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Nvidia 580GTX

its a volt mod, regardless of whether its a slider or not.. you cant do it on the 690 (as far as i know) but if you could it would oc better along wit the risks volt modding brings. (yes even with a slider..

and to be fair, its relevant. the 690 is a premium product with premium build and features. the 7950 ocd to the max, is a cheaper product made to go fast (ren 5)
 
Go all out for a MSI 680 Lightning OP :p (I love mine and I do believe the chips are cherry picked).

Other choices are the Gigabyte 670 WFX3. Rave reviews from users and a damn site cheaper than the 680.

Edit:

Reading back only a few posts, did the OP change his mind and say he wanted AMD?
 
james_2k said:
its a volt mod, regardless of whether its a slider or not.. you cant do it on the 690 (as far as i know) but if you could it would oc better along wit the risks volt modding brings. (yes even with a slider..

and to be fair, its relevant. the 690 is a premium product with premium build and features. the 7950 ocd to the max, is a cheaper product made to go fast (ren 5)
Click to expand...


Hmm, no not really. A volt mod is a hardware modification to increase the voltage.

On modern cards, it's voltage adjustment, since they use digital voltage controllers. The reason you can't do it on a 690 is because it's been locked out by nVidia.

I don't really believe a 690 is a "premium" product, it's certainly very expensive but I don't believe expense = premium. Additionally, they're asking £900 for a graphics card, of course they're going to cover it in nice materials and make it look as expensive as they possibly can, it's part of the perception associated with high prices.

As for the premium features, what like? I'd have thought out and out performance is considered the most important "feature" of a graphics card, no?

The reason why overclocking a 7950 is being spoke about so much is because AMD, for some ridiculous reason, has set the default clock speeds quite a bit below what the chips are really capable of.

Additionally, there are cars that offer all round far better performance than a Bentley for a fraction of the cost, which undermines the example really.
 
If the OP fancies an upgrade, then the route Gregster suggests is as reasonable as any. Though I'd also add the MSI 670 PE into the mix.

As to whether it's worth it.... when ever did that really come into the equation :D
 
whyscotty said:
Yet again another thread ends up RED V GREEN.

How is this helping the OP ?
Click to expand...

It's not really red versus green.

I'm talking about value for money. If some one was talking about a 7970 in the same way, I'd say the same things, as to me, a 7970 is also a waste of money, just not as much of one.
 
gregster said:
Go all out for a MSI 680 Lightning OP :p (I love mine and I do believe the chips are cherry picked).

Other choices are the Gigabyte 670 WFX3. Rave reviews from users and a damn site cheaper than the 680.

Edit:

Reading back only a few posts, did the OP change his mind and say he wanted AMD?
Click to expand...

I nearly grabbed the 7970 Lightning. What stopped me was single link DVI but pgi947 said it can be forced or hacked which I read today, the day my non lightning-ated 7970 is arriving. Gutted :(.

I had the Windforce X3. 1215Mhz max boost with OC is all I could manage but most are a lot better than that. I didn't return the card for that as it still was very fast, I just didn't realise about the magical drivers that gave the AMD cards such a boost as I bought the 670 for BF3 and DSR'd on the 13th day (thank you OCUK for 14 days DSR).

No, just Nvidia only.

spoffle said:
For me, it only really goes as far as how much performance I get for my money, which is why I haven't owned an nVidia card in some time, as they very rarely have the price/performance ratio on their side.

I don't necessarily mind expensive cards, but to me, their price has to be justified by the performance they give. At the moment, I'm looking at getting the absolutely cheapest 7950s I can find and putting waterblocks on them when I build my new computer at the end of the year.

Absolute cheapest may change depending on what sort of warranty is offered however.
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I'm usually the exact same. Difference this time was as I was sending a card back at the same worth (roughly) then it didn't seem like I paid anything extra. Your 7950 crossfire sounds nice, we'll have a head to head so you can prove all the extra money I wasted was pointless :D.
 
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spoffle said:
Hmm, no not really. A volt mod is a hardware modification to increase the voltage.

On modern cards, it's voltage adjustment, since they use digital voltage controllers. The reason you can't do it on a 690 is because it's been locked out by nVidia.

I don't really believe a 690 is a "premium" product, it's certainly very expensive but I don't believe expense = premium. Additionally, they're asking £900 for a graphics card, of course they're going to cover it in nice materials and make it look as expensive as they possibly can, it's part of the perception associated with high prices.

As for the premium features, what like? I'd have thought out and out performance is considered the most important "feature" of a graphics card, no?

The reason why overclocking a 7950 is being spoke about so much is because AMD, for some ridiculous reason, has set the default clock speeds quite a bit below what the chips are really capable of.

