GTX 680 Versus 7970 GHZ Edition

[Silverforce11]

AMD is replacing the reference cards with Ghz edition because they finally realized they went low-ball on the release clocks with so much headroom left. Stupid move but for ppl who dont OC, its a small gain.

I cant imagine many ppl who buy these expensive cards and not OC though so its rather pointless considering how easy it is to manually OC it yourself..

 

[Magic Carpet]

Every few weeks :biggrin:



A tie in BF3 toyota? Are you reading the same graph? :biggrin:

Remember when fermi came out and the 480 ate so much power? Look how the tides have turned

Average power consumption, is what what most people should be paying attention to.



So, a 13% difference in power consumption under typical gaming session. The additional gigabyte of video ram is also accountable for the higher power draw of the 7970.



About 7% difference here.

IMO, power consumption isn't really 670's main selling point. They are minuscule under load and slightly worse at idle. Mixed bag. Once 7970 will have dropped in price, people will be jumping on it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Where are the 1200 core 7970's?

At the same place as last time. Still love the guy who said they all could do 1200Mhz. When his own couldnt

HD7970 just really doesnt look good as I see it. Overpriced, power hungry, loud, slower, bad drivers. Still cant resume from sleep for example.

 

[Magic Carpet]

At the same place as last time. Still love the guy who said they all could do 1200Mhz. When his own couldnt

HD7970 just really doesnt look good as I see it. Overpriced, power hungry, loud, slower, bad drivers. Still cant resume from sleep for example.

Yeah, wish I had both cards for some testing. My own experience usually varies from what I read around on the web.

 

[HurleyBird]

Something is messed up with that review or with the card. Slower than a stock 7970 in AVP? Less power consumption @ 1.256V than a regular 7970 at 1.062V?

In either case, if the clocks are legit, and the cooling and PCB (even has the same missing phase!) is the exact same, this is very underwhelming. AMD shouldn't be targeting performance parity with the 680, they should be targeting 680 performance + 10%. Why bother releasing a new SKU with clocks that every vanilla 7970 on the market can achieve just by moving the slider in CCC?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why bother releasing a new SKU with clocks that every vanilla 7970 on the market can achieve just by moving the slider in CCC?

Because you moving the slider doesnt mean it can be garanteed or able to run so in the products lifespan. And in all the situations the product will be used in all environments at any load.

Its like saying why Bulldozer aint 5Ghz or SB/IB aint 4.5Ghz.

 

[HurleyBird]

Because you moving the slider doesnt mean it can be garanteed or able to run so in the products lifespan. And in all the situations the product will be used in all environments at any load.

Show me a 7970 that can't do 1075MHz at 1.256V, at any load.

Its like saying why Bulldozer aint 5Ghz or SB/IB aint 4.5Ghz.

Except it isn't. CPUs are both far more mission critical (a few flipped bits rendering a scene don't matter quite so much), and far more restricted in terms of needing to be in a specific thermal envelope. Failure rates of consumer CPUs are positively miniscule. Failure rates of modern consumer GPUs are orders of magnitude higher. There's a reason why professional cards are clocked so much lower than consumer ones.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You cant be serious. Are you saying because you can overclock a GPU. Then they should/can sell it like that?

Only cards clocked lower are Tesla cards. Simply because they can actually run a true 100% load.

 

[MrK6]

Because you moving the slider doesnt mean it can be garanteed or able to run so in the products lifespan. And in all the situations the product will be used in all environments at any load.

Its like saying why Bulldozer aint 5Ghz or SB/IB aint 4.5Ghz.

It doesn't matter. The cards will function long after their usable lifespan. Also, just because AMD themselves move the sliders doesn't make it somehow better.

Also, the benchmarks from that site make no sense at all. Just compare them with AT's, for example: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32870688&postcount=155 . The should spend less time on review graphics and more time on understanding the scientific process.

 

[SickBeast]

Guys the cards are basically equal; just buy whatever is cheapest.

These "vs" threads seem to generate flame wars and problems.

 

[HurleyBird]

You cant be serious. Are you saying because you can overclock a GPU. Then they should/can sell it like that?

No, but if practically all of them can operate at a higher clock even in poor conditions you can create a higher end SKU and set the new clocks as the validation target. You might have a few outlier chips that wouldn't be able to make the new target and failure rate will of course be a bit higher the further you push the ASIC, but that doesn't matter with consumer GPUs like it does with CPUs. It's pretty obvious that 7970 launched with clocks that were far too conservative.

 

[blackened23]

The only thing to mention is that the binning / validation testing is pretty extensive, these parts should be lower leakage parts (ie same or lower power consumption and higher potential clockspeeds).

The sapphire 7970OC would be a good example - even though its clocked at higher levels by default (1000mhz) some reviews shows that it still uses less power than the reference 925mhz 7970s. Lower leakage, better yields. This shouldn't do anything to lifespan of the cards because they are specifically binned for higher speeds and lower leakage.

