AMD 7970 v Nvidia GTX 770

[echineko]

Hi guys,

Quick question, I'm evaluating GPU choices for my upcoming build, and trying to decide between the 7970 HD or the GTX 770. I'm planning to get 1 to start with, and may go for a second once prices fall, as they're wont to do.

What would you recommend, keeping in mind I don't want to spend $1000 or something equally ridiculous for a card, and am looking to run dual GPUs down the road?

Oh, I like Asus' ROG builds, and will probably go with their version, for either GPU, if it helps any

 

[Durvelle27]

http://anandtech.com/bench/Product/768?vs=829

 

[Elfear]

Across multiple review sites the two are almost dead even with a very slight advantage going to the 7970Ghz.

Source

 

[echineko]

Across multiple review sites the two are almost dead even with a very slight advantage going to the 7970Ghz.

Yeah, hence my dilemma. I was hoping to hear from some people actually using these, who might be facing any issues, etc to help me decide.

Especially in terms of SLI/Crossfire, either of these cards troublesome to run smoothly?

 

[bystander36]

In terms of SLI/CrossfireX, the 770 gets a much better experience:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-benchmarking-frame-rate,3466.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-review-benchmark,3486-13.html

Though, AMD is going to release a driver to greatly improve their CrossfireX on July 31. At least that is the currently release schedule. It won't likely be as good as Nvidia's current system, as they've been trying to improve it for several years, but AMD should not have the problems they have now.

 

[Elfear]

Yeah, hence my dilemma. I was hoping to hear from some people actually using these, who might be facing any issues, etc to help me decide.

Especially in terms of SLI/Crossfire, either of these cards troublesome to run smoothly?

Right now SLI has less microstutter than Crossfire. With that being said AMD will be releasing a Crossfire fix on July 31st that is supposed to fix the ms issues.

When I game with more than one 7970 I use a frame limiter (RadeonPro or Afterburner) and my games run very smooth. If you've got a 120hz monitor that might not work so well but it works great for 60hz.

If you had asked me which to get for a mult-GPU setup a couple days ago, I would have said the 770 but prices on 7970s are extremely good right now ($290-310). I'd say it's worth saving $150-200 and using a frame-limiter but that's just my opinion.

Alternatively you could get a single 7950, overclock it to within an inch of its life, and wait a month to see what happens on the Crossfire front.

 

[Pariah]

If you're sure you will add a second card, either buy Nvidia now or wait to see what AMD's driver update does July 31st. If you want to save a lot of money and buy now, go AMD, and hope the upcoming drivers are good:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...MLI3ZCfGETQtUw

Was $10 cheaper with Borderlands2 on Newegg, but it's now out of stock.

 

[blackened23]

Performance wise, they're about the same when you factor GHz speeds in, at stock clocks the 770 may be very very slightly faster (considering the 770 == higher clocked 680, that's not surprising). Other factors such as noise, vary depending on the card but I suspect the 770 has more elegant designs in this respect - i'm not a huge fan of the reference 7970 shroud. I will say, however, Sapphire has some *excellent* aftermarket 7970 fan designs which are very quiet.

So what it boils down to is which brand you prefer and what sale you can find - a 770 will generally run you 400$-450$ depending on configuration and the vanilla 7970 has been a bit cheaper as of late. I think newegg still has the sapphire dual-X 7970 on sale for 300$ which is a heck of a deal IMHO. If they're the same price, i'd opt for the GTX 770. If you can find a sale on a 7970 which performs roughly the same, that would tilt the decision in favor of the 7970.

Regarding your last question - SLI is much better out of the box at this time, with crossfire you'll have to fiddle with framerate limiters to get an ideal experience. SLI pretty much just works for the most part, although AMD is planning a driver release on July 31st to rectify these issues, however.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you are thinking dual-GPUs down the line, then I wouldn't get the 2GB version of GTX770. A 4GB version is $450. However, GTX770 SLI won't be much faster than GTX690 OC. I'd rather grab a single 780 now and look to add a 2nd one later given that GTX690 OC is starting to seriously struggle in demanding games at 1600P, which means for next gen games 1.5-2 years from now when you plan to add a 2nd 770 4GB, it'll be a waste of $. Therefore, I do not think that a $450 GTX770 4GB is worth it, especially in light of 7970 1Ghz cards going for $300-350.

If you are thinking about "future-proofing" get a 780, otherwise get a single 7970 for $300-350 and just sell it and upgrade next year to a 20nm next gen $550 GPU.

 

[gammaray]

7970 HD vs Gtx 770
http://anandtech.com/bench/Product/770?vs=829

7970 Ghz Edition vs Gtx 770
http://anandtech.com/bench/Product/768?vs=829

 

[Subyman]

If you know you are going to go dual cards, get the 770. SLI is a better experience.

 

[gammaray]

if i can help you make a decision, i got both card at home, 7970 and gtx 770, go ahead and ask me something

 

[Wuzup101]

I was actually thinking about a 770 as I wanted to go to a single card solution for the time being. That being said, I managed to stumble on the newegg saphire deal soon after they started the sale and picked one of those up instead. With a $100+ price difference, and 4 games that I'd like to play, I couldn't justify buying the 770. That being said, depending on what AMD does with their update in July, I might go back to dual GPU in the future. I just thought that now was a good time to buy a new card and sell off my 6950s as they still have decent residual value.

 

[blackened23]

if i can help you make a decision, i got both card at home, 7970 and gtx 770, go ahead and ask me something

Do they get along? Have you had to break up any fights between your cards?

