GTX 670 vs GTX 680 vs HD 7970?

raghu78 said:
670 OC beating 7970 OC. thats completely untrue. :D suggest you read hardocp sapphire HD 7970 OC review :)
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All depends on how far each card is overclocked. There are many 670's that OC far enough to beat any OC'd 7970 in the majority of games and benches. Keep on spinning it though.
 
Blkout said:
All depends on how far each card is overclocked. There are many 670's that OC far enough to beat any OC'd 7970 in the majority of games and benches. Keep on spinning it though.
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Lets stick to our respective opinions. There are many people who will disagree with you. there is a HD 7900 users thread in overclock.net. there are many users running 1250 - 1300 Mhz . try telling them that a 1350 Mhz GTX 670 beats their HD 7970 and they will prove you wrong. :)
 
Lets stick to our respective opinions. There are many people who will disagree with you. there is a HD 7900 users thread in overclock.net. there are many users running 1250 - 1300 Mhz . try telling them that a 1350 Mhz GTX 670 beats their HD 7970 and they will prove you wrong.
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a gtx 670 even overclocked will not beat a overclocked 7970. ^ what this guy said is entirely true. Even the 680 overclocked cannot beat an overclocked 7970.

When the 7970s get into the 1200mhz+ core range, they simply crush everything.
 
raghu78 said:
Lets stick to our respective opinions. There are many people who will disagree with you. there is a HD 7900 users thread in overclock.net. there are many users running 1250 - 1300 Mhz . try telling them that a 1350 Mhz GTX 670 beats their HD 7970 and they will prove you wrong. :)
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LOL, so MANY 7970 users getting 1250-1300MHz, they're just coming out of the woodwork.
 
670's can easily hit 1200+ mhz as well, however. Plus, the 7970 isn't as efficient with ram bandwidth or even power/heat.

This in and of itself seems to contradict the idea that a 7970 overclocked is the be-all end-all. The benchmarks may show things differently but I have my doubts.
 
No doubt that the 79xx series have a bandwidth and VRAM advantage but it just isn't translating into real world performance most of the time. It sounds good on paper and maybe it was what AMD needed to do to give a noticable increase over the 69xx series but for some reason, even with Nvidia's lack of 1GB of VRAM and less bandwidth still seems to get the job done just fine and in many cases even better than the AMD counterparts.
 
Blkout said:
No doubt that the 79xx series have a bandwidth and VRAM advantage but it just isn't translating into real world performance most of the time. It sounds good on paper and maybe it was what AMD needed to do to give a noticable increase over the 69xx series but for some reason, even with Nvidia's lack of 1GB of VRAM and less bandwidth still seems to get the job done just fine and in many cases even better than the AMD counterparts.
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If there is a game like Metro 2033 or Crysis Warhead where the GTX 680 is clearly bandwidth constrained and loses badly to HD 7970 you will say nobody plays it. so no probs. But I am pretty sure you will encounter such scenarios more often in future. When you go for high end cards never under provision. anyway if you are happy with perf/watt thats fine too. :D This is the first time Nvidia has a next gen card like GTX 680 (256 bit) with a smaller memory bus width than the last gen GTX 580 (384 bit). Agreed the memory controller is improved and can do 6 Ghz but bandwidth hasn't increased at all. 192 Gb/s for both cards. When more bandwidth demanding games release in 2012 and 2013 you will realise the need for it.
 
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raghu78 said:
If there is a game like Metro 2033 or Crysis Warhead where the GTX 680 is clearly bandwidth constrained and loses badly to HD 7970 you will say nobody plays it. so no probs. But I am pretty sure you will encounter such scenarios more often in future. When you go for high end cards never under provision. anyway if you are happy with perf/watt thats fine too. :D
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You think so? Metro 2033 is about 3 years old now, and Warhead is older than that, Crysis 2 is less demanding than its predecessors and I have no reason to believe Crysis 3 will be any more demanding than Crysis 2. The Metro 2033 sequel is due this years and I'd bet money it will be less demanding than the original as well. What you fail to realize is that some of those older games, devs were cutting their teeth with newer tools and wasn't as efficient at getting performance out of their games as they are now. I just don't foresee any games being more demanding that The Wticher 2 in the next 2-3 years, and its far more demanding that Metro or Crysis Warhead. The Unreal Engine 4 is coming soon and all Unreal engines have traditionally run better on Nvidia hardware, I have no reason to believe that UE4 will change from that. You seem to like to boasting about the AMD hardware specs and while I agree they're impressive on paper, they come up short though with their drivers and performance when it counts. You seem to like to compare AMD to Nvidia under ideal scenarios but rarely are they idea and more often than not, Nvidia has the upper hand and this is a widely known fact.
 
