To GTX 570 users that upgraded...

[bolitebriga]

Hi, first time poster, long time lurker.

As I said, to the users who had 1 GTX 570 upgraded to a GTX 670/680 HD 7970/7950...are you satisfied with your upgrade?

I've been looking to replace my 570 for a 2 months now, but every time I need to decide I freak out because 450$ seems a lot of money.

I max out most games with no AA at 1080P with 40-60 FPS. The only ones that I can't is Crysis 3, Skyrim with mods and Metro 2033. Seeing new, more demanding games are going to come out I thought that a GTX 680 now, and another one in a year or 2 should last me 4 years in terms of GPU upgrading.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Going from a 570 median oc to 7970 median oc, you should get an avg performance boost of 60-100% comparing oc vs oc. Comparing stock vs stock perhaps 50-75% avg. 680 would be a bit lesser and 670/7950 a bit further lesser, comparing guaranteed oc comparisons.

However, even a 670 or 7950 will easily be 40-70% faster at least in most cases, comparing oced to oced. And in most cases will be within 10-20% of the 7970 oc even when the lower cards are at their furthest distance.

 

[Jaydip]

I upgraded from a 580 and it turned out OK.

 

[Tweak155]

I went from a 560ti 448 (very similar to a 570) to a 670 and notice a big difference. But I also increased resolution so it really killed the 560ti 448 performance.

 

[Arkadrel]

Stock 570
vs
His 7970 turbo (1050mhz)
= ~70% increase in performance.



Only really 2 options if you want something faster than a 7970,
and thats a Titan a 1000$ card, or a 690 = 1000$ card.

Honestly the 7970 is pretty good value if you look at it that way.

Titan is about 28% faster than a (stock) 1ghz 7970.
Titan costs 1000$ vs ~400$ for a 7970 (250% price differnce)

With OCing you can probably get a 7970 running near stock GTX Titan performance.

 

[psolord]

Hi, first time poster, long time lurker.

As I said, to the users who had 1 GTX 570 upgraded to a GTX 670/680 HD 7970/7950...are you satisfied with your upgrade?

I've been looking to replace my 570 for a 2 months now, but every time I need to decide I freak out because 450$ seems a lot of money.

I max out most games with no AA at 1080P with 40-60 FPS. The only ones that I can't is Crysis 3, Skyrim with mods and Metro 2033. Seeing new, more demanding games are going to come out I thought that a GTX 680 now, and another one in a year or 2 should last me 4 years in terms of GPU upgrading.

I upgraded from 570 SLI to 7950 CFX. Actually I just got my 7950s although they are in the market for a year now. I was waiting for some good offer to come and what better than the AMD Reloaded bundle?

Haven't played many games yet, but from my preliminary tests the performance delta seems to be around 50%+ for both single and dual gpu modes. Especially in Crysis 3 it was night and day. If this is indicative of the performance delta I am to expect, in truly graphics intensive games, then I'm happy as a clam.

The 3GBs of video ram really gives the user a profound sense of futureproofing, especially when you are switching from a 570.

If you want me to test something specifically I'd be glad to, as long as it's not MMO and I do have it of course.

 

[Golgatha]

Hi, first time poster, long time lurker.

As I said, to the users who had 1 GTX 570 upgraded to a GTX 670/680 HD 7970/7950...are you satisfied with your upgrade?

I've been looking to replace my 570 for a 2 months now, but every time I need to decide I freak out because 450$ seems a lot of money.

I max out most games with no AA at 1080P with 40-60 FPS. The only ones that I can't is Crysis 3, Skyrim with mods and Metro 2033. Seeing new, more demanding games are going to come out I thought that a GTX 680 now, and another one in a year or 2 should last me 4 years in terms of GPU upgrading.

I would say yes, it is worth the upgrade. I went from GTX 570 to GTX 680 and the difference was very noticeable.

