 3 options: MLAA, Adaptive AA, SSAA, or plain MSAA. Compatibility across the board is good. DX11, not so much but keep in mind -- practically every dx11 game is coded in such a way that prevents any type of override AA from working (with either NV or AMD) - dragon age 2, crysis 2, metro 2033, for example, none of these are compatible with override AA from any manufacturer. But DX9 compatibilty is excellent. The profiles work pretty much like they do in the program settings tab in NV control panel -- add the .exe file and choose your setting specific to it.

Performance wise, crossfire scaling is very good, and once you oc the 7970 performance goes up a TON. These suckers fly once you oc, I am very impressed! I got 1175 on my cards at stock voltage. I have not even messed with voltage much at all, I was just shocked to get so high of an overclock at stock. Crazy! YMMV may vary of course! I noticed huge performance gains coming from 580 SLI - the biggest gains were in Deus Ex: HR (framerate nearly doubled, I sh** you not) batman AC (huge gains) , metro 2033 (huge gains) and crysis 2. 7970 seems to handle heavy tessellation better than the 580.

One final thing. The reference fan on the 7970 is somewhere between the 6970 and GTX 580. Not quite as quiet as the 580, but not loud either. Its not an issue really, my cards never have to run at high rpm -- and I plan on getting the accelero aftermarket cooler
as soon as it is available. Are you using a reference 580?

So, in summary:

-If you're playing at 1080p i'd say its not worth it. Stay with 580s IMO at 1080p, just because 580s can already max things at that res
-7970 reference fan slightly louder than ref 580, although you will never have to run past 40% fan speed more than likely
- definitely worth it with 27" monitors, 2560 resolution, or triple monitor
- Crossfire scaling is excellent.
- This is completely subjective and I can't put my finger on why, but default MSAA on the 7970 looks better than the GTX 580 default MSAA. I don't know why or how, but looking at games that are traditionally difficult to get AA working: Dead space 1, dead space 2, Dead Island, SWTOR, and a few others, they definitely look better on the 7970 for some reason. I'll look into this further, I just can't place my finger on why.

 

[Lepton87]

I plan to make a similar move once there are custom 7970 cards available. Need those custom cards as I want a minimum of 1200core, preferably 1300 since I am aiming to go down from 3 cards to 2.

If you make the switch, please share some benchmark comparisons!

Per MLAA it works in any game AFAIK. Also FXAA works on AMD cards as well As well, you can use custom FXAA injectors to force it in games if you want.

If you decided to wait, why not buy 3x7950? It's gonna be decently faster than 2x7970 with less micro-stutter too.

 

[blackened23]

I plan to make a similar move once there are custom 7970 cards available. Need those custom cards as I want a minimum of 1200core, preferably 1300 since I am aiming to go down from 3 cards to 2.

If you make the switch, please share some benchmark comparisons!

Per MLAA it works in any game AFAIK. Also FXAA works on AMD cards as well As well, you can use custom FXAA injectors to force it in games if you want.

Dude, why not get a reference 7970 and get the accelero VGA cooler? Although my top card will likely stay reference, bottom card will use that.

The new accelero has special VRM coolers as well. Non ref boards won't be available until Feb from what I understand.

 

[blackened23]

If you decided to wait, why not buy 3x7950? It's gonna be decently faster than 2x7970 with less micro-stutter too.

I have found no microstutter on 7970 xfire. And I was expecting to find it, and was looking for it. (I have seen it on 6970 xfire)

 

[Grooveriding]

If you decided to wait, why not buy 3x7950? It's gonna be decently faster than 2x7970 with less micro-stutter too.

I don't want to 3 cards anymore, it's too much noise and heat. I'd prefer something a little more powerful and elegant in its footprint at the same time.

Dude, why not get a reference 7970 and get the accelero VGA cooler? Thats what i'm doing Although my top card will likely stay reference, bottom card will use that.

