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HD 79xx Prices

You're potty Dave, trying to argue the 7970 is the faster card when anyone sane can see with both overclocked the cards are roughly equal depending on game, I've never seen such single minded zealotery and in this forum that is quite an achievement.
 
pgi947 said:
Whats an average best (under water) on the 7970's? Strongly considering 7970 CF.

Am I right in thinking a heavily clocked 7970 will match if not beat my CF 6950's? Could be an idea to get one now and another in a few months :D
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I've seen a lot reach 1300mhz under water with temps in the 40's under load

Rusty0611 said:
Good banter :D
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Yep, no point in being uptight, bantersaurus :cool:
 
You're persuading me towards the 7970 however I see a lot of them don't have dual link DVI! Seems a bit crazy?! I take it that ones stating "DVI" only is single only?
 
Troezar said:
You're persuading me towards the 7970 however I see a lot of them don't have dual link DVI! Seems a bit crazy?! I take it that ones stating "DVI" only is single only?
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they will all be dual link DVI :) they have to be for large res and/or 120hz monitors, unless one of the other ports cater for that in which case just use that port
 
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cainer said:
they will all be dual link DVI :) they have to be for large res and/or 120hz monitors, unless one of the other ports cater for that in which case just use that port
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I have my doubts as you can use the DVI port on a 1080p monitor. I have a 1440p 27" monitor so it has to be dual link as that is the only connection. For instance the Sapphire card http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-297-SP also has mDP which is okay if you have display port. I'm also not in the market for a £75 adapter!

I'll have to clarify it with OCUK but if it doesn't day dual link it looks very much like it isn't which restricts the choice of cards by quite a lot.

EDIT: just checked the Sapphire website and it is dual link. Posted in the CS forum suggesting the descriptions are updated :)
 
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Troezar said:
The question now is 7950 or 7970? As the 7950's will clock to 7970 speeds that might be the better option. If the 680's dropped below £400 I could be tempted but I don't see that happening given they have been selling out...
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absolutely my dilemna. 7950 with custom fan or base 7970?!
 
///Rage said:
absolutely my dilemna. 7950 with custom fan or base 7970?!
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I'd say it depends on how sensitive to noise you are, and if you use ear / head phones. All the cards I've had in recent years have been quiet at idle, though even ones with custom coolers can still be far from quiet at load, which I think is to be expected; especially as in my case I never use autofan, though as mentioned head phones save the day in this respect. :)
 
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BodgeITandRun said:
Well it would strike you as that, since you have already bought a 680 and if you had waited could have bought a similar performance card for cheaper. I am sure you will say you was never considering a HD7970 anyway. ;)
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My previous card - an AMD 5970 - had failed (due to excessive overclocking... my own fault) and I was using a backup card. I held off as long as I could, basically going over a month without any gaming just to see how the 680 performed. With the cards being priced equally and the 680 having a slight advantage I went nVidia this time around. If AMD had the 7970 for £360 I would likely have gone AMD but I really couldn't put it off any longer.

Now I'm just waiting for the price of the 680s to normalise before picking up a second, as 1600p is a bit too demanding for just the one card.
 
Two things worth mentioning, firstly MOST AMD cards only have ONE dual link port, the other isn't dual link which can make more than one 120hz screen a bit of a pain, with any newer AMD card if you're looking to buy more than one monitor I'd recommend DP as the input for 120Hz now(which is a shame as Samsungs cheapest 120hz screen is god awesome, a great price and DVI for 120hz).

Secondly, the 680/7970 trade blows depending on the game, but I both expect bigger speed bumps from AMD(with things like the Nvidia path on BF3 running faster on a 7970 than the AMD path as its purely optimised for extracting VLIW instructions over speed, Nvidia' arch changed but is still 1D, AMD has more to gain here), and in surround resolutions AMD gains pretty much the lead in all situations.

I still am not 100% sure as so few reviews bothered to mention it I'm not sure if the ones that did have it right, but if 680gtx's are running half frame rate on side screens, that means essentially all reviews that put 7970/680gtx on par in surround gaming, witha 7970 you're pushing 3 screens at that fps, with the 680gtx you are effectively pushing TWO screens at that res( 60fps x 3 = 180fps vs 60fps x 1 + 30 fps x 2 = 120fps), its essentially cheating to keep up the performance.

Without seeing one in surround screen setup and without testing a variety of games I have no clue if half frame rate on side screens is a great idea or massively degrades the overall experience. Either way the 7970 is just WAY faster in those types of setups, and "on par" in normal, which puts the win clearly in the 7970 side for me. If its £100 cheaper to boot... well.

Either way, I said it with the 5870, the 6970, the 280gtx, 285gtx, the 480gtx, the 580gtx, these are just bad value cards, the 5850/6950/260/265/470/570gtx's were all much better value cards.

For me you were looking at 10% lower performance for 25-35% lower prices depending on the card, or from the other perspective, a 5870 cost you 50% more, and only offered 10% more performance than a 5850. The fact is that you can barely see the 10% performance and if that isn't enough, then really 5850 xfire would be a hugely better performance increase and again vastly better value, and there are so few setups where 5870xfire would have made any difference over 5850 xfire, because there is so much performance most of the time you're cpu limited anyway.

In other words, the 7970 and 680gtx suck balls, are horrible value and not remotely worth thinking about. 7950 at £300 is so much better value, and frankly 7850 xfire even more again, etc, etc.
 
I hate to admit it but i go with DM's assessment. The only problem is that I dont like OC ATi cards as the replacement RMA services I have had in the past have made me want to kill people.

Still i go for the value but have often wondered what the difference would have been to my framerate if i had coughed up the extra £
 
drunkenmaster said:
Two things worth mentioning, firstly MOST AMD cards only have ONE dual link port, the other isn't dual link which can make more than one 120hz screen a bit of a pain, with any newer AMD card if you're looking to buy more than one monitor I'd recommend DP as the input for 120Hz now(which is a shame as Samsungs cheapest 120hz screen is god awesome, a great price and DVI for 120hz).
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Most AMD 7 series cards only have 1 DVI connector full stop. It will be dual link.

6 series cards with 2 DVI connections have 1 single and 1 dual link. I don't recall any with 2 dual link.

5 series cards with 2 DVI connections are both dual link I believe.
 
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