7970 Ghz Edition vs gtx 670

the 7970 Ghz Ed. performs better than the GTX 680 on average, so it will show more advantage over the 670.

They are about even in reality.

Depending on the game you play, you may see one card win over the other. Almost every year when a new card comes out from both parties they are about the same.

One is cheaper, etc etc...

You decide, they are both really good cards.

Sorry but they are not even close at all

you're picking specific ones.... we can probably ignore 2560x1600 since most of us don't got 30" monitors...

You're also comparing a 7970 ghz edition (basically factory overclocked) to a stock GTX 680... Overclock both and we'll see where they are.




Also. Get a EVGA GTX 670 FTW (or the Asus Direct CU II model ) and they will get around the same performance as a GTX 680 but $100 cheaper.

the reason why GHZ models exist is because when AMD designed the original reference models, they purposely had it on low clock speeds so that manufactures can sell different levels of overclocked cards(normal, OC edition, GHZ are the typical 3 levels). even though GHZ is factory overclocked, it still has room to be overclocked even more. which in the end makes it very similar to a 680 in a normal 1920x1080 environment, and on its own tier on a 2560x1600 environment



the odd thing is, you are bashing on factory overclocked AMD cards, and telling OP to buy a factory overclocked Nvidia card ಠ_ಠ

Is it true that Nvidia cards have less microstutter in SLI vs AMD cards in crossfire? I'm looking to get either CFX 7970 or SLI GTX 670 in order to game at 2560 x 1440, i heard that the improved memory bandwidth of the 7970 might make it a better performer, but I really don't want microstutter, i'm really sensitive to it.

any 2 card build can suffer microstuttering. the amount visible is dependent on how sensitive the user is to frame change. Though I cant say which one is better or worse(I would assume you have to find that one guy on this forum who has both the 680 sli and 7970 xfire for his opinion which I cannot remember the name of). The only real way of killing microstutering is by capping a Max FPS, or 3 way sli/crossfire.

go with 670 and overclock it well if you want "best bang for the buck" if money is not a problem then 7970 GHz.

From what I've heard, Nvidia solutions suffer from less microstutter, but I want another source to corroborate this. I found the gigabyte 670 at 370, which is a somewhat decent deal. Also, i was wondering how the gigabyte 670 compares to the asus?

+1

Get this HD 7970 for $359.99 after $70 coupon DCZ69391 apply at check out

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

If you want to get the Ghz overclock, download Ghz bios and flash it to the card and you got a Ghz edition HD 7970 with 4 free games for 370 bucks. I don't normally recommend the HD 7970 due to higher price but at this price point its a no brainer, the performance you get from the card is pretty solid as well.

but remember,the reference amd cooler is horrible.

On average, the 7970 GHz Edition is 10% faster than the GTX 670 at 1080p. It is definitely better than the 670 - ignore the Nvidia trolls saying they're the same.



It's not a huge difference, but the difference is there.

The 670 is a slightly better value (7970 GHz ed. is 10% faster for 12% more money assuming $400 670 & $450 7970 GE).

The 7970 GE should overclock pretty easily to 1200 MHz, at which point it will trade blows with overclocked GTX 680s. The 670 will overclock but cannot quite get to those performance levels (it will be a couple % slower most likely) unless you get lucky with what chip you get, and overclocking on Kepler is slightly more complicated than on the 7970.

As for microstuttering, the gap has closed a lot this generation with microstuttering - at least on the high end cards. 7970 CF has about the same level of microstutter as 680 SLI. Check out the techreport GTX 690 review for more info (they do the best work on microstuttering and gameplay smoothness):
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22890/5

It's much better than with the previous generation cards (590/6990). In this particular case, crossfire/SLI seem to be about equal in microstutter.

Just checked newegg - The 7970GE is actually an equal value to the 670. IMO no reason to get the 670 if you can shell out the extra $40 for this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

$440 for that 7970GE is an amazing deal (as amazing a deal as you can get on a $400+ graphics card anyways)

Basically your asking what to get amd top card or Nvidia second or third top card the answer is without a doubt the 7970GHZ basically it's not a fair match and amd cards value is in overclocking if your not planing to overclock a 7970 is a waste of money and not for you

not really,if you are going to back up by saying that you are running 7970s @1205 then i must remind you that MSi Lightning cards have beefier VRMs and usually more overclocking headroom than xfx dd.lightning series cards are top level chips with highest overclocking potential where as xfx dd is *average* custom cooled 7970.

i think you should go with GTX 670. 7970 is good too. but i think if you want to game hard so go with GTX 670. because most of the games is sponsored with nvidia and updated physx will give much better performance. Nvidia gives you much quite sound and delivers much more than AMD.

