39 replies to this topic

[Dark Fact]

Update: Here's what I'm currently stuck on:

Quote

Thanks for all the replies and my apologies for not posting sooner. D:

Yep, my bad @ the 670 vs 7970 comparison. They seem to be about equal in gaming performance, depending on the game. But IMO the 7970 is still priced poorly--at about $100 more.

I have no real budget, but I don't want to overspend as that will make me feel silly. I'm looking for something in the $400 range, but am willing to go a bit higher if that will give significant improvement, or go a bit lower if that won't detract too much performance. The 7970 prices, for example, don't seem to be justifiable in my view. If I was one of those Bitcoin mining fans, maybe my view on the matter would be different.

With that in mind, and with all the recommendations posted by you guys, I'm leaning towards the GTX 670 after all.

But then we have the question of which GTX 670 is the better buy, hah. Here's what's caught my eye and is under serious consideration:

EVGA GTX 670 FTW
An overclocked 670 put on a 680's PCB and cooler, so it has better performance and lower noise than the stock/superclocked 670s EVGA offers.
Strangely enough, it's priced the same as the stock 670--at $420 from TigerDirect, $430 (free shipping) from Newegg, and $430 (free shipping) from DirectCanada.
Is there some sort of problem with the FTW compared to the stock one? The pricing is a bit strange.
I've also considered the stock clocked 670, but if the FTW can be had for about the same cost instead...

ASUS GTX 670 DCII
The custom DCII cooler is excellent, I hear. After researching this card's problems (occurrences of which you can find TONS of on the net), I've been able to find that part of the problems came from ASUS' terrible GPU Tweak utility--it caused red screens of death! Another issue is with their TOP overclocked products, where their binning process sucked, causing many cards to become unstable when they self-overclock (an NVIDIA standard feature). ASUS released a BIOS today, which reduces the number of bins the card with overclock by, which pissed off some users, but I don't think it matters to me (and it appears to only affect the more expensive TOP model anyway).
Pricing is pretty decent, at $430 from DirectCanada (free shipping), $430 from Newegg ($12 shipping and out of stock, boo!) and $430 from TigerDirect.

MSI GTX 670 OC PE
Uses their custom cooler, the Twin Frozr IV. I don't care about the overclock, but supposedly the cooler is decent? Couldn't find any reviews on this specific card, however, as it seems that it has only recently been released. Perhaps it's best to wait and see with this one, just to be sure.
It's also priced a bit higher, at $440 from Newegg and $446 (free shipping) from DirectCanada.

MSI has an RMA centre in Canada, which is nice if I ever had to deal with that... not sure about the other two.

The EVGA and ASUS are in stock at a local Canada Computers shop here, but they cost more. If they'll price match, I might go with one of those two, as it takes care of shipping and DOA troubles, should they happen. D:

--------

In terms of viable choices on the AMD side, things don't look so great.. as far as I can tell, anyway. This is a shame because I currently have a 5770 and it has been good to me.

XFX Radeon HD 7870 DD
Maybe this is good enough? I dunno. It's on sale for $335 (free shipping) at NCIX. The sale will end in 2 days, however, with their normal price listed as $380 (which is not worth it).

The question, of course, is whether a savings of $100 compared to a 670 justifies the drop in performance, which is quite significant from what I understand. I'm leaning towards 'no' ...

Maybe the "GHz Edition" 7950 will be a good match for the 670? There hasn't been any news about them, though. I don't know how much I want to wait on that.

Does anyone have any other recommendations, based on Canadian retailer pricing?
Some retailers I've been stalking are:
http://www.newegg.ca
http://www.ncix.com
http://www.canadacomputers.com
http://www.memoryexpress.com (they even price match shipping costs)
http://www.directcanada.com
http://www.tigerdirect.ca

----------

Original/old post:

First, there is the issue of choosing the GPU platform.

