so why buy the 6xx series ? (august '12)

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Ferzerp

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
6,438
107
106
ok chalk one up to nvidia for sli !


I think you're a bit off on the midrange, based on the general reviewer impressions, but you're spot on that right now the 680 has no place, except for high resolutions and SLI (referencing the smoothness that the reviewers report). If we say the 680 is a bad buy unless you are going 4M+ pixels and SLI (and even then a 670 might make more sense), then I think most of the prices are around where they should be, especially considering the premium that nvidia has always been able to extract, even when performance has been the same. Why can they get away with charging slightly more? Who knows, but people buy them.
 

The Alias

Senior member
Aug 22, 2012
646
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Most games overstate the amount of memory in use and you specifically said bandwidth. I know for a fact that memory bandwidth won't make the difference between unplayable and smooth fps with a new title that stresses the GPU like say the original crysis did a few years back.

or metro 2033 does now ? I was just drawing a parallel between the 2 situations back then it was v-ram amount, now it's bandwidth . Also with more games using direct compute (sniper v2 and dirt showdown for example) the bandwidth is going to become more of a factor
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
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or metro 2033 does now ? I was just drawing a parallel between the 2 situations back then it was v-ram amount, now it's bandwidth . Also with more games using direct compute (sniper v2 and dirt showdown for example) the bandwidth is going to become more of a factor

Back then? When crysis came out it didn't matter how much memory you had...it ran at 20fps.

Dirt Showdown is an example of a developer going out of their way to tank performance on one brand vs another. Google up Crysis 2 tessellation ocean and you'll see another one. Dirt Showdown doesn't look that great at all, yet on anything from Nvidia it runs like crap. That is not right. Crysis 2 ran fine on Nvidia hardware and since they had tessellation running hidden and AMD cards couldn't compete in tess performance it made them look bad. People say it wasn't on purpose but what other reason could there be to put a whole slew of tessellation rendering where you don't need it or see it on screen?

As for Metro 2033 I wouldn't call 5fps difference in averages at 1920x1200 when both are running well below 50fps (that means minimums are dropping below 20fps) a win. It's a loss for both in that title. Even on my SLI setup it's not the best experience.
 
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Crap Daddy

Senior member
May 6, 2011
610
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On average, AMD cards deliver similar performance at stock speeds for way less $ and have more overclocking headroom as well.

They deliver less performance at stock speeds for way less $. On the overclocking side you are right.

680 better than 7970
670 better than 7950
660Ti better than 7870

Exception is 7970GE which has no similar card by NV and 7850/7770 which don't have yet any competition of 28nm cards.

On the other hand things might change sooner than later since some GTX670 are beginning to be sold in USA at 370-380$, Borderlands 2 included.
 

The Alias

Senior member
Aug 22, 2012
646
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They deliver less performance at stock speeds for way less $. On the overclocking side you are right.

680 better than 7970
670 better than 7950
660Ti better than 7870

Exception is 7970GE which has no similar card by NV and 7850/7770 which don't have yet any competition of 28nm cards.

On the other hand things might change sooner than later since some GTX670 are beginning to be sold in USA at 370-380$, Borderlands 2 included.
the lineup for confrontation is more like :
7970ghz vs 680
7970 vs 670
7950 vs 660ti
as the ghz ed was introduced by amd to be an entirely different sku using better binned tahitis to be the 680 killer
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
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why buy nvidia's 6xx series, if for each of their skus amd has a card that outperforms it ?

to elaborate : the 680 is outperformed by the 7970ghz edition and the 680 never retails under $500, while the ghz edition retails for around $470 on newegg .(with a visiontek one at $430)

snip

This will probably degenerate into a name-calling thread if it hasn't already, but I'll give you my thoughts on the matter.

