Gtx 680 vs Radeon 7970 (liquid cooled, specific question)

[Devious21]

System Specifications:

I. Processor/CPU:
i7 3770k


II. Current Graphics Card:
That's what I need you guys for!

III. Display Resolution:
Will be explained below

IV. Power Supply Unit Specification (Brand, Wattage, Ampage, Age). If possible, please provide a link to a website containing the power supply specifications:
Looking at Corsair Enthusiast 850W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V, willing to get a better one

V. Case Specifications(N/A, Model, Length, Low Profile, Cooling, HTPC, Water, Silent):
nzxt phantom 820 is what I'm looking at, willing to switch.

Purchase Details:

I. Budget? Please be sure to include currency (If not USD), retailer preferences & specify whether rebates are a viable option.
$600 USD (flexible)

II. Any particular preferences (Manufacturer[nV or AMD], Brand[XFX, Sapphire, EVGA, etc], Cooling Solutions)?
No preferences, but I'm liquid cooling the GPU

III. Do you plan to have any Multi-GPU solutions such as Crossfire or SLI?
Not unless you guys think I need to!

IV. Have you previously looked at a product(s) which you feel would fit your needs?
I think both the GTX 680 and Radeon 7970 are solid cards, i just need to know what one is better!

V. What are your needs for this GPU? Which games(If any)do you intend to play? If you have this information at hand, what are the desired detail levels?
I'm looking to multibox World of Warcraft, running at least 25 copies. The resolution of each window isn't particularly high, but there will be a ton of them.

VI. Do you plan on overclocking the card you intend to purchase?
I'm liquid cooling it, so I'd say overclocking is a definite possibility.

Long story:
I have seen numerous benchmarks and performance comparisons of the two cards, but they are for top of the line games at top highest settings.
I on the other hand, am looking for a card that will best let me multi-box world of warcraft. I'm looking to be able to run 25 (or more) copies at the same time, so I can raid enemy cities by myself.
Do you guys think one of these cards is better than the other for this? I was thinking maybe the Radeon because it has more vram and higher memory bandwidth, but the GTX 480 is also sold in a 4gb form.
Price isn't really a problem, so you can ignore the price difference, i just want to know which you guys think will be better. I'd also appreciate if you could explain why you think one is better, i'm trying to learn more about this kind of thing and any information would be appreciated!

 

[Sleepingforest]

The 7970 is better if you are willing to overclock. I would get this $370AR 7970 (comes overclocked like a $450 7970 GHz Edition) and this 600W power supply for $60AR (enough for a single 7970 and overclocking). You can get a prebuilt watercooling loop for the 7970 that is pretty effective for $150 or go full custom for a considerable amount more.

I'm still not sure it'll be enough to run 25 instances of WoW though.

 

[blackened23]

If you're going water cooled, be aware that water cooling does next to nothing with reference 680s; if you go with a 680 you should get the MSI lightning 680 which remains the only 680 that can be overvolted - If you use the original BIOS you can overvolt it up to 1.4V. The lightning also has full coverage blocks available.

Be aware that this is not possible with reference 680s; Most reference 680s gain nearly nothing from water due to voltage being locked at 1.175V maximum (stock load voltage). Countless people have used water on 680s and unless you mod the card with a separate VRM and a custom BIOS, it isn't a good candidate for water cooling. That is, if overclocking to insanely high levels is your goal.

Overall the 7970 is a lot better if you want to overclock with water cooling, IMO. The lightning 680 is also an option but obviously costs more. Do not get a reference 680 for overclocking on water.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Hardware wise the 7970 is a much better choice to water cool than the 680 which is all but worthless to do so outside of acoustics.

Software side AMD isn't exactly on par with Nvidia, bumps and stangs in gameplay should be expected.

I think Titan should be on your consideration plate as well, it would not require you water cool for decent acoustics and performance would be above whatever you could manage with either of the other two choices even with water.

 

[BrightCandle]

My understanding was that WoW ran better on NVidia for some reason but I haven't seen it benched it quite a long time so you might want to dig up what exists or check the WoW forums for performance measures.

I don't imagine 25 on one box is even remotely doable, is it?

 

[Devious21]

My understanding was that WoW ran better on NVidia for some reason but I haven't seen it benched it quite a long time so you might want to dig up what exists or check the WoW forums for performance measures.

