7970 vs 680 thread.

[Deception]

So, to clarify. If i can get any of them for under £400, then its not a bad buy? . At end of the day, each card has their place. (sorry, but im not going to read the whole thread as most of it is, just as people said.. worse than GD).

 

[mfj1985]

Quite incorrect. When both cards are overclocked, the GTX 680 still pulls off ahead. At higher resolutions the GTX 680 still pulls off ahead, just by a smaller margin than it does at 1080p.

No overclock results are 100% guaranteed on every card, not many 7970s will go past 1100 Mhz to compare to a slightly overclocked GTX 680.

That is plain wrong, at same clock speeds 7970 is slightly ahead, and I have not seen any 7970 that could not go above 1100. Mine does 1250/1800 and beats pretty much any 680 gtx on air.

I got gigabyte 7970 windforce 3x.

 

[chipachap]

That's funny, all I recall reading from your posts was you giving out about the 7970 and praising a 680, please correct me /quote yourself if I'm wrong but it's not just on this thread, rather all the Kepler threads.

It's probably not good for me but when i see **** spewed across a forum that people are looking for informative answer it kind of defeats the purpose, no?

I probably came off a bit too rash but you seem to be justifying the purchase to yourself and pushing others on your opinion.

EDIT: In regards to 7970 max OC. The lowest I've seen anyone on stock volts is 1050/1525/ I think. And NOT all 680's will do the 1200Mhz like in the reviews. I've asked a couple of people and in Heaven their core clock ranged from 1068Mhz to 1158Mhz. It's the same case for a 7970, some will OC to 1200, some won't

 

[bhavv]

That is plain wrong, at same clock speeds 7970 is slightly ahead, and I have not seen any 7970 that could not go above 1100. Mine does 1250/1800 and beats pretty much any 680 gtx on air.

I got gigabyte 7970 windforce 3x.

So if someone read your advice, bought a 7970 and couldnt push it past 1100 Mhz, then who is to blame?

The GTX 680 overclocks too. Im not bothered about making them 'clock for clock', clock speeds have always worked differently for both Nvidia and AMD.

If you overclock a 7970, then you also overclock the 680 by the same amount if you want a fair comparison.

I probably came off a bit too rash but you seem to be justifying the purchase to yourself and pushing others on your opinion.

What exactly is your problem? I havnt even bought a 680 and wouldnt buy either a 680 or 7970, both cards are heavily overpriced. However stating that the 'GTX 680 is faster than a 7970' is a fact backed by 99% of the reviews on the GTX 680, just like stating that the '7970 is faster than the GTX 580'.

Simply stating the facts that one product is faster than another isnt defending either brand, its stating a fact proven by industry standards and reliable methods!

If you have a major problem with any of the methods, results or conclusions, then go and argue with the people who have carried out the testing, not with people passing on the news.

Equal methods and unbiased results conclude that the GTX 680 is the fastest card currently available. 100% FACT. If you dont like being told exactly how it is, go and whine to the reviewers.

That's funny, all I recall reading from your posts was you giving out about the 7970 and praising a 680

A GTX 580 is faster than a GTX 560 ti, FACT. That doesnt mean that I would buy a GTX 580 over my GTX 560 tis.

Stating that one product is faster than another is not praising or dismissing either product, its simply passing along a proven fact.

How many times does it need to be explained?

 

[BobbyUK]

The question is, should I buy the 680 GTX now or wait for non reference card?

 

[chipachap]

I never denied it's faster, it should be, it's a product designed later than it's competitor and should have improvements over it's original design.

You just seem to be strongly biased towards Green team, so much so that I actually thought you had a 680, but clearly you don't! I just haven't seen you pass forward any news other than random benchmarks instead of waiting for someone here to do a direct comparison we know should be fair. Just IMO. Let's move on, I'm not really here for an argument.

@bobby. The 680 according to Gibbo is already extremely quiet although it does hit ~80 degrees under load, so if you don't mind turning up the fan a small bit for the heat or you don't mind the heat, there's really no reason to wait for them.

 

[bhavv]

The question is, should I buy the 680 GTX now or wait for non reference card?

The reference model is good, fast, cool and silent. If you have the patience to wait though, non reference cards arent only better cooled contrary to popular belief, in most cases they are also built with higher quality PCBs, rarely binned GPUs, and the lower temps and better build quality help to ensure better stability when overclocking.

I would always wait for custom designs, reference designs from either AMD or Nvidia arent good enough for me.

I never denied it's faster, it should be, it's a product designed later than it's competitor and should have improvements over it's original design.

You just seem to be strongly biased towards Green team, so much so that I actually thought you had a 680, but clearly you don't! I just haven't seen you pass forward any news other than random benchmarks instead of waiting for someone here to do a direct comparison we know should be fair. Just IMO. Let's move on, I'm not really here for an argument.