Physx doesn't give better performance, it adds onto the graphics on what the games does O_o, adding more to the game technically would decrease performance, hence physx being optional. And how does one judge sound, sound quality is heavily based on the speakers, and not the gpu, which will only display sound if you are using a HDMI cable which most people dont(as most people use DVI). When comparing the HD 7k series and Gtx 6xx series, both cards offer different things. Nvidia will have the option of physx, but one thing they stripped away from the gtx 6xx line which they had in the 500 line is they stripped off computing strength, so if you ever had to use a program to compute something, on average, the HD 7k series will decimate the gtx 600 series(the fermi cards of last generation is even better) which compute power is slowly going into several programs and game design.

You are comparing two differrent tier cards here. A 7970Ghz edition was made to compete with the 680. Because the 670 can reach performance up to the 680, it does not reach the same compared to the 7970 Ghz. The regular 7970 you can compare to as it will trade blows in most games. Some run better on Nvidia others on Amd.

You pretty much proved my point. As where one card might prosper the other dips, and vice versa.

They are about the same. ABOUT the same.

Honestly you can't go wrong with either.

Also in my opinion I'd go with the 670, any that is over clocked or has an aftermarket cooler. You can match the performance of a 680 and then some.

But again either card will do you fine. Where one might prosper, it will falter elsewhere. So it doesn't matter. Just look at the games you play the most and look at benchmarks for that game.

+ 1

I had an original XFX DD BE that hit 1210/1720 MHz on 1.23Vcore and stock vmem, purchased at launch, so you can't invalidate my point by just going "oh you have Lightning edition cards". The new GHz edition chips don't need the crazy power circuitry to hit the higher clock speeds - they are better chips than the original batch in terms of what clocks they can hit on stock voltage.

Also, Lightning chips are not binned very well (or at least, are not binned for air cooling) - I have ~70% ASIC on both, and if you read reviews they are not standout overclockers. They are good but not great. They are built for stability/longer-lifetime/LN2, not for maximum air OCs (contrary to what you may expect).

Pretty much every review of a custom cooled 7970GE has it hitting 1200 MHz (give or take) without problems.

This is in addition to the data from hwbot, which has the 7970 average OC as 1215/1706 MHz. Granted you probably wouldn't get that reliably from a reference 7970, but a custom 7970 or 7970GE would have a solid chance to hit similar clocks. As always, overclocking relies a bit on luck, but it looks like GHz ed. 7970s will hit that OC often

And, unless you get an unusually high OC out of a GTX 670, it's not going to match the performance of a 7970 at those clocks.

You mean like this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

There's about a 1% difference between the Asus GTX 670 DirectCU TOP and the 7970 Ghz. Compare to the GTX 680 at 1920x1200, the 670 is ahead by 1% and the Ghz is ahead by 2%.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670...
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_GHz_Edit...

Of course, the big differences are in noise levels and power consumption:
7970 Ghz: 51 Dba
Peak power: 238 watts
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_GHz_Edit...

Asus 670 TOP: 25 Dba
Peak power: 177 watts
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670...

HardOCP has done a couple reviews where they mention that SLI feels smoother than Crossfire and that Crossfire needs to attain higher FPS to get the same feeling of smoothness in the controls. Tom's Hardware verified this phenomenon and suggested that microstutter was to blame.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stut...

And lastly, there's the Physx thing.

If power consumption is an issue, absolutely Kepler is the card to get. However, it's not like power draw is bad on Tahiti cards. 238W of peak power draw is still not very much. Same thing with PhysX - if you plan to dump a ton of time into one of the few games that actually uses PhysX a lot, then you should buy an Nvidia card. However, there aren't many games that use it to much of an affect.

Noise is a non-issue unless you're a silence freak (in which case a custom 660ti or 670 will be awesome for you). Reviews like that of the 7970GE are of a card with a reference cooler. You can't even buy a reference-cooled version on Newegg. The custom cooled models are not going to have such issues. Sure, they may be louder than the super quiet custom 670s, but they're not going to be offensively loud like the reference card reviews indicate.

