Radeon 7970 3GB vs. GTX 680 4GB vs. GTX 680 2GB for 1440p

[SlowSpyder]

Originally Posted by SolMiester

4Gb GTX680...

This recommendation is based on what? The 7970GE is both faster and cheaper than the Nvidia options. Faster. Cheaper. I'm not sure how the Nvidia options can be recommended here, really.

[bigboxes]

Originally Posted by AdamK47

Right, most of them aren't very valuable. Besides, that's over a 13 year span.

That value of your posts is debatable, but unless you postwhore in OT then you have a lot to say.

[homercles337]

Originally Posted by VitaX

Main question is, do I switch over to the red team or stay on the green?

The last ATI/AMD card i owned was a 4890 (IIRC), its what i chose to use for a fresh build. I ran that card for a while then the GTX 460 came out, so i upgraded. The process of getting rid of all that AMD shit that was installed was amazingly painful. So much so that i had to format and do a fresh OS install. I will never use AMD again until they get their shit sorted out their software.

[The Alias]

Originally Posted by homercles337

The last ATI/AMD card i owned was a 4890 (IIRC), its what i chose to use for a fresh build. I ran that card for a while then the GTX 460 came out, so i upgraded. The process of getting rid of all that AMD shit that was installed was amazingly painful. So much so that i had to format and do a fresh OS install. I will never use AMD again until they get their shit sorted out their software.

I uninstalled amd drivers earlier this summer for nvidia via their uninstall software then went behind them manually to check for things they may have left behind and I found nothing except a couple empty folders . Nvidia on the other hand was a nightmare

[peonyu]

Originally Posted by homercles337

The last ATI/AMD card i owned was a 4890 (IIRC), its what i chose to use for a fresh build. I ran that card for a while then the GTX 460 came out, so i upgraded. The process of getting rid of all that AMD shit that was installed was amazingly painful. So much so that i had to format and do a fresh OS install. I will never use AMD again until they get their shit sorted out their software.

Your the exception, most people have no trouble uninstalling all of the software from amd or nvidia. And AMD doesn't install spyware so idk why had so much trouble...AMD and Nvidia both bring somewhat bloated control panels but its not hard to uninstall.

[RussianSensation]

Originally Posted by homercles337

The last ATI/AMD card i owned was a 4890 (IIRC), its what i chose to use for a fresh build. I ran that card for a while then the GTX 460 came out, so i upgraded. The process of getting rid of all that AMD shit that was installed was amazingly painful. So much so that i had to format and do a fresh OS install. I will never use AMD again until they get their shit sorted out their software.

I never had to reinstall the OS to uninstall AMD drivers on 4890/6950 or 7970. I don't know what you were doing. As of the last 12 months at least, uninstalling AMD drivers is very easy.

Just go to CAMD\Support --> Click on the AMD Driver folder --> Setup --> Next --> Uninstall. Follow all the steps, restart the computer. Download the new driver from AMD.com, install, restart the computer. Done.

--------------
VitaX, among those choices and that resolution, HD7970 Vapor-X is the cheapest, the fastest and will scale the most with overclocking. It would get my vote hands down. However, depending on what games the OP plays, if they are not too GPU demanding, one can get a $280 HD7950, overclock that and then next year, if more performance is necessary, sell that card and upgrade to something faster, or even stretch it to 20nm in 2014. Really for modern games I would imagine at that resolution you'd want 2x 7950/7970/670/680 cards. But if the choice is among those 3 cards, the Vapor-X 7970 Ghz. Personally I would hesitate to spend $400+ on any of the current generation cards simply because Tahiti has been out on the market for 12 months now. I don't really like the idea of spending $400+ on a 1 year old GPU as it's going to end up with a similar case as buying a $400+ GTX580 near the end of its life. The cooler on the Vapor-X and the 7970 Dual-X are fairly comparable in terms of their heat dissipation. If I had to buy a 7970 now, I'd just get the $360 1Ghz Sapphire Dual-X. I just don't see how the Vapor-X is worth $60+ more.

