If GTX 680 and 7970Ghz Cost the same which one would you buy?

draguelo_tod · Apr 12, 2013

If a gtx 680 cost the same as a 7970 ghz? which would you buy? And are there any issues with the drivers? I've heard AMD has bad issues with drivers.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

The GTX 680. It consumes less power

cookybiscuit · Apr 12, 2013

There is no such thing as a good driver, whenever one is released someone will find something to whine about. I would ignore it. The 7970Ghz is about 10% faster, its an obvious choice. The 680 is a waste of money given how little faster it is than a 670 and how much more expensive it is.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

Duke Nucome :

The performance of both cards is within the margins of error. If the performance and price are the same then I would look to power consumption to drive the purchasing decision.

cookybiscuit · Apr 12, 2013

slomo4sho :

Pretty broad margin for error by the look of things.

http://www.techspot.com/review/603-best-graphics-cards/

JamesSneed · Apr 12, 2013

Well honestly it would very much depend on the games you intend to play. If you were playing BF3 and Starcraft then I would pick the 680. If you were into Crysis I would pick the 7970. The 7970 Ghz is faster at most compute operations and is generally faster all around but not by much. Also would take into account any free games and if you would actually play them. The 680 uses less power. I would probably buy neither and get a GTX 670 in the $360-$370 range since you almost get the same performance as a 680 for $100 bucks cheaper. To each is their own.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/618?vs=555

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/06/22/amd_radeon_hd_7970_ghz_edition_video_card_review/4#.UWhShLWThyI

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-benchmark,3232-8.html

EDIT: Im not sure why the techreport graphs cookybiscuit linked show the 7970 Ghz so much better off at BF3. I don't believe them since all others are in line with the 680 being faster at BF3 except at 2560X1600 where they are virtually equal.. See links above.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

cookybiscuit :

Here is what your link actually said about the two cards:

The extreme test suggests that the GeForce GTX 680 is the fastest single GPU graphics card, narrowly edging out the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition while beating the standard 7970 by a 13% margin.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

Duke Nucome :

The games are only available from limited vendors. The OP might not be receiving the free games from AMD. I will not make assumptions and only use the information provided to make a case for the two.

Duke Nucome :

You know what they say about assuming... I own more AMD cards than nVidia

.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

Duke Nucome :

I have been seeing too many individuals from the Asian markets on these forums so I am not going to assume that the OP has the games available to him. It could also be the case that he may be buying used cards since a GTX 680 is usually considerably more than a HD 7970.

Duke Nucome :

This was never the argument. The GTX 680 is typically $50-100 more than the HD 7870 and the HD 7870 is always the better buy when considering price per performance at the standard price points. If you set the price equal for both cards, then the value component of the equation falls out.

Immoral Medic · Apr 12, 2013

Well, from my personal experience with both, I would go with the 680. At these points, they are both so close in performance, it comes down to other features such as temperatures, noise levels, RMA/support, and power requirements. From my experience with the AMD 6990 and 2 6970s and 2 680s, AMD cards run much hotter, require more power, sound like airplanes taking off, and it took 7 weeks to get a replacement 6970. With my 680s/670s, they require much less power, are almost completely silent, run cooler, and the RMA service took less than a week to get a replacement. Once the performance differences are so mimimal, look at other qualities. These are just what I've experienced with both competitors. Hope it helps.

draguelo_tod · Apr 12, 2013

I'm buying new. Trying to figure out which Of The cards performs the best at stock because they won't be overclocked and thought I should take the price factor out since it usually turns into get the cheaper card. If all you got was the card without any games or anything and they both cost the same, which would be the better card. I like the 384 bit interface on the 7970ghz but I'm wanting to get the smoothest gameplay out of my games without the card overheating or anything. Will likely be in 1440 resolution eventually as well.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

Duke Nucome :

At every current price point... Bringing the GTX 680 down to the price of the HD 7970 changes that dynamic does it not?

Duke Nucome :

You base this on what exactly?

17seconds · Apr 12, 2013

One has PhysX, FXAA, and Adaptive VSync; the other does not.

slomo4sho · Apr 12, 2013

draguelo_tod :

Brand new, you are not going to find a GTX 680 at the price point of a HD 7970 GHz. The performance of both of these cards are very similar, you should be factoring the actual cost of the card. the HD 7970 is always the better buy simply because of the 15-20% premium the GTX 680 demands.

draguelo_tod · Apr 12, 2013

slomo4sho :

I'm not trying to find them at the same price. I merely wanted to take the cost of each card out of the comparison because I simply wanted the better of the 2 cards based on performance. If that is the only way to determine which generally has the best performance then I'll pick the brand I have had better experiences with in the past. From what I've gathered the 7970 is slightly better but not enough to say it's always the best. I did see some of the fps better on for each card with the different benchmarks that were run so it's not much else to look at I guess. I don't know enough but I do see one has more CUDA Cores than the other and has a Higher interface.