NVIDIA's latest chip, Kepler (GTX 670) seems very attractive in terms of performance. ($420 +)

The good: It destroys AMD's top offering, while offering other nice benefits like Adaptive V-Sync, which eliminates tearing like regular V-Sync does, except it doesn't trash your framerate when it dips below 60fps, unlike regular V-Sync. (I've heard it's kind of buggy? Fix planned in a future driver? Does anyone have more info?)
The bad: Questionable NVIDIA quality/reliability. From my understanding, NVIDIA has had to push the silicon pretty hard to get these performance levels out of it. It also self-overclocks, like Intel's CPUs do, except without the Intel production quality... There's been a rumour from a source at TSMC, the chip manufacturer, that NVIDIA will be recalling GTX670/680/690 based products due to performance degredation under prolonged loads. NVIDIA responded, saying there will be no recalls. But whether the rumour was based on true fact, or if recalls will be coming after all, is uncertain. EVGA did recall a batch of their SuperClocked 670 cards. NVIDIA has a terrible track record with denying the existence of problems in their manufacturing process, too...

Over in AMD's corner, we have several options. First, the R7970. ($500 +)

The good: Good gaming performance upgrade over AMD's (and NVIDIA's) last gen. Even better GPU Compute performance (OpenCL, DirectCompute, etc), but it's not useful to most people, at least not right now.
The bad: It's AMD's current top-end card, costs ~$100 more than the NVIDIA GTX 670 models, even though the GTX 670 is the superior an equal gaming GPU. This makes it look silly, and makes me not want to spend money on it! AMD's GPU-accelerated video transcode engine sucks, too, so there is very little benefit in this card's GPGPU lead over NVIDIA.

Then we have the R7950, a cut-down version of the 7970. ($400 +)
The good: Less gaming performance than the '90, but still better than AMD's next chip down the price ladder, the R7870. Still fairly decent in GPGPU? I'm not sure, although it doesn't really matter much, anyway.
The bad: Costs about the same as a GTX 670, but pumps out far less performance. It makes me kind of sad!

So let's go on... time to look at the R7870. ($340 +)
The good: While performance is futher reduced, it outperforms NVIDIA's last gen GTX 570, which was seen as a pretty decent card. It's also somewhat affordable. I've been able to find good custom cooled cards for the $340 mark, which is better than the starting prices for the other cards and their stock coolers.
The bad: I'm not sure if this card has enough performance for what I want, considering I hate SLI/CrossFire and its buggnyness, and therefore plan not to run two cards. As such, I need a single GPU that's powerful enough for anything I would like to throw at it. (And at this time I'm not quite sure what it is that I would want to throw at it, making the whole thing headache inducing!)

Video cards are built like crap!
The main thing that's causing me headaches, however, is what appears to be a trend of crappy hardware quality from both sides. NVIDIA has been traditionally pretty bad here when it comes to the chips themselves, but I've been seeing plenty of complaints on the AMD side about cards starting to die and artifacting within only a few months! Even ASUS, which has been held in high regard by many for quite some time, has been making coolers that disconnect from the card, causing them to overheat. That DCII cooler looks so cool, too.. what a waste (and no pun intended.)

Soo........yeahhh. Here I am, not sure what to do! Right now, I'd be willing to spend $450 on a GTX 670 if it weren't for the fact that their quality is questionable. EVGA has a good reputation here, at least when it comes to dealing with issues that arise, but they only seem to make blower-type coolers, which I am not a huge fan of (again, no pun intended!) Limited availability of GTX 670 chips makes it even harder to pick a design I like at a price I like.

On the AMD side, I'm looking at an XFX 7950 DD, on sale for $390 + shipping. This XFX 7870 DD on sale for $335 is also pretty appealing. But both of these deals will only last for 6 more days.

Then there's the whole Tahiti 2 aka 7900 series GHz Edition which is supposed to come out soon. Perhaps these cards will be more price/performance competitive against the GTX 670?

Edited by Dark Fact, 19 June 2012 - 11:06 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Your answer is in your Budget what are you going to spend flat out.

In order best first 7970>670>7870

7950 is not a good buy at this time.

[TyR]

I usually follow what they recommend over at http://pcper.com/hwlb for the most part. Usually pretty up to date and good info. Right now they are going with a 670 or 680 depending on budget.

[Fors]

There was no recall at evga. They did have a problem batch but nit all were defective. Maximum pc goofed in that article. The problem batch was superclocked only and has been resolved. The 670 is the best choice listed, i have the 4gb version and love it. Evga customer support is top notch usa based.

[Vulpesveritas]

You seem to have a couple of things wrong.

