37 replies to this topic

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Seeing my current rig was pretty much build from the advice from here I come back once more. My current powercolor card is in trouble seeing the vram is damaged. I OC the card keeping a close eye on the temps and the vram temps never got close to 70C, so I assume bad quality vram or a faulty temp sensor as 65C should be enough to damage vram at least not to anything I have read. Anyhow OC means no more warranty so I am looking for a new card.

I pretty much set my eyes on one of these:

MSI GTX680 Lightning

550 euro (perhaps elsewhere would be cheaper, I am Dutch)

or the:

msi r7970 lightning boost edition

495 euro (perhaps elsewhere would be cheaper?)


I game on a single 1080p monitor, not playing to get more as my desk space is limited and I never really enjoyed the 3 screen setups. Hardware wise there is nothing that will hinder it, Z77 chipset, I3770k at 4.5, 16 gigs of ram, 850w psu.

I am just looking to see which of these two card (or perhaps and entirely different) card you would advice I take.

[Vulpesveritas]

7970. With the newer drivers out there, the 7970 (especially with boost) is a rather faster card, for less cost. Not to mention, if overclocking, the 7970 allows for higher voltage tweaking and will have more overclocking options now that Nvidia is trying to lock out overclocking on their cards.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

I was leaning more for it to, it is cheaper and on paper just better it seems.

Quick question though seeing it is the same type of card should I still remove all the drivers or is it a case of plug and play seeing my current card is a 7970 already.


Though now I need to find a shop that has the thing in stock.... Feels like a deja vu, same when I made my build had my eye on a card and couldn't get it, now it seems to be the same, just looked at specs, but it seems this card is not in stock anywhere in the world

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 10 March 2013 - 05:16 PM.

[Barbaric Soul]

Quote

Anyhow OC means no more warranty so I am looking for a new card.

Why did you tell them you OC'ed it?

Anyway, to answer your second question, yes, it should work just fine with your currently installed drivers.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

I do believe in being honest and really why buy a card like that if you are not going to push it. Anyhow just send an email to powercolor see what they can do with it might be lucky

And thanks for answering that question, saves a little bit of time.

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 11 March 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

670ti is even cheaper, really fast and can be had for around 250 bucks.

[Catamount]

I'm with Barbaric, here. Unless you did something absurd, they can't tell that you OCed your GPU provided you don't tell them.

For future reference, however, it helps to have one of the few on-reference GPU coolers that actually cools your memory. If you're an OC enthusiast, I'd skip MSI and go to Sapphire instead; their Dual-X and Vapor-X coolers are about the best thing you'll find on the market right now, and they include an additional power phase for the memory that other board partners don't so you get higher memory OCs.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Problem I have with those sapphire cards is that many reviews state they are quite loud. I use a Obsidian 800D case next to my desk and event his quite quiet power color card is clearly audio able when it is being pushed.

I wonder though sticking with amd I think (I just can't pick nvidea looking at the prices) I wonder if it is worth it to crossfire 2 7870 instead, those are about half the price of the 7970 and I have plenty of room in the case. Or perhaps 7950 they seem to be in the same price range as the 7870.

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 11 March 2013 - 02:08 PM.

[Catamount]

Sapphire cards aren't as quiet as the quietest cards out there, but they're hardly loud. Still, it's a matter of priorities. If you want OC headroom then a few dba should be worth it to get a better cooler and better power regulation. If being quiet matters, then it isn't. I just use a headset anyways, so noise is pretty much a non-issue for me.

As for the single vs dual GPU setup, the single is the way to go, hands down. Even if two cheaper cards gave better average FPS in an artificial benchmark, one card would still be superior. Microstutted eats a lot of your framerate, to the point that one card getting 40fps is pretty much preferable to two cards getting 60fps because of frame draw time differences. That's why websites are shifting over from fps measures to measure frame draw times in reviews. This is assuming you're playing a game that supports Crossfire in the first place, which MWO doesn't at this time. Trust me, the single 7970 is the way to go.

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Alright That sounds better (Really when researching these things it is just information overload to me)

Now the question would be which of these two:

http://www.sapphiret...&pid=1679&leg=0

Pros: Cheaper by 140 Euro!
Cons: slightly lower on the clock, but if cooling is the same couldn't I just handle that part myself?

http://www.sapphiret...&lid=1&pid=1497

Pros: Faster from the factory, 6 gigs of ram?
Cons: 140 Euros more than the other card coming in at 540 euro compared to the others 400.

Keeping in mind I run a single monitor which is not likely to change

Already many thanks again for helping out and taking time, I wish I could handle this one on my own, but as said GPUs to me is information overload about any other computer part just seems a lot easier

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 11 March 2013 - 03:50 PM.

