7970 GHz edition incoming!

[Olikan]

Anandtech, HardOCP, Guru3D etc all review overclocked cards at times too. They compare those to the stock reference cards and give you an idea of how much faster it is. They don't ever go back and say "due to this card's overclock it makes card brand X the fastest". It doesn't happen.

...its funny to read at anandtech..."the 7970 is screaming to be overclocked"

than at kepler review, no OC vs OC :\

 

[skipsneeky2]

After all it did come out 4 months later too Its not like its marginally better either.

Got my card as a early birthday gift about 3 weeks ago,got it running stock voltage at 1125/1575,it still blows me away and this is the first amd card to wow me into wanting one after being a nvidia guy for 6 years.

Can't really see myself upgrading or replacing this thing until BF5 comes out,or a card with half the tdp comes out,whichever comes first.

 

[OCGuy]

Plenty of GTX 680s on ebay! I would go for it!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=evga+gtx680&_sacat=0&_odkw=gtx++680+evga&_osacat=0&_from=R40

Can get one from Dell right now for $529 (Probably $499 once PNY rebate hits there like it did the Egg), and they are off and on with availability at other stores, just like my card was 3 weeks ago when I bought it.

Demand is high, supply is tight.

 

[NIGELG]

Let me put it to you this way. Overclocked cards do not count. Period, the end.

GTX 680 is overclocked by it's boost feature....or am I missing something.

 

[Lepton87]

GTX 680 is overclocked by it's boost feature....or am I missing something.

It's the first card that has variable performance based on the luck of the draw out of the box so it has some similarities to overclocking cards but you can't really say that it's already overclocked it just uses almost all of its headroom out of the box while amd left more headroom untapped.

 

[Guovssohas]

When MSI releases a 680 lightning then you can compare it to the 7970 lightning, not a reference 680 imho. Ref vs. Ref the 680 is the faster card, uses less power and it's cheaper too, it wins hands down, no question. And there's no reason to bitch about clock speeds, they are what they are.

And i'm an AMD fan btw

 

[HurleyBird]

It's easy to understand, you compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges.

Nvidia and AMD release their GPUs on reference boards. Reviewers review these baseline boards and compare them. Those are apples.

Except they don't always. When the HD 6870 came practically every site compared it to a highly overclocked GTX 460. Anand didn't even have a stock clocked GTX 460 in their review of Barts.

The excuse was that GTX 460 was conservatively clocked to allow vendors to differentiate better, and that the card had been out a lot longer than Barts.

You can apply the exact same argument to Tahiti and GK104.

Now, I do actually think that you should compare stock to stock, but the fact that this rule only seems to be applied to one side of the equation quite frankly upsets me.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

There will be no performance crown swapping. If AMD can bump their clock rate, what's to stop nVidia from doing the same? I'm seeing 1150-1250Mhz overclocks for the 680, ie the same as what the 7970 does.

At the same clockrate the 680 is still faster overall.

 

[Lepton87]

I'm comparing the best vs the best I can see no fault with that. You treat it like a sport competition. Only stock vs stock otherwise it doesn't matter. OC vs OC otherwise it's not fair. It's not a COMPETITION, it's all abut actual products and not about the teams and fair play. Yet you treat those OC cards as runners on doping. BTW. I would really like to see a new category at the olympics. Open category all tricks permitted. Of course there would be many deaths amongst sportsmen so people would bash it as unhumanitarian.

 

[blastingcap]

The proper response is to lower prices, AMD. Quit clowning around with pre-OC 7970 cards that still can't beat the competition (a tie is not a victory), draw more power, and have a smaller feature set. You aren't fooling anyone.

7970 - $450
7950 - $350
7870 - $260
7850 - $225

Do it. Do it now!

 

[Olikan]

There will be no performance crown swapping. If AMD can bump their clock rate, what's to stop nVidia from doing the same? I'm seeing 1150-1250Mhz overclocks for the 680, ie the same as what the 7970 does.

At the same clockrate the 680 is still faster overall.

how can you be sure that the 680 is not overclocking it self?

anyway...yup, is going to be a ghz race of madness

 

[Rvenger]

The proper response is to lower prices, AMD. Quit clowning around with pre-OC 7970 cards that still can't beat the competition (a tie is not a victory), draw more power, and have a smaller feature set. You aren't fooling anyone.

7970 - $450
7950 - $350
7870 - $260
7850 - $225

Do it. Do it now!

I would so drop the 680 and CF 2 7870s. I really wish they would add the 680 to the bench tool on the main page.

 

[Lepton87]

There will be no performance crown swapping. If AMD can bump their clock rate, what's to stop nVidia from doing the same? I'm seeing 1150-1250Mhz overclocks for the 680, ie the same as what the 7970 does.

At the same clockrate the 680 is still faster overall.

The tests I saw show that at the same clocks 680 is faster at 1080 but 7970 is faster at 2560. But those differences were in the 5% range, definitely not perceptible so why should they matter so for all intents and purposes a tie.

 

[shaynoa]

really how many people care about how much power a card uses, i know i don't
all it is about is the performance of the card with the games you play with that card and nothing more,
so at the end of the day yes nv win today and mabye for a few weeks

but all amd have to do is put another 1gb of ram on there already 3gb 7970 oc
tweek it up a little and there goes the crown again to the red team

and really there has been no super overclocking done on the nv680 to really even think it will overclock any futher than the standard turbo built in
if it can't go past the builtin turbo overclock by a big margin then it will be a kick in the teeth for the green team

i don't really care which card wins, to me it's all about playing the game i like to play the best

shaynoa

 

[exdeath]

Gotta love the one guy there who bought 10x evgas from newegg for $5000 and is flipping them for $6500. Can't see those selling though. He should put them up as singles for $650.