Blkout said:
You seem to like to boasting about the AMD hardware specs and while I agree they're impressive on paper, they come up short though with their drivers and performance when it counts. You seem to like to compare AMD to Nvidia under ideal scenarios but rarely are they idea and more often than not, Nvidia has the upper hand and this is a widely known fact.
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There are people who are satisified with AMD cards too. I think you are one of them with the HD 7850. If your personal opinion or experience with AMD drivers in the past was negative why did you buy the AMD HD 7850 ?
Driver issues are there with both camps. I can say this with a certain degree of surety. I had a Nvidia 7950 GT before my current HD 6950. Its not as if I had no issues with the Nvidia card. In recent times AMD's driver reputation took a hit with lack of robust launch day drivers , for eg Rage. Nvidia users too had issues with Rage. But I do agree AMD needs to do more work in improving its driver robustness.
 
I've seen people selling 7970s on the forums here for under $400. If you can get a good deal on a 7970 go for it, otherwise neither are bad choices but the 600 series cards have been shown to use less power.
 
raghu78 said:
There are people who are satisified with AMD cards too. I think you are one of them with the HD 7850. If your personal opinion or experience with AMD drivers in the past was negative why did you buy the AMD HD 7850 ?
Driver issues are there with both camps. I can say this with a certain degree of surety. I had a Nvidia 7950 GT before my current HD 6950. Its not as if I had no issues with the Nvidia card. In recent times AMD's driver reputation took a hit with lack of robust launch day drivers , for eg Rage. Nvidia users too had issues with Rage. But I do agree AMD needs to do more work in improving its driver robustness.
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Its complicated but to answer your question. I've had issues with AMD providing drivers for new game releases with crossfire profiles, not as many issues with single card driver issues but they do still exist occasionally. I prefer the AMD CCC to the Nvidia control panel, I prefer the desktop AMD image quality regardless of what that silly thread here states about both Nvidia and AMD having the same image quality, sorry but my eyes see differently. With all this said, I have two PC's at home that I use for games, my main HTPC in my living room which I watch movies and play games about 75% of the time, I'm currently using a GTX 670 because at $400 it was simply the better value. My desktop PC where I read webpages and do any work I need to do, play some games mostly FPS or strategy games where a precision mouse and keyboard is needed, I'm using a 7850, but that's because I didn't want to spend $400 again for another video card that I use 25% of the time for gaming so I set my budget at $250 for that PC and the 7850 is quite simply the best card available at that price point and because its an AMD card, it satisfies my image quality needs for web page viewing.

I don't have an issue with AMD's hardware specs, they're fine, and I was all over this board stating how the 79xx series was just awesome when they were released, and they were, but they just don't provide the same value now that the Nvidia 6xx series have been released. I don't hate AMD, I don't love Nvidia, I just buy what suits my needs at the time and provides the best value for the budget I've set. In a perfect world, I would never leave AMD graphics card because to me they just provide better image quality, 2D and 3D, and that's certainly debatable to others so I'm not getting into that argument, but AMD's drivers have fallen in quality considerably over the last 1-2 years, I don't know why but they're really struggling to keep up with Nvidia in this department and I'm sorry to say it but even the best hardware doesn't mean anything without good software and that's where AMD is falling hard right now.
 
The 7970 is a great card and is very fast overclocked as raghu78 loves to point out, the problem is it's price, power consumption (especially at high overclocks), noise level and questionable CFX support with CAP profiles etc. Because of those issues, most people consider the 670/680 a better overall value proposition which is why hardly anyone is recommending 7970s on [H].
 
I picked up a 670 and currently regretting it. I believe the 7970 does 40c load and when overclocked to 1300 pretty much trades blows with 680....caveat is 7970 waterblock used are selling for 420 sometimes....20 bucks more than a 670.
 
I am not sure why everyone think overclock with increased voltage is actually good. If it is so good, AMD should upped all their GPUs to 1.3v and set the default frequency to 1.2Ghz. AMD didn't do it, there must be reasons for it.

