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** SINGLE GTX 580 3GB VS SINGLE 7970 3GB REVIEW BY OcUK **
- Thread starter Gibbo
- Start date
Hi there
For those interested, with Tri-Fire with this Xeon rig, maximum power draw at the socket has been 800W whilst the cards have been running Heaven and it typically sits around 700W under load, dropping to circa 150-200W at idle.
I was resisting the temptation to post but that is very impressive.
Edit: You have probably all seen it, here is the info on what 4 of these cards @ 1.6/1.9GHZ can do
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?278155-Quad-Seventy-Nine-Seventy
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How do both cards run with tessellation set to min and max values? It will be interesting to see how well both cards scale as demands increase.902 / 4355
Any higher visual anomalies were present and they were rather hot.
In synthetic benchmarks such as heaven and 3D Mark ATI are now flying now can see what the cards can really clock too. I mean 7800MHz memory is mental and I think 8000+ is even possible, just too scared to dare go that high.
But 50% faster in Heaven at 2560x1600 is impressive, shows the cards have truly impressive raw power and crossfire now works a treat.
Associate
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I find it very strange that AMD would release a card that has such incredible headroom (925Mhz stock ---> 1225Mhz the "sweet" spot = an extra ***300Mhz***) to overclock, whilst keeping their stock clocks so (relatively) low. Before they brought this card to market they would have known what the comparative performance was to Fermi, and just how much people would look at this, their new generation of card and say meh when comparing it to old top end last gen Nvidia cards. I'm talking about current game performance - Heaven benchmarks etc are all very nice, but it appears in most current gen games AMD only has a marginal lead, and in some it's actually slower than GTX 580 (I'm thinking BF3 - only the largest title of the year, right?)
Question is - if these cards have such wonderful overclocking headroom, why not release them with better stock clocks and actually resoundingly clobber GTX580 straight out of the gate, which in turn would have everyone clamouring for them? (Those that actually have real world gaming uses for them, instead of synthetic benches). I mean, as a GTX 580 user I would have bought 2 of these on Jan 9 straight up but BF3 performance was left wanting - and yet Gibbo's benches have reignited my interest a little... any chance you can run the same BF3 benches you did previously with the OC cards Gibbo?
Question is - if these cards have such wonderful overclocking headroom, why not release them with better stock clocks and actually resoundingly clobber GTX580 straight out of the gate, which in turn would have everyone clamouring for them? (Those that actually have real world gaming uses for them, instead of synthetic benches). I mean, as a GTX 580 user I would have bought 2 of these on Jan 9 straight up but BF3 performance was left wanting - and yet Gibbo's benches have reignited my interest a little... any chance you can run the same BF3 benches you did previously with the OC cards Gibbo?
Soldato
902 / 4355
Any higher visual anomalies were present and they were rather hot.
In synthetic benchmarks such as heaven and 3D Mark ATI are now flying now can see what the cards can really clock too. I mean 7800MHz memory is mental and I think 8000+ is even possible, just too scared to dare go that high.
But 50% faster in Heaven at 2560x1600 is impressive, shows the cards have truly impressive raw power and crossfire now works a treat.
Being fast in benchmarks is all well and good but its doesn't transfer that power into games as well.
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Yes I don't play benchmarks... Would rather see games being tested to be honest. Also with such benchmarks AMD and Nvidia always put some driver optimising to make these benchmarks sing and dance but real world is in gaming not benchmarks.
you call 25% lead a marginal lead?
what would you call a 10% 580 vs 6970 then?
add overclocking and the result just widens and grows.
Not sure how people reason but I take note that what people expect and what is happening dosnt match.
7970 crushes the 580 series.
add overclocking it goes head to head with a 6990 or have a marginal lead..
using crossfire this is even further pain for nvidia.
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you call 25% lead a marginal lead?
what would you call a 10% 580 vs 6970 then?
add overclocking and the result just widens and grows.
Not sure how people reason but I take note that what people expect and what is happening dosnt match.
7970 crushes the 580 series.
add overclocking it goes head to head with a 6990 or have a marginal lead..
using crossfire this is even further pain for nvidia.
That review is cherry-picked as has been mentioned multiple times. Fact of the matter is that in certain games 7970 is *up to* 30% faster, however in some games it has a very marginal lead - as evidenced by Anandtech (and OCUK's very own review) of how it performs in BF3 - a real world test if ever there was one.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/22
Kind of following on from what you said, why the hell did ATI not drop the core voltage ? with the margins in hand they could have it running at 1ghz and 70% of the temps
Unless most of the cores need this voltage....If that proves to be true I think it a bit naughty
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Taking up the point about real-world gaming.