 

[gammaray]

Do they get along? Have you had to break up any fights between your cards?

they are in 2 different Pcs lol

7970 in a i5 3570k and gtx770 in a i5 4670

 

[echineko]

they are in 2 different Pcs lol

7970 in a i5 3570k and gtx770 in a i5 4670

Well, even in a single configuration, do you have a favourite between the two (given that the rest of your builds could be different in both PCs, certainly the CPUs already are)?

And from what everyone is saying, I think the consensus is something like this:

1. The performance of the gtx 770 and the amd 7970 is pretty even, maybe a slight edge to the 7970

2. Some comments suggest that SLI is smoother than Crossfire (at least for right now)

3. If possible, I should consider a single gtx 780 right, and get a second when they drop later on

Well, I had intentionally excluded the gtx 780, as I didn't want to spend too much right now (it will hurt more when the prices drop). But as I'm building my new rig slowly, I can afford to shop around and hope for some good deals.

Right now I'm leaning towards either a decent 7970 (maybe Asus' Matrix card?) or getting the gtx 780, if there's a good deal to be had.

Price comparison (Newegg): Asus 7970 Matrix $499 v gtx 780 (various) $650

Speaking of which, any recommendations for a good place to buy online? I've been regularly staking out Newegg and Amazon, no deals yet on the 780, anything else I should add to the list?

Thanks to all that have replied so far!

 

[blackened23]

Matrix 7970? 500$? Good grief no. If you want a 7970 get a 300$ sale model, such as the Sapphire dual-X - that is a great card at a great price. A 7970, even overclocked, for 500$ makes little sense IMHO - keep in mind that the 7970 has a lot of OC headroom out of the box, so the asus model isn't doing anything that you can't do on your own. For that much money you may as well get a 780 which is definitely a better card than either the 770 or 780.

I can appreciate aftermarket cards - but I would not pay a 200$ premium for one. No way. If those are your two choices i'd opt for the 780.

 

[gammaray]

Mwave, frys, bestbuy, ncix, tigerdirect, there are many more...

to answer you, a 7970 at 300$ on sale is the deal to get right now. it's not a Ghz edition, but still, it's 100$ less than a gtx770. the Gtx700 might be 10% faster but for 100$ more? nope.

so you should get 2 7970 in xfire for 600$ that would wipe out a single gtx 780.
yeah you might get micro stuttering, a bit more than a sli setup, but for that price its hard to pass on.

Personally i prefer the gtx770 over the 7970, it's a bit less noisy, the look is awesome (not that it matters), a lil bit faster fps, but overall both perform very well on max settings in borderlands 2, x-com, skyrim, WoT and a few others i play.

Both pcs are very similar, 16gbs ram, 240 gbs ssd, z77 and z87 gd65 mobo etc.

 

[echineko]

Matrix 7970? 500$? Good grief no. If you want a 7970 get a 300$ sale model, such as the Sapphire dual-X - that is a great card at a great price. A 7970, even overclocked, for 500$ makes little sense IMHO - keep in mind that the 7970 has a lot of OC headroom out of the box, so the asus model isn't doing anything that you can't do on your own. For that much money you may as well get a 780 which is definitely a better card than either the 770 or 780.

I can appreciate aftermarket cards - but I would not pay a 200$ premium for one. No way. If those are your two choices i'd opt for the 780.

Thanks for the input. I was seriously considering the Sapphire card, but the fact that it's on discount on both Amazon and Newegg has me spooked, plus the number of RMA comments on both sites.

You have a good point about the aftermarket premium, just that I normally don't like to mess about on my own, as I said, I'm nowhere near a OC/build expert

Well, not rushing to buy yet, will keep an eye out for deals for now

 

[lehtv]

There's a super nice deal on a 7970 GHz Vapor-X only $370 ($350 AR). It beats the 770, costs less, has more VRAM, and the cooler is probably the best on the market

 

[gammaray]

There's a super nice deal on a 7970 GHz Vapor-X only $370 ($350 AR). It beats the 770, costs less, has more VRAM, and the cooler is probably the best on the market

good deal, but best cooler? i don't see anything particular about it, dual fan.

 

[bystander36]

There's a super nice deal on a 7970 GHz Vapor-X only $370 ($350 AR). It beats the 770, costs less, has more VRAM, and the cooler is probably the best on the market

That shroud has issues with Crossfire if you have a slot of space between cards. The shroud requires the bridge to wrap around it, which prevents the bridge connection if you space your cards a part. If the OP wants to Crossfire down the road, which he mentioned, this could be a big issue. This problem exists even with the largest of bridges.

 

[balane]

There's a super nice deal on a 7970 GHz Vapor-X only $370 ($350 AR). It beats the 770, costs less, has more VRAM, and the cooler is probably the best on the market

Why is this card so cheap? That's considerably lower than even the typically low priced XFX card and $100 less than the next lowest priced Gigabyte card. I don't get it.

I have a 7870 which I love and have no complaints but I couldn't pass up that Sapphire deal. After selling my 7870 and the four games this isn't going to cost me all that much to get into a top tier gaming card.

Maybe I can turn on supersampling in GW2 at 1920x1200 finally.

Thanks for the tip, screaming deal.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Probably because...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202008

7970 isn't a top tier card anymore, and the bundle is depressingly old at this point.

Even $300 is high imo, $250 sounds good until 20nm. (Of course this means I think nVidia is overpriced as well)

 

[balane]

Probably because...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202008

7970 isn't a top tier card anymore, and the bundle is depressingly old at this point.

Even $300 is high imo, $250 sounds good until 20nm. (Of course this means I think nVidia is overpriced as well)

How does the price of a different card from the same company, in any way, explain why this is so much cheaper than similar cards from other manufacturers?

Also, how many single GPU cards are faster than the 7970 GHz Edition cards? I don't know of too many, still strikes me as very much top tier.