 

[Fastx]

I'd also be interested and in previous GTX 570 users opinion going to a AMD 7950. I like the bang for the buck (around $269.00 Sapphire 7950) and the 384 bit/3GB (vs the 670/256 bit/2GB) but read about artifacts at times and read a post it doesn't play well with DX9 games which I still play at times. But not sure if newer drivers recently has fixed any of this for sure?

 

[Golgatha]

I'd also be interested and in previous GTX 570 users opinion going to a AMD 7950. I like the bang for the buck (around $269.00 Sapphire 7950) and the 384 bit/3GB (vs the 670/256 bit/2GB) but read about artifacts at times and read a post it doesn't play well with DX9 games which I still play at times. But not sure if newer drivers recently has fixed any of this for sure?

So there was a time when I went from GTX 570 to 7970 to GTX 680. I got the GTX 680 even though it was "slower" than my brand new 7970 because I experienced driver artifacts in several games that I play. One of the most frequent ones I play is Rift and it is DX9 I believe. After my 7970 experiences and really past experiences as well, I will be hard pressed to ever consider trying another AMD card again. I had relatively good experiences with 3870s and 4850s in Crossfire back in the day, but even those had the occasional driver issue. For me, everything since the 48xx series was a driver issue fiasco, as both 5850s in Crossfire and a single 7970 (figured a single card would be ok since a single 5850 was mainly hassle free for the most part) had weird issues. Also, the CCC drivers were flaky enough when upgrading that I got to the point of making a full disc backup before updating them. I won't begin to consider how much time I wasted troubleshooting AMDs crap drivers when I could have been gaming.

Comparatively nVidia products have given me no issues whatsoever in recent history. I now own or have put into various family/friend computers as hand-me-downs a 9500GT, GT 430, GT 520, GTX 460 768MB, GTX 660, GTX 570, GTX 680, and GTX Titan. All are still running well and have no driver issues. I've had previous experiences with everything from GeForce 2 Pro through Titan that are consistently similar, so that's 12 years of graphics chips from the same company with pretty much zero driver issues. On the other hand, everything from ATI/AMD has been anywhere from FUBAR to tolerable but irritating.

Cliffs: I whole heartedly recommend NOT purchasing anything AMD.

 

[Eureka]

I'd also be interested and in previous GTX 570 users opinion going to a AMD 7950. I like the bang for the buck (around $269.00 Sapphire 7950) and the 384 bit/3GB (vs the 670/256 bit/2GB) but read about artifacts at times and read a post it doesn't play well with DX9 games which I still play at times. But not sure if newer drivers recently has fixed any of this for sure?

At this point, I've had a 570, 670, 7950 and 7970... if you really want bang for the buck, the 7950 is fine. I don't know of the issues for DX9, I haven't had many issues with this.

Most of the drivers are pretty good now for the 7950... the newest 13.3 seems to be giving me issues but 13.2 was pretty smooth.

 

[Granseth]

@Golgatha
I just have to comment since I have very different experience with my GPU history. I have a 7970 since launch and been running it at 1200/1500 without problems, but I have to be honest and say that I don't notice latency issues to much and I mostly don't play the newest games with exceptions of a few. And since a lot of the issues I see at the forums comes before AMD has a new driver ready it might bee that one who has to play the newest games all the times has more issues than me.

Anyway I am a one who mostly sees the grass as greener on the other side, so I mostly switch every generation, so I have now a 7970<-560ti<-4870<-8800 GTS512 etc. And I've had problems with both vendors, but am mostly satisfied, and I think most owners are.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Personally these days any gamer should have at least a 2gb 7850 or better if they are serious about gaming,some games like Crysis 2 can easily exceed 1.4gb of ram even as low of a resolution as 1366x768....seen that game hit over 1.6gb at one point at 1920x1200.

 

[wand3r3r]

I've had most of the cards in question. At this point I'd go unlocked 7950 and OC it, or wait for next gen. You've been waiting forever already (7970/50 came over a year ago albeit with the premium) and the new cards will be out within a year presumably.

