7970 vs 680 thread.

Final8y · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:17

555BUK said:
Sensible post.

It is only because these cards are so close that there is so much debate. If the difference was large, one camp would be very quiet at the moment.

Well the problem is that some people don't like and cant accept that they are so close.

Marine-RX179 · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:17

james.miller said:
except that tech powerup review posted above, i guess?

It's not like it's something they have never done before, TurboCore anyone?

Nip-pick figures all you want, but the principle remains the same. Also 7970 doesn't offer beyond stock clock (925MHz) performance at standard price out of the box...and those that does, it cost a price premium...and these are the facts.

Final8y · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:24

So what is the official boost clock ? as you get one with the CPUs.
Edit: ok its 1058mhz, anything more is not guaranteed.

jeff6475 · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:25

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1881/1/

james.miller · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:26

Marine-RX179 said:
Nip-pick figures all you want, but the principle remains the same. Also 7970 doesn't offer beyond stock clock (925MHz) performance at standard price out of the box...and those that does, it cost a price premium...and these are the facts.

Im not nit picking anything. you made a very bold statement that one of the reivews already linked to proves inaccurate. Go look at the maximum clocks TPU achieved and tell me the 680 guarantees 1200mhz on every core.

edit: and legitreviews didnt manage it, either.

reiyushin · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:27

Seems pretty even to me.

The newer tech 680 is edging the 7970 in some cases.
Prices are similar...
The "auto overclocking" is a pro not a con.
At this stage in the game it's buy what you like

And I'll not be buying either ^^

Darujhistan · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:32

So which card is faster then?

jeff6475 · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:38

Darujhistan said:
So which card is faster then?

out of the box = 680
overclocked varies as not every overclock will be the same both cards overclock great.
so in my eyes overall performance,price etc its ..... 680
but ill be sticking with my AMD 6950

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:45

james.miller said:
It's not like it's something they have never done before, TurboCore anyone?

At the risk of someone hitting me with a graphics card sized mallet,may I point out that AMD introduced variable clockspeed GPU sections before Nvidia.

The part in question is called the AMD Zacate E450 CPU. The IGP can boost itself from the base 508MHZ clock to upto 600MHZ. AFAIK,AMD Trinity is also going to implement such technology for the IGP. Intel also has such technology for its IGPs too and they did this before AMD IIRC with the SB IGP.

james.miller · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:50

You've gone and done it now

RavenXXX2 · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:54

james.miller said:
Im not nit picking anything. you made a very bold statement that one of the reivews already linked to proves inaccurate. Go look at the maximum clocks TPU achieved and tell me the 680 guarantees 1200mhz on every core.

edit: and legitreviews didnt manage it, either.

Well if you include the boost clock it does burst 1200mhz as shown in GPU-Z from legitreviews, so technically you are guaranteed 1200Mhz with boost clock.

Rimsy · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:54

Darujhistan said:
So which card is faster then?

the 7970 clearly. ignore all the reviews that pick the 680 as the clear winner and listen to the EXPERTS here on this forum. they know their stuff.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:57

james.miller said:
You've gone and done it now

TBH,the only worry I had about the technology, is if it could be used to warp benchmark results,ie, boost the GPU extremely high for benchmarks,but in real extended gameplay situations reduce the boost significantly. Both companies have a history of optimising for benchmarks,so you could understand my concerns.

However,I did find this article from one of the biggest French review websites where they disabled the boost function:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/857-23/performances-gpu-boost-overclocking.html

It seems the boost gives an additional 4% to 5% performance at 1920X1080,so its not huge.

james.miller · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:59

RavenXXX2 said:
Well if you include the boost clock it does burst 1200mhz as shown in GPU-Z from legitreviews, so technically you are guaranteed 1200Mhz with boost clock.

oh yeah, fair enough lol. I didnt spot that

555BUK · 24 Mar 2012 at 15:02

Rimsy said:
the 7970 clearly. ignore all the reviews that pick the 680 as the clear winner and listen to the EXPERTS here on this forum. they know their stuff.