1. Nvidia has a better reputation/brand image than AMD. That matters to many people.
2. Nvidia is a more stable company than AMD and is likely to still be around in 5 years.
3. Even if the power difference is minor, people can feel good about themselves by using less power while gaming with Nvidia.
4. A potential future SLI upgrade with NV is more likely to be beneficial due to the consistently better sli (vs crossfire) performance.
5. With NV you can buy cards that exhaust the heat out the back of the case without dealing with the hassle of ear plugs or custom fan profiles.

And, as many long-time posters will attest, I am very pro-AMD. I owned an x1950xt, 3870, and 4850 in the past, and I only went to NV after that because they had better price/performance at my price point the last couple times I bought cards. If I bought a card today I would buy a 7950 btw, but I think that this gen's pricing generally sucks for both camps so I'm holding out for the next gen.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
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I will say one thing, if I knew I was only ever going to use 1 card I'd have bought a 7950. I thought I may use SLi in the future (turns out I did when I upgraded to 2560x1440) and I don't regret getting a 670. Especially when I got it on the day they were released for $375
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
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Back then? When crysis came out it didn't matter how much memory you had...it ran at 20fps.

Dirt Showdown is an example of a developer going out of their way to tank performance on one brand vs another. Google up Crysis 2 tessellation ocean and you'll see another one. Dirt Showdown doesn't look that great at all, yet on anything from Nvidia it runs like crap. That is not right. Crysis 2 ran fine on Nvidia hardware and since they had tessellation running hidden and AMD cards couldn't compete in tess performance it made them look bad. People say it wasn't on purpose but what other reason could there be to put a whole slew of tessellation rendering where you don't need it or see it on screen?

As for Metro 2033 I wouldn't call 5fps difference in averages at 1920x1200 when both are running well below 50fps (that means minimums are dropping below 20fps) a win. It's a loss for both in that title. Even on my SLI setup it's not the best experience.

5 fps at 50 fps avg is a huge difference. It doesn't matter at 20fps b/c they're both slideshows, and it doesn't matter at 120 fps b/c the display wouldn't show a difference, but at 50 fps even a casual gamer would immediately see a difference.

o0o0o0o tell us what you know!!!

I don't think that we need another thread comparing financials between AMD and NV. However, if we just look at leadership stability, NV has had JHH providing outstanding leadership from day one, while ATI/AMD has had numerous leaders/directions in the past and, likely, the future. NV's top competition in about half of their products is AMD, and NV generally wins their battles. AMD's primary competition in about 80% of their business is intel.
 
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The Alias

Senior member
Aug 22, 2012
646
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This will probably degenerate into a name-calling thread if it hasn't already, but I'll give you my thoughts on the matter.

1. Nvidia has a better reputation/brand image than AMD. That matters to many people.
2. Nvidia is a more stable company than AMD and is likely to still be around in 5 years.
1 I don't understand why they do and it does as for the past 3-4 years amd/ati has offered great price to performance in their cards (4xxx-7xxx) and why should their view of a company matter when facts state otherwise

2 why should what a company does in five years matter when we're making purchases for the next 1-2 ?
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
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1 I don't understand why they do and it does as for the past 3-4 years amd/ati has offered great price to performance in their cards (4xxx-7xxx) and why should their view of a company matter when facts state otherwise

2 why should what a company does in five years matter when we're making purchases for the next 1-2 ?

You asked for some reasons why somebody would consider NV and I gave them to you. I didn't say they were correct or even legitimate reasons, yet you still want to argue with me about it. Having said that, I'll offer yet more legitimate reasons for a reasonable person to buy from Nvidia right now.

1. AMD currently offers solid price/performance, but up until the gtx 660ti launch, AMD's current gen pricing kind of sucked. They were more expensive, they were slower, they were hotter, they used more power, and they were louder. For the savvy AT member, 7950 overclocking badassitude with customer coolers is great, but for the majority of gamers who are afraid of putting the words "overclock" and "gpu" in the same sentence, a gtx 680 with auto-overclocking is preferable to a 7970 if the price is the same or even close. Compare a stock 7970 to a gtx 670 and AMD probably gets the nod. Unfortunately for AMD, they don't have the same brand awareness and favorable reputation that NV has, and when they have similar or slightly weaker products AMD needs to be a bit cheaper to entice people to go with them. If, in 3 years, AMD has 60% market share then NV will be in the same boat that AMD is in right now.