[VitaX]

Originally Posted by RussianSensation

I never had to reinstall the OS to uninstall AMD drivers on 4890/6950 or 7970. I don't know what you were doing. As of the last 12 months at least, uninstalling AMD drivers is very easy.

Just go to CAMD\Support --> Click on the AMD Driver folder --> Setup --> Next --> Uninstall. Follow all the steps, restart the computer. Download the new driver from AMD.com, install, restart the computer. Done.

--------------
VitaX, among those choices and that resolution, HD7970 Vapor-X is the cheapest, the fastest and will scale the most with overclocking. It would get my vote hands down. However, depending on what games the OP plays, if they are not too GPU demanding, one can get a $280 HD7950, overclock that and then next year, if more performance is necessary, sell that card and upgrade to something faster, or even stretch it to 20nm in 2014. Really for modern games I would imagine at that resolution you'd want 2x 7950/7970/670/680 cards. But if the choice is among those 3 cards, the Vapor-X 7970 Ghz. Personally I would hesitate to spend $400+ on any of the current generation cards simply because Tahiti has been out on the market for 12 months now. I don't really like the idea of spending $400+ on a 1 year old GPU as it's going to end up with a similar case as buying a $400+ GTX580 near the end of its life. The cooler on the Vapor-X and the 7970 Dual-X are fairly comparable in terms of their heat dissipation. If I had to buy a 7970 now, I'd just get the $360 1Ghz Sapphire Dual-X. I just don't see how the Vapor-X is worth $60+ more.

That's what I was thinking as well. That if I were to go with AMD, I'd pick the Sapphire 7070 Dual-X like you suggested. Even though the poll is clearly one sided, I still feel like I'm somewhat partial towards Nvidia. That a bad thing?

[cmdrdredd]

Originally Posted by ShadowOfMyself

Lol, amazing the arguments people come up with to justify their bias

Since when does anyone measure cards by how much "slower" they are?
What a lame attempt at trying to make Nvidia look better... I look forward to seeing the same kind of math when the situation is reversed

You need to realize something. People said 15% over and over. 15% is not that much fps difference. When you post benchmarks where both are below 60fps I say they both suck. 70% of the performance is not that terrible. You want it to fit your agenda which is why you and others just point to fps numbers. None of you want to talk about microstutter and jump in every thread about it downplaying it until you are blue in the face. Your(not you personally) hipocracy is well known.


I never once claimed that the and cards were slower. I have recommended them for single card solutions all the time. I am just trying to illustrate that the performance difference is not as big as everyone makes it.

[VitaX]

RussianSensation, I have a question for you, or any AMD video card user for that matter. Are there any issues with coil whine on your cards? I was reading this thread and just wondered if it was apparent on all 'high end' cards like they say.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1259672/7...-fix-it-solved

[chimaxi83]

Originally Posted by VitaX

RussianSensation, I have a question for you, or any AMD video card user for that matter. Are there any issues with coil whine on your cards? I was reading this thread and just wondered if it was apparent on all 'high end' cards like they say.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1259672/7...-fix-it-solved

I had coil whine on a Sapphire Dual X 7970 I had. It was pretty atrocious lol. Returned that card. All of the other 7970s I've had, no issues.

[RussianSensation]

Originally Posted by VitaX

RussianSensation, I have a question for you, or any AMD video card user for that matter. Are there any issues with coil whine on your cards? I was reading this thread and just wondered if it was apparent on all 'high end' cards like they say.

You don't have to worry about this with the Vapor-X since it comes with Black Diamond "solid" core chokes from the $700 Sapphire TOXIC 6GB card. I've only heard of 1 person having coil whine with this card but I am still not positive it was the card, rather than the PSU in that particular case. The 2 GTX680 cards you linked have inferior chokes in terms of quality if it's anything to go by. GTX680 is not immune to coil whine either.



