Amd Price cuts

[Deleted member 66701]

Seems that way yes. So that guy from Georgia who said they were basically dead level was bang on the money.

They arent level though are they? The 7970 has an extra 1gb of ram - putting them side by side makes the 7970 more attractive. That 1gb will add a fair chunk to the cost of the card.

I went with a 1gb 5870 and within the year I was regretting not getting the 2gb version).

Having said that - if you own a 7970 or a 680 you're not going to be dissapointed with either one if you have the cash.

 

[ALXAndy]

What you're missing is a lot of reviews have 680gtx's already at or very close to their max overclock because its doing it on the fly basically. THere's nothing wrong with that.

Guru3d has the card clocked at 1250 or so. And, at that level the overclocked 7970 appears faster.

They arent leve though are they? the 7970 has an extra 1gb of ram - putting them side by side makes the 7970 more attractive.

I went with a 1gb 5870 and within the year I was regretting not getting the 2gb version).

Having said that - if you own a 7970 or a 680 you're not going to be dissapointed with either one if you have the cash.

Yes of course you are right. Spec wise? the 7970 is also the winner. It also has a hugely superior Directcompute it would seem, miles ahead of the Kepler card.

Nvidia have wisely concentrated on the areas that their card is good in, IE games. But, it's never quite as clear as the initial release. Give it time, wait for the overclocked head to heads to come around.

 

[Darujhistan]

I can see this latest round of top-end GPU releases sparking World War 3 on here....

 

[drunkenmaster]

The people who were arguing that Kepler would not overclock anywhere near as well as Tahti are now complaining because Kepler does so straight out of the box, fully sanctioned by NVidia.

Hold on to them straws, the're slipping..

edit: The boot is now on the other foot for AMD. It is they who now produce bigger, more power hungry, feature lacking GPU's which cost more to produce and have poorer performance per watt and performance per transistor. Unfortunately for them, NVidia is also still faster.

For the record the 7970 has vastly more compute performance and just as many features so you're talking out your behind.

The 7870 is a much smaller chip than the 680gtx so offers less absolute performance, it is quite a bit ahead on performance/w, per transistor, etc, etc.

THe problem is you're comparing two cards with two entirely different targets because it looks good for you.

I can compare a 7870 to a 580gtx if I want, and the difference is insane, that is unfair, 7870 to 780gtx would be unfair.

7870/680gtx are both stripped down 1080p cards, AMD has higher efficiency in basically every area AND higher compute performance.

7970 vs 780gtx will be the "efficiency" comparison, not a single other Nvidia guy on the forum thinks the 780gtx will offer the same efficiency as the 680gtx, because firstly, it won't, and secondly because its designed for entirely different markets.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Guru3d has the card clocked at 1250 or so. And, at that level the overclocked 7970 appears faster.




Yes of course you are right. Spec wise? the 7970 is also the winner. It also has a hugely superior Directcompute it would seem, miles ahead of the Kepler card.

Nvidia have wisely concentrated on the areas that their card is good in, IE games. But, it's never quite as clear as the initial release. Give it time, wait for the overclocked head to heads to come around.

Personally - if I was buying now, I'd probably plump for the 680. But I'm not buying now - I bought 2 months ago and I've enjoyed playing games at max settings whilst those waiting for Kepler have twiddled thier thumbs waiting for a card that doesn't exactly blow the 7970 out of the water .

 

[555BUK]

THere is NO question stock 7970 has WAY more overclocking headroom than a 680gtx.

The probelem is that the percentage gains from overclocking a 7970 are poor compared to other cards. A 20% OC may only equal 6-10% gain, and when Kepler is ~10% faster to begin with it may not be enough.

Perhaps the fact that overclocked 7870's come surprisingly close to 7950 performance indiactes there is a hidder bottleneck somehwere within Tahiti?

 

[Borsch]

SO let me get this straight: 680 auto OCs to perform at or above STOCK 7970; but 680 auto OC is not enough to reach OCed 7970.

Is that correct?

 

[HeX]

SO let me get this straight: 680 auto OCs to perform at or above STOCK 7970; but 680 auto OC is not enough to reach OCed 7970.

Is that correct?

Stock 680 (auto oc) > 7970

7970 OC > Stock 680 (auto oc)

680 OC > 7970 OC

 

[555BUK]

SO let me get this straight: 680 auto OCs to perform at or above STOCK 7970; but 680 auto OC is not enough to reach OCed 7970.

Is that correct?

According to most of the reviews, the 680 is faster at stock and equal/slightly fastser when both are overclocked. Neither has a clear lead when overcloked, except for the occasional benchamrks (Metro likes AMD, BF3 likes NVidia etc..).

Overall (including featiures, power consumption, price, performacne), the GTX680 is clearly the better card.

