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1 GTX690 or 2 AMD 7970s ?

Kaapstad said:
Im a massive fan of Rome Total War if nvidia screw up RTW2 they will feel the sharp point of my Gladius.

The GTX 690s are nice cards when you look at them they look like something Mercedes styled rather than nvidia.
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One of my original reasons for wanting an over kill system is Rome 2, just so I can see it in all its glory and of course Arma 3 , shogun 2 and Skyrim.
I want to run these beasts at ultra..if at all possible.
 
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99Androidguy777 said:
One of my original reasons for wanting an over kill system is Rome 2 just so I can see it in all its glory and of course Arma 3 , shogun 2
I want to run these beasts at ultra..if at all possible.
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2 7950s will be able to max all those games, @2560 res as well. Lower framerates are more than playable on those types of games.

As for VRAM, 2GB is more than enough, as a side note...the 7950s are 3GB.
 
Tonester0011 said:
2 7950s will be able to max all those games, @2560 res as well. Lower framerates are more than playable on those types of games.

As for VRAM, 2GB is more than enough, as a side note...the 7950s are 3GB.
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so do the 7970s 3072GB of Vram, what differentiates these cards exactualy spec wise ? no one seems to want to tell me.
 
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99Androidguy777 said:
so do the 7970s 3072GB of Vram, what differentiates these cards exactualy spec wise ? no one seems to want to tell me.
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4 less Compute units, that's pretty much it lol...clock for clock, the 7970 is <5% faster. The 7950s do clock well, but like anything it's the luck of the draw whether yours will clock better than average.

If you wanted to save a few extra £££ then going for 7950/670s would make the most sense as they perform very close to there older brothers and cost significantly less.
 
Tonester0011 said:
4 less Compute units, that's pretty much it lol...clock for clock, the 7970 is <5% faster. The 7950s do clock well, but like anything it's the luck of the draw whether yours will clock better than average.

If you wanted to save a few extra £££ then going for 7950/670s would make the most sense as they perform very close to there older brothers and cost significantly less.
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The 7970s are meant to be better on power consumption I heard somewhere.
If so then paying the bit extra would be an investment if the difference in power consumption is significant.
But if it is or not I do not know.
 
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99Androidguy777 said:
The 7970s meant to be better on power consumption I heard somewhere.
If so then paying the bit extra would be an investment if the difference in power consumption is significant.
But if it is or not I do not know.
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LOL, who's told you this?

When talking about high end video cards, especially two of them, power consumption kinda goes out the window...

Either 7950 in Crossfire or 670 in SLi will do you nicely at 2560x1440.
 
99Androidguy777 said:
The 7970s meant to be better on power consumption I heard somewhere.
If so then paying the bit extra would be an investment if the difference in power consumption is significant.
But if it is or not I do not know.
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You heard wrong, they draw more power and produce not a great deal more grunt. You would be better off paying a premium for an 80+ Platinum power supply than worrying about the few watts you'd save from 7950 > 7970.
Or going for Kepler (670), the differences between the top end cards aren't as large as one would think.

Here Read this a comparison review between the 7950 & 7970.

Edit: Scrap the 80+ Plat...see you've already got a 1250w Gold. 1250 is horrendous overkill, a decent 850w unit will be suffice...but would put you on the lower efficiency end under full load with heavy overclocks.
 
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The difference in power consumption will be very little, if any at all they are essentially the same GPU. I can see the logic somewhat there, more compute units to use, but I would expect it to be low enough not to notice.

As Tonester said, the difference in performance at the same clock speeds is about 5%, which isn't enough to make unplayable framerates playable anyway.

They both have 3GB RAM, they both use the same GPU, just the 7950's one has 4 compute units fused off, but one is significantly cheaper than the other.
 
99Androidguy777 said:
I cannot buy this week, unfortunately.
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Ahh - that's a shame :(

I've been seeing quite a few offers come up in the £7XX region - including one from OcUK that was down at ~£730 for a short period of time!

So there may be another one come around when you're ready to buy :)

I've been through various different setups and landed at this GTX690 and I'm finally happy... it's really worth going Nvidia if you are using more than a single GPU.

ATI (AMD) still suffer from rather annoying microstutter - Nvidia have reduced it so much I don't notice it any more - barely more than a single card.

Then there's driver compatibility/usability etc... NV always come out top
 
Ignoring the AMD vs NVidia arguments, I would always choose two single GPU cards (be they 7970 or GTX680) over dual GPU cards. My reasoning is based upon the fact that dual GPU cards by their nature (double GPU's, double VRAM) are twice as likely to develop a fault as their counterparts. Single GPU cards also tend to overclock better and run cooler, given adequate space between PCI-E lanes. On top of this you get redundancy should one card fail, and more rear port options. Resale values/percentages may also be stronger.
 
They're not twice as likely - much less than that - there are a lot of other components to consider rather than "just" the GPU cores.

Also, the GTX690, due to whatever they've done with the on-board bridge, has less microstutter than 2xGTX680.

If it does go wrong, that's what the warranty is for... the GTX690 is also so over-engineered, it overclocks almost as well as two independent card (infact, the memory usually goes higher) and it runs cooler than all the reference 680s.

In the past, especially with the GTX590 - I would have agreed with you... with the 690, nvidia have really produced something special IMO.
 
Can a 680 2gb SLI with a 4 gb 680 ?

I know the answer prob will be no , as im aware it is with previous models , though some people say cards have in the past , just with the smaller VRam of the two cards .
just ordered a 4gb 680 as wanted it for a project 120 hz 3d surround i was planning on putting together .
Just a quick confirmation , that it will not work with the 2gb i have ?

If no then my 680 2gb twin fozr III MSI OC bought from overclockers in may .will be surplus , and prepaired to sell , to help with my upgrades , unfortunatley i dont have access to the members market .

Ignore posted on this thread by accident ... Sorry
 
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Not sure - sounds like you'll be able to find out though.

If it does work, it will only use 2GB.

You won't see any benefit from 4GB as the card runs out of juice before it needs the extra memory.

Might aswell cancel the 4GB order and save money on a second 2GB card.
 
555BUK said:
Ignoring the AMD vs NVidia arguments, I would always choose two single GPU cards (be they 7970 or GTX680) over dual GPU cards. My reasoning is based upon the fact that dual GPU cards by their nature (double GPU's, double VRAM) are twice as likely to develop a fault as their counterparts. Single GPU cards also tend to overclock better and run cooler, given adequate space between PCI-E lanes. On top of this you get redundancy should one card fail, and more rear port options. Resale values/percentages may also be stronger.
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All the dual GPU cards I have used have been 100% reliable (eight in total). Unfortunitly the same can not be said of the single GPU cards I have owned 3 of which needed to be replaced.
 
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