GTX 670 Vs HD 7970 At Max Overclocks

[3DVagabond]

The thing that stands out to me is the 7950, it's really a joke compared to 670. Both at the same pricepoint.

The 7950 clocks are set REALLY low. Maybe AMD will take the 670 into acct. when setting the new clocks when they release the GHz edition.

 

[AdamK47]

no idea what the point of this topic is. Seems pretty dumb really

It's about two teams. Team AMD vs team nVidia. People from each team will debate each other with their own facts and opinions. No conclusion will ever be reached. The debate will simply move on to the next newest thread. It will continue on and on. The players may change, but the topic never does. The only way it ends is if the company stops competing or ceases to exist (see 3Dfx).

 

[3DVagabond]

no idea what the point of this topic is. Seems pretty dumb really

Seems like people are trying to sell something. That couldn't be though. :\

 

[blastingcap]

I want to know where I can get $450 HD7970 with an after market cooler that doesn't have a 50% chance of coil whine?

What's next? HIS $485 is the cheapest 7970 with a quiet fan, that can hit > 1.2ghz and no reviewer that I am aware of has complained that it has coil whine like the Sapphire Dual-X card. So it looks like there is an $80+ delta not $50.

Regardless, AMD should release a fresh batch of > 1ghz 7970 cards. When that happens, people can revisit this discussion. Right now there is about an $80-100 delta between a GTX670 and a good version of the 7970.

What I disagree with is the main discussion is around the wrong cards. A person who was looking to buy HD7870 for $330-350 or HD7950 $400 might just as well get a 670. Going from $330-350 to $400 670 for a huge performance boost might be manageable. Going from $330-350 7870 to $450-500 HD7970 for that buyer likely means going way over of his/her budget. This is exactly where GTX670 shines. GTX670 is the perfect upsell from people who were on the fence thinking of getting HD7870 or even 7950. It made both of those cards irrelevant.

Essentially the market is now a 3-horse race:

$140 6870
$250 7850
$400 670

GTX670 is 28% and 17% faster than 7870 and 7950, respectively, making both of them overpriced. The 2% of the market who want the best can fight over 680/7970 but it changes nothing about 670 making 2 other AMD cards irrelevant imo.

I think GTX670 is like the 6800GT of X800Pro/X800XT/6800U generation. That card sold like hot cakes.

My old card did not have noticeably bad coil whine and my new one has none at all, both Dual-X Sapphire cooled. Unfortunately I didn't get a Three for Free along with it, but I did get a free miniDP to DVI adapter (ships with most current 7970 SKUs), all for about $410.

I also need to do more than game, but if I just cared about high-framerate gaming at 2560x1600 or less, the GTX 670 is obviously the best 28nm card in that category when it comes to price/perf, and I could pick one up for ~$370 right now. No free games or miniDP to DVI adapter, but lower power/heat/noise and NV-exclusives like AVsync, phsyx/cuda, Surround without need for miniDP to DVI in the first place, and GPU Boost.

I agree with all of your three horses except the 6870 which is overpriced compared to 6850s that you can overclock to get pretty good performance and which sell for $120 after rebate more and more often.

 

[Gikaseixas]

My opinion 680 is worth 50 more than 7970 and 7970 is worth more than 670, why argue so much. These 3 cards do trade blows at the top, exciting times indeed.

With that said, AMD really needs to do something about the 7950 and 7870, lower the price or give them a boost in performance, like new revisions with same power consumption and higher mhz.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

My opinion 680 is worth 50 more than 7970 and 7970 is worth more than 670, why argue so much. These 3 cards do trade blows at the top, exciting times indeed.

With that said, AMD really needs to do something about the 7950 and 7870, lower the price or give them a boost in performance, like new revisions with same power consumption and higher mhz.

+1

 

[lopri]

Sorry this is probably not the most appropriate thread but I didn't think it's necessary to create a new thread for this question. Can any of you with a 7900 series card or a GTX 600 series card can playback the following video clip using Windows Media Player or MPC-HC (using DXVA)?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bw8PJKYO40CGemh2Z2Z6UEdvQjg/edit

The file is a Skyrim playback file from Tweakguides.com I shamelessly stole, and for some reason Skydrive re-uploaded it to Youtube. In order to get the original file, please select "File" on the top left corner and "Download" from the drop-down menu. The file itself is a bit over 1GB. It's just an H.264 video but its bit-rate is somewhat high (~40 Mbps), and it's L5.0.

