20 replies to this topic

[Egomane]

Ok... usually I can decide on my own, but this time I want some additional advice before making my purchase.

I'm in the process of gifting myself a new GPU. It is time for my twin HD5850s to move to new homes and make room for a more modern sister.

I already decided that it needs to be a HD7970. What I can not decide on, is the manufacturer and model.

At the moment I am looking at the ...

XFX HD7970 GHz Edition @1050 MHz GPU and shader frequency and 1500 MHz memory frequency

VTX3D HD7970 X-Edition @1050 MHz GPU and shader frequency and 1425 MHz memory frequency

Gigabyte HD7970 GHz Edition @1100 MHz GPU and shader frequency and 1500 MHz memory frequency


Just looking at the specs, the Gigabyte should be the obvious winner. At the place I want to buy the card, it is even cheaper then the XFX card. Edit: Only a 2 year warranty given. 3 year warranty doesn't sound to shabby too. What makes me hesitate, is that I saw some benchmarks, that showed that this card is not actually performing any better then regular GHz edition cards at 1000 MHz. Are those tests wrong or is that card realy this underperforming?

If I look at the XFX, I am captivated by the design. Test results show, that the cooling solution of XFX is relativ quiet. Also the cards I'm replacing are XFX branded and never let me down. Here I am hesitating because XFX has changed their warranty rules early this year. Their "double lifetime warranty" is gone and you are only allowed to keep your warranty, if you exchange the GPU-cooler, if you life in the USA. They still have a normal lifetime warranty if registered within 30 days after purchase.

While the VTX3D is the cheapest card of the lot, I have never heard of that manufacturer before. The card comes with a lifetime warranty like the XFX, but how much is it worth? Is that company able to actually provide it to me, if I need it in two and a half years or beyond? Will they still be there? I did hear only good things about the actual card, that's why I started to take it into consideration.


So please help me make my decision.


If you come into this thread, to tell me, to buy an Nvidia card instead, you are free to leave before posting. You will be ignored! I considered it and decided against it. With the recent driver improvements and the GHz edition cards, the AMD GPUs are currently ahead in the price/performance bracket. I never had problems with AMD/ATI or Nvidia so I am neutral and decide with my wallet.

Edited by Egomane, 12 December 2012 - 06:54 AM.

[Monoc]

I liked Sapphire for my ATI/AMD card(AMD 6950 2GB). Heard good things about ASUS cards as well.
In this case, pick the one that's the cheapest from a manufacturer that you trust and will fit in your case.

In the defense of Nvidia, I have had fewer problems with the GTX 670 that replaced my AMD 6950.
And that could be from certain games preferring one brand over another.
Both companies are equal in my book.

AMD and Intel on desktop processors is another story.

EDIT: My AMD 6950 was a stock version almost carbon copy from the reference design.

Edited by Tungsten Phoenix, 12 December 2012 - 07:09 AM.

[Egomane]

Thanks Tungsten, but that didn't help me at all.

[Vulpesveritas]

Of what you selected there, the Gigabyte is probably your best bet, just because of their build quality in general. As for the benchmarks not doing any better, the overclock on that card is not significant, and as such won't be too noticeable.

Though I would like to recommend, if it's available in your area, the Asus 7970 Matrix, as it is the best built 7970/ghz ediiton card on the market. It overclocks great, is quiet at stock, and runs cool.

[Monoc]

Just saying they're are few quality manufacturers now.

From my experience (and friend's). ASUS, XFX, EVGA, Sapphire, and Gigabyte are all pretty close in quality, speed, and customer service.

No complaints.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

VTX3D is essentially another arm of Powercolor, which gets a number of recommendations based on US purchasers.
The cards are usually pretty good for their price range, and a number of suppliers sell them re branded as their own.http://www.scan.co.u...-mdp-dvi-plusfr

If your single monitor gaming, you'd pay less for an EVGA GTX 670 and even with the new AMD beta drivers, be at around the same performance.
But either card is good.

[Egomane]

Thank you all! It looks like I will order me the Gigabyte card as my own special christmas gift.