HardOCP makes claims that they don't substantiate with data, and so are irrelevant. Techreport, which actually quantifies things, finds that 7970 CF is comparable to (certainly not much worse than) 680 SLI/690 in terms of smoothness. See here and following for actual data rather than random unsubstantiated claims:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22890/5

The Tomshardware article is irrelevant to this particular point because it's for old midrange cards.

The 670 DCUII TOP isn't even purchasable on Newegg right now. I think the 670 is a tough sell over a $440 custom 7970GE like the XFX, unless you care about PhysX or are a nut about power or silence. However, if you just want the best all around performer, the 7970GE is a better option.

The hd7970 is better and is a very good and powerful card (I have one hd7970 ghz edition

Well I need to order a card and I'm confused now lol

either choice are good cards. both excel at different things the other doesn't do as well at basically on positives generally

670
Less power consumption
Adaptive Vsync and optional Physx
CUDA for certain programs
Has the advantage on Nvidia Optimization on a handful of games
Can utilize Nvidia 3D on applicable monitors
Quieter

7970 GHZ
Stream cores compute better in outside work(which was stripped from the gtx 600 series, which was built only with gaming in mind and nothing else)
Tends to have more Vram
Better on higher resolutions past 1920x1080(including better multi screen support)
Larger memory bus, reacts better on games that cripple heavily with Anti Aliasing

I'm only playing at 1920x1080. My msi 560Ti fit nicely in my Roswill Challenger. Took it out cuz it got sold and realized my cables in the case are all over the place but hopefully I can fit the 670 in there. Or the 7970. If I were to go with 7970 isn't that an inch bigger? And which 7970 would you recommend at the level of the 670 FTW nvidia?

key question I should ask, is if you are going to aim for enthusiast overclocking past the factory OC. in this situation, I would tend to recommend the 670 FTW easily as it fits the 1920x1080 bill better, as the 7970 is more of an overclock enthusiast card in my eyes rather than stock.

Well I've never overclocked my msi twin frozr II because I didn't really see the need to. I'm more concerned about size and all and if I can get better performance/visual than what I had with the 560Ti I'm happy. I don't think I will go crazy with overclocking the card.

Then I would have to easily recommend the 670

I'm wear about OC'ing anyway so it would probably be better with the 670 for me. Although I was asking because I've never had an ATI card and switching over is a little different when you are used to something else.

I mean your free to pick either or, both are already pretty overpowered for 1920x1080

Yeh there is the FTW LE and the normal FTW I see that the normal one has 1084Mhz boost clock the LE has 1019Mhz. Both are the same size so they should fit in the challenger I hope.

+1

Newegg is out of the regular FTW so amazon has it for the same price. I have a trial of amazon prime so I guess I should order it from there.

Sure why not amazon is reliable and besides that i suspect the price will go back up to 409.99 soon anyways so i would get it while i could true saving only ten dollars but it's better than nothing hehehe

@OP,before this thread becomes a "amd vs nvidia" fight,let me tell you something-
both cards are powerful enough to max out any game at your native resolution with silky smooth frame rates.
a 3-8 fps difference is negligible in real world.
just go with the cheaper option.

Agreed. So the price will back to $409 hmm I guess you're right it could. I was going to wait until monday but I'm not sure. I was hoping newegg would have another deal or something.

EDIT: Spoke too soon its already back up to $409..son of a! They had a 20.00 coupon too I didn't see it either..ugh. Oh well I'll wait now.

i want to mean that it will be cool and reduce noise where AMD is hotter.

Why not save some money get 660 ti it will preform well for you.

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660ti for $300 or more is a horrible deal imho.

7970 for sure!

7970 vs GTX660 Ti -
http://www.hwcompare.com/13146/geforce-gtx-660-ti-vs-ra...

7970 vs GTX680 -
http://www.hwcompare.com/12508/geforce-gtx-670-vs-radeo...

Just make sure you have a nice PSU and cooling system.

Well actually when i really think about it your right forget i mentioned it OP until the 660 ti sells for $200.00/$250.00 max it's not worth buying imho  

Lol of course the 7970 is better than the 660ti. The 670 is better than the 660ti. The 7970 model is only 100 more compared to it.

The 7970 is way better, nothing to say about that, not even the gtx 680 that was supperior to the 7970 is at it's same level now, the only thing about the 670 you may want to give a second tought about it's the price.

Yeh which is why I am considering the 670 because of the price. Someone did convince me the 7970 would fit in my Challenger case so I may want to try that but still undecided.