Seriously considering going from GTX 580 to Radeon 7970

[blackened23]

No, that is the answer OP just needs to hear.

GTX 580 is still a great card, better than the lastest ATI in some things to. The performance diff is not worth it unless you get someone who wants to buy a used GTX 580 for the same price as a new one.

Depends really on what resolution the OP plays at , and what games he's playing. (I don't know what the better than you're talking about is, unless you value phsyx -- I don't) If I were playing 1080p I wouldn't get anything more than a single 580 or 6970, its really quite ridiculous to get 1000$ worth of GPU on a cheap garbage 23" walmart TN panel.

 

[AdamK47]

At CES they made it a point that they're making a big push into software. They want software to be the big thing now with their GPU's, and they are pushing hard this year to work with game devs (similar to what NV has done). Their previous approach was make the hardware, and developers will come...that approach proved to be not as good as the opposite approach.

In any case, I don't have any xfire issues with any games i've run. Skyrim is a BAD example because I had flickering on my 580 SLI's, its not an amd or NV specific issue, some games will just have issues from time to time with any dual GPU setup.

I agree Skyrim is a bad example if you want to compare SLI to CrossFire. SLI has it's fair share of issues with the game. Broken HDR, water displacement mapping, and mysterious drops in framerate (not micro-stutter). Fallout 3, which uses a version of the same engine, also has horrible multi-GPU support.

Anyway... just bought three Diamond Radeon 7970s from Micro Center. We'll see how she does with my X79/3960X setup.

 

[Nintendesert]

I agree Skyrim is a bad example if you want to compare SLI to CrossFire. SLI has it's fair share of issues with the game. Broken HDR, water displacement mapping, and mysterious drops in framerate (not micro-stutter). Fallout 3, which uses a version of the same engine, also has horrible multi-GPU support.

Anyway... just bought three Diamond Radeon 7970s from Micro Center. We'll see how she does with my X79/3960X setup.

D:

 

[PrincessFrosty]

No, Skyrim is PERFECT example, it's an AAA game that has trouble with crossfire and SLI out the door and despite many patches and driver revisions seems to still have (actually I'm not keeping up with that, if it's now fixed then great but even if it is, it's been weeks and weeks)

The witcher 2 was another one that pissed me off, with negative GPU scaling and no ability to turn off crossfire on my 5970 it made the game quite literally unplayable, It was something like a month before it was sorted, by which time i'd lost interest due to the many hours of troubleshooting.

Microstuttering is generally worth mentioning with multi-gpu as well, tomshardware showed that frame rate differences are somewhat greater on AMD cards and from personal experience I'd agree although this largely mitigated if you're running high fps, if your target is about 60fps average then microstuttering is mostly moot, some people still see it.

If you frequently run at lower frame rates you'll see this more, my target is generally 60fps for all games so it never bothered me. Although there is something to be said for adding a 2nd GPU for more power only to need to raise the bar to get equivalent fluidity.

 

[Rvenger]

I agree Skyrim is a bad example if you want to compare SLI to CrossFire. SLI has it's fair share of issues with the game. Broken HDR, water displacement mapping, and mysterious drops in framerate (not micro-stutter). Fallout 3, which uses a version of the same engine, also has horrible multi-GPU support.

Anyway... just bought three Diamond Radeon 7970s from Micro Center. We'll see how she does with my X79/3960X setup.

Wow, would like to see some benches of a 3 way crossfire.

 

[ocre]

wait. Prices arent stabilized and 25% isnt worth all that money. unless you can get 500$ out of your 580, i would wait. Besides 28nm is just starting out, its gonna be interesting to see what else comes down the pipe. Its just not worth the upgrade atm.

 

[Skurge]

wait. Prices arent stabilized and 25% isnt worth all that money. unless you can get 500$ out of your 580, i would wait. Besides 28nm is just starting out, its gonna be interesting to see what else comes down the pipe. Its just not worth the upgrade atm.

Well. 25% from single 580 to single 7970 might be small, but 25% from 3 580s is a crap ton more FPS. It would be closer to 30% since they scale better. I'm also pretty sure he is going to OC them so that will be 50%+.

Not bad in my book.

 

[AdamK47]

I know I'm not going to get $500 from each of my GTX 580s. If I get 50% to 60% of the cost of the 7970s I'll be happy. Paid $580 for each 7970. I usually make good deals to AnandTech members.

 

[taltamir]

I've noticed them a lot too, like with Skyrim... Typically they're fixed within a few weeks/months though aren't they?

thats the crux of the matter. For both xfire and SLI a new release tends to do poorly for multi GPU until a few weeks or months later.
However, if you paid over 1000$ for GPUs alone you are not the kind of person (probably) that is willing to wait a few months...

