670 or 7950?

[alex_123_fra]

I'm biased but the windforce OC GTX 670 has been great for me. Overclocks reasonably and the temps and noise are very low. I cannot get it to go above 56C on the max overclock I can get. Take a look at the bench results in the other thread. A few 670s performing up there with 7970s and 680s (and often better). In particular, look at the GPU scores to get a better idea of what the actual cards can do rather than people's overall systems. I know benchmarks and in-game performance are different things but it gives you a good indication.

 

[Gregster]

Milano Chris hit it on the nail, with both being visually equal in games. I personally would go for the Gigabyte WF 670. This is mainly because I only play BF3 lately (and black ops) and the 670 gives better performance in BF3.

 

[tommybhoy]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-054-HS

£110 cheaper than the 670 WF while being there or there abouts when you clock it.

3 Free games.

Your probably looking@ a minimum of 950MHz when you push the sliders.

Badly optimised mods on Skyrim etc, not a problem due to the extra vram.

What's not to like?

The only way the cheapest stock blower 670@£60 more expensive (without adding in the value of the 3 games) makes better sense is if you don't want to push some sliders.

 

[Rusty0611]

Yeah it's more a question OP of how much you want to spend. The 670 is faster but a decent custom cooled one is going to cost you north of £320 whereas the 7950's are far cheaper

Performance difference while max overclocked fairly large (speaking in relative terms) although not massively so.

 

[Dirtyganker]

7950 kicks the 670's ass and it can over clock past the 7970GHz editions stock fps in games really good value card

http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-iceq-turbo-review/15
check out some comparisons.

Sorry I just read this and lolled. You seem to have linked one of the very few titles where the 7950 appears over the 670.

There is no comparison with the 7950 as the 670 frequently bests the 7970 in a number of tests and is a much fairer comparison. If you buy one of the factory oc 670 then they actually test faster than the 680, and thats now accepted as being the fastest single GPU card on the market, so how on earth you arrive at the 7950 being the better card is pretty laughable.

GTX670 all the way. There's a good reason the 7950 is priced so competitively at the moment and thats because they are not selling enough of them now that Kepler is freely available. The issue with GTX6xx pricing is because there are still supply issues, so it's going to be a little higher and it doesn't look like the price will drop any time soon. Even with the price difference the GTX670 still looks like the best value card out there atm.

If you want to be selective about the performance figures you quote then here goes :-
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-iceq-turbo-review/20

Now thats a total mashing of the 7950 on a MUCH more popular title, not like Metro. lol

 

[MADMAN]

perhaps a good idea to get a custom 3rd party giant heatsink for the 670 card...

 

[Dirtyganker]

perhaps a good idea to get a custom 3rd party giant heatsink for the 670 card...

By the time you've done that you could have bought an off-the-shelf factory OC model and kept your warranty.

 

[psychodil]

670 is a good card but when you can buy a good 7950 for £240 this week its a no brainer. Over clock to 1200mhz and you are in the territory of an over clocked 670 and you've saved yourself £100.

If you aren't going to overclock stick with a 670.

 

[Rusty0611]

Still a good chunk below a similarly over-clocked 670 (in percentage terms overclocked)

 

[psychodil]

Still a good chunk below a similarly over-clocked 670 (in percentage terms overclocked)

Eh? Show me a 670 that can overclock to the same percentage as a 7950
A Max over clocked 7950 is within 5% of a Max overclocked 670, give or take.
(3dmark11 excluded)

 

[andybird123]

it does have to be said that the 670 windforce is currently at a silly price on OCUK - it has been £320 on here which is much more realistic - and to be totally fair wouldn't you have to use the windforce 7950 price which is £270 so then you are down to £50 price difference, so all of a sudden it's not quite the no brainer you are making out

everyone can cherry pick numbers to prove a point

 

[Dirtyganker]

670 is a good card but when you can buy a good 7950 for £240 this week its a no brainer.

What a load of rubbish. No it's not, not even close. Especially on popular titles like BF3. Even the factory OC 7950's can't get close to a reference 670 and the 60 quid is worth every pennty when you're still more than 10 fps ahead of the AMD card and only 2fps behind the fastest single GPU card on the market.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-iceq-turbo-review/20

If you want to save yourself 60 quid then fine, buy the cheap card. But don't kid yourself by trying to compare a factory oc version to even the basic reference 670.

