GTX670 or 7970 For THIS Game?

[Codex]

Originally Posted by Walshy

Overclocking stresses the components and puts them under greater strain to perform, which causes heat and which puts the fans and cooling system under more strain to deal with said heat. Running any sort of rig under those conditions even if your cooling system is a water system eventually those components are going to wear out, and playing demanding at high settings will lower that that threshhold even more!...

When talking about the current generation of GPU’s, that’s not necessarily true.

With the fact that the GPU vendors have released “OC” versions of the 7xxx, and the fact that nVidia will automatically “overclock” their GPUs via their GPU Boost functionality, AND still provide a warrantee, means that these new GPUs can be “overclocked” and still remain with in their tolerances.

With this round of GPU’s the term “overclocked” or “superclocked” is a smoke screen, it’s marketing pure and simple. These puppies can go much higher in terms of raw clock speed and heat and still live to fight on.

[Walshy]

Originally Posted by Codex

When talking about the current generation of GPU’s, that’s not necessarily true.

With the fact that the GPU vendors have released “OC” versions of the 7xxx, and the fact that nVidia will automatically “overclock” their GPUs via their GPU Boost functionality, AND still provide a warrantee, means that these new GPUs can be “overclocked” and still remain with in their tolerances.

With this round of GPU’s the term “overclocked” or “superclocked” is a smoke screen, it’s marketing pure and simple. These puppies can go much higher in terms of raw clock speed and heat and still live to fight on.

Indeed they will, but constantly put under such stresses will eventually wear them out, that's what I'm saying, saying that'll never take damage when clocked is not what happens in reality ...

[Codex]

Originally Posted by Walshy

Indeed they will, but constantly put under such stresses will eventually wear them out, that's what I'm saying, saying that'll never take damage when clocked is not what happens in reality ...

Well nothing is ever designed to last forever

[Stublerone]

Originally Posted by Walshy

Indeed they will, but constantly put under such stresses will eventually wear them out, that's what I'm saying, saying that'll never take damage when clocked is not what happens in reality ...

There are still games, which forces the nvidia cards to run at boost all the time. Misunderstandings happen here. The topic: "better buy 7970 or 670 in THIS game" means for me in zhe current state clearly: buy hd7970 as it provides you enough under ALLL circumstances! Multi monitor or other higher resolution = less possibilty of stutter, caused by vram issues. And YES, here are people talking about stutters on 680, which for sure is mainlycaused by the current driver, but the possibilities to run out of vram is still there.

Walshy, please don't get personal and stop to make yourself so big. You can be expert of whatever you want, but this is currently not changing anything in my result to give the initial poster the information for THIS game!

You are right with problems in il2, but nvidia had issues, too. Workarounds were normal, especually in these days without that regular support activities from the hardware companies. It was less frequently and so, you had issues more often.

I never meant to say, that overclocking do not stress, but the BOM of the ati card is quite a good quality and the card materials compared to the nvidia are more expensive. I do not say that it directly causes better performance, but the card itself has good materials. Gpu is "underclocked" as ati also say with the fact, that new cards are revised and got the name 1ghz editions. You and me are simply not able to say anything about lifetime in this case.

I just do not have a sufficient link, but a simple magazine, i do not care. Some big magazines already revised their benchmarking methods and also had to say, that their initial test reaults are too much "pro" nvidia. The whole results, which came out on release of the 680 were some kind of weird. And I only saw 1 or 2 websites with a reasonable testing. Reasonable to me is the following situation:

Nvidia uses boost and it uses it, when needed. So, in benchmarks it will use it very often or nearly always. So, we cannot compare the cards directly. So, we have to find a solution for it and as they are high end cards for enthusiasts, who know how to get all out of it, we should take a look over stock cooled reference cards, overclocked to its stable maximum.

This test was made by only a few websites. The result, comparing the 680 overclocked (currently do not know the spec on that, but it was even higher than the overclockings of some big magazines) and the hd7970 @1200/1500 was very interesting and showed, that it is close together, but the whole package of features provided by ati was better, so that ati got the lead and their award for the fastest card. You never can say, that it is all true, but this was the only good benchmarking at release in the whole web.

Overclocking leads to shorter lifetime-> not comparable as you just do not know all influences and material behaviours. You will have to look on your warranty. After this period, the card can break any day and you are not able to do anything. They could also have implemented life time dependend parts, which simply forces the card to die after some years. This is known from lamp or mobile phone lifetimes, which are more and more designed to die in a certain timeframe, to sell new products.