If you crank up the settings you can bring all of the current cards to their knees, I'm just waiting for something about the next gen to see if we get titan performance for 1/2 the price.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Personally these days any gamer should have at least a 2gb 7850 or better if they are serious about gaming,some games like Crysis 2 can easily exceed 1.4gb of ram even as low of a resolution as 1366x768....seen that game hit over 1.6gb at one point at 1920x1200.

Used doesn't mean needs, and a 7850 is a super side grade to a 570.

If you need the performance upgrade, 7950 is a decent card from my experience. It's pretty fast, and my TF3 keeps it cool and quiet, nothing to really complain about other than I wanted GK110 without it costing a kidney :\

Otherwise wait, either for lower prices/used or 20nm.

 

[Eureka]

Used doesn't mean needs, and a 7850 is a super side grade to a 570.

If you need the performance upgrade, 7950 is a decent card from my experience. It's pretty fast, and my TF3 keeps it cool and quiet, nothing to really complain about other than I wanted GK110 without it costing a kidney :\

Otherwise wait, either for lower prices/used or 20nm.

I think the 7950 is actually a bit too much for an upgrade over a 570. Unless you really need that extra bit of performance to get over some threshold, it's still a $200+ upgrade for very little gain.

The main problem with the 570 is just the VRAM. If there was more VRAM, it'd be able to handle any game out there without too much tweaking.

 

[wand3r3r]

I think the 7950 is actually a bit too much for an upgrade over a 570. Unless you really need that extra bit of performance to get over some threshold, it's still a $200+ upgrade for very little gain.

The main problem with the 570 is just the VRAM. If there was more VRAM, it'd be able to handle any game out there without too much tweaking.

I partially agree, it's basically upgrading for slightly less or similar prices than the 570 was back in the day ($300+). In the end it doesn't really matter what the downfall is (RAM) but just the fact that it's constrained. If they still sell for $100 used (not too sure on what they go for) it could be a $180 upgrade.

The performance of a stock 7950 isn't that amazing, the overclocking seems to more than make up for it and generally puts it in the higher cards territories. I'd be on the fence for this one too, or at least I understand the opinions both ways.

The 570 is pretty long in tooth.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Used doesn't mean needs, and a 7850 is a super side grade to a 570.

If you need the performance upgrade, 7950 is a decent card from my experience. It's pretty fast, and my TF3 keeps it cool and quiet, nothing to really complain about other than I wanted GK110 without it costing a kidney :\

Otherwise wait, either for lower prices/used or 20nm.

Oh i know how beast the 7900 series is,last year i had a 7970 and this was before the awesome drivers came out,during the sleep bug issue and god i hated that card,but at the same time loved it.

Eventually traded it for a notebook as i had nothing but driver issues,hopefully when BF4 comes out i could save up the coin for another 7970 as the drivers have much improved .

 

[Crap Daddy]

Personally these days any gamer should have at least a 2gb 7850 or better if they are serious about gaming,some games like Crysis 2 can easily exceed 1.4gb of ram even as low of a resolution as 1366x768....seen that game hit over 1.6gb at one point at 1920x1200.

And can you tell me what's happening because I can't see nothing wrong while playing Crysis 3 on very high or BF3 on ultra preset on 1680*1050 with a 570?

 

[skipsneeky2]

And can you tell me what's happening because I can't see nothing wrong while playing Crysis 3 on very high or BF3 on ultra preset on 1680*1050 with a 570?

When i said that above post,it was in reference to anyone buying today as games are using a good 1gb,nothing wrong with a gtx570 and having owned one myself,its a good card if you mind your settings...

 

[Fastx]

So there was a time when I went from GTX 570 to 7970 to GTX 680. I got the GTX 680 even though it was "slower" than my brand new 7970 because I experienced driver artifacts in several games that I play. One of the most frequent ones I play is Rift and it is DX9 I believe. After my 7970 experiences and really past experiences as well, I will be hard pressed to ever consider trying another AMD card again. I had relatively good experiences with 3870s and 4850s in Crossfire back in the day, but even those had the occasional driver issue. For me, everything since the 48xx series was a driver issue fiasco, as both 5850s in Crossfire and a single 7970 (figured a single card would be ok since a single 5850 was mainly hassle free for the most part) had weird issues. Also, the CCC drivers were flaky enough when upgrading that I got to the point of making a full disc backup before updating them. I won't begin to consider how much time I wasted troubleshooting AMDs crap drivers when I could have been gaming.

