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Urgent advice

Out of the two, I'd buy the 670 because :

* I wouldn't be reliant on sli
* lower power draw
* better minimum / average frame rates
* smoother gaming experience
* greater vram for demanding titles or heavy duty mods

However, price / circumstance would also be important factors as well.

Have you considered a 7950?
 
Costs are similar, but then differ when considering electricity drawn. The 590 is PCIe 2.0 and quad SLI wouldn't scale as well as a PCIe 3.0 SLI setup, however i doubt it is a great if even relevant issue when contemplating the actual game experience that current DX11 titles can be.

As for AMD cards, what i know is their GCN pipes are effectively smarter by being more versatile, though this doesn't equate to better or even equal qualitative performance in graphic realism since it lacks the communal support Nvidia cards have. So less real depth of field, Tridef certified titles are fewer and problems are associated, i make these comments loosely as i have no real experience of such.

Sounds like you think the dual GPGPU, the 590 might not live up to its 'real' potential. At AnandTech it has high frame rates associated with it greater than the 670, though not overclocked, I'd imagine the MSI 670 could be greatly overclocked. I'm told the 590 is terrible for overclocking. So i'm starting to waver in favor of a 670.

Ivy-B 3770k @4.8Ghz
TE DDR3 2.4GHz x2 8Gb cas9
Z77GBUD5H
 
petapacket said:
As for AMD cards, what i know is their GCN pipes are effectively smarter by being more versatile, though this doesn't equate to better or even equal qualitative performance in graphic realism since it lacks the communal support Nvidia cards have. So less real depth of field, Tridef certified titles are fewer and problems are associated, i make these comments loosely as i have no real experience of such.
Click to expand...

EH?
 
Out of those two the 670 is the better option, yes the 590 will perform slightly better in certain titles, but power draw is massive on those cards, and Sli might not always play nice.

Smart money is a 7950 though.
 
petapacket said:
I'd imagine the MSI 670 could be greatly overclocked.
Click to expand...

Msi 670 can't clock for **** the power edition which is the only one worth consideration, is clocked to 1228 out of the box and won't go higher.

I'd also recommend you don't buy a stock 670 the cooler fan wine's like a bitch. due to resonance.
 
Yes i was thinking Power/Lightning editions, 1228Mhz is very fast core. The 7950 is technically very impressive and dirt cheap, I'm just not convinced that the logical side can compete with Nvidia resulting in a poorer 3D and 2D graphics caliber when looking for realism.
 
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There's really no need to buy a stock 670. There are far too many cards out there with custom coolers on to even bother. Unless of course you are looking at the bargain bin Palit card that sells for around £270 then it's not worthwhile.

Mine was £308 (Palit Jetstream) and other than the stupid triple slot cooler it's really quiet and fast.

Hard one this - RE - 590. They're immensely fast cards but do come with caveats. The lack of vram rules them out for triple screen gaming and they are overkill for 1080p. Noise isn't that bad IMO (they use the same fan and cooler as the 295s I had and noise was never an issue) but they are dated technology now (Fermi) and a 670 can provide the same sort of performance using half the power.
 
Well the choice as they say is yours.

I have a 660ti but only as I have a 3d vision monitor and at 120hz the AMD card can flicker when in desktop clock due to the memory clock changing dynamically other wise a 7950 would be sitting in my rig.

But either card would be a great choice. 7950 / 670 that is.
 
BTW.

I gamed in 3D an awful lot with my GTX 670 over a broad range of titles and the only one that needed settings lowered was LA Noire which is a terrible console mish-mash any way.

I would strongly imagine that running BF3 in 3D would eat up more than the vram the 590 has on tap. It eats that much (1.5gb) any way in 2D with the settings on ultra. Higher vram usage will lead to texture streaming from your hard drive which creates terrible input lag.

I say 670, add another one at your leisure would be the more sensible option.
 
ALXAndy said:
BTW.

I gamed in 3D an awful lot with my GTX 670 over a broad range of titles and the only one that needed settings lowered was LA Noire which is a terrible console mish-mash any way.

I would strongly imagine that running BF3 in 3D would eat up more than the vram the 590 has on tap. It eats that much (1.5gb) any way in 2D with the settings on ultra. Higher vram usage will lead to texture streaming from your hard drive which creates terrible input lag.

I say 670, add another one at your leisure would be the more sensible option.
Click to expand...

I have only heard good reviews on the 3DVision technology whereas the generic setup provided by AMD for a plethora of monitors and TVs isn't spoken of highly in it's current state. Hard choices, i don't yet own a 3DVision monitor.
 
What resolution is the op's monitor.

Nvidia is the better 3D solution.

If it's higher than 1080p, and a 670 isnt enough and they want to go sli, the 2Gb vram might became an issue.

Meaning that it might be wiser to get a card with more than 2Gb of ram which will be expensive.
 
petapacket said:
I have only heard good reviews on the 3DVision technology whereas the generic setup provided by AMD for a plethora of monitors and TVs isn't spoken of highly in it's current state. Hard choices, i don't yet own a 3DVision monitor.
Click to expand...

Tridef is pretty dire tbh. I got 14 FPS average out of Crysis (1) on full settings using an overclocked 7970. 3Dvision is far more mature and it shows. All I had to do was install a EDID over ride on my PC for my passive monitor (LG) and I was away. No more silly front end, no more bugs and far more compatible than Tridef.

Personally I can't use active 3D as the flicker causes me headaches so I went with a LG passive monitor which was nice and cheap (£130 or so with two pairs of glasses).

You'll also get more frames using passive as it's far easier on the GPU and vram over the 120hz active method. 3D isn't as strong though but provides more than enough splendor for the eyes :)

I mean really, if you're even thinking about 3D stay well away from AMD. Nvidia have (foolishly IMO) invested a lot of time and money into 3D and it shows. AMD have simply palmed the job off onto a company who can't even get BF3 working using their methods.

3Dvision is all tucked nicely into the drivers, and it's as simple as CTRL - T to get it running or to disable it.
 
Early on i decided i want a 4GB 670 as the 570 1.28GB wasn't enough, that said my 570 is overclocked to 900 / 2200 with +125mV it gets good rates with some dips for almost all 2D gaming.
 
2gb is enough.... For now. Sadly Nvidia (unlike AMD) use very expensive vram so the 4gb cards are horrifically priced :(

It's a tough one that's for sure. The vram on the AMD cards is far more alluring but then you are at the mercy of their drivers and tridef :(

I guess if you can afford the 4gb model then go for it. That, IMO, rules out the 590 completely as it only has 1.5gb which is on the precipice of being turned into a white elephant like my 295s.

Honestly, even quad SLI fully supported could not rescue it from being crippled by the lack of vram :(

I guess the next big test for GPUs will be GTA5. Depending on how that is coded (if it's like GTAIV then god help us !) it could be the next big test for modern GPUs.

Far Cry 3 runs perfectly smoothly on my 670 and I only see dips into the high 40s when it's got a lot going on.
 
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