So you didnt even read this, or any of the threads, you simply saw my posts and replied out of ignorance? This thread and mainly the OP are full of denial and refusal to admit that the GTX 680 is faster than the 7970. AMD fans cant handle their precious temporary performance leads being taken away by Nvidia time and time again.

 

[blackadderV]

I am going to buy one of these cards in about 10 days but am not sure which one to get.

My initial thought is the GTX680 as it is smaller and my current GTX 260 barely fits in my case, there is about 2-3mm left. I am concerned that a 7970 won't fit.

Then again the 680 is 2GB RAM and I want this to be the only card I need for a long time. In 2 years time will 2GB still be enough for max settings at 1080p? If not then the 3GB 7970 seems more appealing.


The other thing which is holding me back from a 7970 is that it needs an 8 pin connector when my VX550W only has 2 6 pin, does that mean I cannot get one anyway?

 

[chipachap]

I've actually read all the 119 pages on the Kepler thread, the other speculation threads and most of them pages here and get the same biased vibe from you, can't be by chance that most of the ridiculous/biased posts I read are from you? Maybe it is.

If nVidia released their card in Jan and AMD released now would your opinion be reversed. If an 8970 came out next month beating a 680 no problem what would your opinion be?

EDIT: Had to re-phrase, after I re-read I was picking up what I said differently.

 

[bhavv]

Most of my posts were written last night after 12 am before trying to fall asleep, Im not in my serious posting mood at that time

I was purposely mocking AMD fans throughout this thread for the mere fun of it, not trying to state that the 7970 is a bad card, but the GTX 680 is clearly better in every way - price, performance and power consumption.

 

[Menty]

So, to clarify. If i can get any of them for under £400, then its not a bad buy? . At end of the day, each card has their place. (sorry, but im not going to read the whole thread as most of it is, just as people said.. worse than GD).

Get a 7950 and OC the nuts off it, you will be as happy as the proverbial pig in the squidgy stuff

 

[chipachap]

Well let's agree to disagree! Personally I'll wait for someone on here with some rep to do a direct clock to clock comparison on a general gaming rig before deciding ultimately which one is better. From what I've read in benchmarks/reviews, it can be a totally different situation when push comes to game.

EDIT: For example, in 90% of reviews they fail to mention the 680 OC's out of box, now the card doing that is not unfair, but sites not telling people the card does this and is definitely faster by 20% than competitor is not fair on the general public and/or n00bs trying to get information valid intellectual fact before they purchase.

 

[bhavv]

Personally I'll wait for someone on here with some rep to do a direct clock to clock comparison on a general gaming rig before deciding ultimately which one is better.

Why is clock to clock suddenly so important? I've never seen anyone bother with clock to clock comparisons in older gens.

People compare stock settings, and max clocks on both cards. If youre going to overclock a 7970, then you also overclock the GTX 680, otherwise your giving a biased comparison in the 7970s favor.

Look at how much gain the GTX 680 gains from being overclocked to 1.3 Ghz:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/3/22/nvidia-gtx-680-reviewed-a-new-hope.aspx?pageid=9

Next try and beat the GTX 680 max OC with a 7970 max OC. If you cant then the GTX 680 is still the better card because it OCs more.

EDIT - The reason why the 7970 isnt being overclocked in the reviews is obviously because the reviews are for the GTX 680. You can similarly look up 7970 reviews to check its overclocked performance. No one ever complained that the GTX 580 wasnt overclocked in those reviews did they?

 

[Marine-RX179]

Why is clock to clock suddenly so important? I've never seen anyone bother with clock to clock comparisons in older gens.

You do have a point. Back then people were happying declaring 5870 is faster than GTX470, despite the 5870 was on 850MHz and the GTX470 was on 625MHz, ignoring the fact that most GTX470 can hit 825~850MHz, and the 5870 couldn't go beyond 850~900MHz due to the bios flash no longer works.

It's nothing new about these double-standard from these people that are biased. Just like how GTX470 and GTX480's superior compu capaiblity was dismissed and said to be irrelevant to games when comparing to 5850/5870 back then, not all of a suddenly people try to make a big deal out of it because of 7970 is actually superior to the GTX680 in the area for the first time in graphic history or something. Also remember Heaven Bench and tessellations? How the people dismissed GTX470/GTX480's superiority in that? Now than tessellation performance has improved on the 79xx cards, they are happily use the Heaven Bench as tools for idicating graphic card performance, despite they rubbished it in the pass when 58xx cards didn't do so well in that area back then.

And now the "auto-overclock" feature they call it "cheating"...but that logic shouldn't ATI/AMD should be called cheating as well with their higher core clock in the pass then? They never bothered about clock for clock performance in the pass (Nvidia has always offer more performance on lower frequency in the pass), so why start now?