The ASUS card, Vulpes mentioned is available here but at more then 25 % higher costs (360,- € Gigabyte vs. 460,- € ASUS), which is beyond my limit of 400,- €.

DV, I am looking at three big monitors here. At 5760x1080 resolution the GTX680 and the HD7970 are close rivals. While the 670 can compare on single monitor systems, like you mentioned, it is outclassed at this point, by its bigger brother and the AMD card.

Edited by Egomane, 12 December 2012 - 10:58 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Well, given I don't know what country you're in (I think Germany given the .de site?) I couldn't tell pricing exactly. Here in the USA the Asus Matrix Platinum is only 10% more expensive than the other 7970 ghz edition cards mentioned, and the non Platinum version is the same price as the XFX card. But I suppose different countries have different pricing.

[Egomane]

You guessed correctly on germany. Good catch there! I thought i linked the international pages.

I like ASUS as a manufacturer (my mainboard is ASUS), but their price tag over here is a bit on the high side.

Yes, different countries do run with different prices. A sad fact we have to life with.

Edited by Egomane, 12 December 2012 - 11:57 AM.

[Youngblood]

I'd just like to say GOOD CHOICE! on getting the Gigabyte. Since I own a GV-R797OC-3GD Rev 1.0 myself, I've looked into the various internals and settings and differences between the two. I was already extremely impressed with my own card that pulls 1100/1500 at stock voltage, and apparently later revisions have support for newer BIOSes, meaning they are actually physically capable of taking them, meaning their internals continue to be further developed.

The R797TO most definitely has a physical change of some sort that requires it to use its own unique BIOS, something I learned while experiment with flashing around different ones in my research.

Now if only I had enough cash to get the rest of my system to catch up. ><

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Egomane, on 12 December 2012 - 10:32 AM, said:

DV, I am looking at three big monitors here. At 5760x1080 resolution the GTX680 and the HD7970 are close rivals. While the 670 can compare on single monitor systems, like you mentioned, it is outclassed at this point, by its bigger brother and the AMD card.

Actually that is not true, i am running a single GTX 670 4GB FTW running MWO at 5760*1080 and it runs it at 40FPS the lowest it has dipped too is 30 when i get missile spammed (smoke yo bad).
Which for a single card is pretty damn impressive.

I would be interested to see what FPS a 7970 on the new beta drivers gets at the same resolution.

[Egomane]

DV McKenna, on 13 December 2012 - 01:45 AM, said:

I would be interested to see what FPS a 7970 on the new beta drivers gets at the same resolution.

You are not alone on this one!

You should keep in mind, that I compared the stock 670 and 680 with the stock 7970 GHz Edition. Yours is not stock! The doubled memory should help a lot at those resolutions.

Do you run any custom configs for MWO to get such fps? At stock, both AMD and Nvidia are not capable of running Crysis2 with those framerates in that resolution. It also looks like that the Nvidia cards have a slight edge in the CE3 over AMD. Overall though, they are a close match.

Here... have a look at some of the benchmarks I found ...
Those are before the introduction of the GHz edition:
Hexus.net
pcper.com

After introduction of the GHz edition:
bit-tech.net
overclockersclub.com

You will see in those benchmarks, that the 670 is a fair bit slower then the 7970 and they were made before the latest performance increase due to AMDs upgraded drivers.

I'm exited to see, how this card will perform, once it reaches me. I just got my confirmation that it has been send.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

No i don't run any custom configurations, benchmarks are great tools, but never trust them 100% even more so when Crysis 2 is way ahead in optimization compared to MWO.
I play with all settings on high, even for very high you notice next to 0 difference in MWO graphics.

Here is the in game settings i use


Spawn



River


After these i purposefully put myself into a bad position to try and get a GPU heavy battle shot...best i could do here and still just above 30FPS.

Edited by DV McKenna, 13 December 2012 - 03:20 AM.

[Egomane]

Ok... now I really want to get my hands on my new card for a few test runs.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Tri Monitor is expensive, and ahead of the curve in requirements to run well.