I remember seeing some dude in line at a GameStop trying to return a bunch of new PS3s he bought up when they first came out. He only bought them to flip on Ebay but he couldn't sell them and tried to return them.

I LMAO IRL at him when they flat out said no returns.

 

[blackened23]

There will be no performance crown swapping. If AMD can bump their clock rate, what's to stop nVidia from doing the same? I'm seeing 1150-1250Mhz overclocks for the 680, ie the same as what the 7970 does.

At the same clockrate the 680 is still faster overall.

Its faster at stock but doesn't scale as well per mhz beyond stock. Clock speed means nothing without good scaling per mhz.

I've been testing them all day. Don't misinterpret this as a slight, I love the cards and they are awesome - VERY quiet at stock and quieter than 7970.

However when comparing Max OC and dual GPU, I think the 7970 is even or even wins in some games (all crysis games, metro 2033, witcher 2). So its not as black and white as you're suggesting, but I think we all agree that AMD needs to lower prices because all web comparisons are done at stock! However for someone with an OC'ed card, the 7970 wins in many cases because it scales much better per mhz past stock than the 680 does.

 

[MrK6]

I like how the NVIDIA fans already are getting their panties in a knot - "but that's not fair! Nvidia only had the faster reference card for a daaaaaaayyyy!" Progress is good only if it's green, right?

My guess is 28nm silicon is good enough that AMD can finally not be so conservative. And to those that say "oh, it'll have higher power consumption," it actually might not. I can up my clocks to 1125/1575MHz (CCC limits) and my load power consumption goes up a whole 10W. I'd like to see more competition. 1GHz+ 7970's for $500, make the GTX 680 a $450 part and the 7950 $400, etc. etc. However it probably won't happen, these new cards will be faster and proper for their $550 price point and you'll get a little more for your cash, typical. :sneaky:

 

[shaynoa]

the new nv 680 is selling in Australia for hold on ill check right now $669
why doesn't newegg deliver to Australia the gigabyte 7970 is selling for $659,,,,newegg is missing out on a lot of money specaily when your eco is down, do they understand how many people would bye from them if they sold to Australia
shaynoa

 

[DaveSimmons]

really how many people care about how much power a card uses, i know i don't all it is about is the performance of the card with the games you play with that card and nothing more, so at the end of the day yes nv win today and mabye for a few weeks
...

i don't really care which card wins, to me it's all about playing the game i like to play the best

Do you game with headphones on? I don't, so noise matters to me not just performace.

One of the reasons I upgraded from a launch 4870-512MB to a 6850 was because the fan noise needed to keep it cool annoyed me. I put up with it for a couple of years, but it was always a minor irritant.

I care about 3D performance and heat, noise and power use. I've complained about all of those for cards from both camps. Both have had good models and weak models.

In a reversal from 40nm, nvidia seems to be winning on power and noise right now, so I give them credit for that. Stock noise levels are also better though there are $570+ custom-cooled 7970s that are good too.

On price, AMD is losing badly at the moment just like nvidia was when the 4870 came out.

 

[OCGuy]

I like how the NVIDIA fans already are getting their panties in a knot - "but that's not fair! Nvidia only had the faster reference card for a daaaaaaayyyy!" Progress is good only if it's green, right?

I'm not sure anyone is saying that, because I dont see any faster reference cards than the 680.

 

[shaynoa]

The amd fans are a little louder but at the end of the day they are no louder than your average air con turned up, i don't really care about that either and if you have speakers then your fan noise doesn't go up when you turn them up to hear your game
shaynoa

 

[Cookie Monster]

My guess is 28nm silicon is good enough that AMD can finally not be so conservative. And to those that say "oh, it'll have higher power consumption," it actually might not. I can up my clocks to 1125/1575MHz (CCC limits) and my load power consumption goes up a whole 10W.

Thats quite a bold claim. What I am seeing is a 30W (stock)~100W(overclocked) difference when comparing power consumption of the HD7970 to a GTX680 from different reviews. This number varies depending on what cooler your using because keeping the temperature low can reduce power consumption. With the reference cooler, Id think youd see more than 10W difference if clocked at those levels.

 

[Lepton87]

Thats quite a bold claim. What I am seeing is a 30W (stock)~100W(overclocked) difference when comparing power consumption of the HD7970 to a GTX680 from different reviews. This number varies depending on what cooler your using because keeping the temperature low can reduce power consumption. With the reference cooler, Id think youd see more than 10W difference if clocked at those levels.

Reading comprehension fail. He didn't compare 7970 with gtx680 just his card at stock and after OC.
The actual power consumption difference between those cards is variable as it depends on the VID of your cards and operating temperatures. So it's not that simple anymore. Anyway 20-30W more is not a big deal for such expensive cards, what matters is noise.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Reading comprehension fail. He didn't compare 7970 with gtx680 just his card at stock and after OC.

Well even compared to a stock HD7970.

 

[Lepton87]

Well even compared to a stock HD7970.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. He compared stock 7970 to his OC7970 nowhere did he mention gtx680 in that comparison.