I don't imagine 25 on one box is even remotely doable, is it?

from what i've heard it's possible using Isboxer and a feature that lets you render the "inactive" windows at a tiny resolution, while keeping your main one at the resolution you prefer.

edit* for comparison purposes i'm currently able to run like 14-15 on my i7 930/gtx480 build, and the gtx 480 still has some more (not much) room to give (the processor however, is maxed)

 

[wand3r3r]

If you're going water cooled, be aware that water cooling does next to nothing with reference 680s; if you go with a 680 you should get the MSI lightning 680 which remains the only 680 that can be overvolted - If you use the original BIOS you can overvolt it up to 1.4V. The lightning also has full coverage blocks available.

Be aware that this is not possible with reference 680s; Most reference 680s gain nearly nothing from water due to voltage being locked at 1.175V maximum (stock load voltage). Countless people have used water on 680s and unless you mod the card with a separate VRM and a custom BIOS, it isn't a good candidate for water cooling. That is, if overclocking to insanely high levels is your goal.

Overall the 7970 is a lot better if you want to overclock with water cooling, IMO. The lightning 680 is also an option but obviously costs more. Do not get a reference 680 for overclocking on water.

This is right on the money. 680's are neutered and generally won't be any better under water.

As the others mentioned the 25 instance is the biggest unknown on how they'll handle it.

 

[3DVagabond]

If you want to fit a full coverage waterblock for a 7970 make sure there's one that fits the card you buy. As far as I know you can only get full coverage blocks for:

A, reference cards. You want the PCB branded "AMD" near the pcie connector like this. Just because it looks like a reference design with a reference cooler doesn't mean the PCB is a reference design and a full coverage block might not fit.

B,Asus DCII has full coverage blocks available

C, MSI Lightning has full coverage blocks available. The MSI 7970PE is, as far as I know, physically identical to the Lightning. So, Lightning blocks should fit.

D, The Asus Matrix should have blocks available by now. I know there was an announcement they were coming.

Any other cards will likely only take GPU blocks and require you to air cool the rest of the components (RAM chips, VRM).


For what it's worth, the reference cards are excellent cards once you change out the stock cooler. AMD is known for engineering their cards to take over voltage very well and spec high quality components. Their reference coolers are noisy though.

 

[jaedaliu]

I would think instances of WoW need more CPU threads and system ram than graphics card power. But I'm just guessing.

 

[Cadarin]

Benchmarks up to at least 12.11 show WoW runs quite a bit worse on AMD cards. I haven't seen any improvements mentioned in any of the driver updates since then. I'd think twice before getting an AMD card for what you want to do.

 

[Dravonic]

Won't WoW somewhat release the card/CPU if you alt+tab out of it? Some games do it, others don't. If it does, I'd say your biggest concern is memory, of both the system and video kind. If not, then performance comes into play too, and I don't see how 25 instances could be possible at all.

You're in uncharted territory here. Haven't heard of anyone doing such a thing. 3 instances? Sure, but 25? You'll probably have to figure out what's best by trial and error. Use your current PC, open up a bunch of WoW instances and see which wall you hit first, then adjust you new purchase accordingly.

 

[Elfear]

I'm not a WoW player, so correct if I'm wrong, but wouldn't 25 game instances cost you $375/month just in subscription fees? That's some serious dedication to a game.

In regards to your question, here are some recent benchmarks between the high-end cards. Looks like the 4GB 680 would be your best bet until AMD fixes the latency issues with WoW. I have no idea what kind of load 24 instances of the game at minimum settings and resolution would put on the GPU so you may have to step up to a Titan or SLI.

 

[blackened23]

HE also stated that he wants to raid enemy cities solo. Uhhh, not sure if he's new to WoW but raiding orgrimmar or stormwind solo? Have fun w/ that. Have fun with repeated corpse runs, that is. 4GB of VRAM for WoW? I'm not quite sure even what to say about that because the game is using an engine from 2002. Background instances of WoW are also frozen while not in use as well.

I'd love to hear more about this 25 instances of WoW, I can't think of anyone who would do that except maybe a gold farmer in China

 

[Elfear]

HE also stated that he wants to raid enemy cities solo. Uhhh, not sure if he's new to WoW but raiding orgrimmar or stormwind solo? Have fun w/ that. Have fun with repeated corpse runs, that is. 4GB of VRAM for WoW? I'm not quite sure even what to say about that because the game is using an engine from 2002. Background instances of WoW are also frozen while not in use as well.

I'd love to hear more about this 25 instances of WoW, I can't think of anyone who would do that except maybe a gold farmer in China

I only recommended that because I figured 25 instances of a game running on the same GPU would eat up the vram. I've never heard of that many instances running at once so I may be off base.

Besides what's another $80-100 for the 4GB version when you're spending $375/month on fees.