Then play the video using WMP or MPC-HC (DXVA). And let me know the clock frequencies of the cards while running this clip. As we know both AMD and NV cards these days have idle/2D/3D clock frequencies in separate planes. I would like to know at which frequency these new generation GPUs run for some heavy-duty HD playbacks.

Thanks in advance.

 

[(sic)Klown12]

With my 7970, all HD video playback using DXVA(including your file in MPC-HC and VLC) puts the clocks at 501/1425 as reported by Afterburner with the voltage moved to 0.949v.

 

[Haserath]

It's about two teams. Team AMD vs team nVidia. People from each team will debate each other with their own facts and opinions. No conclusion will ever be reached. The debate will simply move on to the next newest thread. It will continue on and on. The players may change, but the topic never does. The only way it ends is if the company stops competing or ceases to exist (see 3Dfx).

I don't understand why they even argue whether Radeon or Geforce is better when we all know Voodoo is the best.:wub:

 

[Borealis7]

exciting times indeed.

i'm sorry but i'm no where near excited for cards that cost 400$-500$.
what happened to the HD4850/70 days? where we got high performance cards with aggressive pricing that literally sparked a price war.
since when are we, as consumers, willing to put up with this level of pricing and silently pay for whatever these companies shove down our retail channels?

especially when AMD's pricing is SO far off what it should be, no, i'm not excited.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

4850/5850 was a brief interim period for AMD. Since AMD 9xxx to 2900xt times, AMD has always priced their top tier card in the $550-600+ range. And even mid range cards used to be $200-350 during that time.

That was just a relatively recent fall for AMD to recover from 2900xt, 3870 due to Geforce 8800 series which lasted for about 2 years but destroyed them completely even in eyes of enthusiasts.

If you notice, with each generation onwards of AMD 3xxx series to AMD 7xxx series, they have gradually increased their prices nearing their original levels.

From AMD 6xxx to AMD 7xxx they jumped straight from $350 to $550, people might not have minded as much had they priced them around $425-450 initially at launch. But then there was the issue of yield problems, relatively less stock at launch, perhaps some inside info that nvidia's next gen was far away, and a number of these reasons together pushed the price from $425/450 to $550.

And they have literally been throwing away their cards for free till now. Nvidia used to be significantly more expensive especially up to GTX 485. So this time they are just charging for what they are worth, while nvidia is trying to undercut them.

Though I do agree that 7870 and 7950 should both get at least a $50 cut each. However the remaining setup is nearly fine.

 

[lopri]

With my 7970, all HD video playback using DXVA(including your file in MPC-HC and VLC) puts the clocks at 501/1425 as reported by Afterburner with the voltage moved to 0.949v.

Thank you. That's a valuable information for me, which is in line with what I expected. Anyone with a GTX 600 series card?

 

[DigitalWolf]

It's about two teams. Team AMD vs team nVidia. People from each team will debate each other with their own facts and opinions. No conclusion will ever be reached. The debate will simply move on to the next newest thread. It will continue on and on. The players may change, but the topic never does. The only way it ends is if the company stops competing or ceases to exist (see 3Dfx).

This pretty much.


When I saw the first reviews of the 670.. I didn't really think much in terms of the 7970. What I did think about was the comments I remembered when the GTX 680 performance was compared to the 7970. Then I went into *ponder* mode on exactly what Nvidia was thinking here...


Yet pretty much its just been the two teams going back and forth.


Remove AMD from the equation and simply look at 670 vs. 680... If I was buying today and both were in stock... I can't see much of any reason to go for a 680 currently.


Of course this is just my opinion on the topic.

 

[DimmyK]

Thank you. That's a valuable information for me, which is in line with what I expected. Anyone with a GTX 600 series card?

My GTX 680 starts paying this file @ 1006/3005, then it drops to 550/3005 in about a second, and then it drops again to 324/324 and stays there until the end of the playback.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Thank you. That's a valuable information for me, which is in line with what I expected. Anyone with a GTX 600 series card?

Same thing as above with the 680. Loads up to max clocks then drops down to idle clocks after a couple seconds on GTX 670.

 

[Zebo]

I want to know where I can get $450 HD7970 with an after market cooler that doesn't have a 50% chance of coil whine?