Airm3n-1292454 · Apr 12, 2013

Well i bought a 7950 on this past sunday and the vendor I bought from was out of the codes for the free games so I would check on whether or not you could actually get the games from the vendor if you are looking at the radeon solely on the basis of getting some free games.

draguelo_tod · Apr 12, 2013

Airm3n-1292454 :

Thanks for letting me know. I was considering the games on it but in the end it doesn't matter about the free games at all.

I've been checking benchmarks for most of the games I would play and so far the 7970ghz topped one of them. Maybe it just does better with cetain games as does the 680. I'll be making a purchase soon but at least now I know not to count on the free games.

Airm3n-1292454 · Apr 12, 2013

I own a gtx titan as well and before that I had a 670. To be honest I find nvidia to be smoother overall than amd but its more personal opinion. Its more one of those things I find hard to explain since they all ran fine it just seems to me that something is off on the radeon card. I can't put my finger on it but when i tweaked my game settings to get comparable fps (45fps is usually the range I find myself playing at) all with single gpu cards it really seems like the radeon lags down a bit especially when you have the details turned up. What I mean by that is I think that the radeon card doesn't work as well running at lower fps than the nvidia card. Thats about the only way I can think to explain my experience. Its not bad or extremely noticeable until I started switching between cards on the same system.

In the end though I wanted to do some 3d gaming and for that nvidia wins in my opinion. That and the monitors I had already bought are nvidia 3d vision ready so i'm not sure if that makes a difference in my gaming experiences with these cards. Either one i'm sure would have no issues driving a single monitor.

Airm3n-1292454 · Apr 12, 2013

Well in the end it all falls down to personal opinion like I said above. That is how it seems to me and in the end its what you yourself are happy with. I could say I don't like amd because of their stupid naming schemes and releasing a ton of different cards with minor differences that most people wouldn't know about and I'm sure there are people like me that would agree. But on my own system I prefer nvidia. Maybe some people would call that being a fanboy but if you are willing the spend the extra dollar to get what you want since you have to live with it what does it matter?

To the matter the OP originally asked though he asked if you could get either for the same cost I would choose the 680. Personal opinion and i'll stand by it. Could very well be the 7970 is a better card but I can only judge on my own experience and thats what I choose.

inzone · Apr 14, 2013

I don't know why people would ask this question, surely you have to know it's going to start the same old argument between Nvidia and AMD/RADEON/ATI because people just can't give their honest opinion and leave it at that. The OP asked a question and would like an answer and not an argument , if you don't like what some one else has said it's not up to you to dispute that, it's up top the OP to ask further if he wants to or not.
Two people in this thread got involved in an argument and took over this thread and caused a disruption of the OP's trying to get an answer. You know who you are and don't be surprised if action is taken.

For now the arguments will stop and if some one has a suggestion or recommendation that is supported by facts and can show these facts in a graph of benchmarks then do so, otherwise don't post to cause arguments.

bystander · Apr 14, 2013

I'd buy 680's, though when I bought mine, they were cheaper, but I'd still buy them today.

1) SLI is superior to Crossfire:
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-GeForce-GTX-Titan-GeForce-GTX-690-Radeon-HD-7990-HD-7970-Cross-6
Even in the subjective tests. Hardocp and many other reviewers always point out that regardless of which has higher FPS, SLI feels smoother...as the pcper.com review shows, we now know why.

2) 3D Vision. Not only is it easier to use, and a bit better supported, you don't need 3rd party software and gain 3rd party fixes: http://helixmod.wikispot.org/gamelist

jaguarskx · Apr 14, 2013

All these argumentative posts are become very tiresome.

draguelo_tod :

All else being equal, look at benchmarks results for the cards and choose the one which overall offers the best performance based on type of games you like in those benchmarks.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan/6.html

In terms of overall performance the GTX 680 is marginally slower than the Radeon HD 7970 1GHz edition, but it is marginally faster than a stock HD 7970. The link below has more charts.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan/27.html

As for power consumption.... on average the stock Radeon HD 7970 and GTX 680 consume virtually the same amount of power; 3w difference, 163w vs 166w. However, the Radeon hD HD 7970 1GHz checks in at 209w. The link below has more power consumption charts.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan/25.html

17seconds · Apr 14, 2013

draguelo_tod :

According to HardOCP's 2012 driver review, AMD has a harder time providing proper driver support for new games. As a result, it often takes them several months to catch up to Nvidia in terms of performance for a given game.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/03/04/2012_amd_nvidia_driver_performance_summary_review/1

If GTX 680 and 7970Ghz Cost the same which one would you buy?

Distinguished

Distinguished

Honorable

Distinguished

Honorable

Judicious

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Champion

Distinguished

Distinguished

Honorable

Distinguished

Honorable

Honorable

Champion

Champion

Titan

Champion

Share this page