AMD to launch new flagship Radeon HD 7970 desktop graphics card on December 22.

[VulgarDisplay]

The problem with performance claims anymore is they don't really mean anything, its really all about what a card performs with whatever games you like to play.

Sad but true, AMD cards own in some, are terrible in others.

For example, say BF3 the new card is could be %20 faster than 580, but its not even if it shows it on paper because nvidia favors that engine/driver.

Sucks, but its true.

Nvidia has a performance advantage in BF3 using MSAA which is pointless because MSAA looks like crap in an engine that uses deferred rendering.

 

[kalrith]

Personally I would never spend more then $300 on a vid card, so I'm more interested on how the 7870 compares to the 6970. Die shrink OC headroom plus possible architecture adjustments (GCN vs VLIW)?

Same here. I'm planning to spend $200 - $300 in 3 - 6 months, so the AMD 7000 is very interesting to me. Hopefully 6 months will be enough time for the mid-tier cards to be released and slightly decrease in price.

 

[imaheadcase]

Nvidia has a performance advantage in BF3 using MSAA which is pointless because MSAA looks like crap in an engine that uses deferred rendering.

Pretty much just proved what i was saying. It depends on the game you play and settings you like.

The gap has grown substantially over the years. It used to be each GPU was pretty equal footing in terms of how they did things (just a raw performance), now each company has different focuses, as well as game developers to use each feature accordingly, not helping is the fact each dev "optimizes" each game towards a certain hardware (regardless of what they say naturally).

Some say it started with Glide\openGL..but i really think physics/AA really turned it upside down. I would not be surprised we get to a point soon though that those two won't even be brought up in stats simply because they will be deemed obsolete (until newest graphics fad takes over).

 

[Rifter]

well i had herd kepler was going to double performance, and since SLI 460's is comparable to a 580 i figured kepler top end should be my next upgrade path. I had figured AMD would have something to compete with that at their top end.

 

[notty22]

Nvidia has a performance advantage in BF3 using MSAA which is pointless because MSAA looks like crap in an engine that uses deferred rendering.

If it's not tessellation , it's another graphic option that Nvidia is superior at.
It's hilarious that msaa was being thrown around as a frame buffer killer for 1gb cards, then when it proved to bring AMD's mighty 2gb cards to it's knees, nobody could see any IQ improvement. What xxxxrites.
edited.

 

[notty22]

dp

 

[RussianSensation]

The gap has grown substantially over the years. It used to be each GPU was pretty equal footing in terms of how they did things (just a raw performance), now each company has different focuses

Actually, the opposite is true. Outside of games that use extreme Tessellation like Lost Planet 2, Crysis 2 and so on, NV and AMD cards perform almost identically within the same price level.

Back in the days, you really had to buy a card based on the games you enjoyed. You wanted to play shader intensive games with a lot of AA, ATI was far better. You wanted workable DX9 performance during 9800 vs. 5900 era, ATI was the only way. You wanted good performance in OpenGL games, flight sims and good anisotropic filtering performance, NV was the only way. Now, the difference in performance between say a GTX570 and HD6970 is pretty much 3-4% and image quality is indiscernable.

The biggest differentiators nowdays are the ability to run more than 2 displays on 1 card (in the case of AMD) and the ability to have proper 3D gaming surround support (NV) and PhysX (NV). Other than those differentiators, there is almost no difference between the camps. With HD7900 series, AMD will add 3D Eyefinity gaming support too, while surely GTX600 series will support 3 displays. So the only differentiator will become PhysX assuming performance is very similar like we have seen between GTX200 vs. HD4000 series, GTX400 vs. HD5000 series and GTX500 vs. HD6000 series. In the last 3 years, it was actually very difficult to buy a "bad" card.

In the past, you could find 10 games where 6800 Ultra would smoke an X800XT PE and 10 games where 6800 Ultra would get crushed by the AMD card. If anything, there are almost no games where the AMD card is faster than an NV card at the same price point, while NV has a definitive lead in 4-5 key games (Lost Planet 2, Hawx 2, Civ5, Crysis 2, Starcraft 2).

 

[Silverforce11]

If anything, there are almost no games where the AMD card is faster than an NV card at the same price point, while NV has a definitive lead in 4-5 key games (Lost Planet 2, Hawx 2, Civ5, Crysis 2, Starcraft 2).

Starcraft 2 both are even unless you force AA via drivers. Serious Sam, 6970 is faster than gtx580. Shogun 2, Deus EX, FEAR3, Anno 2070, BF3 w/o MSAA, AMD is faster at pricepoints (where the much cheaper 6970 competes with gtx580).