28nm transistors have recommended voltage from 0.85v to 1v. http://globalfoundries.com/technology/28nm.aspx

GTX 680's default voltage is 0.987v. http://hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/

7970's default voltage is 1.168v. (notice AMD already over-volt the voltage 17% above the upper limit of the recommended voltage range by default) http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/25/asus_radeon_hd_7970_video_card_review/3

Here are some facts about temperature, voltage and transistors. The higher the temperature/voltage applied to the transistors, the shorter lifespan the transistors would have.

"The higher the temperature, the lower the lifespan. High temperatures are extremely hard on electronic components. They begin to break down internally. " http://www.ehow.com/info_8794824_effects-temperature-mos-transistors.html

"Absolute maximum ratings are used to specify the maximum temperature, voltage, and other limiting conditions under which a device can be used. The absolute maximum ratings are maximum values for operating and environmental conditions which apply to all products, and they must never be exceeded, regardless of the circumstance. ... If the absolute maximum ratings are exceeded, it is possible that immediate deterioration and / or damage to the semiconductor device may occur, and even if it still operates, a considerable shortening of its life is likely. Furthermore, semiconductor ratings are not independent entities. Temperature, voltage, current, and power all are closely interrelated, and none may be exceeded." http://www.rohm.com/products/databook/tr/pdf/transistorsiyoujou.pdf

Hopefully you would understand why it is more likely for your 1.3v 1.2Ghz AMD 7970 to have shorter lifetime. Of course, if you don't care about the lifespan of your video card, you can ignore the above information.
 
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Consider most gaming video cards have a "useful lifespan" of ~3 years, the card will last well beyond that unless you do something improper.
 
Consider most gaming video cards have a "useful lifespan" of ~3 years, the card will last well beyond that unless you do something improper.
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pretty much this. Life span of your video card even overclocked to the max is likely to last well beyond its usable life time. Figure 5 years down the road even the bottom dollar gpu's will put out the same performance.

I dunno in my personal rig i went with 7870's in crossfire. For 600$ my performance tops both the 680 and the 7970.

670,680. 7970, 7950 will all serve you well.

7970 is the best all around card (compute and graphics performance) 680s are a tad faster in graphics performance stock reference clocks. 670 tad slower than 7970 in most games, but is definitely the best value high end card for games. 3gb ram and higher memory bandwidth on the 7970/7950 makes them more future proof. What ever card the original poster goes with will suit his needs.
 
Seems like the 670 is the better value, but I've read a review that they were pretty sure that the chipset for the 670-680 line were going to be mid-range price (~$250) cards, and the 690 was going to be the high-end, but seeing that they completely smoked the competition at their respective levels they decided to bump the ranges a notch for each.

This is why we need more companies out there, I can't believe all this time and there is just room for 2 discrete video card companies, I don't think their profits are that low that they wouldn't entice competition.
 
WildMonkey said:
Seems like the 670 is the better value, but I've read a review that they were pretty sure that the chipset for the 670-680 line were going to be mid-range price (~$250) cards, and the 690 was going to be the high-end, but seeing that they completely smoked the competition at their respective levels they decided to bump the ranges a notch for each.

This is why we need more companies out there, I can't believe all this time and there is just room for 2 discrete video card companies, I don't think their profits are that low that they wouldn't entice competition.
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Blame AMD- in their quest for GPGPU, they have sacrificed game performance, and Nvidia has laughed and waxed AMDs high-end GPU with their mid-range silicon.
 
Blame AMD- in their quest for GPGPU, they have sacrificed game performance, and Nvidia has laughed and waxed AMDs high-end GPU with their mid-range silicon.
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uhhh? Blame them both!! Nvidia released a new gpu which focused on gaming performance, they didn't gain any compute performance over the 580, if anything the 680 is slower in compute. Amd Focused mainly on Compute performance, and it SMOKES Nvidia now in compute, Amd still made good gains in gaming performance, however is still slower than Nvidia in alot of games. (unless radically overclocked)

Its really interesting to see how both companies changed strategies, in reaction to one another.
 
mdlam said:
I picked up a 670 and currently regretting it. I believe the 7970 does 40c load and when overclocked to 1300 pretty much trades blows with 680....caveat is 7970 waterblock used are selling for 420 sometimes....20 bucks more than a 670.
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40c load on an OC'd 7970? With water you mean I assume? What is the 670 load temp on water like then...
 
670 is a no brainer unless you fold or plan to overclock really high like on water. Even then it uses quite a bit more power.

The AMD card to get is the 7950 not the 7970. $100 cheaper and only 0-3% slower at same speed.
 
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