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7970 vs 680 thread.
- Thread starter ALXAndy
- Start date
Soldato
So we have come to the conclusion it's the same as a 7970 but with better drivers 
and sli works in battlefield
and sli works in battlefield 
I agree - whatever way you shake it the GTX680 is a £300 card with an overclock (not talking about clock boosting). I do think some of the new features that are coming out with it are nice for gamers tho and that alone IMO makes it more worthwhile given the option of it or the 7970.
Associate
- Joined
- 24 May 2011
- Posts
- 1,439
would have been awesome if they came in at about £390.....would have started a very nice little price war
alas.....thing is if they are the same....then maybe a nice price war anyway! Personally I'm much more interested in how the 670....when it eventually turns up....will be....£400 region for a single card is just crazy...it is thew realm of more money than sense.....I say this because I don't have that sort of cash right now
Soldato
If I had only a 1920 monitor, the 680 would make more sense, 2560 the 7970 seems to do slightly better due to the higher bus/ram.
So, it is genuinely up to user preference at this moment in my opinion.
Can't wait to see what the future holds for both cards or if AMD responds with a new revision of GCN.
I read an article this morning that compared the two in terms of technology and what they would cost to produce. Whilst they didn't have figures and are likely never to get them they did mention that the 7970 would at least have cost AMD far more than the 680.
Mostly down to what is bolted on and the technology itself.
I still firmly believe by looking at the actual low down specs of the 680 that it is a mid ranged part.
Who knows, maybe Nvidia will fail with the kitchen sink one like they did inititally with Fermi? and maybe AMD will be able to do some revising and so on and make SI better?
Caporegime
Nope, that wont count either because he also says that the 680 is better than the 7970.
Soldato
I can only speculate: it could be company image, or the way NV treat their partners (could be better than AMD, I don't know) or they are genuinely silly enough to have stock vs stock as the final say.
And the second point you made, graphics card have always been a luxury and not essential in my eyes, I can't justify the 680 pricing but it seems most likely that NV just decided to price match because they had a good clock, they left a lot of the compute parts out for now so it's a bit cheeky but they're a business. And as always, business is business.
Honestly, NV could have caused such a larger stir if they priced the card at £300. It would have been the 5xxx series all over. To me they're just mirroring each other, they both felt they lacked in certain areas that their competitor excelled in and aimed to improve that. They both did. And here we are.
These cards should be selling for around £300 to £350.
Mind you, initial Fermi cards should not have cost what they did, but I imagine Nvidia after spending so much money were left with little choice.
There is always more than one side to every story. Personally I think Southern Islands cost AMD a lot more than 104 has cost Nvidia.
But, either way both of them should be far cheaper than they are, especially the Nvidia one because deep down it's a mid range card with a spec list to match.
I guess some people see the tricks it does to be good. Personally I don't. The tricks it performs are there to fool people, and not hidden away for the user to discover like a normal product.
Personally I hope AMD drop the price of the 7970 and turn it into a true enthusiast part. Noobs need not apply, come only with your copy of Afterburner.
And I say that and I own one. I hope they come down to around £300 and do very well at that price.
Mind you, initial Fermi cards should not have cost what they did, but I imagine Nvidia after spending so much money were left with little choice.
There is always more than one side to every story. Personally I think Southern Islands cost AMD a lot more than 104 has cost Nvidia.
But, either way both of them should be far cheaper than they are, especially the Nvidia one because deep down it's a mid range card with a spec list to match.
I guess some people see the tricks it does to be good. Personally I don't. The tricks it performs are there to fool people, and not hidden away for the user to discover like a normal product.
Personally I hope AMD drop the price of the 7970 and turn it into a true enthusiast part. Noobs need not apply, come only with your copy of Afterburner.
And I say that and I own one. I hope they come down to around £300 and do very well at that price.
I can only speculate: it could be company image, or the way NV treat their partners (could be better than AMD, I don't know) or they are genuinely silly enough to have stock vs stock as the final say.
And the second point you made, graphics card have always been a luxury and not essential in my eyes, I can't justify the 680 pricing but it seems most likely that NV just decided to price match because they had a good clock, they left a lot of the compute parts out for now so it's a bit cheeky but they're a business. And as always, business is business.
Honestly, NV could have caused such a larger stir if they priced the card at £300. It would have been the 5xxx series all over. To me they're just mirroring each other, they both felt they lacked in certain areas that their competitor excelled in and aimed to improve that. They both did. And here we are.
Of course they are a luxury. And on PC they are an expensive, stupid one.
What I mean is this. A console costs around the same price as a decent graphics card. Let's ignore all of the other hardware and the fact that the console is seemingly very underpowered and concentrate on one thing - improvements during life cycle.
If one were to compare what the Xbox 360 could do graphically when it came out (not much, will say something on that in a moment) as to what it does now?