Ignore the reviewers who have extensively tested both cards within a lab enviroment, but listen to the EXPERTS here who are much more likely to own 7900's.

Sound strategy

.

ALXAndy · 24 Mar 2012 at 15:05

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
TBH,the only worry I had about the technology, is if it could be used to warp benchmark results,ie, boost the GPU extremely high for benchmarks,but in real extended gameplay situations reduce the boost significantly. Both companies have a history of optimising for benchmarks,so you could understand my concerns.

However,I did find this article form one of the biggest French review websites where they disabled the boost function:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/857-23/performances-gpu-boost-overclocking.html

It seems the boost gives an additional 4% to 5% performance at 1920X1080,so its not huge.

Interesting.

It is interesting to note that without Boost GPU, the GeForce GTX 680 would have been content to match the Radeon HD 7970. Overclocking the GeForce GTX 680, and especially her memory, the greatest benefit to situations in which it was behind.

So basically it reakons that clock for clock there isn't anything in it.

jeff6475 · 24 Mar 2012 at 15:12

ALXAndy said:
So basically it reakons that clock for clock there isn't anything in it.

so that would still make the GTX 680 the best value because it aint just down 2 the clock for clock scores is it ?

Marine-RX179 · 24 Mar 2012 at 15:12

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
At the risk of someone hitting me with a graphics card sized mallet,may I point out that AMD introduced variable clockspeed GPU sections before Nvidia.

The part in question is called the AMD Zacate E450 CPU. The IGP can boost itself from the base 508MHZ clock to upto 600MHZ. AFAIK,AMD Trinity is also going to implement such technology for the IGP. Intel also has such technology for its IGPs too and they did this before AMD IIRC with the SB IGP.

Rather or not has AMD has done it elsewhere, but fact is that it doesn't present on the 7970 is it now? I fail to understand what good does it do saying "oh but AMD has it too", when it is on a different product?

I might be wrong on this but I think GTX680 is the first discrete gaming card that offer auto-overclock or turbo boost or whatever people prefer to call it is it not that actually has a meaningful purpose? Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

At the end of the day, I personally don't care if GTX680 or 7970 was faster...but only a fool would try to pass off the feature of auto-overclock as something negative just because they are anti-Nvidia...this is the only thing I disagree on.

chipachap · 24 Mar 2012 at 15:16

Why are people being pedantic about the fact it speeds itself up instead of us doing it manually? Call it overclocking or whatever you want to call it, it's essentially doing the same f'ing thing no mater what you call it.

Some fanboy above claims 1200mhz is guaranteed on every card, pfft, and then he woke up. Advertised boost clock is 1058 so why would they say 1200? Clearly not the case.

Whoever said they don't want to admit it's so close is right, they don't and they won't.

ALXAndy · 24 Mar 2012 at 15:19

jeff6475 said:
so that would still make the GTX 680 the best value because it aint just down 2 the clock for clock scores is it ?

In the USA the 680 is the card to buy as it's cheaper, so that would be my recommendation.

In the UK, though? the 7970 can be had for around 10% less.

So, here in the UK we are being gouged. So, if I was asked which one here I would recommend the 7970.

Quite simply when all is said and done they are right around dead level. Even if you bring other factors into the equation (IE physx, heat, noise, power use) they are again, dead even.

The 7970 uses Zerocore, the 7970 has 3gb vram and massive directcompute performance. The 680 is quieter and uses less power, but only has 2gb.

I don't care how much people accuse me of being one sided because that really, truly could not be further from the truth.

I just don't like false claims and never have. I also don't like weighted and loaded comparisons because they are not fair.

Some one pointed out that I was sticking up for the 7970. In a way I am. I'm sticking up for both. I just want a fair set of results, with some truthful information.

If there was nothing to stick up for (with the 7970 in mind) then this thread would not exist would it?

Right from the off the reviews were fishy. That doesn't do Nvidia a lot of good IMO. And now we are beginning to see why they were fishy, because they were not true comparisons between the two cards.