690 or dual 7970?

[pnico]

hi,
can anyone point me in a direction for where to find the latest benchmarks comparing these two cards?
also is it best to use AMD drivers or diamond drivers for the 7970?

thank you

 

[devilofdeaths]

http://www.guruht.com/2012/06/gtx-690-vs-hd-6990-vs-hd-7970-cf.html go down to a little under the half way point on the wondow and you have your answer

 

[pnico]

I have a 1200 watt power supply, 3930x with asus motherboard. 12 gig ram win 7. triple screen gaming, yes. I only do gaming and internet, word processing, but mostly gaming

from what im seeing here, the 7970 is in fact, well in cf, the faster solution in many things..

having two of these is like having a 7990, is it not? but from my experience in having dual 6990, it is a huge overkill due to driver limitatioins, or did that change?

 

[devilofdeaths]

I have a 1200 watt power supply, 3930x with asus motherboard. 12 gig ram win 7. triple screen gaming, yes. I only do gaming and internet, word processing, but mostly gaming

from what im seeing here, the 7970 is in fact, well in cf, the faster solution in many things..

having two of these is like having a 7990, is it not? but from my experience in having dual 6990, it is a huge overkill due to driver limitatioins, or did that change?

the 7970 CF is even better now since you game on 3 screens because of AMD eyefinity which is years ahead of what nvidia has

 

[blazorthon]

If you can find one in stock, a Radeon 7990 would be good too. Powercolor's 7990 is an awesome card.

Overall, 7970CF/7990 get's my vote over the 690. The 690 lags behind them when you throw on the MSAA and such because the GCN Radeon 7xxx cards handle it much better.

 

[devilofdeaths]

If you can find one in stock, a Radeon 7990 would be good too. Powercolor's 7990 is an awesome card.

+1 but the 7990 is so hard to find unless you wait for like 3 weeks

 

[blazorthon]

Just watch out for the games that have driver problems... be careful when going Crossfire as their driver support for CF is not as good as Nvidia's for SLI.

Not saying don't do it. Just saying do it with eyes open.

Driver support with current drivers for AMD is excellent.

 

[blazorthon]

Games that either don't work with 7970 CF or have glitches/bugs/bad scaling (just from my experience):

Witcher 2
Skyrim
Max Payne 3
Diablo 3

Hardly excellent. I'd call it competent.

With what drivers? I have no trouble with anything from Catalyst 12.7 and up and I've played Skyrim on a few CF systems with Radeon 7xxx cards.

 

[pnico]

actually I just finished max payne 3 with cf enabled and it ran awesome. The others cant say. I wonder if its better to use diamond drivers or drivers directly from amd

 

[17seconds]

The 690 will be more efficient, quieter, cooler, and less of a headache in terms of drivers. It will also be faster in the majority of games, yes even when AA is increased.

Or do you like the looks of this better?

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/56819-hd-7990-review-powercolor-s-devil-13-a-16.html

Some more good benchmarks here:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/56819-hd-7990-review-powercolor-s-devil-13-a-15.html

 

[blazorthon]

Skyrim has HUD issues in crossfire in 12.7, almost no scaling on minimum framerate in 12.8 or any other driver (you could argue this being the game's fault for being poorly coded and CPU bottlenecked), increased CTD frequency on all drivers vs a single card (12.3, 12.4, 12.6, 12.6, 12.8)

Witcher 2 flat out doesn't work with Crossfire on any driver when ubersampling is enabled - system hangs after a few seconds

Max Payne 3 has cutscene glitches/flickering with 12.7 and 12.8 (have not tried any older drivers on this)

Diablo 3 has pretty bad stuttering on 12.4 and 12.7 - have not played since upgrading to 12.8.

You can see TPU's 7990 review for the other games with issues or bad scaling. The result in that review is that on average the 690 is faster even though it really shouldn't be if AMD's driver support were up to snuff.