What's next? HIS $485 is the cheapest 7970 with a quiet fan, that can hit > 1.2ghz and no reviewer that I am aware of has complained that it has coil whine like the Sapphire Dual-X card. So it looks like there is an $80+ delta not $50.

Regardless, AMD should release a fresh batch of > 1ghz 7970 cards. When that happens, people can revisit this discussion. Right now there is about an $80-100 delta between a GTX670 and a good version of the 7970.

What I disagree with is the main discussion is around the wrong cards. A person who was looking to buy HD7870 for $330-350 or HD7950 $400 might just as well get a 670. Going from $330-350 to $400 670 for a huge performance boost might be manageable. Going from $330-350 7870 to $450-500 HD7970 for that buyer likely means going way over of his/her budget. This is exactly where GTX670 shines. GTX670 is the perfect upsell from people who were on the fence thinking of getting HD7870 or even 7950. It made both of those cards irrelevant.

Essentially the market is now a 3-horse race:

$140 6870
$250 7850
$400 670

GTX670 is 28% and 17% faster than 7870 and 7950, respectively, making both of them overpriced. The 2% of the market who want the best can fight over 680/7970 but it changes nothing about 670 making 2 other AMD cards irrelevant imo.

I think GTX670 is like the 6800GT of X800Pro/X800XT/6800U generation. That card sold like hot cakes.

7950 is basically same as 7970 at same Mhz and has 40-50% OC head room. @ 1250 will demolish whatever you OC a 670 to just like 7970 does in VR zone review.

Far from irrelevant - if all I could afford was $380-$400 I'd buy the 7950 w/o question especially on water.

It's the diamond in the rough.

 

[Zebo]

My opinion 680 is worth 50 more than 7970 and 7970 is worth more than 670, why argue so much. These 3 cards do trade blows at the top, exciting times indeed.

With that said, AMD really needs to do something about the 7950 and 7870, lower the price or give them a boost in performance, like new revisions with same power consumption and higher mhz.

7870 is the second most overpriced card out there after GTX 580.

There is no giving it a boost either - card ships over 1000mhz so OC head room is small like 150-250Mhz for most cards. Factor in dust/high temp climates AMD can't just ship 1150Mhz version out and have any sort of reliability.

Card needs to come down to $279 and should have been released @ $299.

7950 OTOH can easily get a 300Mhz bump shipped out which would totally change $400 landscape.

 

[SickBeast]

7950 OTOH can easily get a 300Mhz bump shipped out which would totally change $400 landscape.

I don't know if it would totally change things but it would definitely be good competition for the GTX 670. AMD should up the clocks for sure. Heck, the partners can do it, can't they? Someone should just release a super overclocked 7950.

 

[Dark Shroud]

I don't know if it would totally change things but it would definitely be good competition for the GTX 670. AMD should up the clocks for sure. Heck, the partners can do it, can't they? Someone should just release a super overclocked 7950.

This is the highest Newegg has clocked at 950mhz for $410+shipping. It also uses Sapphire's new fan design. It seems like a pretty good deal to me.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102991

Edit, whoops hit post too soon.

Of curse the Gigabyte Windforce model is a even $400 + shipping with a mild OC. Just up the thing to 1.2+ yourself and you're going to have a better performer than a 670.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414

 

[SickBeast]

This is the highest Newegg has clocked at 950mhz for $410+shipping. It also uses Sapphire's new fan design. It seems like a pretty good deal to me.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102991

It's not bad but the 670 is way better overall.

 

[Zebo]

Seems like AMD is letting its partners stretch their wings a bit. Needs more I think to compete with 670 in reviews. Probably 1050 instead.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&pid=1551&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102991

 

[Dark Shroud]

It's not bad but the 670 is way better overall.

How do you define way better overall? When compared to the HD 6900 cards the 670:

• has less memory & memory bandwidth.
• no real compute performance.
• doesn't let you manually OC the card.
• doesn't OC as high as 7900 OC models.
• has no price advantage against the 7950.

Edited for clarity.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Why is this thread still going?

Should be easy to understand by now: Radeon HD 7970 OC=GTX 680 OC>GTX 670 OC.

Of course, that doesn't tell you the whole story because the difference will be less than 5%.

 

[blastingcap]

I don't understand why they even argue whether Radeon or Geforce is better when we all know Voodoo is the best.:wub:

Matrox 4 Life

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Matrox 4 Life