So in reality, outside of a few waning TWIMTBP games (surprisingly, Batman isn't a complete blow-out like other NV games), AMD offers better perf/$ and perf/w.

 

[Pacman4]

Starcraft 2 both are even unless you force AA via drivers. Serious Sam, 6970 is faster than gtx580. Shogun 2, Deus EX, FEAR3, Anno 2070, BF3 w/o MSAA, AMD is faster at pricepoints .

All console ports, I doubt my old 4850 would break a sweat on most of those games, FEAR2 was fully maxed on my 4850, so I suspect F3 to be about the same.

 

[toyota]

All console ports, I doubt my old 4850 would break a sweat on most of those games, FEAR2 was fully maxed on my 4850, so I suspect F3 to be about the same.

you suspect wrong. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/07/05/f3ar_gameplay_performance_review/5

 

[Pacman4]

you suspect wrong. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/07/05/f3ar_gameplay_performance_review/5

Hardly matters, I have a 6850 now which would probably produce 50fps av.

 

[Silverforce11]

All console ports, I doubt my old 4850 would break a sweat on most of those games, FEAR2 was fully maxed on my 4850, so I suspect F3 to be about the same.

Are you that ignorant?

Serious Sam 3 isn't on consoles.

Neither is Shogun 2, Starcraft 2 and Anno 2070. Importantly, BF3 is not a console port, it's a PC-ported down to console.

And your 6850 doesn't do 50 fps:

 

[Powered by AMD]

And your 6850 doesn't do 50 fps:

Thats with 4xAA !!

He didnt say it can handle 50FPS Maxed out!

 

[Stuka87]

Thats with 4xAA !!

He didnt say it can handle 50FPS Maxed out!

Actually he kind of did. As he stated he could run FEAR2 maxed out, and he said FEAR3 should not be any different (But it is).

 

[Skurge]

I think you guys are bing trolled pretty hard.

 

[Will Robinson]

Definite troll but Silver just pwned him badly.:awe:

 

[tviceman]

Actually, the opposite is true. Outside of games that use extreme Tessellation like Lost Planet 2, Crysis 2 and so on, NV and AMD cards perform almost identically within the same price level.

Back in the days, you really had to buy a card based on the games you enjoyed. You wanted to play shader intensive games with a lot of AA, ATI was far better. You wanted workable DX9 performance during 9800 vs. 5900 era, ATI was the only way. You wanted good performance in OpenGL games, flight sims and good anisotropic filtering performance, NV was the only way. Now, the difference in performance between say a GTX570 and HD6970 is pretty much 3-4% and image quality is indiscernable.

The biggest differentiators nowdays are the ability to run more than 2 displays on 1 card (in the case of AMD) and the ability to have proper 3D gaming surround support (NV) and PhysX (NV). Other than those differentiators, there is almost no difference between the camps. With HD7900 series, AMD will add 3D Eyefinity gaming support too, while surely GTX600 series will support 3 displays. So the only differentiator will become PhysX assuming performance is very similar like we have seen between GTX200 vs. HD4000 series, GTX400 vs. HD5000 series and GTX500 vs. HD6000 series. In the last 3 years, it was actually very difficult to buy a "bad" card.

In the past, you could find 10 games where 6800 Ultra would smoke an X800XT PE and 10 games where 6800 Ultra would get crushed by the AMD card. If anything, there are almost no games where the AMD card is faster than an NV card at the same price point, while NV has a definitive lead in 4-5 key games (Lost Planet 2, Hawx 2, Civ5, Crysis 2, Starcraft 2).

Be careful with posting unbiased, verifiable facts. You're likely to become hated by both the AMD and Nvidia fanboys alike.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I hate fanboys.....not even noon and the forums have a trollathon in full force.

Not gonna call out who is or isn't one but personally i think the brand loyal bs is stupid.

Both companies have a excellent line both companies have half ass drivers right now i think they are about even.

Sidenote:i got a 6790 that is a lemon i believe check the xfx 6790 1 egg reviews on newegg but still i am persistent on liking both companies can't let a faulty card turn me into some fanboy....

 

[kalrith]

Sidenote:i got a 6790 that is a lemon i believe check the xfx 6790 1 egg reviews on newegg but still i am persistent on liking both companies can't let a faulty card turn me into some fanboy....