The new accelero has special VRM coolers as well, its going to be sick Non ref boards won't be available until Feb from what I understand :awe:

See above comment I want a reasonably quiet computer again. I am used to the noise from my rig at this point and mainly use headphones to game. But I'd like to stop hearing my wife tell me I turned on the blow dryer again when I fire up a game I wouldn't want to mess with an aftermarket cooler on my GPUs. I think I'd have to buy XFX anyways to have that covered by warranty and I am hoping an MSI Lightning type card will overclock better than what we've already seen.

 

[blackened23]

Get it while you can, IMO I'm hearing that all resellers have sold out, and AMD has another big shipment enroute. The only place i've found with stock is tigerdirect.

But on that note, i'm kind of leery of adding the accelero myself, I've not done such a thing before. Hopefully its not too much of a hassle.

 

[Grooveriding]

Get it while you can, IMO I'm hearing that all resellers have sold out, and AMD has another big shipment enroute. The only place i've found with stock is tigerdirect.

But on that note, i'm kind of leery of adding the accelero myself, I've not done such a thing before. Hopefully its not too much of a hassle.

Newegg.ca is sold out but ncix has some sapphire/xfx still in stock.

I am going to be patient this time and wait it out for the custom cards, as much as I want to just jump in, holding out..... with difficulty.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Get it while you can, IMO I'm hearing that all resellers have sold out, and AMD has another big shipment enroute. The only place i've found with stock is tigerdirect.

But on that note, i'm kind of leery of adding the accelero myself, I've not done such a thing before. Hopefully its not too much of a hassle.

I have an accelero on my gtx 480. Temps are in the low 50's under load now as opposed to 90c on a stock cooler. Quiet as a mouse too. They are 3 slot coolers though so make sure there is enough room.

 

[Nintendesert]

I have an accelero on my gtx 480. Temps are in the low 50's under load now as opposed to 90c on a stock cooler. Quiet as a mouse too. They are 3 slot coolers though so make sure there is enough room.

I've never messed with graphics card coolers before, how difficult was it to put that on and take the stock cooling off?

 

[nemesismk2]

I think going from a GTX 580 to a Radeon 7970 would IMO not be worth it because the Radeon 7970 costs 23% (UK prices) more and delivers only 11% extra performance overall. I was in contact with someone from Ultimate Hardware and he confirms this.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Scaling seems OK, but that's not what I'd be worried about with crossfire, having used 4870 crossfire and a 5970 dual GPU card I can say that AMD's support for multi-GPU ranges from superb to absolutely diabolical, I abandoned the 5970 eventually due to sheer frustration.

Too many launch titles simply not working at all, or worse having negative scaling issues and being completely unplayable (especially if you can't disable crossfire like with the 5970), and waiting weeks or months for fixes.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I'd wait a bit. The latest rumor is that GK104 could come around January 31st. According to fudzilla that is why AMD pulled the 7950 launch closer.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Scaling seems OK, but that's not what I'd be worried about with crossfire, having used 4870 crossfire and a 5970 dual GPU card I can say that AMD's support for multi-GPU ranges from superb to absolutely diabolical, I abandoned the 5970 eventually due to sheer frustration.

Too many launch titles simply not working at all, or worse having negative scaling issues and being completely unplayable (especially if you can't disable crossfire like with the 5970), and waiting weeks or months for fixes.

I've noticed them a lot too, like with Skyrim... Typically they're fixed within a few weeks/months though aren't they?

 

[Lepton87]

I've noticed them a lot too, like with Skyrim... Typically they're fixed within a few weeks/months though aren't they?

I've got 6900 Quadfire and scaling in Skyrim still leaves a lot to be desired, frankly it's not that much better than playing with CF disabled.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I've got 6900 Quadfire and scaling in Skyrim still leaves a lot to be desired, frankly it's not that much better than playing with CF disabled.

CPU bottleneck...

