Going for a new 6core setup. Should i upgrade my GPU from a 570 or just get another and SLI?

[andybird123]

and if you have less vram and the things starts having to load off disk then that surely will slow things down? loading even off ssd, again surely loading off memory is very much quicker

exactly right, in borderline situations you get stutter whenever the card needs to load a new texture, in more severe cases your FPS drops to single figures while it does it... several of the latest games need more than 1-1.25GB of RAM, hell I even had texture caching issues on a 1.5GB 580 @ 1080p

 

[Rusty0611]

Uhm, they do clock themselves, and depending on the silicon quality you could end up with a card thats 5-8% slower out of the box and at stock than the next man even though you've paid exactly the same money. You can't look at someones stock settings and depend on yours performing the same.

I really don't like how NV and now AMD have gone with this auto clocking system they have on their newer cards.

Boosting != Overclock.

Similar not the same. Overclock is me entering EVGA PX and typing +100. Boosting is whatever it does out the box. If you had one you'd understand.

 

[andybird123]

you could end up with a card thats 5-8% slower out of the box and at stock

in practice, the actual performance difference between any two cards of the same make and model is much less than this, more like 2% in actual FPS terms

and how is this any different to the silicon lottery in manually overclocking, just because cards are now taking advantage of some of the overhead they have, it doesn't stop you from manually overclocking and it doesn't increase or decrease the likelihood of you getting a "good clocker"

 

[spoffle]

Saying that 670 and 680 overclock themselves doesn't make any sense.

Saying you can't have a stock comparison doesn't make any sense.

Then again, this is coming from the same person who judged driver problems overall by the last week of posts in the OcUK forums only so I probably shouldn't be surprised by comments like that.

No I didn't, it's pretty sad that you're purposefully twisting what I said to suit your argument.

680s and 670s DO clock themselves, how does it not make sense?

Are you currently spending some time in pretend land at the moment?

 

[Rusty0611]

No I didn't, it's pretty sad that you're purposefully twisting what I said to suit your argument.

680s and 670s DO clock themselves, how does it not make sense?

Are you currently spending some time in pretend land at the moment?

This a myth that only people like you continue to perpetuate.

In the last few weeks, in the graphics section the "driver problem" threads have all been about 670s or 680s.

Mmm hmmm. Purposefully twisting... Go back to the thread. It wasn't just me that took exception to this strange logic.

Boosting != Overclock.

Similar not the same. Overclock is me entering EVGA PX and typing +100. Boosting is whatever it does out the box. If you had one you'd understand.

 

[spoffle]

Mmm hmmm. Purposefully twisting... Go back to the thread. It wasn't just me that took exception to this strange logic.

Right, yes, purposefully ignoring:

That was actually my point, the futility of looking at things in such a way.

I believe for the most part most people have no issues with their hardware regardless of manufacturer (as I said in another thread).

"as I said in another thread" was me saying I don't believe many people actually do have driver issues regardless of brand. You purposefully were taking what I said out of context.

The "strange logic" was in fact a response to the odd notions people still think nVidia carries a premium due to "superior" drivers, and from experience people tend to use examples like that, as an argument as for why AMD drivers never work ever.



As for the "boost" it's not really relevant is it? It's an increase in clock speed that they can all manage, that goes above and beyond stock speeds. Most, if not all 7950s and 7970s will overclock to a certain amount, so to insist that AMD cards are ran at "stock" is disingenuous at best.

 

[Rusty0611]

*snip*

Signalling your retreat!!!

As for the "boost" it's not really relevant is it? It's an increase in clock speed that they can all manage, that goes above and beyond stock speeds. Most, if not all 7950s and 7970s will overclock to a certain amount, so to insist that AMD cards are ran at "stock" is disingenuous at best.

It's only not relevant in your eyes because it invalidates your argument. You're not understanding the boost mechanism properly. As I have said, it's similar but different.

I'm not insisting they're ran at stock - I'm insisting that you compare like for like. And for the purposes of this comparison I was saying that a fairer comparison would be the 670 OC card with the 7970 Ghz edition on the assumption that the Ghz is just a BIOS OC of a vanilla 7970.

It could be argued that you should compare 'out of the box' vs 'out of the box' as the 670/680 boost is no different in that respect to the 7970 Ghz edition BIOS overclock i.e. it's there automatically. But that would invalidate your "boost is an overclock" argument so I see you tried to cleverly ignore that.

Disingenuous indeed.

 

[spoffle]

Signalling your retreat!!!

Yeah, no, you were just choosing to take it out of context.

It's only not relevant in your eyes because it invalidates your argument. You're not understanding the boost mechanism properly. As I have said, it's similar but different.

I'm not insisting they're ran at stock - I'm insisting that you compare like for like. And for the purposes of this comparison I was saying that a fairer comparison would be the 670 OC card with the 7970 Ghz edition on the assumption that the Ghz is just a BIOS OC of a vanilla 7970.