You bring up a good point. Performance seems very similar between AMD and nVidia at any given price point; however, non-performance things such as cooling, fan noise, reliability, warranty, etc. can be big variances between different video-card vendors.

Regardless of going with AMD or nVidia, there are only a few choice video-card vendors that get my hard-earned money.

 

[skipsneeky2]

You bring up a good point. Performance seems very similar between AMD and nVidia at any given price point; however, non-performance things such as cooling, fan noise, reliability, warranty, etc. can be big variances between different video-card vendors.

Regardless of going with AMD or nVidia, there are only a few choice video-card vendors that get my hard-earned money.

BFG used to get my business till they went out then i went on a nvidia only spree with only evga with every card from the 8800gts/gtx280/gtx295 all giving flawless performance .

My xfx 6750 gave me no fuss but my single fan xfx 6790 does check the 1 egg reviews on newegg same exact crap based off reviews of xfxs support i will be avoiding them and ditching this card in about 2 weeks.

Maybe a another evga card but will see about this 7970 release .

 

[RussianSensation]

Starcraft 2 both are even unless you force AA via drivers.

And why wouldn't I want to force AA via drivers? Did you forget that MLAA causes horrible texture blurring while conventional MSAA does not? So what makes you think somebody considers MLAA "good enough" when an NV card is perfectly fine with running MSAA in SC2? Another excuse that this scenario shouldn't count because AMD cards suck in deferred AA modes (similar to BF3)?

Serious Sam, 6970 is faster than gtx580.

They look even to me at 2560x1600, both pretty slow to be honest. I am not seeing 30-40% performance advantage for AMD as I see for NV in the 4-5 games I listed. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.

Shogun 2

Again, I am not seeing a large advantage that AMD has over NV that you are alluding to. The performance doesn't favor either camp, not by 30-40%. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.

Deus EX,

Again, barely any performance difference between HD6970/GTX570/GTX580 in this game. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.

FEAR3,

Ok, in this game, HD6970 does better than GTX570, and HD6950 does better than GTX560 Ti, but still GTX580 is as fast as an HD6970. Again, the 5 games I listed have GTX580 beating HD6970 by 30-40%!!

Anno 2070,

Depends on the website doing the testing. Some show HD6970 trading blows with GTX580, but HD6970 does not beat it by anything that's worth talking about. At 1080P, GTX570 is as fast as an HD6970. Both are unplayable at 2560x1600. Either way, the performance doesn't favor either camp, not by 30-40%, at most it's 5-10% difference (not going to change playability). More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game. Mild overclocking on NV cards, and you have identical performance.

BF3 w/o MSAA, AMD is faster at pricepoints (where the much cheaper 6970 competes with gtx580).

Same point about Post-AA vs. MSAA. Some people hate the blurring textures caused by MLAA/FXAA/post-AA style filter. Either way, GTX560 Ti very close to an HD6950 in this game. Since GTX560 Ti overclocks like mad, while HD6950 for the most part sucks at overclocking, I am not seeing AMD having an advantage in BF3.

So in reality, outside of a few waning TWIMTBP games (surprisingly, Batman isn't a complete blow-out like other NV games), AMD offers better perf/$ and perf/w.

The reality is that the only good card on AMD side this generation was HD6950 2GB that could unlock and was a good option for CF/high-rez gaming. Only massive price cuts on HD6870 and HD6850 made those relevant, but both of those cards were no better than an HD5850 or GTX460 / overclocked versions that came months before.

Otherwise, GTX560 Ti and GTX570 are as fast as HD6950 and HD6970, respectively, while thrashing them badly in 5 DX11 games (using TWIMTBP doesn't work since a gamer only cares about gaming experience, not how much $ NV or AMD pay to improve performance in a game). The fact that NV maintained a near 60% market share in the desktop discrete space shows that AMD didn't have better price/performance this generation; they were more or less equal.

At stock speeds, AMD and NV have a very comparable line-up this generation. But once you consider overclocking, it's all over for AMD this round. Overclocked GTX560 Ti and GTX570 are faster than 6950 and 6970. So if it wasn't for the HD6950 2GB advantage for 2560x1600 and 'free' unlocking feature that made many people feel they were getting $350 of performance for $230-250, AMD would have had a worse card this generation at every level above $200, since their cards have worse % overclocking from stock speeds, and a huge disadvantage in 5 games, of which SC2, Crysis 2 and Civ 5 happen to be pretty big games. Also, poor MSAA performance in BF3 is not an excuse. Once HD7970 smokes GTX580 with MSAA, I expect people to point this out in favor of HD7970 over GTX580....and no one will be saying oh look, let's not use MSAA.