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I've noticed them a lot too, like with Skyrim... Typically they're fixed within a few weeks/months though aren't they?

Sure, pretty much all issues are fixed, but the question is how fast, AMD release driver updates monthly to give you some idea...don't get me wrong, Nvidia aren't perfect either, and even single GPU cards (from both camps) can have issues from time to time.

More than anything it's the negatives that do it, it doesn't matter that the last 3 games you played were fine on release day, it just takes 1 high profile game and you'll be monumentally pissed off that it's not working day 1 and that you've dropped $$$ on the cards and $$$ on the PSU and $$$ on cooling and $$$ on the game, and between all them things it just doesn't work properly, negative GPU scaling from AMD makes things somewhat worse especially combined with lack of crossfire enable/disable controls.

When it's good it's good but the unpredictable nature means you have to be prepared to be royally dicked over at least a few times, that's when regret kicks in. I only ever went multi-gpu to keep powering 2560x1600 at reasonable frame rates, but today's GPUs are so fast that's not really an issue and was very happy to make the lateral move to a similar speed single GPU (5970 to 580)

 

[blackened23]

I've noticed them a lot too, like with Skyrim... Typically they're fixed within a few weeks/months though aren't they?

At CES they made it a point that they're making a big push into software. They want software to be the big thing now with their GPU's, and they are pushing hard this year to work with game devs (similar to what NV has done). Their previous approach was make the hardware, and developers will come...that approach proved to be not as good as the opposite approach.

In any case, I don't have any xfire issues with any games i've run. Skyrim is a BAD example because I had flickering on my 580 SLI's, its not an amd or NV specific issue, some games will just have issues from time to time with any dual GPU setup.

 

[blackened23]

Sure, pretty much all issues are fixed, but the question is how fast, AMD release driver updates monthly to give you some idea...don't get me wrong, Nvidia aren't perfect either, and even single GPU cards (from both camps) can have issues from time to time.

More than anything it's the negatives that do it, it doesn't matter that the last 3 games you played were fine on release day, it just takes 1 high profile game and you'll be monumentally pissed off that it's not working day 1 and that you've dropped $$$ on the cards and $$$ on the PSU and $$$ on cooling and $$$ on the game, and between all them things it just doesn't work properly, negative GPU scaling from AMD makes things somewhat worse especially combined with lack of crossfire enable/disable controls.

When it's good it's good but the unpredictable nature means you have to be prepared to be royally dicked over at least a few times, that's when regret kicks in. I only ever went multi-gpu to keep powering 2560x1600 at reasonable frame rates, but today's GPUs are so fast that's not really an issue and was very happy to make the lateral move to a similar speed single GPU (5970 to 580)

This is just how it is with dual GPU. Day 1 support is hit or miss and you will run into issues from time to time. I haven't played skyrim in a while, but the last I did - I had flickering on 580 SLI's. I'll fire it up later this afternoon to see if all that was fixed (without disabling SLI) but, its certainly not an AMD only thing. You need specific drivers for SLI/xfire to work.

 

[blackened23]

I think going from a GTX 580 to a Radeon 7970 would IMO not be worth it because the Radeon 7970 costs 23% (UK prices) more and delivers only 11% extra performance overall. I was in contact with someone from Ultimate Hardware and he confirms this.

11% extra performance huh? At stock speeds 7970 is 20-30% in most games. (citation below) The difference is, overclocking the 7970 has way more headroom. And the scaling when overclocked is ridiculous. At 1200/1600 the 7970 in my case is anywhere from 48-80% faster than 580 SLI.

So its true at stock you're looking at 25% on average increase. I doubt anyone here is running stock, when you overclock the 7970 takes the lead by a LOT.

 

[imaheadcase]

No, that is the answer OP just needs to hear.

GTX 580 is still a great card, better than the lastest ATI in some things to. The performance diff is not worth it unless you get someone who wants to buy a used GTX 580 for the same price as a new one.