Also, all those people saying "Sclaing is great" are ignoring what actually matters... Minimum framerate.
Average is utterly irrelevant.

 

[blackened23]

I know I'm not going to get $500 from each of my GTX 580s. If I get 50% to 60% of the cost of the 7970s I'll be happy. Paid $580 for each 7970. I usually make good deals to AnandTech members.

Its an easy choice me. Worst case scenario is selling my gtx 580's, which easily fetch retail price on ebay right now.

If you stay ahead of the curve with GPU's you will lose very very little of your initial investment, I could easily sell my cards for 470$+ a piece. Probably will keep them around in the 2nd for the time being, though. This is why , in my mind, staying with the absolute latest and greatest may be a good thing for GPU's. They don't depreciate in value overnight, so you can sell your previous gen for nearly full price on ebay.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I must be one of those lucky few... I haven't had any major problems with SLI, in fact I'm hooked

 

[AdamK47]

I'm at work right now, so I haven't had a chance to install anything.

What drivers should I be using? I read that cat 12.2 betas are out. Are these any good for the 7970? What about catalyst profiles?

 

[stahlhart]

Would 750W in an overclocked 2500K/P67 build be enough to feed one of these, or should I upgrade to 850W?

 

[Arkadrel]

@Stahlhart

I think a 750w psu should be enough for a OCed 2500k and a 7970 (overclocked too).

That would probably end up around 500watts or something, under stress situations.

 

[Mogadon]

Would 750W in an overclocked 2500K/P67 build be enough to feed one of these, or should I upgrade to 850W?

You could Crossfire 2 of them with 750W.

 

[stahlhart]

You could Crossfire 2 of them with 750W.

Okay, good. Reason I asked was that the specs for an XFX Black Edition at Newegg state a minimum of 500W, and I was factoring in overclocking of the CPU and GPU.

 

[Arkadrel]

@Magadon

doesnt the 2500k @4.5ghz use like 200+ watts?
and the 7970@~1200mhz core ~300watts?

It depends on how much he overclocks I guess... but at stock, he could crossfire 2x 7970s yeah, and still be okay on that PSU probably.

 

[stahlhart]

@Magadon

doesnt the 2500k @4.5ghz use like 200+ watts?
and the 7970@~1200mhz core ~300watts?

It depends on how much he overclocks I guess... but at stock, he could crossfire 2x 7970s yeah, and still be okay on that PSU probably.

Looks like I'm okay; just wanted to be sure. I'm only single monitor @1900x1200, so I doubt I'll be Crossfiring -- more looking for a single flagship GPU to replace a midrange SLI setup.

 

[Tempered81]

No, that is the answer OP just needs to hear.

GTX 580 is still a great card, better than the lastest ATI in some things to. The performance diff is not worth it unless you get someone who wants to buy a used GTX 580 for the same price as a new one.

did you see this?

 

[ocre]

Well. 25% from single 580 to single 7970 might be small, but 25% from 3 580s is a crap ton more FPS. It would be closer to 30% since they scale better. I'm also pretty sure he is going to OC them so that will be 50%+.

Not bad in my book.

good call. It could add up to more than i was thinking.

 

[imaheadcase]

did you see this?

yah so? Just proves my point.


You have to be insane to upgrade from a gtx 580 to the 7970. YOU WON'T NOTICE A SINGLE DIFFERENCE.

Unless you got a specific reason for one card over another, its a complete foolish move to switch.

 

[kami]

yah so? Just proves my point.


You have to be insane to upgrade from a gtx 580 to the 7970. YOU WON'T NOTICE A SINGLE DIFFERENCE.

Unless you got a specific reason for one card over another, its a complete foolish move to switch.

Enthusiasts have different mindsets. Plus part of the fun is just getting shiny new stuff. I would think a place like this would be the last place to criticize people for going top of the line.

Embrace the overkill.

 

[Quantos]

imaheadcase's point is sound, though. Unless you meet specific criteria where upgrading to 7970 will actually make a visible difference, it's probably not a good investment. In games such as Metro 2033 where every FPS counts, it's probably a good thing. Also, for wqhd and multi-display where the FPS is lower, I can see the point. At 1080p, though... not so much. That said, it's probably overkill to have a 580 for 1080p in the first place, so if you're in that situation and ponder upgrading, you probably don't care about the money!

 

[NIGELG]

Hold on to your 580.

 

[Awkward]

If they bought a 580 in the first place, they're obviously of a different mindset, so, what's with all the value talk in this thread? OP clearly just wants more performance, which he'll definitely get. The 580 is noticeably slower across the board, especially when factoring in ocing. It's funny how the tables have turned. The 7970 is the fastest card on the market, people care about that.

OP seems like he has a disposable income, he'll likely buy a block for his cards(I hope), and get great results out of OCing.