[H] - GTX680 3-Way SLI vs. 7970 Tri-Fire review

[boxleitnerb]

[Hard]|OCP has looked at the gameplay experiences with 3xGTX680 and 3xHD7970.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/25/geforce_gtx_680_3way_sli_radeon_7970_trifire_review/1

Quick recap:

- GTX680 SLI could use more VRAM in BF3
- SLI is more efficient
- SLI is smoother than CF (again). CF requires higher fps for the same feeling
- In this regards, SLI even wins at 3x1080p for overall experience

 

[Silverforce11]

Tri-Fire and eyeinfinity is balked.. no recent driver supports it, using such olddrivers for GCN is fail, no optimizations for it, miracle it even worked.

Moral of the story: Don't get AMD cards if you plan to TriFire. AMD failed on this one.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

One thing I want to know. Btw a oc 7970 and oc 680, assuming similar minimum fps and similar average fps and same settings, is a single 680 smoother or 7970 smoother or both about equal or what? Assuming the same config, same minimum fps, same average fps and same settings. Which would feel far more smoother? Or are they very close? Will input lag be affected? Will image quality vary as well?

 

[Jaydip]

7970 is wasting 1 GB vram,there should be a cut-down version with 1.5Gb

 

[Insomniator]

I thought just last generation CF was better than SLI? Did that change with only these cards or am I just completely wrong?

 

[Silverforce11]

CF is fine, its TF, completely wacked (for triple monitors) and AMD isn't going to fix it anytime soon.

 

[boxleitnerb]

With only one GPU there will be no discernible differences in smoothness. The only thing that could make a difference is Nvidias adaptive vsync. Image quality is also basically the same (at default settings). From there on things differ a bit on the exotic side (downsampling with Nvidia, working negative LOD with SSAA on AMD).

CF with 2 GPUs is probably better, but still worse than SLI regarding smoothness.

 

[railven]

I noticed in the images, the SLI each monitor is hooked up to each card (3xDVI) while on the CFX setup, all three are hooked up to one card (1xDVI+2xDP).

Is that a requirement for CFX? Just curious, I never multi-monitored AND multi-carded. I remember here reading that this created tearing.

 

[railven]

Pulled this from article:

Thanks for the email – yes this is a known issue, and is certainly considered a critical issue to be resolved ASAP. Catalyst 12.4 will be releasing on Wednesday and will include a couple of Eyefinity fixes (noted below). This specific issue you refer to is actively being investigated and we are trying to get it resolved for Catalyst 12.5; as soon as we have a driver release with the fix I will send it your way to verify that it resolves the issue for you as well. -Andrew Dodd

Went to check, still 12.3. Woof seems they went from praise for drivers with 5/6 series to death threats with 7 series haha.

 

[toyota]

7970 is wasting 1 GB vram,there should be a cut-down version with 1.5Gb

no not really. there are plenty of cases where a 7970 will need more than 1.5gb at 2560x1600/1440 and even some at 1920x1200/1080. even more true for those that go crossfire and crank every setting and/or run really high resolutions. a 7970 1.5gb would not really be a good idea IMO. heck just with my gtx570, my vram is pegged in a few games at 1920x1080 and would limit some settings especially with mods.

 

[Jaydip]

The instances are so few that it would definitely make sense.Remember, a 3Gb 580 offered nothing more than an ordinary 580.

 

[toyota]

The instances are so few that it would definitely make sense.Remember, a 3Gb 580 offered nothing more than an ordinary 580.

it does not matter if its just few instances if those instances are games that you actually want to play. it was like the people that bought the 8800gts 320mb and 8800gt 256mb only to limit the actual settings of those cards in some games. and those cards had to be upgraded much quicker too because games released just months afterwards used more and more vram. 1.5gb is already NOT enough right NOW and someone buying a flagship card would certainly not want to limit themselves especially for upcoming games.

