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GTX 670 or AMD 7970?

Thanks, I will most likely get the 670, seems to be the best in terms of in game performance from nearly all the benchmarks I've seen.

Just beware that the 7970 benchmarks are often at stock settings or with a mild overclock. The 7970's have a large overclocking headroom so this may be distorting the picture slightly. However, I feel the 670/680/7970 are all within roughly 5% of each other and when you're talking a frame rate of say 80 then 5% is minimal without even worrying about factoring in nVidia performing better in some games and vice-versa.
 
Actually, I probably will overclock a 670/7970, its a free performance increase and OC'ing the 670's offer near 680 performance.
Not to sure what 670's out there are the best overclockers, but I've heard good things about The Windforce, Asus Direct CUII, Palit Jetstream, Gainward Phantom, ect...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/asus-geforce-gtx-680-msi-radeon-hd7970.html

Custom overclocked shootout between a 680 V's 7970- end result see for yourself.

When the heavily green sponsered [H] states that an oc'ed 7970 is faster than an oc'ed 670 then it must carry some weight:

http://m.hardocp.com/article/2012/05/14/geforce_680_670_vs_radeon_7970_7950_gaming_perf/4

If you go for a 670 make sure that it's a custom PCB job with a 6+8 pin, voltage adjustment may appear at some point.

The 7970's are known for their high clockability(due to the low stock clocks) on stock volts never mind when you throw more volts at them, but it is a lottery on how good/poor they clock.


@Rusty

Kudos to yourself in this thread for pointing some of the other benefits of the other team, it was already voiced about the 6 series good points, I simply voiced the other sides benefits/weak points along with Nvidias bad points.

Enjoy whatever you go for op, at the end of the day they are all very fast@1080p.
 
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/asus-geforce-gtx-680-msi-radeon-hd7970.html

Custom overclocked shootout between a 680 V's 7970- end result see for yourself.

When the heavily green sponsered [H] states that an oc'ed 7970 is faster than an oc'ed 670 then it must carry some weight:

http://m.hardocp.com/article/2012/05/14/geforce_680_670_vs_radeon_7970_7950_gaming_perf/4

If you go for a 670 make sure that it's a custom PCB job with a 6+8 pin, voltage adjustment may appear at some point.

The 7970's are known for their high clockability(due to the low stock clocks) on stock volts never mind when you throw more volts at them, but it is a lottery on how good/poor they clock.


@rusty

Kudos to yourself in this thread for pointing some of the other benefits of the other team, it was already voiced about the 6 series good points, I simply voiced the other sides benefits/weak points along with Nvidias bad points.

Enjoy whatever you go for op, at the end of the day they are all very fast@1080p.

The 670's That I'm looking at all have custom coolers and either 6+6 or 6+8 power connectors. (Windforce or Asus Direct CUII)
When you are spending a considerable sum of money for a small performance increase, I really find it hard to justify. (As they are all within 5% of eachother)

I have had good experience in the past with the green team, but AMD have been throwing around some serious contenders lately!

I'm leaning towards the 670 though, I think mainly because of the fact that it performs better in the games that I play ;)

Thanks for the advice!
 
Well if you have had good experiences with Nvidia, it's better the devil you know, most don't enjoy the transition to the other side regardless what way you go.

My money would be on the WF 670, 3 fan cooler with 6+8 pin FTW.:)
 
ATI seem to produce better memory and core clock MHz for the money, and the graphics card seem to be double as good as the nvidia, with half the price, id defo go with the ati cards if i was you
 
ATI seem to produce better memory and core clock MHz for the money, and the graphics card seem to be double as good as the nvidia, with half the price, id defo go with the ati cards if i was you

Doesn't make any sense. As they're different architecture you can't compare core/memory frequencies across nVidia/AMD cards.

The double as good point also makes no sense. Please don't post advice if you're not 100% sure of what you're saying...
 
If you go for a 670 make sure that it's a custom PCB job with a 6+8 pin, voltage adjustment may appear at some point.

a 6 pin is rated to 75 watts (plus 75 from the socket itself)... do you really think a 141W TDP card needs more than 225 watts to OC?
(it doesn't from all the testing I've seen), the full length pcb is an aesthetic thing and the power connectors are a marketing thing, even the number of fets it has doesn't seem to make a massive difference either

and no voltage adjustment possible, it's a hardware restriction, on the vast majority of 670's or 680's unless you go for a lightning or the white PCB KFA which are silly overpriced and don't even have cherry picked cores
 
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ATI seem to produce better memory and core clock MHz for the money, and the graphics card seem to be double as good as the nvidia, with half the price, id defo go with the ati cards if i was you

Complete drivel.

Better memory and core clock mhz? Please explain.

Double as good as nvidia? This means what exactly? 7970 is not half the price of a 680 and does not give double the performance of a 680.

Please don't post tripe like this unless you have evidence to back it up.
 
I firmly believe this to be true. But what about some of things I wasn't 100% sure about, like power draw, overclocking, heat and noise?

Removing the chip lottery from the equation do they all overclock as well as each other and when all overclocked perform within the same distance of each other as stock? Does one or the other lose any power efficiency advantage when overclocked or start pumping out excessive heat?

The 670/680 draw less power.

I don't know of average temps for the ATI, but I have the Windforce 670. Overclocked (+75 core, +500 memory) idles at ~30C and I've not yet seen it running above 60C when gaming, fans very quiet. The lack of noise/cool running was the main reason I went for the 670 Windforce
 
or even 1600p... it just about starts to become a consideration at 5760x1080 with high levels of AA so 3GB/4GB cards might be of interest there but then you probably also want 3 or 4 cards to make that worth while as well

+1

As mentioned, it's only really a factor when you start considering super high resolutions.
 
Would 2gb of vram handle 1440-1600p in something heavily texture modded like Skyrim? I'm definitely planning on getting a new screen but very likely to be sticking with just one.
 
Would 2gb of vram handle 1440-1600p in something heavily texture modded like Skyrim? I'm definitely planning on getting a new screen but very likely to be sticking with just one.

I very much doubt it. If those are your requirements I would be looking at a 79xx card or a 4gb 670 card. I am also into heavy texture modding and I have seen nearly 2.5GB used while playing skyrim at 1080p, so it would be even more at 1440-1600p.
 
I very much doubt it. If those are your requirements I would be looking at a 79xx card or a 4gb 670 card. I am also into heavy texture modding and I have seen nearly 2.5GB used while playing skyrim at 1080p, so it would be even more at 1440-1600p.

I thought as much I'm just trying to make sure I get the right card. I'll go with a 4gb 670 as I was leaning that way anyway.
 
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