Radeon hd 7950 vs gtx 580

mcaulif1

Honorable
Feb 28, 2012
6
0
10,510
Building a comp... Between these two video cards. Anyone explain what I should go for simply? Would appreciate it.
 

mcaulif1

Honorable
Feb 28, 2012
6
0
10,510
Right, I'm not doing too well with all the technicalities of the review, I'm extremely new to this and just getting mind jammed by all the information with reading/building the past few days lol. Just need a clear straight forward answer and why I guess I'm asking.
 

unclejehmimah

Honorable
Feb 27, 2012
168
0
10,710

Clear straight forward answer is: 7950. (Note, I am in no way a fan of AMD, this card is just better. I own a 580 myself and it's great for it's time.)
 

sarcasm

Distinguished
Oct 5, 2011
51
0
18,630
7950. Reasons:

- Much Lower power consumption during idle and full load
- Scales really well with crossfire
- Can do eyefinity (3 monitor set up)
- Less heat output by around 10c
- Overclockable to almost 7970 performance
- Generally equal performance to the GTX 580, slightly better or worse depending on the game
- Uses 6+6 PCI Express pins compared to 8+6 on the GTX 580
- 3GB VRAM, so you can run high resolution textures to your heart's content without every worrying about not having enough VRAM (and is great for eyefinity)
- PCI-E 3.0 for use with Ivy Bridge

And yes I'm a GTX 580 owner myself. There are still actually reasons I'd rather go with a GTX 580, however it's pointless because Kepler is around the corner and that next GPU will most likely be more worth it. But if you absolutely cannot wait now, then my vote goes to the 7950 still.
 

unclejehmimah

Honorable
Feb 27, 2012
168
0
10,710

You have to get into the game sometime, Kepler isn't exactly right around the corner (about a year) so just go with the 7950.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
I'm going to go with cheaper. Performance between these two are more or less the same. 3GB vs 1.5GB doesn't seem to matter much. The lower heat and power use for the 7950 might make a difference, as would the higher OCs. Only you know how much that is worth to you.
 

uber_m0j0

Distinguished
Aug 19, 2002
265
0
18,780
I'm quite frustrated with the driver support out for the 7950 right now.
Using the latest 12.2 pre-certs, I experience a fair amount of issues. For example whenever I tab out of a game I almost always get a lovely warning from windows that system performance is too low and it wants me to turn off aero for like win7 basic. Yea okay.. 8gigs of ram and my system doesn't have enough resources?
I also cannot get WEI to rate my gpu performance over 6.6. Odd considering just how powerful this card is.
Several other games such as WoW, SWTOR Skyrim all have odd little glitches in them. Usually after first loading the screen flickers for about .5-1second then clears up. Again, just minor annoyances, I just wish ATi would hurry up and polish up driver support for the 7950..
 

hannibal

Distinguished
Completely new architecture... it takes time to make "perfect" drivers. It allso mean that there is potential to faster frame rates. Good and bad. If you want to have best working gadgets, newer by the "new toy in the town" alternative.
 

uber_m0j0

Distinguished
Aug 19, 2002
265
0
18,780



I'm using the sapphire 7950 OC. Nice hardware, very quiet, idles between 29-30C. Three hours of heavy game play and I can't get it over 51C

Again, I just wish driver support would hurry up.
 

larkspur

Distinguished


I heard that Kepler is in full production which indicates an on-time release in April. How is that a year away? Or am I missing something?

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/35933-nvidia-gtx-6xx-kepler-rumoured-production/
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
That's GK106. Thats the low end Kepler like the GTS450, etc. (in this case the GTS650 or something like that.) The higher end Keplers aren't supposed to be here until later in the year, with the highest end card MAYBE by Christmas. Some reports have said next year. So yes, the first Kepler cards will be here soon. But something to compete with the GTX580/7950? Not any time soon.
 

thesh0gun

Distinguished
Jan 26, 2012
70
0
18,630


What are you talking about? The rumors said that the GTX 670 Ti will come out this month beating the 580 and 7950. The 680 is rumored to be in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-nvidia-is-releasing-gk104-in-march-as-geforce-gtx-670-ti/14952.html

http://www.guru3d.com/news/geforce-gtx-670-ti-now-in-march-/
 
The issue with bad AMD drivers has been pretty consistent. That's actually the number one reason to get the GTX 580... and PhysX if you play any PhysX games (Batman Arkham, Metro 2033, Mafia 2, Unreal Tournament 3, etc.).
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/17/amd_crossfirex_drivers_opportunity_lost/

The GTX 670 Ti is due out in March or early April and is expected to be faster than both the GTX 580 and 7950. It's a good time to hold off on video card purchasing for about another month to see how things shake out.