 

[blckgrffn]

The instances are so few that it would definitely make sense.Remember, a 3Gb 580 offered nothing more than an ordinary 580.

I suppose, but when the next cards down on the totem pole are 2GB parts, do you really want to create scenarios (however rare) where your flagship GPU is handily overcome buy lesser parts?

IMHO, AMD should stick to 2GB (minimum) on their high end parts if the mainstream performance cards are shifting to 2GB.

Without some trickery, that leaves a 384-bit interface @ 3GB.

 

[Jaydip]

1.5Gb is still enough for 1080P saving few occasions.Check the reviews of the GTX 680 4Gb versions,they offer nothing extra.Before u become Vram bottlenecked u will become gpu bottlenecked.

 

[Jaydip]

I suppose, but when the next cards down on the totem pole are 2GB parts, do you really want to create scenarios (however rare) where your flagship GPU is handily overcome buy lesser parts?

IMHO, AMD should stick to 2GB (minimum) on their high end parts if the mainstream performance cards are shifting to 2GB.

Without some trickery, that leaves a 384-bit interface @ 3GB.

I am fine with 3Gb,but IMO there should be a 1.5Gb version of 7970.

 

[Don Karnage]

IMO there should be a 1.5Gb version of 7970.

Why?

 

[toyota]

1.5Gb is still enough for 1080P saving few occasions.Check the reviews of the GTX 680 4Gb versions,they offer nothing extra.Before u become Vram bottlenecked u will become gpu bottlenecked.

AGAIN you don't buy a flagship card to play games at all but a "few occasions". it would be asinine to limit your top single gpu card like that fright now and especially for future games.

 

[Jaydip]

It will be a serious threat to the upcoming 670 and the 680 @ 399$

 

[blckgrffn]

I am fine with 3Gb,but IMO there should be a 1.5Gb version of 7970.

BUT YOU MUST ADOPT MY OPINION AS YOUR OWN SO I WIN THE INTERNET!!!



Well, if you would buy it, surely there would be others. The question would then be how large that market would be and how big the price difference would have to be. I *suspect* (don't know) that the ram itself is a tiny part of the actual BOM price. If it is only ~$20 cheaper, would you still support it existence?

 

[Jaydip]

BUT YOU MUST ADOPT MY OPINION AS YOUR OWN SO I WIN THE INTERNET!!!



Well, if you would buy it, surely there would be others. The question would then be how large that market would be and how big the price difference would have to be. I *suspect* (don't know) that the ram itself is a tiny part of the actual BOM price. If it is only ~$20 cheaper, would you still support it existence?

Gddr5 is still very expensive expect at least 70-80$ difference.

 

[toyota]

Gddr5 is still very expensive expect at least 70-80$ difference.

where are you pulling those prices from?

 

[Jaydip]

AGAIN you don't buy a flagship card to play games at all but a "few occasions". it would be asinine to limit your top single gpu card like that fright now and especially for future games.

Neither Gtx 680 nor 7970 claims that u can play all games using maximum settings.There are always tradeoffs.

 

[railven]

Gddr5 is still very expensive expect at least 70-80$ difference.

Not implying anything on you Jay, but that isn't what was said when we were discussing the cost of HD 7970 around launch - the <$30 price point was tossed around a lot.

Would like to know, personally, how much that extra RAM does cost.

 

[blackened23]

another such review that doesn't review 2 games only:

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/gtx680_quad_sli_vs_hd7970_quad_crossfirex,1.html

Half the games have lower performance with 4x GPU than with 2x GPU. Would the 2 people using quad SLI or quad xfire stand up? A sucker is born every minute.

Triple-quad GPU scaling has always been garbage for both sides as far as I remember, I don't see why anyone would go beyond 2.

 

[toyota]

Neither Gtx 680 nor 7970 claims that u can play all games using maximum settings.There are always tradeoffs.

again its STUPID to limit your high end gpus like that. we are at a point right now where 1.5gb is not always enough and that is only going to get worse.