Need Advice On GPU

[Leo Kislev]

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my current XFX 6870, and the cards I have in mind are:

1) nVidia 670 GTX
2) AMD 7950

What would be the best option for my system?

System specs:

CPU: AMD 965 @3.9GHZ with Cooler Master V6GT
MOBO: Gigabyte 870 USB3
RAM: 2X4GB A-DATA DDR3 1333 Mhz
PSU: Acteck 700W, 2X12V Rails of 22A
1366X768 Display

Before my 6870 I had a 450 GTS nVidia GPU and to be honest it performed better than my current 6870 because the gameplay was very smooth, with my current card I can play at higher settings but I notice a lot of microstuttering in games like Skyrim, Mafia II and BF3.

I would like to play BF3 at ultra settings and MSAA 4X with more than 60 fps in 64 player maps at 1366x768

 

[ricardois]

670 certainly, awesome performance, best price, battlefield 3 will work perfectly even at 1080p;

 

[KelvinTy]

670, no competition here.
I would suggest a monitor upgrade? 1366x768 is kind of lame.
stuttering? maybe a driver update?

 

[rwayne]

There should be no debate. GTX670 hands down.

However I would definitely get a larger monitor with a higher resolution before getting the card.

A HD 6870 should be able to max out even the most demanding games at 1366 x 768.

 

[Leo Kislev]

Sadly the 6870 cant max BF3 in a 64 multi-player server even on 720p, the reason I don't upgrade my display is because I like to have massive amounts of frames per second even in the worst case scenarios while I'm gaming. As for drivers I have the lastest ones (Catalyst 12.4) but most games seems to stutter with AMD GPU's since my nVidia 450 GTS ran them perfectly smooth.

 

[ricardois]

i'm not so sure if all amd have this problem, maybe it is due to other resolution or graphical configuration, but normally AMD drivers have more problems, you must download some plugins externally for making some games to work better, but other than that, they should be the same, but the 670 is the nvidia monster now, so cheap for the performance that the 7970 stayed behind.

yes, the 670 were having some stutter problems also due to the adaptive V-sync problems, but just Yesterday if i'm not mistaken they released the latest Beta 303.48 and that removed that problem, and increased a lot of frames on a lot of games.

 

[rwayne]

To me this seems more like a 'setting problem / external variable problem' than a 'driver problem'. The HD 6870 is significantly stronger than the GTS 450 and should beat it handily in every benchmark.

Maybe V-SYNC or some other setting is causing an issue. Is Morphological Anti Aliasing on? Are you running your Games on a TV or a monitor?

If on a TV the FRAPS maybe exceeding the refresh rate causing tearing / stuttering. This may not of happened with your old card because it did not exceed this threshold.

May want to hook up your machine to a friend or family member's monitor to see if the problem goes away.

 

[Leo Kislev]

My 6870 runs almost 2X faster than my old 450 GTS but I cant get rid of the microstuttering, Ive tried things like V-Sync on/off, FPS Limiter+V-Sync On, Triple Buffering+V-Sync ON with no luck, I even have microstuttering at lowest settings. I think I will just go with nVidia again I really hate microstuttering, its so annoying.

 

[bigcyco1]

The 7950 gets violently raped by the GTX670. You want the faster Asus model. http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-geforce-gtx-670-directcu-ii-top-review/23
Asus TOP Boost Clock is 1137 outta the box .... stable at 1280 Mhz
Asus gets 3DMark Score of 9340 outta the box and 9839 OC'd
Idle temp is 30C / load temp is 72C
Noise is 37 dBA Idle / 38 dBA under load

What that basically means is the GTX670 Asus TOP is one mean bad ass mofo that you best think twice before messing with lol...

 

[zakattak80]

Sadly the 6870 cant max BF3 in a 64 multi-player server even on 720p, the reason I don't upgrade my display is because I like to have massive amounts of frames per second even in the worst case scenarios while I'm gaming. As for drivers I have the lastest ones (Catalyst 12.4) but most games seems to stutter with AMD GPU's since my nVidia 450 GTS ran them perfectly smooth.

at that resolution your more likely to run into cpu bottleneck so, i'm not convince that a 670 or 7950 well fix that

 

[maui67]

There should be no debate. GTX670 hands down.

However I would definitely get a larger monitor with a higher resolution before getting the card.

A HD 6870 should be able to max out even the most demanding games at 1366 x 768.

^+1 - I might also question your PSU. I am not at all familiar with that brand (Acteck?). I tried to Google the brand and got a bunch of Spanish speaking websites. It could be when the 6870 is needing the most power the PSU is coming up short. Just a thought.

 

[zakattak80]

The 7950 gets violently raped by the GTX670. You want the faster Asus model. http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-geforce-gtx-670-directcu-ii-top-review/23
Asus TOP Boost Clock is 1137 outta the box .... stable at 1280 Mhz
Asus gets 3DMark Score of 9340 outta the box and 9839 OC'd
Idle temp is 30C / load temp is 72C
Noise is 37 dBA Idle / 38 dBA under load

What that basically means is the GTX670 Asus TOP is one mean bad ass mofo that you best think twice before messing with lol...

you just said that the 7950 gets rape then, talk about the 670s OC as if there is none on the 7950. i have pushed mine all the to 1200 which is a 400MHZ over clock. it's the price that really make a difference.

