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GTX670 or HD7970

Jamie1994

Jamie1994

Jamie1994

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Joined
17 Nov 2008
Posts
101
Every single thread or review I can find off of Google says the HD7970 would be better if it were the same price as the GTX670. On OCUK they seem to compete for all the same price points.

I've looked at benchmarks and it seems very confusing, sometimes the GTX670 wins hands down, but I've also seen the 7970 with +20 FPS on the GTX670.

I can't see the RAM different (2GB for the GTX670 and 3 for the AMD) being anything worth shouting about, surely both cards would run out of power before RAM at 1920x1080.

If someone wanted a single card to last 2-3 years, playing vidya at 1920x1080, which would they be best getting.

Power and heat are of no concern (provided it doesn't overheat itself)
Noise is only an issue if it's an irritating whiny one.

Thanks
 
If you're happy to overclock (which is dead easy) you should get a 7950, you can get them for under £240, and can overclock them to beyond 7970 and 670 performance.
 
spoffle said:
If you're happy to overclock (which is dead easy) you should get a 7950, you can get them for under £240, and can overclock them to beyond 7970 and 670 performance.
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Mm I forgot to mention I will be OCing whatever I do buy to it's maximum.

Will a 7950 OC'd out perform a 670/7970 OC'd?
 
There won't be that much in it, definitely no where near justifying the price difference.

I think there's about 5% difference between a 7950 and a 7970 at the same clock speed. Most definitely not worth £60 more.
 
7970 is your best bet in my opinion. Unless you really love Physx for some reason. Most VRAM, performs exceptionally in many games (a lot of times beating the far more expensive 680), has more OC headroom than the 670 and is just all round a nice card.

7950 is a consideration only if you want to save money. It isn't as good, but it can get fairly close IF you get a good clocker. But if you're going down that road don't discount the 660ti either. Look at the comparisons between them and decide based on which games you play.
 
Katsumoto said:
7970 is your best bet in my opinion. Unless you really love Physx for some reason. Most VRAM, performs exceptionally in many games (a lot of times beating the far more expensive 680), has more OC headroom than the 670 and is just all round a nice card.

7950 is a consideration only if you want to save money. It isn't as good, but it can get fairly close IF you get a good clocker. But if you're going down that road don't discount the 660ti either. Look at the comparisons between them and decide based on which games you play.
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No not VRAM again. Read the other thread I've replied to you on. 2GB is fine all the way up to 5760*1080.

Incorrect. With 680 SLI (slightly more GPU power than a 690) I still fall over from a lack of GPU power way before I can get close to 2GB of VRAM.

Example: MP BF3 @ 5800*1080 (bezel corrected) with Windows Aero disabled:

Ultra and no MSAA - 1450-1600MB of VRAM. Very good FPS average and minimums.

Ultra and 2x MSAA - 1750-1800MB of VRAM. Acceptable averages (just) but minimums into the high 20's/early 30's.

Ultra and 4x MSAA - 1900-2008*MB of VRAM. Unplayable. Averages way below 60 FPS and game breaking minimums.

*2008MB was the max recorded showing that VRAM limit was not hit and the slow downs were completely symptomatic of low FPS rather than an out of VRAM stutter.

You realistically need 3 of this generations high end GPU's to push the settings which would cause you to run out of VRAM.
 
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Rusty0611 said:
No not VRAM again. Read the other thread I've replied to you on. 2GB is fine for now, all the way up to 5760*1080.
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The reason I talk of VRAM is future multi GPU setups to compensate. The 7970 STILL beats the 670 on a great many games so depending on the OP's gaming preference it's a very worthy consideration.
 
Katsumoto said:
The reason I talk of VRAM is future multi GPU setups to compensate. The 7970 STILL beats the 670 on a great many games so depending on the OP's gaming preference it's a very worthy consideration.
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Read above. I actually have multi-GPU and a higher resolution and have tested a lot. In the spoiler tag.

It's not a consideration (VRAM).

Locky said:
That compare thnigy used old drivers for the 7970

I'm not bothered anyway, I got my 7970 all under 300 each near release day :D. just wish they would fix trifire scaling in some titles & zero core.
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Ah fair enough mate. Didn't realise. Trifire on 7*** will get fixed.

(when 8*** series comes :p)
 
Rusty0611 said:
Read above. I actually have multi-GPU and a higher resolution and have tested a lot. In the spoiler tag.

It's not a consideration (VRAM).



Ah fair enough mate. Didn't realise. Trifire on 7*** will get fixed.

(when 8*** series comes :p)
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When 8 series comes out, the 7 series won't see nothing from ATI, this is one thing I like about Nvidia, they support the previous gen cards too.
 
Both are close on price, extra vram that helps out with Skyrim mods if that's your thing(unoptimised or not, it's there if needed;)), it also may become an issue as the op is planning to keep it.

If more future titles take advantage of direct compute(Dirt Showdown, Sniper 2) then the 79's will have a clear advantage over the current Nvidia equivalents too.

The 670 is quite close to it's performance ceiling(hence Nvidia locking out voltage adjustment), where as the 79's can go a fair bit on top of stock settings.

As the 7970/680 overclocked are pretty equal, bottom line is that the7970 is faster than a 670.

Locky said:
When 8 series comes out, the 7 series won't see nothing from ATI, this is one thing I like about Nvidia, they support the previous gen cards too.
Click to expand...

Still supporting my 69's locky, they just work mate.
 
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