Simply put...to them anything that Nvidia does is wrong, and when ATI/AMD does the same, it is always the case of sweeping it under the carpet, or pass it off as a non-problem. And also the pricing of the new gen cards? Yea sure Nvidia has released it at the same higher price as the AMD counterpart...so are both cards poor value? The answer is yes...but here's the fact- Nvidia is competing against AMD on the same gen, where as AMD think it is ok for them to compete with last gen and smack a premium price on top...which is the ROOT of what cause the poor value of this gen cards.

And they usual arguement of "oh, it is ok for Nvidia to charge a premium, but not AMD?" Well, Nvidia didn't line their new gen cards up to compete against last gen, AMD did...which is ridiculous frankly.

 

[Gregster]

So, to clarify. If i can get any of them for under £400, then its not a bad buy? . At end of the day, each card has their place. (sorry, but im not going to read the whole thread as most of it is, just as people said.. worse than GD).

Reading your earler post on the lighboost, you wont regret it. I know you play BF3 and the 680 in 3D looks awsome.

I can't compare it to the original 3D vision but with me using the 3D vision 2 on an AsusVG278H monitor and a GTX680....You will not regret it.

 

[bhavv]

If you want to bother so much with clock for clock, imagine:

Clock for clock comparisons between:

HD 4870 and GTX 280
HD 5870 and GTX 480
HD 6970 and GTX 580.

Why was this issue NEVER discussed all the time while Nvidia had the clear lead? Its only suddenly when AMD can match Nvidia with overclocked performance that the AMD fanbois want clock for clock comparisons and declare that Nvidia using higher clocks out of the box is cheating.

In that case, every past card from ATI / AMD cheated by being clocked hundreds of Mhz faster than the comparative Nvidia cards at the time.

Look at the GTX 560 ti, released with custom overclocked versions from day one, the vast majority of them capable of 1000 Mhz, but the default clock was 822 Mhz. In every GPU comparison chart, the GTX 560 ti was listed at 822 Mhz and being solidly beaten by 6950 / GTX 480.

Did anyone complain about that? I surely pointed out everytime I saw it 'Remember / take into consideration that a GTX 560 ti clocked to 1000 Mhz performs on par with a GTX 480', but other than that no one ever complained about Nvidia always being under represented with their significantly lower stock speeds.

When comparing overclocked cards, they are NEVER matched clock for clock either. One card is clocked to maximum, and the other is too and they get pitted against each other. I call pure fubar that a typically OCed 7970 can beat an OCed GTX 680 ... sure it beats a stock GTX 680, but oveclocking one card and leaving the other at stock settings is purely cheating.

 

[Gregster]

Well let's agree to disagree! Personally I'll wait for someone on here with some rep to do a direct clock to clock comparison on a general gaming rig before deciding ultimately which one is better. From what I've read in benchmarks/reviews, it can be a totally different situation when push comes to game.

EDIT: For example, in 90% of reviews they fail to mention the 680 OC's out of box, now the card doing that is not unfair, but sites not telling people the card does this and is definitely faster by 20% than competitor is not fair on the general public and/or n00bs trying to get information valid intellectual fact before they purchase.

Why would you want a clock for clock comparison? AMD/Nvidia/Intel all use different bits and bobs and all run at different clocks.

For me, I was interested in the "out of the box" comparisons and it is clear that even though it may be marginal, the 680 does infact beat the 7970 in "most" of the benches. Not all but most.

You jumped straight onto bhavv with an attack. To me this was rude and if you had read all the posts in this and the other treads, you would quite clearly see why he was answering like he was (sarcastically).

 

[Menty]

I think the term clock for clock was misinterpreted.

Surely any comparison should be between:-

Default clock and default clock?

Max OC and Max OC?

 

[bhavv]

I think the term clock for clock was misinterpreted.

Surely any comparison should be between:-

Default clock and default clock?

Max OC and Max OC?

100% yes.

At default out of the box clocks, GTX 680 is the clear winner.

But the AMD fans here now want:

1200 Mhz 7970 pitted against a 1200 Mhz GTX 680, ignoring that just as many 680s will reach 1300 Mhz as 7970s that reach 1200 Mhz, and hold the same lead it has at stock speeds.

And then theres the whole 'wah wah wah, GPU boost is cheating wah wah wah' posts, no it bloody isnt, its still the stock setting that applies to 100% of out of the box GTX 680s. You buy a GTX 680, you get the perfomance you see in reviews. You buy a 7970, you have to gamble with being able to push past 1200 Mhz to match a stock GTX 680.

 

[Gregster]

I think the term clock for clock was misinterpreted.

Surely any comparison should be between:-

Default clock and default clock?

Max OC and Max OC?

Absoloutely.