The 2 GTX680 cards you had lined up were $470 and $530. If you don't care about "value" of HD7950 Dual-X for $280 or saving some $ getting a 1Ghz Sapphire 7970 boost for $360 or getting a reference $390 GTX680 and just want the best, and you are OK with spending $500+ on a 12 months old tech knowing that GTX700/HD8000 are most likely launching within the next 5-6 months, and you only want a single GPU, just get the absolute best this round -- Asus HD7970 Matrix Platinum. It will beat a GTX680 at 2560x1440/1600 by more than 15%. That card has cream of the crop PCB components, the best cooler on any GTX680/7970 card, and the highest overclocking capabilities on air out of any 7970 card.






Source

The Asus Matrix Platinum 7970 should overclock to 1275-1300mhz on air.

Matrix HD 7970 Hands-On Overview
- Best components out of any GPU this generation
- Best overclocking on air out of any 7970
- Bonus: 7970 Matrix Platinum is warrantied to the maximum software voltage control in Asus GPU Tweak, which I believe is nearly 1.4V. In other words, you are 100% safe pushing this to the absolute max, but chances are 1.30-1.35V is going to be the sweet spot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNCf3ELlxY0

Like I said I wouldn't advise you to get a $470-500 GPU at this time but if you are already considering a GTX680 for $470+, at your resolution even a 1300mhz 680 will get beaten by a 1275mhz+ Matrix Platinum. Component quality, stock performance or overclocking on air, there is nothing NV makes this round that can beat the HD7970 Platinum Matrix at your resolution.

[VitaX]

Well to be honest, if I were to get an AMD card, it would most likely be the Sapphire Radeon 7970 Dual-X as opposed to the Vapor-X at this point in time. You've convinced me not to waste the money on the Vapor-X. Plus the card itself looks hideous compared to the Dual-X

But, just to be sure, you don't have any issues with your Dual-X right?

[Will Robinson]

Great post as usual Russian.

[RussianSensation]

I have slight coil whine but most of the time it's only annoying when at a loading screen. Otherwise, I can't hear it over the sound/music of the game. My brown PCB card is a reference HD7970 card with an extra VRM. The blue PCB Boost 7970 on Newegg you are looking to buy is actually a custom PCB by Sapphire and the chokes are a different variety.

Old Sapphire Dual-X, based on the reference AMD PCB, hence the AMD symbol near the PCIe slot


New Sapphire Dual-X Boost


Even though my 7970 coil whines, these cards have completely different PCBs and chokes. You can even see that my card has 7 chokes and the blue version has 8. Not sure how much you can infer in terms of coil whine by comparing these two versions. It is true that there many cases of coil wine on the Dual-X, especially my brown PCB version. It's always a possibility on the blue pcb version as well since it uses non-premium solid core chokes.

Not sure why you find the Vapor-X hideous since they look nearly the same upside down in a case

For your resolution, chances are you'll likely want an upgrade in 2013-2014 anyway as games get even more GPU intensive. Save your $ now by getting a $360 HD7970 1Ghz and later use the savings towards a way faster card that will give you 50-75% more performance. Alternatively, if you want to stick with NV, you can pick up a GTX670 for $305 and then once they drop in value, grab a 2nd one for $150 or so. I think any of these are better choices than spending $470+ on a GTX680.

Originally Posted by Will Robinson

Great post as usual Russian.

Thanks!

[VitaX]

Well you convinced me. I just purchased the Sapphire Radeon 7970 Dual-X from Newegg for $380. Hopefully I won't be disappointed

[cmdrdredd]

Originally Posted by VitaX

Well you convinced me. I just purchased the Sapphire Radeon 7970 Dual-X from Newegg for $380. Hopefully I won't be disappointed

You'll enjoy it. Might be more than you need but you will have the power for new titles.

[Lepton87]

Originally Posted by RussianSensation

The Asus Matrix Platinum 7970 should overclock to 1275-1300mhz on air.

.

Never count on any given OC unless you can buy a pre-selected part. There are many lemons.
For example my CPU runs over 60C at stock with Noctua NH D14

[homercles337]

Originally Posted by peonyu

Your the exception, most people have no trouble uninstalling all of the software from amd or nvidia. And AMD doesn't install spyware so idk why had so much trouble...AMD and Nvidia both bring somewhat bloated control panels but its not hard to uninstall.

