7970 GHz edition v's 680 Performance Comparison

tommybhoy · 12 Jun 2012 at 00:24

Here's the first performance comparison(I've seen anyway) between the two heavyweights originally from a Korean site:

http://filebeam.com/c75b7f21fa18c5591058ef8d8bf68ca8.jpg

http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-AMD-Radeon-HD7970-GHZ-Edition-Benchmark-Results-274736.shtml

Apologies if it's been posted already.

555BUK · 12 Jun 2012 at 12:52

So, the GTX680 wins 7 out of 11 with one draw and 3 to the 7970 @ 2560x1600. At 1920x1200 the GTX680 wins 8 out of 11, with 3 going to the 7970. Overall though, things look even because the 7970 is very strong at Metro and Crysis DX11.

Yaayuh! · 12 Jun 2012 at 12:55

So overclocked card vs non-overclocked card basically, is that what this is? Factory overclocked just to try and get that nose ahead of nVidia?

Jasonst888 · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:03

Rossi~ said:
So overclocked card vs non-overclocked card basically, is that what this is? Factory overclocked just to try and get that nose ahead of nVidia?

More of a factory oc vs a card that oc itself, so quite fair I'd say. 7970s have always had huge oc headroom, no idea why they released it at such low level clocks.

psychodil · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:03

680 is factory overclocked too. Does the article say the actual speeds of the cards used?

Rusty0611 · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:08

psychodil said:
680 is factory overclocked too. Does the article say the actual speeds of the cards used?

Not really. The boost feature is completely different to a standard overclock.

For comparison purposes the boost clock of the 680 should be compared to whatever speed this 7970 is at (which it is) as this is what the speed is when it's actually in use. It's not a factory overclock per se - more of a clock to full speed when required.

An overclock is manually increasing the power offset and then increasing core/mem frequency from the default speed.

psychodil · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:27

Thanks but I'm well aware of what an overclock is, but you are right my answer wasn't entirely correct.

If these graphs are really representative of a 680 at boost speeds of 1200, vs a 7970 at 1ghz it is quite impressive considering these cards still have plenty of headroom left (1200 MHz is very likely, which is a further 20% increase in clock speed).

I will wait for a few more respectable reviews though, preferably in English

Stanners · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:30

psychodil said:
Thanks but I'm well aware of what an overclock is, but you are right my answer wasn't entirely correct.

If these graphs are really representative of a 680 at boost speeds of 1200, vs a 7970 at 1ghz it is quite impressive considering these cards still have plenty of headroom left (1200 MHz is very likely, which is a further 20% increase in clock speed).

I will wait for a few more respectable reviews though, preferably in English

Do stock 680's boost to 1200?

psychodil · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:31

Stanners said:
Do stock 680's boost to 1200?

I don't know, it varies card to card, I just used that as an example.

Stanners · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:34

psychodil said:
I don't know, it varies card to card, I just used that as an example.

Here you are, from ocuk product page.

- Core Clock: 1006MHz (GK104)
- Core Boost Clock: 1058MHz

Mine does go to 1100MHz at stock.

psychodil · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:43

Stanners said:
Here you are, from ocuk product page.

- Core Clock: 1006MHz (GK104)
- Core Boost Clock: 1058MHz

Mine does go to 1100MHz at stock.

Yes the specs are the guaranteed minimums. I think the 680's boost to around 1100mhz at stock and the 670's to around 1200. But the point still remains the 7970 will at least equal an overclocked 680 when clocked to 1200mhz (which is supposedly really easy on these cards).

no_1_dave · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:47

So basically they are releasing a pre-overclocked card that is 7% faster then the standard one and according to the graphs 2% slower then the 680. Then they will charge a premium for it...
Sounds pointless, save your money and buy the standard one & overclock it yourself.

psychodil · 12 Jun 2012 at 13:58

We will have to wait and see, it could be a new stepping with improved overclockability, or they could be exactly he same cards with a 1ghz bios and a sticker on them. Either way I would imagine the vanilla 7970's will become EOL and be slightly cheaper, and the ghz editions would come in at the price point the 7970's are now.

Jasonst888 · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:10

Think the marketing is that the ghz editions are more cherry picked chips becuase production lines are more reliable now they are able/willing to push the clocks on the 7970 chips without pushing the volts. At least thats what I read. Will be interesting to see if at top oc its any better.

BodgeITandRun · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:13

psychodil said:
We will have to wait and see, it could be a new stepping with improved overclockability, or they could be exactly he same cards with a 1ghz bios and a sticker on them. Either way I would imagine the vanilla 7970's will become EOL and be slightly cheaper, and the ghz editions would come in at the price point the 7970's are now.

I hope this is the case so I can get a 3rd card. It took me almost 2 months to get my second card for a decent price. I already have a 1ghz card anyway, just missing a sticker.

dave_beast · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:13

We all know if AMD employed a similar self boost feature it would be the same as the 680 performance wise, however, AMD chose to let the end users twiddle with volts and speeds, rather than knobbling the voltage and overclocking for you, a la Nvidia.

MichaelM · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:27

I went with Kepler for practicality but I'm not stupid enough to ignore Tahiti's the better performance chip when pushed.

If the GHz editions come better binned on a mature process offering more headroom, then AMD take the performance crown in my eyes. Stick them under water and they will run away from anything Kepler can offer with hardware.

kitch9 · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:33

Rossi~ said:
So overclocked card vs non-overclocked card basically, is that what this is? Factory overclocked just to try and get that nose ahead of nVidia?

Uhm, you do know the 680 clocks itself yes?

Rusty0611 · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:39

kitch9 said:
Uhm, you do know the 680 clocks itself yes?

Already discussed - see above. In short - it doesn't. It boosts to full speed when required.

Rusty0611 · 12 Jun 2012 at 14:47

MichaelM said:
I went with Kepler for practicality but I'm not stupid enough to ignore Tahiti's the better performance chip when pushed.

If the GHz editions come better binned on a mature process offering more headroom, then AMD take the performance crown in my eyes. Stick them under water and they will run away from anything Kepler can offer with hardware.

In Heaven absolutely. The 7970's are miles better than the 680's when pushed. In gaming less so (if at all).

The performance graph above shows it. Overclock a 680 to say 1250+ like mine and you get a very noticeable bump. This isn't a "680 wins all" post. I completely believe that it works out just about even when both are overclocked to the max.