2. It shouldn't matter, and you could substitute "months" for "years" into my statement. Look at it this way: if AMD goes away in 6 months or 2 years or 5 years for that matter, how much is your lifetime warranty worth? How much was it worth from BFG when they closed? My personal experience with Chrysler was that during the runup to the bankruptcy we would get people offering us 50¢ on the dollar for cars because they thought we would take such a stupid deal. My mom was afraid to fly American to Hawaii because she was afraid that they would go bankrupt before her flight and she'd lose her money. That sort of thing doesn't often come into play with GPU's I don't think, but if somebody has no brand preference and the cards are similar in price/perf then it could push the consumer over the edge towards NV.


Maybe, but...

AMD, founded 1969
Nvidia, founded 1993

I don't wish to trash AMD, but I would take JHH over anybody AMD has ever had at the helm (esp the insider trader). And, as stated, NV isn't going head to head with intel right now. That's why I go after Nissan or Chevy owners instead of Toyota; Toyota, like intel, is the 800 lb gorilla in my market, and nobody wants to poke the 800 lb gorilla.
 
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AnandThenMan

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2004
3,991
627
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bryan do you have any specific info that says AMD is going to be out of business in the next 5 years? Because if you don't, then your argument seems unwarranted. I tend to believe that if AMD has not been killed off by Intel by now, it's not going to happen. AMD has the strongest lineup they have ever had, the exception unfortunately is in the enthusiast and server CPU space which is really dragging them down.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,736
3,454
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I like when games say "The way its meant to be played" because when I was in high school my friend Jeff had a pentium 150mhz and everything ran great and my PC sucked and when I had a game he said come over if you want to see how its supposed to run so the Nvidia slogan reminds me of that and makes me know i'm doing it right.
 

markyd

Member
Aug 19, 2012
41
0
0
sli, exclusive nvidia features, drivers, the premium company.

Heres a quote from the 7970 ghz edition review from anandtech "The end result is that while AMD has tied NVIDIA for the single-GPU performance crown with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the GeForce GTX 680 is still the more desirable gaming card. There are a million exceptions to this statement of course (and it goes both ways), but as we said before, these cards may be tied but they're anything but equal."

Also, 670>7950 and even 7970 in some games such as bf3.
 

hokies83

Senior member
Oct 3, 2010
837
2
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Month Ago Nvidia Was faster.. this month Amd is faster...

Next month Nvidia will be faster.... Who gives a crap...

All i care about Is driver issues... And Amd is famous for those never had an Issue with Nvidia thats why i have Nvidia.
 

The Alias

Senior member
Aug 22, 2012
646
58
91
sli, exclusive nvidia features, drivers, the premium company.

Heres a quote from the 7970 ghz edition review from anandtech "The end result is that while AMD has tied NVIDIA for the single-GPU performance crown with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the GeForce GTX 680 is still the more desirable gaming card. There are a million exceptions to this statement of course (and it goes both ways), but as we said before, these cards may be tied but they're anything but equal."
sli yes, nvidia features physx which I think will be replaced by direct compute, 3d vision yes (but people hardly use that), adaptive v-sync which I can't really tell the difference from that and a frame rate limiter and need clarification on how the tecnologies are different as the hwcanucks article didn't differentiate the two, then we have txaa which has only been implemented in one game .

times have changed . the 680 retails for $30 more and performs worse in the majority of games at max settings (info garnered in other forumsfrom people who had both cards) . Not to mention the ghz edition cards are all non reference and don't have heat issues like the reference did .
 

SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
5,187
1
0
Kepler offers nice efficiency and performance; and this balance may be appealing to some.

nVidia offers a strong brand name that may be appealing to some!

nVidia offers some feature differentiation that may be appealing to some!