No, no i am not. Simply google for "uninstall amd drivers windows 7" and you will see this is a VERY common problem, with a complicated solution (i probably went a little overboard with the format). Given the other replies here, it is clear there is some AMD fanboism coupled with the fact that people are clearly not doing complete/clean uninstalls. It has also been a while since i let AMD get their claws into my rig, but i remember there being a ton of other useless "applications" being installed with Catalyst.

[3DVagabond]

Originally Posted by homercles337

No, no i am not. Simply google for "uninstall amd drivers windows 7" and you will see this is a VERY common problem, with a complicated solution (i probably went a little overboard with the format). Given the other replies here, it is clear there is some AMD fanboism coupled with the fact that people are clearly not doing complete/clean uninstalls. It has also been a while since i let AMD get their claws into my rig, but i remember there being a ton of other useless "applications" being installed with Catalyst.

You are right! You get 6M hits for it. Some people have a hard time buying the correct size shoes. Google it, you'll get 400M hits. That means it's ~70X as hard to buy the right size shoes, if you want to use Google hits as any kind of reference.

[Will Robinson]

LOL..great analogy Vagabondy

ps...the poll results are pretty merciless

[RussianSensation]

Originally Posted by homercles337

No, no i am not. Simply google for "uninstall amd drivers windows 7" and you will see this is a VERY common problem, with a complicated solution (i probably went a little overboard with the format).

It doesn't take effort to find many issues for either brand via Google. That doesn't mean they can't be solved/addressed to some extent.

There are many so called small/common problems for both NV and AMD and most of those can be resolved by understanding what you need to do, like asking someone how to uninstall AMD drivers. NV cards have problems of their own. Out of the box NV cards provide borked RGB range and the only way to get proper color accuracy and contrast ratio via HDMI with NV cards is to set YCbCr in the Control Panel or perform more complicated "not so average" fixes:

Run the driver installation file to the point where the file contents are extracted. Then cancel the rest of the installation.
Go to the folder where the files contents were extracted to.
Search for the file nv_disp.inf and open it.
Search for the section [nv_miscBase_addreg__01]
Under this section add the registry value:
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1
Repeat this step for [nv_miscBase_addreg__02] and [nv_miscBase_addreg__03] and so on until all [nv_miscBase_addreg__xx" have the above registry value.
Save this .inf with the changes.
Run the setup.exe file in this folder to install the driver with the modified .inf. Each time you reload a driver, you will need to repeat this process.
Also, the registry key above only address Vista and Windows 7 drivers.
<<Officially, Nvidia's drivers do not support both 0-255 range and audio over HDMI if the driver thinks your monitor is an HDTV>>
https://forums.geforce.com/default/t...levels-0-255-/

The same type of person who doesn't know how to do a simple uninstall of AMD drivers is likely to be the same type of person who will have terrible colors and poor contrast ratio on their HDTVs/PC monitors when gaming with NV cards through HDMI because they don't want to take the time to learn the quirks of each brand.

So what you are saying is the average person either has to buy a "broken" AMD card because they don't know how to uninstall drivers or a "broken" NV card that color bleeds and processes incorrect colors via HDMI without calibration. I guess I am gaming on Haswell's GT2 next generation then :

NV out of the box HDMI to HDTV


AMD using the same cable, same HDTV


Ever noticed the washed out blacks that look grey on PS3 and poor colors compared to the 360? That's because NV's color calibration is broken out of the box with HDMI connection but it can be fixed on the PC. Because we have PCs, we have some degree of control and ability to try to fix the issues that may crop up with NV or AMD cards. That's why we have forums like ours so we can help each other out to get the most out of hardware!

[RussianSensation]

Originally Posted by Will Robinson

LOL..great analogy Vagabondy

ps...the poll results are pretty merciless

Shouldn't be surprising. Even a 680 Zotac AMP! with 1176mhz clock out of the box still trails a 1050mhz HD7970 by 15% at high resolution, and that's tested without the new Catalyst 12.11 drivers too:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...it-i7-3970x/5/