First of all, the Radeon HD 7970 is faster than a Geforce GTX 670. Furthermore stock cards on the 7970 start at around $460 last time I checked. Also, with overclocking the 7970 can run faster than the highest overclocked 680.

As far as bad cards go, you get them on both sides. Its normal with aby electronic device; something slips past qc, or is damaged in transit, or perhaps it has a somewhat corrupt BIOS.... a lot can happen.

Personally, on the AMD side, I would say you're best with HIS, Powercolor, or XFX. On the Nvidia side, EVGA, Asus, or MSI is the way to go.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 14 June 2012 - 04:10 PM.

[Torcip]

I recently upgraded from a GTX 480 to a 670, the difference is amazing. Almost inaudible compared to the 470, runs usually 10-20 degrees cooler; definitely a great product and one that I recommend.

[Vulpesveritas]

Keep in mind how much faster for GPGPU the 7970 is, that the 7970 is faster on older PCI slots (1.0 and 2.00), the 7970 is faster for newer games... and start at $450; http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814131468
plus, it overclocks much higher.


The GHZ edition cards will be more or less coming out at the same price point and replacing current 7970s by what it sounds like. Both being faster and using less power.

For now, I recommend the following card from Powercolor; http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814131471
With it's factory overclock it is faster than a stock Geforce GTX 680, is a decent overclocker, and is one of the quieter 7970s. and is still decently priced.
If you were planning on doing more of your own overclocking however, I recommend the HIS ICEQ X2 http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814161412 as it currently holds the overclocking record on air with the factory cooler of any 7970 last time I checked.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 14 June 2012 - 01:14 PM.

[Psyctooth]

I say go with the 670, but go with a good manufacturer. EVGA are pretty top of the line. All I can say is make sure to get warranty on your Graphics Cards, they invented laws to protect us from cruddy manufacturing and shipping damage.

However that's if you want to go with Nvidia; I do recommend you take the advice of Vulpesveritas, He knows what he is talking about. Also I know that some of the Ex-nVidia chipset designer employees frequent GW2guru's IRC chat channel as well as some developers of various games so I say it doesn't hurt to pop in there and ask around to see if they are online because they know what they are talking about because they make these things for a living.

Edited by Psyctooth, 14 June 2012 - 01:45 PM.

[razorkill12]

http://www.overclock...t-updated-daily

good info here updated regularly with data to back up rankings

[Vulpesveritas]

Psyctooth, on 14 June 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

I say go with the 670, but go with a good manufacturer. EVGA are pretty top of the line. All I can say is make sure to get warranty on your Graphics Cards, they invented laws to protect us from cruddy manufacturing and shipping damage.

The only reasons's I'm not currently on an 'EVGA all the way' on the Nvidia side right now to be honest, is that they don't have any Kepler cards with lifetime warranties, and no really custom coolers.
MSI would be my second choice on the Nvidia side, what with all their high factory overclock cards and decent warranty.

[Hellgardia]

If you intend to use GPGPU capabilities, go with the HD7970 without a doubt.

If not and if you can find the GTX670 cheaper, go with it since it's an amazing performing card as well.

Cheers

[Dark Fact]

Thanks for all the replies and my apologies for not posting sooner. D:

Yep, my bad @ the 670 vs 7970 comparison. They seem to be about equal in gaming performance, depending on the game. But IMO the 7970 is still priced poorly--at about $100 more.

I have no real budget, but I don't want to overspend as that will make me feel silly. I'm looking for something in the $400 range, but am willing to go a bit higher if that will give significant improvement, or go a bit lower if that won't detract too much performance. The 7970 prices, for example, don't seem to be justifiable in my view. If I was one of those Bitcoin mining fans, maybe my view on the matter would be different.

With that in mind, and with all the recommendations posted by you guys, I'm leaning towards the GTX 670 after all.

But then we have the question of which GTX 670 is the better buy, hah. Here's what's caught my eye and is under serious consideration:

EVGA GTX 670 FTW
An overclocked 670 put on a 680's PCB and cooler, so it has better performance and lower noise than the stock/superclocked 670s EVGA offers.
Strangely enough, it's priced the same as the stock 670--at $420 from TigerDirect, $430 (free shipping) from Newegg, and $430 (free shipping) from DirectCanada.
Is there some sort of problem with the FTW compared to the stock one? The pricing is a bit strange.
I've also considered the stock clocked 670, but if the FTW can be had for about the same cost instead...