 

[bigcyco1]

you just said that the 7950 gets rape then, talk about the 670s OC as if there is none on the 7950. i have pushed mine all the to 1200 which is a 400MHZ over clock. it's the price that really make a difference.

Never said 7950 can't be OC and i have trouble with believing you OC a stock 7950 to that so screen shot please... Also,the GTX670 is best bang for buck at the 400 dollar price point.

 

[Leo Kislev]

It seems that the AMD 965 OCed to 3.9 GHZ is more than enough to run all modern games perfectly since it never reachs 100% CPU Usage. I might try to test my system with other PSU but that's gonna take a while. To be honest; I can run BF3 in Ultra with my 6870 at 1366x768 in 64 player servers with 38-70Fps with no microstuttering, it actually performs smooth, the only problem with BF3 is that the 6870 cant handle it with 4XMSAA.
The microstuttering problems are with Skyrim and Mafia II, and it seems that there are a lot of AMD users having problems with those games and many others like Diablo III. That microstuttering issue related to AMD prevents me to buy another AMD product in the future.

 

[zakattak80]

Just becaus it doesn't reach 100% doesn't mean it's not the bottleneck. Is your gpu reaching 99 or 100%

 

[Leo Kislev]

I was playing Skyrim yesterday; my max CPU usage was 60%, GPU usage was moving between 70-100%, (1366X768 8XAA+FXAA, 16XAF), that means the GPU is not being bottlenecked by my CPU, am I right?. I think I'm just going to buy the 670 GTX.

 

[zakattak80]

well it isnt really much of a bottleneck but your getting something that is more then twice as powerful then your current card. so alot of the games wont see a huge improvement skyrim might be on of them.other well be flying through the fps, battlefield probably do that.

 

[Leo Kislev]

So your saying that my current CPU is even bottlenecking my 6870 a bit?, if I get a 670 GTX there will be no difference in Skyrim?

Should I:

1)Buy the 670 GTX?
2)Buy an i5 2500k and keep the 6870?

My main goal is to play BF3 MP 64 at ultra settings with 4XMSAA with no less than 60 minimium fps even in the worst case scenarios, at 1366x768 or maybe 1680X1050 if its posible to keep minimium fps of 60, and of course stuttering-free in Skyrim

 

[zakattak80]

well at that resolution i couldn't imagine any game that the 6870 wouldn't be able to tackle.

here are a few cpu scaling benchmarks for skyrim

http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyrim-performance/page7.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-
9.html


now with BF3 your amd chip well do just fine with the 670, but at that small of a resolution your pretty much completely cpu bound on any game. so if it was me i'd take a better cpu and keep the 6870 unless i planed using a higher resolution.

 

[Leo Kislev]

Yeah I couldn't believe it too, but it seems that BF3 4XMSAA its just to much for a 6870 even on 720p.

I think I'm going to buy the 670 GTX and a 1650x1050 display since the 670 GTX cant handle BF3 maxed in 1080p above 60 fps in the worst case scenarios.

I don't care about Skyrim running at 40-60 fps as long as its stutter-free.

Then I will probably upgrade my CPU-MOBO in the next year for an Intel combo since I was looking at some reviews and my AMD 965 OCed to 3.9Ghz Is way better for gaming than the FX-8150 FailDozer lol.

 

[zakattak80]

yeah that be a good plan. i think nvidia gives smoother fps then amd on skyrim, and if BF3 is your biggest concern higher gpu should do the trick

 

[Leo Kislev]

OMG! I just fixed my microstuttering problem in Skyrim, Mafia II, etc. Ive found that I just had to disable ATI HDMI audio in device manager, that did the trick!, wow! all games are running smooth like butter, I definitely like my 6870 now!, I'm even considering getting a 7950 over a 670GTX since nVidia is having a lot of problems with those GPU's.

 

[zakattak80]

well i might disable as well just for the sake of it. have you seen the 12.7 beta drivers that tomshardware tested the knew 7970 GHz edition. looks like these drivers well bump the 7900 series cards to the top slightly. i'm stoke about this.

 

[Leo Kislev]

I haven't tested those yet, I'm going to give them a try this night, and about the HDMI ATI Audio issue; I Just updated the HDMI Audio driver and it seems that I don't need to disable it anymore, however Mafia II seems to keep stuttering, I dont know if the game is just bad coded or something because all games run perfect except this one, Im just giving up in Mafia II =(.I have the money to buy either the 670 GTX or 7950 but damn, I still dont know what to buy yet lol.

 

[master_nz]

I thinks its more of a battle between gtx 670 and 7970. In NZ the price of those 2 cards are about the same price 700-850 versus 750-850.

At stock speeds the gtx 670 out performs the 7970. But when it comes to overclocking the 7970 is suppose to overclock like a beast and one i article i read recently shows that it even over takes the 680 with ease. Your looking at core clocks of 1200mhz+ to outperform the 670. I went with 2 gtx 670 because they were going for $50 less but if same price, would surely go with 2 7970 cards.