The Guru3D chart for metro 2033 illustrates what these cards can do in 2-way cross-fire at stock:
Perfectly valid, but who actually still plays Metro 2033? Isn't it more relevant as a benchmark these days?
Soldato
What settings is that Metro benchmark taken at?
How do we know, have any reviews posted gaming results yet at speeds of 1225MHz and 7800MHz?
I suspect gaming at 2560x1600 with one of these at such speeds is going to be very very impressive, the amount of memory bandwidth on offer is simply unreal and I suspect it will translate into gaming performance.
I mean come on if Quake 3 which is now seeing 900fps with one card at those speeds can see a gain from the overclocks, I am sure 10yr newer more modern games will see even greater gains.
I like both NV & ATI, but if I was buying a new high-end card now, ATI is the clear victor at this high-end price point.
If I already had a 3GB GTX 580 then I'd keep that.
If I had a 30" Monitor or Eye-Infity setup and was on a 1.5GB GTX 580 or 6970 then yes I'd upgrade as the new card will give a decent gain even at stock speeds and upto a further a 20% additional performance can be gained by overclocking.
What ATI have here is a card which performs well at stock, but its real secret is its overclocking ability, I've never known a card like it.
In perfecentage terms were talking:-
Core 925MHz upto 1225MHz (300MHz increase / 32% increase)
Memory 5500MHz upto 7800MHz (3300MHz increase / 42% increase)
Thats 37% boost clock speeds wise from overclocking, that is simply amazing and with custom PCB's from board partners, better coolers and more mature drivers the 7970 is and I repeat going to be a great card.
how many play metro , how many play bf3 
this is the game that matter for the new cards . nothing else. nothing else on horizon. it is the test games wise.
if you game at 1080p or under no point with this card as cards half the price can match upto that res or 95 percent for 50 percent of cost.
if you over 1080p then yeah good option. still priced to high or will be on release. should be around 350 max. theyll probably be 500 on release day
this is the game that matter for the new cards . nothing else. nothing else on horizon. it is the test games wise.if you game at 1080p or under no point with this card as cards half the price can match upto that res or 95 percent for 50 percent of cost.
if you over 1080p then yeah good option. still priced to high or will be on release. should be around 350 max. theyll probably be 500 on release day
Taking up the point about real-world gaming.
The Guru3D chart for metro 2033 illustrates what these cards can do in 2-way cross-fire at stock:
They are at stock speeds.
From my testing we can clearly see that overclocking these cards to circa 1200/7600 will give a good additional 25-30% onto those scores.
No other cards currently available have to the same overclocking ability as these cards do.
I myself am a little confused as to why ATI launched at the clock speeds they have.
From my testing I would say ATI could have very happily realised cards at 1100MHz and 6800MHz without issue.
However manufacturers test under far stricter conditions, for essence these cards would have had to pass torture testing in say a 50c hot lab room and remain stable with zero airflow.
The board partners don't have the same restrictions, they will upgrade PCB components, cooler and there testing will be far more relaxed, no doubt done just ambient 25c conditions with reasonable airflow.
ATI as a manufacturer have far far stricter testing methods to ensure their product is suitable for all including military, government, CAD applications etc.
Board partners when they make cards will test in just gaming environments and this is when we shall see stock cards at far far higher frequencies, even already there is rumour Sapphire will have a 1325MHz card in the form of a Toxic.
For those interested, the techreport.com review is up and they do their runs at 2560x1600.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22192/11
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22192/11
I agree with all the points in this paragraph apart from this one. Every review I have read, Anandtech, Hardwarecanucks, Techradar and HardOCP show the HD 7970 beating the GTX 580 at all resolutions over 1920x1080. HardOCP show it beating an overclocked GTX 580 by 20% at eyefinity resolutions in BF3. As the resolution increases, so does the performance delta. If you think 20% is only marginal then why did you purchase GTX 580s over the GTX 570 or HD 6970? The GTX 580 was only 15% faster than both but was 40-50% more expensive. Obviously you felt it was a worthy purchase, why isn't the HD 7970 worth it for the same reasons?
I am not sure what reviews you have read that show it being slower than a GTX 580 in BF3.
I agree, it really does boggle the mind. The only logical reason I can think of is that AMD are deliberately holding them back for a refresh after they see what Kepler can do. Right now they have the single GPU crown by around 20-25% and they know this is enough. To be honest it will be enough to get people buying the HD 7970 depsite the MSRP, especially as you stated, they overclock so well.
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