Additionally, there are cars that offer all round far better performance than a Bentley for a fraction of the cost, which undermines the example really.
Click to expand...
you are also mod(ifying) the volt(age). which can damage the card if you are not careful. but it is a volt mod. literally.

well im not up for arguing, im happy with my 690. if you cant justify spending that money get get something cheaper. nothing wrong with that.

but read some 690 reviews, its a premium product, not just in performance
 
J.D said:
I nearly grabbed the 7970 Lightning. What stopped me was single link DVI but pgi947 said it can be forced or hacked which I read today, the day my non lightning-ated 7970 is arriving. Gutted :(.
Click to expand...

I still can't get my head around why anyone at AMD thought it was a great idea to equip their latest cards with a single dual link DVI port. It's ridiculous considering how they've been trying to push multiple monitors.





I'm usually the exact same. Difference this time was as I was sending a card back at the same worth (roughly) then it didn't seem like I paid anything extra. Your 7959 crossfire sounds nice, we'll have a head to head so you can prove all the extra money I wasted was pointless :D.
Click to expand...

How things seem can make a big difference, regardless of how it really is. :p

Yeah, I'm just all about the price to performance, I say that, but then I'm getting a 3930K, which I'm pretty sure isn't that great on the price/performance scale, though I can and definitely will make use of the extra cores.

I'm looking forward to having something that can drive 3x 2560x1440 displays, I tried to play Alan Wake on a single 6950 and it didn't work out so well. :p

Strangely, most of my other games work decently.
 
spoffle said:
I still can't get my head around why anyone at AMD thought it was a great idea to equip their latest cards with a single dual link DVI port. It's ridiculous considering how they've been trying to push multiple monitors.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I was all set on buying it until I read that as I might try 3D. £450 odd for the Samsung monitor seems a bit steep compared to the monitors you can get for Nvidia 3D.





spoffle said:
How things seem can make a big difference, regardless of how it really is. :p

Yeah, I'm just all about the price to performance, I say that, but then I'm getting a 3930K, which I'm pretty sure isn't that great on the price/performance scale, though I can and definitely will make use of the extra cores.

I'm looking forward to having something that can drive 3x 2560x1440 displays, I tried to play Alan Wake on a single 6950 and it didn't work out so well. :p

Strangely, most of my other games work decently.
Click to expand...

HYPOCRITE :D. But yeah we can't help forking out for something that appeals to us regardless of the price/performance. Mine will be the GPU alongside a 3570/3770 and you'll be the opposite, more expensive CPU with your 7950s.

I'm using a 6950 now (flashed). No wonder it failed at that resolution lol. I've not played BF3 since using the 6950 again due to how good the game ran with the GTX 670. I'm quite surprised that your getting decent performances from the card in other titles though.

Maybe the OP's will be a Lightning 680 or a GTX 690. As long as we are happy, all that matters.
 
To be fair, while we wait for the OP to post again, there's not so much to be on track for, as everything has been discussed pending his further input.
 
J.D said:
Yeah. I was all set on buying it until I read that as I might try 3D. £450 odd for the Samsung monitor seems a bit steep compared to the monitors you can get for Nvidia 3D.







HYPOCRITE :D. But yeah we can't help forking out for something that appeals to us regardless of the price/performance. Mine will be the GPU alongside a 3570/3770 and you'll be the opposite, more expensive CPU with your 7950s.

I'm using a 6950 now (flashed). No wonder it failed at that resolution lol. I've not played BF3 since using the 6950 again due to how good the game ran with the GTX 670. I'm quite surprised that your getting decent performances from the card in other titles though.

Maybe the OP's will be a Lightning 680 or a GTX 690. As long as we are happy, all that matters.
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The 3930K will be used for rendering and graphics work really, so I can somewhat justify it in that regard, that, and I expect (hope) to keep it for as long as I've kept my current Q6600, which is about 5 years now?

To be fair, I don't play BF3 or anything like that. The games I've played at this res (which is about 8000x1440 with bezel compensation) are the likes of Killing Floor, Fallout New Vegas, Black Mesa Source, Dirt 2/3, Portal 2, Need for Speed Shift, Skyrim, Alice: Madness Returns, and a few others I can't remember, and it's only Alan Wake that has ran like crap, everything else has been more than playable.

I haven't checked framerates, so I have no idea what the FPS was in them but then I've not had to check as they were playing fine.
 
spoffle said:
I'm not really getting what you're trying to say.

As for my "circlejerk" comment, it was meant in this way:



I'm not really sure where "go off on one" has happened.
Click to expand...


What I'm trying to say is-

You are someone who obviously has the know how to
help and advise others.

but for some reason your posts come across confrontational,
not having a dig but you could tone it down.
 
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