Tell me, have you ever seen such visual improvements out of a single GPU? or did you have to buy ten to the one console?
Any way, when the 360 first came out I was running NFS most wanted on my PC @ 1600x1200. I went around a friend's house who got the 360 on launch day with a copy of the same game and it looked crap. It was jerky as all hell, too.
However, how that same console can run say Skyrim now in any shape or form is testament to how well the 360 has improved since launch. Like wine consoles mature as they age. Unlike a GPU, which becomes an expensive paperweight lesson in less than a year.
So given that this generation of GPUs will be good for a very small handful of top end games on the PC (BF3, C2, maybe BF4 depending on how much vram it needs etc) then it really does highlight just how crap they are. And to show how slowly things move in PC gaming Crysis still does not scream along like it should, even on these £400 wonder cards.
Soldato
Just noticed I end my huge sentences in . I should stop that.
The Xbox is a different kind of animal, although it had a single GPU, the development process is completely different and there is much lower level of coding that can be done, with which I'm sure you're aware of.
Over the years the xbox did get new motherboards and smaller lithography I believe on their CPU, no idea if the GPU did but it hasn't been the same hardware (technically) for years now.
7 or so years is a long time to figure out the low level coding, which Carmack did with Rage (IDTech5). And although texture sizes increased and what not, they have to use a lot of tricks to get to the point they're at just now. Shifting things from memory on the fly and streaming textures instead of having more RAM. Which we'll see from the new generation of consoles.
It's all down to the software engineers and what engines they can produce, which is why BF3 looks good on xbox. Not sharp, but good.
. I should stop that.The Xbox is a different kind of animal, although it had a single GPU, the development process is completely different and there is much lower level of coding that can be done, with which I'm sure you're aware of.
Over the years the xbox did get new motherboards and smaller lithography I believe on their CPU, no idea if the GPU did but it hasn't been the same hardware (technically) for years now.
7 or so years is a long time to figure out the low level coding, which Carmack did with Rage (IDTech5). And although texture sizes increased and what not, they have to use a lot of tricks to get to the point they're at just now. Shifting things from memory on the fly and streaming textures instead of having more RAM. Which we'll see from the new generation of consoles.
It's all down to the software engineers and what engines they can produce, which is why BF3 looks good on xbox. Not sharp, but good.
Just noticed I end my huge sentences in
The Xbox is a different kind of animal, although it had a single GPU, the development process is completely different and there is much lower level of coding that can be done, with which I'm sure you're aware of.
Over the years the xbox did get new motherboards and smaller lithography I believe on their CPU, no idea if the GPU did but it hasn't been the same hardware (technically) for years now.
7 or so years is a long time to figure out the low level coding, which Carmack did with Rage (IDTech5). And although texture sizes increased and what not, they have to use a lot of tricks to get to the point they're at just now. Shifting things from memory on the fly and streaming textures instead of having more RAM. Which we'll see from the new generation of consoles.
Oh but of course. Having the same unified identical architecture is a fantastic idea and gives developers the time they need to explore it and take advantage of it.
That has never, and will never happen in PC gaming. So roll on the next console for me.
Associate
I was one of the mad people considering swapping my 7970 for a 680.
That idea has been well and truly thrown out the window. At my res of 2560x1440, the cards are almost identical performance wise, but the 7970 has 1GB extra VRAM, which will come in handy when I start messing with texture packs and mods.
I'm staying with the 7970 for this round of the fight.
That idea has been well and truly thrown out the window. At my res of 2560x1440, the cards are almost identical performance wise, but the 7970 has 1GB extra VRAM, which will come in handy when I start messing with texture packs and mods.
I'm staying with the 7970 for this round of the fight.
i was going to change my windforce 7970 for a gtx680 as well.
i game at 2560x1440 and now im glad i did not.
just done heaven on 1 card and hit over 2500. so i think this is a keeper.
Definate sideways step in your case, maybe backwards once the ram starts running out.
Soldato
Well one good thing did come of all this.. Nice 'n cheap 7970's on MM
Soldato
Be funny if this all ends in a GPU Driver war.. lol
Ultimately if you wanted to know which card will come out on top (but I don't see it even with drivers) that is what it may come down to.
The fact is that they both perform right around level, so saying one is great and the other not so great is clearly wrong.
That is all I have been trying to do since the 680 came out. Trying to make people aware that maybe they should not fall for the hype, or that the 680 is worth £400 when the 7970 isn't.
Sadly that message will be slow to get out, with fever hitting as soon as the reviews did. Many have sold cards that were equally as good and replaced them.
Maybe just because they can't stand the thought of not having the latest, because quite clearly the 680 ain't the greatest.
Well one good thing did come of all this.. Nice 'n cheap 7970's on MM
I don't see any.