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Asus 7970 DC2 vs Giga GTX 670 Windforce

CivilDrone

CivilDrone

CivilDrone

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Morning

I've got a decision to make, stick with 7970 DC2 or go for 670 windforce. Benchmakrs say its pretty much same performance if oc'ed. I managed 1220/1605 and the score of 2185 which compared to Gibbo's oc of 670 windforce 1337/7200 and the score of 2085. Both of which are not gaming stable and need to be dropped slightly to see any benefit in game.

Not sure how good of a cooling windforce is, but dc2 is pretty good.

7970 has bigger ram and bus, comes with a backplate and a 8+8 power pin.
It is power hungry when heavily oc'ed, not sure how much it takes as i don't know how to measure it, but idle, with zeropower thingy, it shouldnt take much

670 costs a tiny bit less, in some cases.. as windforce seems to be the best option to go for, as DC2 is 6+6, ill compare windforce. Gaming wise, kepler is better, thats what i use the card for, not synthetic benching, i don't care about that. plastic body, no backplate, 2gig ram and 256 bus. Should provide sufficient cooling with 3fan design

While gaming on 7970 i somehow feel performance is not up to scratch on ultra settings, feels off for some reason. I wonder if 670 would solve that puzzle. There is always an option of going for 680, but do you really get your moneys worth with 670 being released and widely available?

Can someone help me make up my mind on the matter please? As i am split both ways

My upgrade path seems to be a weird one, at times i had gpu's as a temp solution while i was waiting for something to come out. Even used sandy i5k at some point :D 8800gtx ko >> 4850 >> 580 >> 7950 >> 6870 >> 560ti >> 7970, probably missed a few due to my drink memory :D
 
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I expect you would be very disappointed going from 7970 to 670 (or 680 for that matter).

When overclocked I expect the 7970 to beat the 670 slightly and be on par roughly with 680
 
I seriously dont understand why people think going from a 7970 to a GTX 670 / 680 will give them any benefit.

Gibbo's 1300+ Mhz GTX 670 approximiately a 1 in 100 card. The remaining 99 wont reach anywhere near that much.
 
some choices i make, are based on being slightly mad, even though i am happy with how things are, i have a constant urge to replace things :D

psychodil said:
I'll give you £200 for the 7970 :-)
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i can return this for a full refund, in-fact i got rma for it already, just dont want to let it go :p


straxusii said:
I expect you would be very disappointed going from 7970 to 670 (or 680 for that matter).

When overclocked I expect the 7970 to beat the 670 slightly and be on par roughly with 680
Click to expand...

Thinking the same thing, gaming-wise, i wont see any improvement then?

bhavv said:
I seriously dont understand why people think going from a 7970 to a GTX 670 / 680 will give them any benefit.

Gibbo's 1300+ Mhz GTX 670 approximiately a 1 in 100 card. The remaining 99 wont reach anywhere near that much.
Click to expand...

I already know that i will be, but the urge to change is still there :D
 
I think the windforce 7970 is the best card out , there today at under £380 is destroys the value of any custom 680 at the moment , I certainly would not consider going to a 670 .
The only downside is the power consumption compared to nvidia keplars , but everything else is a tick .
 
Whats gaming stable 1200/1575?

Taking a benchmark score for a stock and overclocked 7970 on the same system you'll probably get around 25% increase over a stock 7970 at those numbers, whereas with the 670 already hitting 1200/1600 at stock with the turbo boost, you'll only see around 5-10% increase, mainly the former so the 7970 in all the benchmarks you've seen will perform 15-20% better than the 670 in relation to those benchmarks.

Now take BF3 for example as one of the games that performs better with an Nvidia card and a 670 performs about 15% better than a 7970, that overclock will eat that 15% with ease and whatever the 670 can clock to, to bring performance pretty much neck and neck. With the fact that BF3 is one of the games where the 670's have a big advantage then you're looking pretty sweet for other games.
 
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Gaming is stable at 1200/6000. Ran BF3 for few minutes, usually crashes quiet quickly under heavy OC. Also i ran bench tests to check the performance increase, i am starting to love the card, a very bad feeling! :D

Below are the benchmarks for Asus HD 7970 DirectCU II 3072MB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-276-AS
As used in the official Unigine Heaven 3.0 OCuK thread, with the following settings

API: DX11
Tessellation: normal
Shaders: high
Antisorpy: x4
Stereo 3d: disabled
anti-aliasing: x4
full screen
res: 1920x1080

stock clock, 925/5500


DC2T (TOP) clock, 1000/5600


OC'ed to 1100/5800


OC'ed to 1200/6000 - Battlefield 3 stable


I am not trying to mislead anyone, results can be different while using different hardware. Screenshots are not tampered with as i am not trying to convince anyone but myself :D

I did not clock passed this point, gaming-wise. But did achieve slightly higher clock for Heaven, which was not stable with BF3

On the highest clock i used 100% fan speed, temps were 62c, so still room for OCing tad more
 
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CivilDrone said:
Maybe at stock, but 7970 is oc beast. Only downside to 7970 is it takes more power, apart from that, its superior in every way
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does the reference 7970 overclock well or would i need a non reference one, i am tempted by the one on sale her for £349 with 3 games.

its just all the reviews seem to put the gtx 670 in front
 
The reference one overclocks well but can get noisy when overclocked and overvolted. I always say get a non reference if you want quiet and want to over clock. The £349 looks excellent, and over locked will match a 670 easily.
 
sunshinewelly said:
does the reference 7970 overclock well or would i need a non reference one, i am tempted by the one on sale her for £349 with 3 games.

its just all the reviews seem to put the gtx 670 in front
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I've had my reference PowerColor 7970 to 1250/1800 at 1.29v, the only limitation to me going further was my PSU!!!
 
dave_beast said:
Download TRIXX 4.0.1 up the voltage to 1.29, push those clocks?

Edit: I think your voltage is locked at 1188mv like Martini1991's card :( But still, 1220 on that vcore is awesome!
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Yep i think we are on the same boat :D tried trixx, afterburner, asus gpu, precision, basically all the same. I am still tempted to switch to 680 dc2 :p
 
CivilDrone said:
Yep i think we are on the same boat :D tried trixx, afterburner, asus gpu, precision, basically all the same. I am still tempted to switch to 680 dc2 :p
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But 1220mhz is pretty good tbh, what with the silicone lottery and all that, you could end up with a 680 that's a worse performer or has coil whine. If you're happy with what you've got, resist the itch :p
 
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