 

[SickBeast]

The only thing to mention is that the binning / validation testing is pretty extensive, these parts should be lower leakage parts (ie same or lower power consumption and higher potential clockspeeds).

The sapphire 7970OC would be a good example - even though its clocked at higher levels by default (1000mhz) some reviews shows that it still uses less power than the reference 925mhz 7970s. Lower leakage, better yields. This shouldn't do anything to lifespan of the cards because they are specifically binned for higher speeds and lower leakage.

They should also top out higher when overclocking then. Have you seen any reviews of these newer parts?

 

[HurleyBird]

In any case, it's interesting that no other reviews have popped up. I wonder when the NDA ends?

 

[.Root]

So its still not enough to beat a vanilla 680 with this,no surprises here.An oced 680 like Asus 680 DC II Top will destroy it.

And an OC on the 7970 will destroy THAT. The 7970s simply OC better on avg.
I own 4 680s, and 2 7970s, and I've owned more 7970s in the past. All of my 7970s OC'd 300mhz+, some 400mhz+. Out of all 4 of my 680s, only 1 of them will break 1300mhz. Not to mention, clock for clock, the 7970s beat the 680s.

 

[Magic Carpet]

And an OC on the 7970 will destroy THAT. The 7970s simply OC better on avg.
I own 4 680s, and 2 7970s, and I've owned more 7970s in the past. All of my 7970s OC'd 300mhz+, some 400mhz+. Out of all 4 of my 680s, only 1 of them will break 1300mhz. Not to mention, clock for clock, the 7970s beat the 680s.

so, which you fancy more?

 

[Don Karnage]

And an OC on the 7970 will destroy THAT. The 7970s simply OC better on avg.
I own 4 680s, and 2 7970s, and I've owned more 7970s in the past. All of my 7970s OC'd 300mhz+, some 400mhz+. Out of all 4 of my 680s, only 1 of them will break 1300mhz. Not to mention, clock for clock, the 7970s beat the 680s.

Have any proof to back that statement up?

 

[blackened23]

Have any proof to back that statement up?

Well in terms of what overclocks better

single
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?cores=1#start=20#interval=20
dual gpu
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?start=0#interval=20#cores=2#start=0
3x
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?start=0#interval=20#start=0#cores=3

Its pretty clear that no voltage control makes the 680 limited for OC'ing. For the rest of the peons like myself i'm sticking to 680s cuz i'm not out to set world records...or SLI 2 power supplies together to create a dual power supply?

 

[Tempered81]

single
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?cores=1#start=20#interval=20
dual gpu
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?start=0#interval=20#cores=2#start=0
3x
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?start=0#interval=20#start=0#cores=3

game set match

 

[blastingcap]

At the same place as last time. Still love the guy who said they all could do 1200Mhz. When his own couldnt

HD7970 just really doesnt look good as I see it. Overpriced, power hungry, loud, slower, bad drivers. Still cant resume from sleep for example.

I have never had any sleep problems on my Sapphire OC 7970 or Sapphire OC 7850.

The HD7970 is about as fast as a GTX 680 and faster than a GTX 670 when all are max oc'd. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/05/14/geforce_680_670_vs_radeon_7970_7950_gaming_perf/3

Load power draw is not great, especially when overvolted, but you will likely spend more time at idle (web surfing, Word, posting at AT Forums, checking email, etc.) than at load.

The only real weak points of the 7970 are pricing and lesser feature set (no adaptive Vsync, CUDA/PHYSX, worse multi-GPU support, no GPU Boost). But you can sell the mDP to DVI adapter that comes with the 7970 and the 3 free games as well, and that drops the price of a 7970 close to that of a GTX 670. And the 7970 is ~10% faster than 670 when both are max oc'd.

AMD currently is way better at multi monitor support with 3GB VRAM and with presets and hotkeys whereas NV is stuck in the stone ages where you have to go back to their driver menus all the time to switch. On the other hand they don't need DP to DVI adapters, either.

Note that 7970 also has non-gaming advantages (HPC) but most people don't need it.

In short, I think the three cards are priced fairly right now:

Slowest 670 nevertheless has best bang for the buck of the three.

7970 is a little faster and a little more expensive even after selling the cable and games. Also has more VRAM though that isn't likely to matter for quite a while.

680 is merely tied with the 7970 when both are max oc'd but is also more efficient and has a better feature set overall, at least for single-monitor gamers. Won't likely miss the extra VRAM unless you're going multi-monitor or keeping the card for many years.

 

[Tempered81]

Yeah this is the first time since pre-G80 where Nvidia's top end is equal to Ati. All the more reason for them to drop GK110 already, then it's Checkmate.

 

[blackened23]

Yeah this is the first time since pre-G80 where Nvidia's top end is equal to Ati. All the more reason for them to drop GK110 already, then it's Checkmate.

The big thing holding them back is their software being behind nvidias. ATI needs to add more features and eliminate the oddities, like all these stories with sleep problems. Nvidia throws more money into software development and it generally shows, AMD *really* needs to do this to get back into goodwill.