ASUS GTX 670 DCII
The custom DCII cooler is excellent, I hear. After researching this card's problems (occurrences of which you can find TONS of on the net), I've been able to find that part of the problems came from ASUS' terrible GPU Tweak utility--it caused red screens of death! Another issue is with their TOP overclocked products, where their binning process sucked, causing many cards to become unstable when they self-overclock (an NVIDIA standard feature). ASUS released a BIOS today, which reduces the number of bins the card with overclock by, which pissed off some users, but I don't think it matters to me (and it appears to only affect the more expensive TOP model anyway).
Pricing is pretty decent, at $430 from DirectCanada (free shipping), $430 from Newegg ($12 shipping and out of stock, boo!) and $430 from TigerDirect.

MSI GTX 670 OC PE
Uses their custom cooler, the Twin Frozr IV. I don't care about the overclock, but supposedly the cooler is decent? Couldn't find any reviews on this specific card, however, as it seems that it has only recently been released. Perhaps it's best to wait and see with this one, just to be sure.
It's also priced a bit higher, at $440 from Newegg and $446 (free shipping) from DirectCanada.

MSI has an RMA centre in Canada, which is nice if I ever had to deal with that... not sure about the other two.

The EVGA and ASUS are in stock at a local Canada Computers shop here, but they cost more. If they'll price match, I might go with one of those two, as it takes care of shipping and DOA troubles, should they happen. D:

--------

In terms of viable choices on the AMD side, things don't look so great.. as far as I can tell, anyway. This is a shame because I currently have a 5770 and it has been good to me.

XFX Radeon HD 7870 DD
Maybe this is good enough? I dunno. It's on sale for $335 (free shipping) at NCIX. The sale will end in 2 days, however, with their normal price listed as $380 (which is not worth it).

The question, of course, is whether a savings of $100 compared to a 670 justifies the drop in performance, which is quite significant from what I understand. I'm leaning towards 'no' ...

Maybe the "GHz Edition" 7950 will be a good match for the 670? There hasn't been any news about them, though. I don't know how much I want to wait on that.

Does anyone have any other recommendations, based on Canadian retailer pricing?
Some retailers I've been stalking are:
http://www.newegg.ca
http://www.ncix.com
http://www.canadacomputers.com
http://www.memoryexpress.com (they even price match shipping costs)
http://www.directcanada.com
http://www.tigerdirect.ca

Edited by Dark Fact, 19 June 2012 - 11:05 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Well, I would say wait for the 7970 ghz editions to come out, they -should- come faster than a GTX 680 at stock, be just as power efficient, be hugely more powerful at GPGPU, and Overclock much higher. Not to mention, older 7970s should drop in price, and one of the main advantages the 7970 versus the 670 is the overclocking overhead. If you're not into overclocking, there is still the chance for a price drop with either 7970s or 670s, so you might be best off waiting till then, and then go with whatever is the better deal for you at the time then.

And there is already custom cooler / PCB 7970s on newegg.ca for only about $50 more than the 670s you listed, not $100 more lol. In case you want the overclocking headroom or GPGPU capabilities just in case you wanted to do some in the future.
http://www.newegg.ca...ICE&PageSize=20
http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16814150596
http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16814131468

Though as far as a 670, I say go with the MSI Power Edition, given that it is only slightly more expensive, but you get factory overclocking, a custom not-sucky PCB and better cooling for $10 more than the other 670s, it is your best deal there. Definitely go with this should you be impatient and / or are not planning on overclocking past what comes factory and / or won't use any GPGPU functions.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 18 June 2012 - 04:36 PM.

[killer panzer]

i realy dont like going on to these threads, as you get ati/amd and nvidea fanboys who are closed minded. sigh here i go...
this game uses cryengine, a software designed for nvidea cards. it will work better to have an nvidea chip here due to the programing of MWO (NOT THE DRIVERS!!!) however, as they do not seem to be using much of the proprietary codes such as physX we may see that cards with more processing power will be on top. if you will have a multi-monitor setup, go amd/ati, if you have single monitor go nvidea. the BEST idea is to holdout until the game comes out, and look at the benchmarks.

now i have to say this because i am not impartial in this discussion. i do not like nviedea at all. i respect the chips they make, but as a company i loth them. they are bullies who sue if they are outproformed. just search nvidea sues intel to see what im talking about.