[Damocles 1]

Vulpesveritas, on 10 March 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

7970. With the newer drivers out there, the 7970 (especially with boost) is a rather faster card, for less cost. Not to mention, if overclocking, the 7970 allows for higher voltage tweaking and will have more overclocking options now that Nvidia is trying to lock out overclocking on their cards.

my new rig is built around the 7970, soon to be crossfired, though not even remotely necessary, this card is a power house. I had a GTX in my last build, never again.

[Damocles 1]

if you ever intend to cross fire i recommend the 7970 by ASUS simply for the smaller form factor, unless of course you live in a hot climate...
http://www.asus.com/...rds/HD79703GD5/

[Catamount]

I was wondering if this would come up. 6GB is a lot of memory, and I mean a lot. Unless you're running 3x 2560*1600 screens, I wouldn't bother. The 3GB is plenty.

A word of caution with any non-reference 7970 though: they're heavy cards with those big coolers, so physically bracing them isn't a bad idea.

You don't have to take my southern hick approach





but I do recommend you consider inserting a little structure support in there. It's an oversight on most non-reference 7970s that there isn't a backplate to do this job for us

Edited by Catamount, 11 March 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[Damocles 1]

Catamount, on 11 March 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

I was wondering if this would come up. 6GB is a lot of memory, and I mean a lot. Unless you're running 3x 2560*1600 screens, I wouldn't bother. The 3GB is plenty.

A word of caution with any non-reference 7970 though: they're heavy cards with those big coolers, so physically bracing them isn't a bad idea.

You don't have to take my southern hick approach





but I do recommend you consider inserting a little structure support in there. It's an oversight on most non-reference 7970s that there isn't a backplate to do this job for us

does'nt that case come with a GPU bracket?

[Catamount]

The Zalman Z11? They might these days, especially the newer "plus" revision, but not when I bought this.

Besides, what fun would that be?

[Chiyeko Kuramochi]

Not looking to cross fire this one

Only way I would even think about it is if powercolor suddenly jumps up and says here you have have a new one and even than seeing how power hungry these 7970 can be I have to see if 850w (gold) will pull that keeping in my I run a OC on my CPU to (3770k)

Anyhow looking at it for single monitor I cannot warrant spending an extra 140 euros for the top model, price performance wise it just seems to be way off.

Put in an order for one of these, best thing is I will likely be able to pick it up tomorrow and while I am at it might as well see if they have a job for me seeing my current job has me cut back in hours


As for support my powercolor seems to do fine, I did worry about this when I slotted it in, but it doesn't seem to bed, though perhaps the sapphire card is more heavy in that case plenty of wood around here to paint black and cut into a proper support

Edited by Chiyeko Kuramochi, 11 March 2013 - 04:04 PM.

[CCODEZ]

I got an Asus 670 DirectCU II. Runs anything at high specs at 1080 no probs *even with a fairly high OC on it*. The TOP edition ones have selected chips that will clock better (and cost more).

7970 is a capable card as long as you pick the Ghz edition ones (core at or over 1Ghz). Although most clocked at over 1ghz are already pushing the chip so being able to OC any more would probabaly not be worth it/risky.

Either way, I'd suggest an Asus or a Gigabyte card. Sapphires are fantastic with great support, but usually you also pay for it.

[Catamount]

Yeah, I agree, you don't need the top model. In fact, you could avoid even getting the Vapor-X GHZ edition and save almost $100 probably just be looking for the Sapphire 7970OC

http://www.sapphiret...sn=&lid=1&leg=0

As BK and I said in the last thread, the GE clock difference means little when you're already going to overclock it anyways, and realistically, the Vapor-X cooler might be the hands-down best air cooler money can buy for GPUs, but the Dual-X cooler is pretty darn close. Sapphire loves to over-engineer their coolers, that much is certain (and I love them for it)

HardOCP and others have gotten the OC cards to 1280-1300mhz core. I got a troubled used one (older revision) to 1250 before it crapped out on me and I returned it (was stable for a week then died... go figure: I think it failed structurally from the heat). That particular review also shows darn close to 1900mhz memory


Edit: if you read that review to look at performance, keep in mind this was before AMD released the 12.11 drivers and blew the 680 out of the water

Edited by Catamount, 11 March 2013 - 04:11 PM.

[Damocles 1]

i actually stress tested the (non Ghz edition) Asus 7970 @ 1000mhz/1220V last weekend for 1 hour, warm leveling out at 82C with an ambient room temp of 23C, but perfectly stable. its new so i'm not going to push it farther for awhile...

[Catamount]

1.220v? That's a lot of voltage for 1000mhz. I'd be willing to bet you could drop that to 1100-1150 and still get the core up to 1100mhz without it breaking a sweat. Look at what HardOCP is getting on the Sapphire card with 1.112 volts (1150mhz). It's the same GPU, so I'd bet you could volt down, clock up, and still end up cooler than before.

Edited by Catamount, 11 March 2013 - 04:16 PM.