But i don't regret a single penny, its beautiful to play on and enables some really nice screenshots for multi monitor backgrounds!

[Sen]

1) Is Gamebooster REALLY necessary with today's technology? Do you REALLY see a performance increase with it?? [yes, I'm serious]
2) Those are some REALLY nice screens! I didn't realize Phract got 3 screen FoV.
3) Whyfore GTX 670 get better FPS than 7950, and extreme better FPS than 7950 xfire? /sadface
4) Cost of entry into 3 screen isn't bad. . it's the cost to get over 10 FPS that's killer

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Sen, on 13 December 2012 - 07:02 AM, said:

1) Is Gamebooster REALLY necessary with today's technology? Do you REALLY see a performance increase with it?? [yes, I'm serious]
2) Those are some REALLY nice screens! I didn't realize Phract got 3 screen FoV.
3) Whyfore GTX 670 get better FPS than 7950, and extreme better FPS than 7950 xfire? /sadface
4) Cost of entry into 3 screen isn't bad. . it's the cost to get over 10 FPS that's killer

1) It's the razer beta version, i've had it some time and don't really use it, when i did it was only really worth a couple of FPS.
It does however have some other features that are easier to perform at GUI level, ending hung applications faster, shutdown faster values etc etc.
It also does screen and video capture. And provides an all in one platform to launch games from so you don't require shortcuts.

2) Most of the mechs i play with do have the majority of 3 screen FOV, you may get the odd bar down at some angle but for the majority its clean screen.

3) This was my point about benchmarks, they are a great base but never take them as gospel, i would be really interested to see single 7950/7970 @ 5760*1080 from an end users actual use.

4) That is pretty much what i said, although if you want good IPS panel monitors then even the setup is costly.

[Egomane]

Just had a testrun with the new card. Cmplete with some players who accused me of kill stealing and trying to kill my commando... they failed. If I had fraps running, they would now have been reported. But as I was just testing my card and I am in a good mood, they are lucky today.

So far I'm running on a single monitor, as I need to get some adapters first to connect the others. From what I have seen in that single game, the card is a monster. I will come back with some more data, as soon as I have had some time to collect it.

Edit:
Looks like I need to wait for a new active mini displayport adapter. The old one wont work for some reason. The order is already send. For single monitor performance @1920x1200, I can report pretty stable 50 to 60 fps so far. Bottleneck will probably be my old Phenom II X4 955 processor for now, though I haven't seen a load beyond 70 % so far.

Edited by Egomane, 15 December 2012 - 02:54 PM.

[Egomane]

Update: 30th December 2012

Finally got the adapter today and made some testruns on tripple screens and were promptly killed by DV. To my excuse I need to say that I was ogling at the fantastic view of River City Night on the fantastic panorama view of the cataphract.

I promise I will be more of a challenge next time.

While making my test runs I did note, that my frame rates, while stable and absolutly playable on high settings and a 5760x1080 resolution (as far as I noticed, constantly above 25 and usually between 30 and 40), are not where I hoped they would be. My fear, that I am to much limited by my processor seems to be a sad truth. I am unable to upgrade this part of my system until april or may though. I will look at how much I can overclock my old pal sometime in the next two weeks. If the results are better then I expect I will report back once more.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Egomane, on 30 December 2012 - 03:58 PM, said:

Update: 30th December 2012

Finally got the adapter today and made some testruns on tripple screens and were promptly killed by DV. To my excuse I need to say that I was ogling at the fantastic view of River City Night on the fantastic panorama view of the cataphract.

I promise I will be more of a challenge next time.

While making my test runs I did note, that my frame rates, while stable and absolutly playable on high settings and a 5760x1080 resolution (as far as I noticed, constantly above 25 and usually between 30 and 40), are not where I hoped they would be. My fear, that I am to much limited by my processor seems to be a sad truth. I am unable to upgrade this part of my system until april or may though. I will look at how much I can overclock my old pal sometime in the next two weeks. If the results are better then I expect I will report back once more.

Cool, good to know its playable at those frame rates.

It is very pretty playing at Tri screen, but you'll eventually realise sight seeing is deadly!