How to convince myself to go red

Kaapstad · 21 Jul 2013 at 09:16

flopper said:
7970 king over price and performance.
have no challenger.

is there better?
sure cost 3 times as much also.
for not much gain.

Have a look at a GTX 770.

LtMatt · 21 Jul 2013 at 10:36

flopper said:
7970 king over price and performance.
have no challenger.

is there better?
sure cost 3 times as much also.
for not much gain.

7950 maybe?

2x7950 cost me £360 so although the 7970 is good value for money 7950's that cheap cannot be sniffed at.

Kaapstad said:
Have a look at a GTX 770.

Cheapest 770 - £320 - One free game minus £10 = £310
Cheapest 7970 - £300 - Three free games minus £22.50 = £277

I'll have the voltage control and 1gb extra vram please not to mention the faster card when overclocked.

Tonester0011 · 21 Jul 2013 at 11:11

LtMatt said:
7950 maybe?

2x7950 cost me £360 so although the 7970 is good value for money 7950's that cheap cannot be sniffed at.

Cheapest 770 - £320 - One free game minus £10 = £310
Cheapest 7970 - £300 - Three free games minus £22.50 = £277

I'll have the voltage control and 1gb extra vram please not to mention the faster card when overclocked.

The 770 games sell for £15-20 on the MM and also comes with a free keyring, so let's just say £20 all in. The AMD games sell for £8, £8 and £2 on the MM. The reduces the card prices to £300 for the 770 and £282 for the 7970.

They also offer identical performance the 770 being quicker out the box. I'd vote the 770 being better value for money even though it's £20 more expensive.

Kaapstad · 21 Jul 2013 at 11:15

LtMatt said:
7950 maybe?

Cheapest 770 - £320 - One free game minus £10 = £310
Cheapest 7970 - £300 - Three free games minus £22.50 = £277

I'll have the voltage control and 1gb extra vram please not to mention the faster card when overclocked.

Who mentioned games and iirc the free games are only while stocks last.

As to overclocking it is too early to tell, but from what I have seen on the bench threads the average GTX 770 is getting the better of the average HD 7970 but we need more results to be sure.

LtMatt · 21 Jul 2013 at 11:25

Tonester0011 said:
The 770 games sell for £15-20 on the MM and also comes with a free keyring, so let's just say £20 all in. The AMD games sell for £8, £8 and £2 on the MM. The reduces the card prices to £300 for the 770 and £282 for the 7970.

They also offer identical performance the 770 being quicker out the box. I'd vote the 770 being better value for money even though it's £20 more expensive.

I just looked at the splinter cell on the MM, sold for £10.75. I also just sold loads of Bioshock and Crysis 3 codes on the MM for £10 a few days ago. Got £15 for a few of them on an auction site. So actually i should be deducting more from the 7970 than £22.50.

chris-82 · 21 Jul 2013 at 11:31

Tonester0011 said:
The 770 games sell for £15-20 on the MM and also comes with a free keyring, so let's just say £20 all in. The AMD games sell for £8, £8 and £2 on the MM. The reduces the card prices to £300 for the 770 and £282 for the 7970.

They also offer identical performance the 770 being quicker out the box. I'd vote the 770 being better value for money even though it's £20 more expensive.

That makes no sense at all!

They are identical performance but u would recommend the more expensive one for value for money!!! Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

the one u picked is clearly not the value for money choice, its your preference that's different.

LtMatt · 21 Jul 2013 at 11:41

Tonester0011 said:
They also offer identical performance the 770 being quicker out the box. I'd vote the 770 being better value for money even though it's £20 more expensive.

Performance is similar, i agree. 770 faster out of the box, 7970 faster when both overclocked. Unless you buy the msi 770 that you can use a hack to obtain voltage control up to 1.4 (like WhyScotty did) you won't be able to keep up with a fully clocked 7970.

Both cards overclocked

http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/geforce-gtx-770-gtx-780-test-gpu.html

Aside from Total Shogun, Metro Last Night and Farcry 3 1080p the 7970 wins the majority.

Wins at 1080p/1440p at Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Farcry 3 (1440p), Metro, The Witcher.

This is with the 7970 at 1160mhz with the 770 at 1200-1300mhz.

Tonester0011 · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:26

chris-82 said:
That makes no sense at all!