Comparatively nVidia products have given me no issues whatsoever in recent history. I now own or have put into various family/friend computers as hand-me-downs a 9500GT, GT 430, GT 520, GTX 460 768MB, GTX 660, GTX 570, GTX 680, and GTX Titan. All are still running well and have no driver issues. I've had previous experiences with everything from GeForce 2 Pro through Titan that are consistently similar, so that's 12 years of graphics chips from the same company with pretty much zero driver issues. On the other hand, everything from ATI/AMD has been anywhere from FUBAR to tolerable but irritating.

Cliffs: I whole heartedly recommend NOT purchasing anything AMD.

Golgatha, thanks for posting all this from your experience I appreciate it! I still play some DX9 games and will in the future so this concerns me and you have backed up what I read but that was on NE (fwiw/NE) artifacts/ some DX9 games. So good to hear from someone from here on their experience which has validated some of what I have been reading and was concerned about. I just wish the 670 would of came with the 3GB and 384bit (video editing & rendering) like the HD 7950 (& lower price) but it doesn't! I'll just stay with the 570 and see if the artifacts/DX9 games improve over time with newer drivers w/7950 if not I'll research (on video editing) and consider a 670 in the future.

 

[Ares202]

I went from a 560ti to a 670 recently, I got something around a 60-75% performance boost, so for me it was well worth the upgrade.

 

[bolitebriga]

Well, thanks for all the info!
I decided that I will put my GTX 570 for sale and when I have a buyer I will buy a GTX 680, most probably MSi Lightning or a 7970 Lightning!

I should probably get 40%-50% of my money back!

 

[Golgatha]

I just wish the 670 would of came with the 3GB and 384bit (video editing & rendering) like the HD 7950 (& lower price) but it doesn't!

Don't we all?! I'd have loved to see nVidia blow us out of the water with performance this generation. With Titan they've proven they can build such a beast, but I suppose if you can get away with 2/3 of a card, still be competitive, and make more money; more power to you I suppose.

 

[Fastx]

Don't we all?! I'd have loved to see nVidia blow us out of the water with performance this generation. With Titan they've proven they can build such a beast, but I suppose if you can get away with 2/3 of a card, still be competitive, and make more money; more power to you I suppose.

Well upon researching some more recently I read a post where someone posted Nvidia is suppose to increase the memory bandwidth size (if true) on the next series due out this year around June? I am hoping for a GTX 760/770 model with 2 or 3GB but with around 384 bit MI If they do I will then go with Nvidia again for sure!

 

[Golgatha]

Well upon researching some more recently I read a post where someone posted Nvidia is suppose to increase the memory bandwidth size (if true) on the next series due out this year around June? I am hoping for a GTX 760/770 model with 2 or 3GB but with around 384 bit MI If they do I will then go with Nvidia again for sure!

I don't think we'll see anything like that until Maxwell, which is probably early 2014 and is a big part of the reason I bought a Titan (the other being my annual bonus from work coming in this month and being bigger than I thought due to a promotion last year).

Due to lack of competition from AMD, I think nVidia is going to sit on Titan as their flagship and make incremental upgrades to the GTX 680 to hold them over until then. I would expect a GTX 680 equivalent to the 7970GE vs vanilla 7970 type product refresh this year, and something more substantial (Maxwell) in 2014.

I would bet on something more like this for the refresh. GPU clocked a bit higher, a few more CUDA cores, and more memory. Otherwise, nothing to get excited about. That's my prediction.

http://videocardz.com/nvidia/geforce-700/geforce-gtx-780