HD6990 was the 2nd loudest videocard of all time, so any advantage that card had over GTX590 was negated. And the reference coolers on HD6950/6970 isn't what one would call quiet either, unless you are comparing them to GTX470/480 or AMD HD4890.

So all in all, Eyefinity and 2GB of VRAM were the biggest differentiators for AMD, PhysX, overclocking and performance in some key games were positives for NV. More or less, performance was similar at all price levels, outside of GTX580 that had no competition. If you think AMD clearly won this round, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[SirPauly]

And why wouldn't I want to force AA via drivers? Did you forget that MLAA causes horrible texture blurring while conventional MSAA does not? So what makes you think somebody considers MLAA "good enough" when an NV card is perfectly fine with running MSAA in SC2? Another excuse that this scenario shouldn't count because AMD cards suck in deferred AA modes (similar to BF3)?



They look even to me at 2560x1600, both pretty slow to be honest. I am not seeing 30-40% performance advantage for AMD as I see for NV in the 4-5 games I listed. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.

Again, I am not seeing a large advantage that AMD has over NV that you are alluding to. The performance doesn't favor either camp, not by 30-40%. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.



Again, barely any performance difference between HD6970/GTX570/GTX580 in this game. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.



Ok, in this game, HD6970 does better than GTX570, and HD6950 does better than GTX560 Ti, but still GTX580 is as fast as an HD6970. Again, the 5 games I listed have GTX580 beating HD6970 by 30-40%!!



Depends on the website doing the testing. Some show HD6970 trading blows with GTX580, but HD6970 does not beat it by anything that's worth talking about. At 1080P, GTX570 is as fast as an HD6970. Both are unplayable at 2560x1600. Either way, the performance doesn't favor either camp, not by 30-40%, at most it's 5-10% difference (not going to change playability). More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game. Mild overclocking on NV cards, and you have identical performance.



Same point about Post-AA vs. MSAA. Some people hate the blurring textures caused by MLAA/FXAA/post-AA style filter. Either way, GTX560 Ti very close to an HD6950 in this game. Since GTX560 Ti overclocks like mad, while HD6950 for the most part sucks at overclocking, I am not seeing AMD having an advantage in BF3.



The reality is that the only good card on AMD side this generation was HD6950 2GB that could unlock and was a good option for CF/high-rez gaming. Only massive price cuts on HD6870 and HD6850 made those relevant, but both of those cards were no better than an HD5850 or GTX460 / overclocked versions that came months before.

Otherwise, GTX560 Ti and GTX570 are as fast as HD6950 and HD6970, respectively, while thrashing them badly in 5 DX11 games (using TWIMTBP doesn't work since a gamer only cares about gaming experience, not how much $ NV or AMD pay to improve performance in a game). The fact that NV maintained a near 60% market share in the desktop discrete space shows that AMD didn't have better price/performance this generation; they were more or less equal.

At stock speeds, AMD and NV have a very comparable line-up this generation. But once you consider overclocking, it's all over for AMD this round. Overclocked GTX560 Ti and GTX570 are faster than 6950 and 6970. So if it wasn't for the HD6950 2GB advantage for 2560x1600 and 'free' unlocking feature that made many people feel they were getting $350 of performance for $230-250, AMD would have had a worse card this generation at every level above $200, since their cards have worse % overclocking from stock speeds, and a huge disadvantage in 5 games, of which SC2, Crysis 2 and Civ 5 happen to be pretty big games. Also, poor MSAA performance in BF3 is not an excuse. Once HD7970 smokes GTX580 with MSAA, I expect people to point this out in favor of HD7970 over GTX580....and no one will be saying oh look, let's not use MSAA.

HD6990 was the 2nd loudest videocard of all time, so any advantage that card had over GTX590 was negated. And the reference coolers on HD6950/6970 isn't what one would call quiet either, unless you are comparing them to GTX470/480 or AMD HD4890.

So all in all, Eyefinity and 2GB of VRAM were the biggest differentiators for AMD, PhysX, overclocking and performance in some key games were positives for NV. More or less, performance was similar at all price levels, outside of GTX580 that had no competition. If you think AMD clearly won this round, then I don't know what to tell you.

Another area that isn't mentioned for nVidia differentiation much was the ability to enhance transparency in DirectX 10 and 11 titles or use Full scene in DirectX 10 and 11. There is quite a bit of flexibility here, say one desires to use x8 multi-sampling, they can add x8 or x4 or x2 transparency or full scene if they desire, too.