Take a look at the 3D Mark 11 figures - the reference 670 is 1001 points clear of the factory oc 7950 :-

http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-iceq-turbo-review/20

What rock have you been hiding under? Please, give us a real reason to waste 240 quid.

Over clock to 1200mhz and you are in the territory of an over clocked 670 and you've saved yourself £100.

And throw away your warranty and suddenly that 100 pound saving, which is actually only a 60 quid saving, turns out costing you 240 quid when it goes pop. Guru3d didn't even push their own card that far and everyone elses experience will vary.

If you aren't going to overclock stick with a 670.

The reality is that a GTX670 really doesn't need to be overclocked. They are plenty fast enough already at HD resolutions. You're only overclocking to boost your epeen, it adds no other value or benefit.

 

[Dirtyganker]

it does have to be said that the 670 windforce is currently at a silly price on OCUK - it has been £320 on here which is much more realistic - and to be totally fair wouldn't you have to use the windforce 7950 price which is £270 so then you are down to £50 price difference, so all of a sudden it's not quite the no brainer you are making out

+1

 

[Rusty0611]

Eh? Show me a 670 that can overclock to the same percentage as a 7950
A Max over clocked 7950 is within 5% of a Max overclocked 670, give or take.
(3dmark11 excluded)

Some can get well over 1300 MHz. You're almost there with an overclock like that. A max OC 670 is within 5% of a max OC 7970 so I don't see how it can be that close to a 7950.

I know you've got a 7950 and you are enjoying your impressive price/performance ratio and we all to some extent favour our own set up's but there's no need to overcook what it can do. You can exclude 3D Mark 11 (although I don't know why as its representative of game performance in a way) but even looking on the Heaven thread (which favours AMD cards slightly) I'm not seeing any 7950's close to 670's which would further back this point up.

There's nothing wrong with the 7950. It's a great card and if I was looking at £500 all in I would go 7950 crossfire. There's a reason it's priced so far under a 670 and the reason is that it cannot compete so it has to take a lower price point. At its price point it's unrivalled.

 

[dave_beast]

Voltage locks on the 670 mean that the 7950 should overclock much better and perform better in games. The 670 is an overclocked mid range card and the 7950 is a low clocked high end card - Your money, your decision.

 

[Rusty0611]

You can apply tags to it but the "mid range" 670 is still a faster card than a "high end" 7950 card. I'd be ashamed if my high end card performed better than a mid ranger.

But the point is all moot because adding tags to it doesn't mean anything. It's how it performs which is important.

 

[tommybhoy]

You're only overclocking to boost your epeen, it adds no other value or benefit.

As the 670 has auto boost/auto overclocking built in and is close to the limits(in comparison with a 7950's oc headroom then maybe so, but not the 79's):

^

That's with a very conservative overclock-it's not a 7950 v's 670 comparison but a 7950 overclocking benefit.

The only way overclocking a gpu could invalidate your waranty would be if you informed them, there is no way to tell if you have/not through software overclocking.

 

[Boomstick777]

You can apply tags to it but the "mid range" 670 is still a faster card than a "high end" 7950 card. I'd be ashamed if my high end card performed better than a mid ranger.

But the point is all moot because adding tags to it doesn't mean anything. It's how it performs which is important.

Being ashamed over a wish GPU you have means it's time to put down the mouse and keyboard, step away from the PC and go outside for a while.. Your taking this way to seriously .

 

[Rusty0611]

If I didn't overclock my 680's I'd be in slideshow mode in surround. Don't agree with that argument I'm afraid.

(the one Tommy quoted)

Being ashamed over a wish GPU you have means it's time to put down the mouse and keyboard, step away from the PC and go outside for a while.. Your taking this way to seriously .

You've got it wrong. I don't care about mid range and all that. I guess the humour was lost in text.

I was just putting myself into Dave's stigmatising mindset and turning it around on him

 

[psychodil]

Its generally accepted that the 7950 is about 5% slower than a 7970 at the same clocks, so you can say a 7950 at 1200mhz is 5% slower than a 7970 at 1200mhz (of which benchmarks are freely available), which would be in the same ballpark as a Max overclocked 670.
Perhaps I should upload my heaven score to the thread for comparison, think it was 21xx.

Its a shame there aren't any recent reviews with the 7950 highly clocked with 12.7's.