 

[Gerard]

They should have had these cuts in place for the launch of the 680, instead they twiddled their thumbs and theres a load of 680's being sold today.

 

[wazza300]

i dunno about cuts,ive seen amd prices go up by a fiver on some sites

 

[ALXAndy]

According to most of the reviews, the 680 is faster at stock and equal/slightly fastser when both are overclocked. Neither has a clear lead when overcloked, except for the occasional benchamrks (Metro likes AMD, BF3 likes NVidia etc..).

Overall (including featiures, power consumption, price, performacne), the GTX680 is clearly the better card.

Haha so there's nothing in it but the 680 is clearly the better card.

That's hilarious.

 

[Borsch]

Ok, thanks for making that clear

Basically the two have very similar performance (apart from Metro,BF3 et al), with 680 being cooler and quieter.

Cheers!

 

[adey]

It just dawned on me what you are going to do with than banana >.<

 

[ALXAndy]

Ok, thanks for making that clear

Basically the two have very similar performance (apart from Metro,BF3 et al), with 680 being cooler and quieter.

Cheers!

Quieter maybe. But have a look around. Most sites had the 680 hitting 80c. So it's not exactly cooler, given I've never seen my 7970 hit 80c even with the overclock.

 

[555BUK]

Haha so there's nothing in it but the 680 is clearly the better card.

That's hilarious.

Nothing apart from BETTER power consumption, MORE features, LOWER RRP ($499 vs $549) and HIGHER performance out of the box.

Apart from the above, the 7970 is a good card. I guess it depends what you want from a graphics card. People who like shiny red labels should definatley go AMD.

 

[drunkenmaster]

The probelem is that the percentage gains from overclocking a 7970 are poor compared to other cards. A 20% OC may only equal 6-10% gain, and when Kepler is ~10% faster to begin with it may not be enough.

Perhaps the fact that overclocked 7870's come surprisingly close to 7950 performance indiactes there is a hidder bottleneck somehwere within Tahiti?

Not really, again that is how efficient the 7870 is, there is a LOT more to the 7970 than gaming performance, which is why it's efficiency is dropped, however there is the likelyhood that its ROP limited to a degree, min's vs 680gtx are much MUCH more favourable than max framerate.

However, you're very much wrong about 7970 scaling, 16% overclock on TPU results in a 14.1% performance gain and that is the same thing I've seen around the web for the vast majority of reviews that talk about overclocking.

Stock 680 (auto oc) > 7970

7970 OC > Stock 680 (auto oc)

680 OC > 7970 OC

The only slight issue is, they've gone with a 16% overclock on the 7970, which is pretty ridiculously easy to achieve, it seems they increased voltage to get their max 680gtx overclock, while the 7970 was a rather "basic" overclock without a single mention of voltage and talking about CCC limits, so it would seem they used what is a fairly tame overclock for a 7970. There is also the issue that Nvidia's manual overclock maintains turbo boost, so AMD that is 16% in every game, while Nvidia has a different overclock for every game there. Is their 7970 unstable in one game above 16%, but stable above 25% overclock in another? Now don't get me wrong, that's a plus point for Nvidia, saves you making a new profile all the time as you're really finding a stable "tdp"/clock speed and the card will achieve it when it can.

Personally think anyone would be mad to buy now, let AMD drop prices a bit(or launch a 7980 to bring all the prices down), then let Nvidia match, rinse repeat. let 6950/570/580 go out of stock, watch the 7770/7870 drop in price and the 7950 drop to fill in the price gap, and Nvidia to release a 670/660 version of their card to get some real price wars going.

The only thing I'm certain of is Nvidia and AMD can make a killing at these prices, and they will continue to do so as long as people keep paying those prices.

 

[kitch9]

According to most of the reviews, the 680 is faster at stock and equal/slightly fastser when both are overclocked. Neither has a clear lead when overcloked, except for the occasional benchamrks (Metro likes AMD, BF3 likes NVidia etc..).

Overall (including featiures, power consumption, price, performacne), the GTX680 is clearly the better card.

512MB GDDR5 High Speed chips consume around 10W a piece, as do fatter memory buses.

Do the math.

7970 is cheaper. (Elsewhere)

Physx is a waste of everybodies time.

I'm not convinced either way, I want to go multi monitor with 3d in future and I don't think these are the cards for that.

 

[555BUK]

I have scanned most of the conclusions from various professional review sites and I cannot find a single one which recommends buying a 7970 over a GTX680. Most do however recommend the opposite.

I won't be buying either due to silly pricing.

 

[eyetrip]

I don't really want to get into this battle, but I have seen many people refer to GTX 680 having better/more features - what are these features please?

Yes, it's overall faster, yes it seems to draw less power for the most part, but what can it do that the 79xx can't?