[Vulpesveritas]

killer panzer, on 18 June 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

i realy dont like going on to these threads, as you get ati/amd and nvidea fanboys who are closed minded. sigh here i go...
this game uses cryengine, a software designed for nvidea cards. it will work better to have an nvidea chip here due to the programing of MWO (NOT THE DRIVERS!!!) however, as they do not seem to be using much of the proprietary codes such as physX we may see that cards with more processing power will be on top. if you will have a multi-monitor setup, go amd/ati, if you have single monitor go nvidea. the BEST idea is to holdout until the game comes out, and look at the benchmarks.

now i have to say this because i am not impartial in this discussion. i do not like nviedea at all. i respect the chips they make, but as a company i loth them. they are bullies who sue if they are outproformed. just search nvidea sues intel to see what im talking about.

Well, a couple of things, Nvidia sued Intel on account of Intel having stolen parts of Nvidia's chipset and without licencing SLI enabling software for their chipset, made it so their core chipset could run SLI.
Second, CryENGINE 3 is rather GPU-blind. It doesn't care if the GPU is an AMD or a Nvidia card, although in DX11 there is a ton of tessellation, which in the past would have crippled an AMD Card (this was before the southern islands 7000 lineup.)
So it doesn't matter which card you use, so long as you get your best one at a given price point.
Please note all my quick benches I used here http://mwomercs.com/...eral-gpu-guide/ were in Crysis 2, the only other CryENGINE 3 title currently released. AMD still wins at most price points in performance.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 18 June 2012 - 04:44 PM.

[Gabriyel]

I opted for the $430 EVGA 670 from Newegg when I built my latest machine. What decided it for me between the 680 and the 670 was the difference about about a whopping 9 FPS in most games for over $100. I could afford either, I just couldn't justify the price difference per performance as I frankly don't care anymore if I have the absolute latest and greatest.

What I can tell you is this, from Guildwars 2, Battlefield 3, Diablo 3 and well, that's about it for the latest games I've been playing. Settings are absolutely maxed out in all games on a 24" monitor running 1920x1200 and the FPS rate is quite silly... nothing even close to dropping below 60 FPS. Temps are fine, and while I'm losing my hearing I don't hear the fan at all on idle or during game. It sits about 2 feet below me and on the floor.

Biggest complaint is probably lack of a backplate or an extra displayport. *shrug* Other than that, I knew what I was getting and have been plenty happy. Probably best bang for the buck right now as I saw it.

[killer panzer]

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

Well, a couple of things, Nvidia sued Intel on account of Intel having stolen parts of Nvidia's chipset and without licencing SLI enabling software for their chipset, made it so their core chipset could run SLI.

yes, this is true. i should have been more spacific. i was referring to intel being sued over the atom processor. they made the atom so cheaply that nvidea coudnt compete. so instead of developing a new chip, they sued using anti-trust laws.

[mrcarlton]

Keep in mind drivers.

In my experiences Radeon cards have been known to have unexpected lag and bad performance on certain newer games.

Although this is a cryengine 3 game, so chances are this is a moot point, as a few cryEng games have already been out for a while now.

[Vulpesveritas]

mrcarlton, on 18 June 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

Keep in mind drivers.

In my experiences Radeon cards have been known to have unexpected lag and bad performance on certain newer games.

Although this is a cryengine 3 game, so chances are this is a moot point, as a few cryEng games have already been out for a while now.

Yes. This is a moot point... not to mention AMD drivers != ATI drivers and generally are more or less on par with Nvidia drivers in most cases anymore.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 18 June 2012 - 05:31 PM.

[Blackfire1]

Just buy two GTX 560 TI's They'll give you all the power you ever need for the next 6 years.

I always buy last years model unless it was something like the 460 vs the 560. (Day and night heat and power wise.)

Edited by Blackfire1, 18 June 2012 - 05:40 PM.