It is just dumb NOT to overclock your card, if it is needed. That is my opinion. Or do you try to use a card more than 4 years? Perhaps your next solution is to undervolt all components to safe equipment lifetime.

BTW, my hd7970 do not get over 45 degrees overclocked. You have critical, lifespan reducing temperatures on the components, which is simply not reached by both: nvidia and ati. You will get graphic problems and instability, before you reach temperatures over the components specs.

Do not take it so serious. It isn't necessary to talk about arse ... Just my opinion. And please do not read between lines to strengthen your diss. Keep it cool. And to shoot back a bit:

If you were working in my company and I see your statement of your jobs, I would fire you. This is unprofessional attitude and you jobs have nowhere near something to do with graphics cards or shouldn't state it in private opinion in a gaming forum, if you do not officially write for your company. BTW, I am asdfjkl engineer in rijfndk ltd. and I have the longest! what a crap!!! Really!!!

[etzi]

I have actuall a GTX 680 and I think for CoD this card works much faster than a 7970. For Rise of Flight it is vice versa!

[Stublerone]

Originally Posted by etzi

I have actuall a GTX 680 and I think for CoD this card works much faster than a 7970. For Rise of Flight it is vice versa!

You cannot say that. Why do you say it. They are equal on 1080p but with higher resolution and better texturesetting, the gtx simply cannot handle the game anymore without stutters. That is simply the current nature! Looking independend from vram load they are both nearly performing same. But you will run into problems and on high resolution, e.g. on a triple monitor setup, the ati will naturally be in front. And even if you put 3 680s together in sli. You will gain more fps for sure but this will not solve stutter from loading. You can get 30 680 cards and still have not enough usable vram.

It is just as simple as that. They are both nearly the same with the small but tall advantage of the 7970 to have sufficient amount of vram. If we speak about another version of the 680, this thing could be solved, but we are currently talking about 680 with 2 gb vram.

The game could also solve the problems with high vram load a bit by itself, so that this discussion isn't necessary, but in the current state, it is simply as described.

So, 680 is NOT performing way better. Simply not true...

[Madfish]

Originally Posted by Baron

Im sorry, what?

First of all, i have 1280 Gb memory and i never run out on high settings in loD, heck iv managed just fine on 1024 Gb if i lower just a couple of settings from unlimited to high . Standard memory on any GTX 670 is 2 Gb.

[... blah blah blah ...]

No need to be sorry - just keep the nonsense to yourself... Not running out of VRAM with 1280 on max??? If you play on 640x480 with settings on low you may be right. Ever even tried to run on max? Because I and some others DO run out of VRAM http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=33540
This is also brand independant - as I run both ATi and nVidia cards...

Even with engine fixes - in 1 or 2 years this issue will be back! Get VRAM. 2.5+!



Just one piece of general advice: just set a limit of money you want to spend and get the best card over all for the money.
There are way too many fanboys and pseudo experts involved here - your best bet is to read general reviews on tech sites.
Both brands are really very much equal - it's +/- 10% typically. It's not worth the fuss about it really.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Agree with Madfish here. I am by no means an expert with computers but can hold my own while configuring a gaming rig. So I use a simple phrase for my friends who want to buy a computer: If there is the word "gaming" in the requirement list, forget cheap."

Just saw latest nVidia video sponsoring Borderlands 2 using PhysX. Must admit they can their stuff in marketing, but saw some glaring things that mean the video was just that..a marketing video oozing with gimmicks, but the devil is in the details and anyone with keen eye can see them

[Stublerone]

+1, I am also in the same position as you both.

If my friends ask me, some of my clanmembers or some other experienced jg friends about clod, we will say the same. And that is what the question was: hd7970 or 680 BEST in clod = both are nearly the same fast:-, but we definetly recommend the hd7970 for more variability and less problems in nearly ALL conditions in summary. Everything is well possible with it and there are situations, where you simply cannot run a 680 or they just will get frustrated ( example: triple monitors).

Thx, that 2 guys are facing in the same direction as me and other gamers of sims, who found out the strengths and weakpoints with these cards and can sum up effectively.

[Flanker35M]

S!

And have to remember that in most reviews they use only FPS games and a few RTS. Very seldom they use any flight sim or similar. The AAA titles are heavily leaning to the brand or another due their popular nature and this will never change. Therefore I test both brands on games I play to get a picture of the performance rather than blindly believe the reviews. So far neither brand has dissapointed me. Now in the AMD camp, next generation card be nV or AMD depending on how they will perform at time of their release. So no real preference here nor foam mouthed fanboi mentality