 

[dust]

And why wouldn't I want to force AA via drivers? Did you forget that MLAA causes horrible texture blurring while conventional MSAA does not? So what makes you think somebody considers MLAA "good enough" when an NV card is perfectly fine with running MSAA in SC2? Another excuse that this scenario shouldn't count because AMD cards suck in deferred AA modes (similar to BF3)?



They look even to me at 2560x1600, both pretty slow to be honest. I am not seeing 30-40% performance advantage for AMD as I see for NV in the 4-5 games I listed. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.



Again, I am not seeing a large advantage that AMD has over NV that you are alluding to. The performance doesn't favor either camp, not by 30-40%. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.



Again, barely any performance difference between HD6970/GTX570/GTX580 in this game. More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game.



Ok, in this game, HD6970 does better than GTX570, and HD6950 does better than GTX560 Ti, but still GTX580 is as fast as an HD6970. Again, the 5 games I listed have GTX580 beating HD6970 by 30-40%!!



Depends on the website doing the testing. Some show HD6970 trading blows with GTX580, but HD6970 does not beat it by anything that's worth talking about. At 1080P, GTX570 is as fast as an HD6970. Both are unplayable at 2560x1600. Either way, the performance doesn't favor either camp, not by 30-40%, at most it's 5-10% difference (not going to change playability). More or less, AMD and NV both perform similar in this game. Mild overclocking on NV cards, and you have identical performance.



Same point about Post-AA vs. MSAA. Some people hate the blurring textures caused by MLAA/FXAA/post-AA style filter. Either way, GTX560 Ti very close to an HD6950 in this game. Since GTX560 Ti overclocks like mad, while HD6950 for the most part sucks at overclocking, I am not seeing AMD having an advantage in BF3.



The reality is that the only good card on AMD side this generation was HD6950 2GB that could unlock and was a good option for CF/high-rez gaming. Only massive price cuts on HD6870 and HD6850 made those relevant, but both of those cards were no better than an HD5850 or GTX460 / overclocked versions that came months before.

Otherwise, GTX560 Ti and GTX570 are as fast as HD6950 and HD6970, respectively, while thrashing them badly in 5 DX11 games (using TWIMTBP doesn't work since a gamer only cares about gaming experience, not how much $ NV or AMD pay to improve performance in a game). The fact that NV maintained a near 60% market share in the desktop discrete space shows that AMD didn't have better price/performance this generation; they were more or less equal.

At stock speeds, AMD and NV have a very comparable line-up this generation. But once you consider overclocking, it's all over for AMD this round. Overclocked GTX560 Ti and GTX570 are faster than 6950 and 6970. So if it wasn't for the HD6950 2GB advantage for 2560x1600 and 'free' unlocking feature that made many people feel they were getting $350 of performance for $230-250, AMD would have had a worse card this generation at every level above $200, since their cards have worse % overclocking from stock speeds, and a huge disadvantage in 5 games, of which SC2, Crysis 2 and Civ 5 happen to be pretty big games. Also, poor MSAA performance in BF3 is not an excuse. Once HD7970 smokes GTX580 with MSAA, I expect people to point this out in favor of HD7970 over GTX580....and no one will be saying oh look, let's not use MSAA.

HD6990 was the 2nd loudest videocard of all time, so any advantage that card had over GTX590 was negated. And the reference coolers on HD6950/6970 isn't what one would call quiet either, unless you are comparing them to GTX470/480 or AMD HD4890.

So all in all, Eyefinity and 2GB of VRAM were the biggest differentiators for AMD, PhysX, overclocking and performance in some key games were positives for NV. More or less, performance was similar at all price levels, outside of GTX580 that had no competition. If you think AMD clearly won this round, then I don't know what to tell you.

:thumbsup: maybe the best summary of the current generation

 

[tviceman]

snip snip a-rooskie.

Russian that is alot of work you're doing to try to convince someone that one particular product is as good or better than another, especially when the products in question are held in the same regard as zealots hold religious shrines.

But I commend your effort.

 

[kalrith]

Russian that is alot of work you're doing to try to convince someone that one particular product is as good or better than another, especially when the products in question are held in the same regard as zealots hold religious shrines.

But I commend your effort.

I see Russian's post as similar to a public debate. He's not trying to convince Silver to change his mind; his post is for the benefit of everyone else, and I for one appreciate it