They are identical performance but u would recommend the more expensive one for value for money!!! Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

the one u picked is clearly not the value for money choice, its your preference that's different.

The 770 is faster out the box, that's what you're paying for...overclocked results vary depending on how lucky you are with your silicon. So even though the 770 costs £20 more its better value or at the very least the same value.

LtMatt · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:31

Tonester0011 said:
The 770 is faster out the box, that's what you're paying for...overclocked results vary depending on how lucky you are with your silicon. So even though the 770 costs £20 more its better value or at the very least the same value.

Slightly faster at 1080p, slightly slower at 1440p and higher res. Its swings and roundabouts tbh.

teppic · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:41

Any comparisons between the 770 and 7970 would need to be on the latest drivers. A lot of sites just use old 7970 review benchmarks with drivers from last year. Anandtech bench is terrible for this.

arc@css · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:43

teppic said:
Any comparisons between the 770 and 7970 would need to be on the latest drivers. A lot of sites just use old 7970 review benchmarks with drivers from last year. Anandtech bench is terrible for this.

God knows why they do this. Surely, using the latest driver is a must?!

bru · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:43

LtMatt said:
Slightly faster at 1080p, slightly slower at 1440p and higher res. Its swings and roundabouts tbh.

Exactly this, one side will shine in some situations and the other will shine in others.

When stock the 760/7950 are both so close to each other, just as the 770/7970Ghz Ed are.

When overclocked all of the top tier cards are so close together it all depends on the silicon lottery to what will come out on top.

Tonester0011 · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:47

LtMatt said:
Slightly faster at 1080p, slightly slower at 1440p and higher res. Its swings and roundabouts tbh.

Doesn't matter either way, if you're looking for value for money buying 7950 or 760/670 offers much better value than the 770 and 7970. The 770 is fairly priced though, gotta agree on that.

chris-82 · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:50

Tonester0011 said:
The 770 is faster out the box, that's what you're paying for...overclocked results vary depending on how lucky you are with your silicon. So even though the 770 costs £20 more its better value or at the very least the same value.

Its only better value if u don't overclock
I read it as if you where not going to overclock the gpu the 770 would be the better for value if you where to overclock the 7970 would be better value even if u got a not so good clocker and it was the tiniest bit slower(in real world I doubt it would make any difference)

But really if your looking for best value for money it's gotta be the 7950 or760)670

Kaapstad · 21 Jul 2013 at 13:04

I think the GTX 770s have the edge on the Heaven 4 bench (which is all about GPU grunt). There are only 3 GTX 770s but they are all above my Asus Matrix platinum and most of the other HD 7970s

28. Score 1445, GPU 780 @1012/1702, CPU i7 930 @2.8, esoteric
29. Score 1388, GPU 780 @941/1502, CPU 3770k @3.5, AStaley
30. Score 1362, GPU 780 @1000/1502, CPU 3570k @4.2, Keod2
31. Score 1304, GPU 780 @942/1509, CPU i7 930 @4.0, BriT
32. Score 1286, GPU 780 @863/1502, CPU 3570k @4.1, mcleish
33=. Score 1259, GPU 780 @1010/1502, CPU 2500k @4.5, mrk
33=. Score 1259, GPU 7970 @1500/1825, CPU 3770k @6.1, 8 Pack
35. Score 1169, GPU 7970 @1370/1850, CPU 3930k @5.0, Besty
36. Score 1161, GPU 7970 @1360/1900, CPU 2500k @4.9, StonerDude
37. Score 1151, GPU 770 @1359/2053, CPU 2500k @5.0, whyscotty
38. Score 1139, GPU 7970 @1325/1875, CPU 2700k @5.0, LtMatt
39. Score 1119, GPU 7970 @1310/1900, CPU i7 990x @4.45, BodgeITandRun
40. Score 1116, GPU 7970 @1300/1900, CPU 2500k @4.5, Uncle Petey
41. Score 1105, GPU 7970 @1285/1875, CPU 3960X @4.9, Geeman1979
42. Score 1101, GPU 770 @1280/2027, CPU 3960X @4.8, Geeman1979
43. Score 1100, GPU 7970 @1244/1875, CPU 3820 @5.1, Nickolp1974
44. Score 1096, GPU 770 @1250/2000, CPU 4670k @3.4, davidplim
45. Score 1093, GPU 7970 @1275/1875, CPU 3970X @4.9, Kaapstad
46. Score 1090, GPU 7970 @1254/1800, CPU 2500k @5.0, Mike306
47. Score 1088, GPU 7950 @1310/1950, CPU 3570k @4.6, BluD
48. Score 1084, GPU 680 @1306/1805, CPU 2500k @5.0, khemist
49. Score 1079, GPU 7970 @1225/1850, CPU 3770k @4.7, vonex
50. Score 1074, GPU 7950 @1320/1900, CPU 2500k @5.0, kamz
51. Score 1067, GPU 7970 @1225/1700, CPU 3770k @4.7, Stu @ MSD
52. Score 1061, GPU 7970 @1275/1676, CPU 3930k @4.7, stulid
53. Score 1058, GPU 7970 @1240/1750, CPU i5 3450 @4.7, Protomize