It could be argued that you should compare 'out of the box' vs 'out of the box' as the 670/680 boost is no different in that respect to the 7970 Ghz edition BIOS overclock i.e. it's there automatically. But that would invalidate your "boost is an overclock" argument so I see you tried to cleverly ignore that.

Disingenuous indeed.

*facepalm*

Calling it a "boost" as if it's not an overclock is plain ridiculous. Its clock speeds are being raised, it's pretty simple. We all know 6XX and 79XX will all have a minimum clock speed, as they're effectively all "underclocked".

 

[Rusty0611]

Calling it an overclock is plain ridiculous. It's clock speeds are being raised to a pre-determined limit (boost). I then push this further manually (overclock). It's quite simple. An overclock is not simply a clock speed being raised.

Overclocking is the process of making a computer or component operate faster than the specified clock frequency by the manufacturer by modifying system parameters.

Please explain how this is synonymous with the boost feature.

I sound like to you, what you sound like to me. You can continue arguing and I will continue to argue back so we could go on all day. If you want to continue feel free to message me and we can continue without derailing the thread any further.

 

[andybird123]

this would be the same as calling Intel's turbo feature an overclock - intels boost would only take my CPU to 3.8ghz and only when it's using 1 or 2 cores... my manual OC takes it to 4.5ghz on all cores all the time

it is a bit like an overclock, just a rubbish one, and all the cards mentioned will OC higher, which as this is the OVERCLOCKERS forum, people are quite likely to do so

comparing stock for stock, or stock against OC is all pretty irrelevant, what people want to know is what various cards will do at their maximum likely OC

 

[Rusty0611]

Yeah. There's no doubting its end result (a higher clock speed depending on the quality) but the way it gets there isn't an overclock.

Disagree regarding the last point as 'out of the box' vs 'out of the box' is the best way to gauge performance across the board without taking into account silicone quality which can vary quite a lot. It means your variables when testing are kept to a minimum and the best way to judge where the card sits on a performance scale.

But I do agree that at the end of the day, people want to know what it performs like maxed out.

 

[Serial45]

So guys, overclocking in mind do you think the 7970 XFX black edition would be a good card to get?
I don't want to have the hassle of changing the card heatsink / fan etc

Any other recommendations would be great.

 

[psychodil]

So guys, overclocking in mind do you think the 7970 XFX black edition would be a good card to get?
I don't want to have the hassle of changing the card heatsink / fan etc

Any other recommendations would be great.

You are better off with the gigabyte windforce 7970. Better cooler and very good quality with UK based warranty.

 

[Rusty0611]

You are better off with the gigabyte windforce 7970. Better cooler and very good quality with UK based warranty.

Agreed.

 

[spoffle]

7970 prices are looking a lot more sensible lately.

 

[spixelspixel]

this simply isn't true

BF3 on ultra settings @1080p won't run smoothly on 570SLI but it will on a single 670, been there, tried it, returned the cards for something better



in your opinion

in my opinion FXAA is a tawdry blurry mess of a bandaid for cards not good enough and owners too cheap to buy hardware to run the game properly

I have had both 570 in sli and a 670 and the 570's ran everything faster by around 15-20 percent (stock vs stock), even with some triple monitor testing. The only downside is the power consumption and not having the latest and greatest.

 

[spixelspixel]

lol perhaps we should go back to 256mb vram and 1 gig system ram

Within reason obviously. And who knows how bad a 670 with 256mb vram would perform..

Here's an example.. a review of a 3gb 580 vs a 1.5gb 580...no difference even with high resolution.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graph...tx-580-hawk-edition-3gb-graphics-card-review/

"We were expecting to see the 3GB frame buffer prove its worth at 2,560x1600 with maximum image-quality settings in Aliens vs. Predator, but that isn't the case.

The stock-clocked 3GB HAWK card actually returns a fractionally lower score than a stock-clocked 1.5GB GTX 580 - a result of higher-density memory with looser timings, perhaps?"

"All that memory is doing little to boost performance in Call of Duty: Black Ops, but frame rates are hardly a concern in this DX9 title - it's silky smooth on every card in our line up."

"Metro 2033 might be one of the most visually-intensive titles in our line up, but it too fails to benefit from the HAWK Edition's 3GB frame buffer."

 

[Serial45]

You are better off with the gigabyte windforce 7970. Better cooler and very good quality with UK based warranty.

Thanks mate, just about to order one - just read a great review on it.

 

[whyscotty]

The more vram you have the more Gpu power you'll need to power/utilise it.

 

[Rusty0611]

@spixelspixel - it only helps if you get close to running out of VRAM. Otherwise it's pointless overhead. Even with 3 screens I run out of GPU power before VRAM.

However, those titles probably aren't the best examples of VRAM hoggers to test a 3GB cards utility.