I haven't tested the with all of these drivers, but I didn't have any trouble in Skyrim with it. I don't play Diablo 3, Max Panye 3, and Witcher 3, but I have had no trouble with Skyrim with Catalyst 12.6, 12.7, and 12.8, although I did have issues with a few games occasionally with some past driver versions.

 

[blazorthon]

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1561/pg1/powercolor-devil-13-hd-7990-graphics-card-review-introduction.html

I can name off as many positive reviews as you can negative.

 

[blazorthon]

Obviously the reviews that don't include the games where 7970 CF fails are going to be positive.

All this means is that you can ignore evidence.

And yet, I get called an AMD fanboy all the time on these forums... *sigh*

You never seemed like a fanboy to me as far as I can remember; I'm simply disagreeing with you. I'm not going to say that Skyrim has excellent scaling, as you've said, it doesn't, but i don't have any problems with it.

 

[redeemer]

Nothing beats 7970 crossfire I should know, I have it!


http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] ce-review/

 

[pnico]

where will the 7990 come into play? is it not just 2 7970 on one board vs having cf
so this is, depending on the game of course one of the the fastest card solution?

 

[pnico]

I guess comparing 2 7990 would be a terrible comparison because quad fire still is lousy? I remember from having 2 6990s that the support for that many gpu's just wasnt there and having both was just an expensive ovekill

 

[devilofdeaths]

where will the 7990 come into play? is it not just 2 7970 on one board vs having cf
so this is, depending on the game of course one of the the fastest card solution?

don't bother with the 6990 the 7970's are faster and cheaper

 

[Mousemonkey]

Exactly - when the drivers work, 7970 CF is the fastest setup available. You just have to deal with the fact that there are more cases where the drivers don't work than there are with 680 SLI / 690.

Non working AMD/ATi drivers? You're treading on dangerous ground there! :lol:

 

[redeemer]

Non working AMD/ATi drivers? You're treading on dangerous ground there! :lol:

lol

 

[Mousemonkey]

Especially for such a hard core AMD fanboy like myself, right?

Well if I had posted that then this thread would most likely be on page 3 by now with all the AMD/ATi fanboi's disputing the comment and yet no one seems to have batted an eyelid when you post it, make of that what you will.

 

[Mousemonkey]

That's because everyone knows you roll green. If I didn't have my rig in my signature they'd be doing the same thing to me.

So what does that have to do with the truth if the truth is indeed what you've posted.

 

[Mousemonkey]

It has to do with the perception of what you post, not the truth of it. AMD fans will take whatever you say as untruthful and/or slanted.

Just look at any thread where I've critiqued AMD's CPUs... it starts a firestorm of nonsense from AMD fans. That didn't happen as bad a few months back when I had a Phenom II CPU in my rig, even though my opinion of Bulldozer was just as negative then as it is now.

It also affects how you present the "truth", even if you don't realize it. You usually can't see it in your own posts, but look at how I come across to you when I'm talking about the GTX 6xx series cards. I really dislike them and so it affects the manner in which I present a case against them.

Or maybe I do know how I present the truth and thus get a kick out of the way the already butthurt fanboi's whine, had that thought crossed your mind?

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

Or maybe I do know how I present the truth and thus get a kick out of the way the already butthurt fanboi's whine, had that thought crossed your mind?

How could you expect everyone, fanboi or otherwise, to believe what you say when you're intentionally being an ass about it? How are they supposed to distinguish between you and the trolls?

 

[redeemer]

How could you expect everyone, fanboi or otherwise, to believe what you say when you're intentionally being an ass about it? How are they supposed to distinguish between you and the trolls?

Honestly I havent has any major trouble with the 7970 drivers in crossfire, I mean Rage was the biggest pain in the butt. In my opinion Nvidia drivers arent the greatest either. The problem is waiting for the damn crossfire profiles.

 

[Mousemonkey]

How could you expect everyone, fanboi or otherwise, to believe what you say when you're intentionally being an ass about it? How are they supposed to distinguish between you and the trolls?

When they can't handle the truth because it hurts so much that have to try and deflect that pain I don't have a problem with rubbing their noses in it, is that too much of a problem for you?