So when it comes to overclocking and GPU grunt I think on average the GTX 770 has the edge.

olivier renault · 21 Jul 2013 at 13:08

Whichever you choose, There isn't a bad GPU anyway. You can stay with NVIDIA and get a 770, 680, 760, or go with AMD and get a 7970, 7950. AMD better value for money, game bundles, OpenCL, NVIDIA has better performance out of the box, and a few games prefer them. 2GB versus 3GB... meh.

Or wait for AMD to pull their fingers out. Dunno what they are up to at the moment, but shouldn't be too long.

Jono8 · 21 Jul 2013 at 15:20

ICDP said:
He is actually correct but with one caveat, I would add the GTX670, GTX680 and HD 7970 into that "very little difference" bracket.

I have owned or tested 4x GTX680s, 6x HD 7970s, 4x HD 7950s and 2x GTX670s. Once you overclock to a decent level it becomes practically impossible to tell the difference in performance when there is only a ~10% delta between the cards. Considering OC potential, a GTX770 is no faster than a GTX680 or HD 7970. So at worst a similarly max overclocked HD 7950 or GTX670 will be ~10% slower.

I cut my losses and sold a GTX680 Lightning that could do 1350 core clock and 8GHz VRAM because a much cheaper HD 7950 at 1230/1750 was less than 10% slower, or in some cases trading blows with it.

Turn off the FPS counter and it becomes almost impossible to tell the difference between the 50 or 54 FPS.

That is a silly way of looking at it. What if the gtx 670 you buy is a terrible overclocker, but the 680 that you might have bought instead was a great clocker. You then might have had spent more but got a card a good 30% faster. Obviously the opposite might happen and you could have saved a decent amount but it is all just a lottery.

Therefore it's only really worth comparing them stock for stock in my opinion(unless it's a factory overclock).

Therefore the 770 is a decent amount faster than a 7950. Even a 660ti or 760 can match a stock 7950.

cainer · 21 Jul 2013 at 15:25

robfosters said:
How to convince myself to go red?

Is the 770 worth the extra £70 or so, or should I bite the bullet and finally get an ATI?

that £70 will buy quite a few BigMac meals, go red rob

Final8y · 21 Jul 2013 at 15:29

LOL ^ the things that people come out with LOL.

thisiswar88 · 21 Jul 2013 at 15:32

ashmanuk67 said:
Been with AMD for about 15+ years and the GTX770 is my very first Nvidia card and boy what a card
I came from a crossfire 6970 setup to this single 770 and I have never had this smoothness before, Minimum frame rate is much higher also of note is just the sheer quality of the graphics so much more detail much more than I have seen with AMD some of it is subtle but it's there.

I have to disagree, I think AMD have the sharper image and slightly better colours AMD have a warm tone but nvidia has like a cool tone to there picture. Also having clamp set in nvidia's control panel makes things look really blurry looks horrible in my opinion if you want a sharper image set it to allow. I totally agree on nvidia's smoothness they cannot be beaten there frame rate smoothness is great and adaptive vsync takes away that slight stutter you get in games. Nvidia drivers are quciker to get released than AMD too. AMD can handle anti aliasing more and overclock very well. I have recently moved back to AMD because nvidia drivers are terrible just now and have damaged a few cards in the process. Unfortunately the 7950 i got isn't working on my pc so I'm sending it back for a refund and I'm going to try out the gigabyte 7950 instead never had a problem with they card's working on my computer.