Performance wise, I was pretty happy with 7970s when I used them. They definitely OC'ed very well - i'm not saying every card will do 1200 but mine did 1150 on air without extreme manual fan settings in xfire. I never bothered going higher because the reference fan at 100% is like a jet. I do like the 680 ref fan, it is very well designed....

 

[Don Karnage]

Well in terms of what overclocks better

single
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?cores=1#start=20#interval=20
dual gpu
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?start=0#interval=20#cores=2#start=0
3x
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/3dmark11_-_performance/rankings?start=0#interval=20#start=0#cores=3

Its pretty clear that no voltage control makes the 680 limited for OC'ing. For the rest of the peons like myself i'm sticking to 680s cuz i'm not out to set world records...or SLI 2 power supplies together to create a dual power supply?

Come on black. 3dmark numbers don't matter.

I made that statement towards that member who has both 7970's and 680's for some of his numbers. LN2 numbers on Hwbot are irrelevant to me

 

[Gordon Freemen]

I have never had any sleep problems on my Sapphire OC 7970 or Sapphire OC 7850.

The HD7970 is about as fast as a GTX 680 and faster than a GTX 670 when all are max oc'd. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/05/14/geforce_680_670_vs_radeon_7970_7950_gaming_perf/3

Load power draw is not great, especially when overvolted, but you will likely spend more time at idle (web surfing, Word, posting at AT Forums, checking email, etc.) than at load.

The only real weak points of the 7970 are pricing and lesser feature set (no adaptive Vsync, CUDA/PHYSX, worse multi-GPU support, no GPU Boost). But you can sell the mDP to DVI adapter that comes with the 7970 and the 3 free games as well, and that drops the price of a 7970 close to that of a GTX 670. And the 7970 is ~10% faster than 670 when both are max oc'd.

AMD currently is way better at multi monitor support with 3GB VRAM and with presets and hotkeys whereas NV is stuck in the stone ages where you have to go back to their driver menus all the time to switch. On the other hand they don't need DP to DVI adapters, either.

Note that 7970 also has non-gaming advantages (HPC) but most people don't need it.

In short, I think the three cards are priced fairly right now:

Slowest 670 nevertheless has best bang for the buck of the three.

7970 is a little faster and a little more expensive even after selling the cable and games. Also has more VRAM though that isn't likely to matter for quite a while.

680 is merely tied with the 7970 when both are max oc'd but is also more efficient and has a better feature set overall, at least for single-monitor gamers. Won't likely miss the extra VRAM unless you're going multi-monitor or keeping the card for many years.

The only real weak points of the 7970 are pricing and lesser feature set (no adaptive Vsync, CUDA/PHYSX, worse multi-GPU support, no GPU Boost).

First off the pricing of the 7970 is less than that of the 680 so pricing a weak point of the 7970 I think not so scratch that off your troll list. Second Adaptive Vsync is BUSTED and DOES NOT WORK. Third Physx is meh at best and Cuda is pure Marketing Bollocks and not even used by gamers to do what a gaming GPU is made for and if you need "Compute Performance" on the cheap buy a GTX 480 cause the 680 sucks at it.

 

[blastingcap]

First off the pricing of the 7970 is less than that of the 680 so pricing a weak point of the 7970 I think not so scratch that off or troll list. Second Adaptive Vsynch is BUSTED and DOES NOT WORK. Third Physx is meh at best and Cuda is pure Marketing Bollocks and not even used by gamers to do what a gaming GPU is made for and if you need "Compute Performance" on the cheap buy a GTX 480 cause the 680 sucks at it.

7970 pricing is weak relative to GTX 670.

I can't comment on firsthand AVsync performance obviously but it sounds good in theory anyway.

I don't miss Physx/CUDA but then most people probably wouldn't miss the extra 1GB VRAM going from 2 to 3, either.

A GTX 480 for compute? No thanks, that thing is a power hog.

I don't see what controversial about what I wrote. The GTX 670 is obviously the price/perf winner in the $400-500 bracket though for top single-GPU performance it trails the 7970/680 by ~10% when all are max overclocked. The 7970 is priced higher, but if you sell off the extras it actually isn't as much of a price/perf drop relative to the GTX 670 as one might think, though it does eat more power. And the GTX 680 is like a more power-efficient version of the 7970, at least at load, but you pay extra for that efficiency like you pay extra for a 80+ Gold rated PSU over a regular 80+ rated PSU. Many people with access to cheap electricity don't even bother getting Gold rated PSUs because it takes a long time to recoup the costs for them, but for others it could matter more. The other stuff like +1 GB VRAM, Cuda/PhysX, HPC performance, etc. kind of cancel each other out for many people.

EDIT: Wow, you can get a 7970 reference for $435 after rebate. Sell off the extras (cable, games) and it could actually be less than $400 for a card that edges out a GTX 670 (stock vs stock) and is about 10% faster (oc vs oc): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161399