7970 vs 670 Which Brand/Models

[payne18]

Hello,sorry if my first post/thread is asking for help and not helping this great site,but well I dont have too much experience and sorry for another thread of almost the same thing.
Now,in this moment I have 450$ for a VC and those VC's are in the this price range.
My main system specs are those:
i5 3570k
8 GB Ram DDR3 Corsair Vengeance
ASUS P8Z77-M

im going to play on a 1920 x 1080 single monitor.The VC i was going to buy was the 670 FTW but cause of some money problems I didnt but now I have the extra 50$,so my choices are those:
670 FTW,Superclocked 4GB 670,Shappire,Gigabyte OC,XFX Black Edition and the GHZ Edition 7970,if there is another better brand/model please tell me.
Maybe and there is a High change of buying a second video card in December for SLI or Crossfire,not thinking of another monitor,now the games.
To be honest I play everything I can,Skyrim,buying BF 3 Next Week,Assassins Creed 3,Max Payne 3,Fifa 13,Hitman Absolution,GTA 5,Metro,Crysis 2,like I said everything I can but for Multiplayer mainly BF 3,MW 3,COD 4(STILL XD).
About the Nvidia things like PhysX and Adaptive Vsync,if those things dont make better performance or amazingly more beautiful graphic things,then doesnt really matter to me.
i can also spend maybe another 30$ from the 450 if it is worth it.
The level of noises of the card are not very important,as I'm mainly playing with headset so no problem with that,maybe the Power Consumption can be important and heat.
Im probaly buying on Amazon or Newegg.
Thanks ;D

 

[redeemer]

AMD's current pricing scheme makes it very hard to recommend Nvidia at this time, Go with a 7970 Ghz Edition it faster and cheaper and provides higher performance at beyond 1080p if you so need

 

[bigcyco1]

At $450, the best card is the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 GHz edition which comes in and out of stock every couple days:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001

Their normal OC 7970 is a really nice deal at $380 if you want to save a bit of money and not sacrifice on performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982

The 670 to get, if you want to go that route, is the MSI 670 PE:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127685&Tpk=msi%20pe%20670

+1 skip the 7970 OC get the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 GHz edition or MSI 670 PE in that order to if you can afford the Vapor-X 7970 GHz go for it if not get the MSI 670 PE i don't see how you would regret getting either those cards

 

[redeemer]

+1 skip the 7970 OC get the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 GHz edition or MSI 670 PE in that order to if you can afford the Vapor-X 7970 GHz go for it if not get the MSI 670 PE i don't see how you would regret getting either those cards

+1 for Vapor X

 

[luciferano]

Agreed; pretty much any card with a Vapor-X cooler is a good card and at $450, the 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X is priced very well.

 

[bigcyco1]

Someone post some benchmarks to help sway OP into our plot for them to get the vapor x lol jk. I have actually had the pleasure of gaming with the card was only a few hours though but i was some what impressed.

 

[jtenorj]

A single powerful gpu is such a better idea than 2 or more for so many reasons(no support or micro stuttering issues, cheaper mobo, more lax cooling
requirements in the case, cheaper psu, lower power bill, less electronic waste). That said, you will get the most performance out of a card by picking one
with a decent custom cooler and overclocking it yourself(especially these 28nm parts that beg you to tweak them). Here are some of the cheaper options:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

A card like hd7970(non ghz ed.) will be more future proof due to its 3GB frame buffer. However, if physx really starts taking off in a big way...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125438&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Either of these cards should work beautifully on a 1080p screen for some time(after a little tinkering of course). Higher vram bound settings or physx. up 2u

 

[bigcyco1]

micro stuttering issues lol i always found that odd i never have had them with my cards but there is enough proof that supports it happens guess i am just lucky

 

[jtenorj]

Well, you have to consider that nvidia only got the tech from ageia in 2008, and game development cycles are taking longer and longer. There hasn't
been all that much time for developers to incorporate the tech into current or soon to be released games. On the same token, I imagine many developers
look to longer standing software physics options for a few reasons. Older and better known alternatives to physx may take less time(and money, from
both project salaries and delay til release with the subsequent sales income) to develop. Game makers may also be avoiding the tech so as not to alienate
about 40% of end users with discrete cards that wouldn't be able to enjoy the game as the developer made it and might not buy the game(again costing
the game makers more money). If nvidia licensed physx to amd, they might actually sell more cards. I say that because developers would be more likely
to include the tech in games if most everyone had a shot at using it(creating incentive to buy physx capable cards) and they would have a head start on
amd as far as knowledge of how to best use the tech on their hardware(more incentive to buy nvidia cards now while amd tries to figure things out).

 

[bigcyco1]

Well i actually like PhysX some feel it is a gimmick usually amd fanboys claim that but i have seen others say it as well.IMO it's not though.I wouldn't make to big a deal about it.But,it's nice to have rather many games use it or not doesn't make it useless.I consider it like the extra little sprinkles you get on your ice cream nothing more nothing less lol.

 

[jtenorj]

That is an interesting analogy. Sprinkles on ice cream have several properties(taste, texture, visual appeal). The visual appeal is nice, but you are more
likely to notice the added flavor and to a lesser extent the texture(especially if you happen to be blind). Video games incorporate a variety of experiences
(sight, sound, simply playing the game, and motions/feedback on consoles). With all the graphics horsepower available as of late(on the pc, anyway), a
great onus has been placed on the visual aspect of games. That's nice, but if the game play is crap it is all for nothing. My understanding is that physx
doesn't affect the actual game play, it just makes a game look better. Some of the major titles I know if that use it are batman, metro and borderlands.

I'm not sure, but I think most tech sites avoid using physx in metro when testing video cards because it creates too big a drop in performance.

I've seen video of the game play and , well, meh. I've not played borderlands but have seen video of it(comparing physx vs no physx). While physx does
add some nifty visual flair to that game, I'm not a fan of the cartoonish(cell shaded?) art direction in that title. From what I've read, batman isn't all that
much better with physx, either. There are other games that make good use of software physx which both look good and are fun to play(hl2 springs to mind
since I've played through several times) and I know there are a bunch more using various software physics engines. Destructible environments in more
recent entries from the battlefield series, Painkiller(an older game but pretty fun). I think the original Mafia looks about as good as video I've seen of
Mafia 2(also a game that uses physx). I guess a lot of us get caught up on the visual aspect of video and computer games when developers need to be
working harder to improve the game play. These are games, after all, not videos.

 

[bigcyco1]

Metro and Borderlands can run OK with PhysX on the CPU - only Batman (of the games you mentioned) needs it on an Nvidia GPU to be playable/smooth.

Half Life 2 doesn't use PhysX at all, and Painkiller doesn't use GPU-accelerated PhysX.

Like I said, there's no evidence to support the idea of PhysX "taking off"... people have been wondering when that would happen ever since Ageia started releasing PPUs like 8 years ago and it never has. No Physics engine is going to take off in a big way when it restricts the user base to Nvidia GPUs when there are other physics engines that are just as good that don't require using Nvidia-only tech.

:lol: We better stop talking about this i know it drives you insane think i seen you and matto in a few threads arguing about it.

 

[jtenorj]

Metro and Borderlands can run OK with PhysX on the CPU - only Batman (of the games you mentioned) needs it on an Nvidia GPU to be playable/smooth.

Half Life 2 doesn't use PhysX at all, and Painkiller doesn't use GPU-accelerated PhysX.

Like I said, there's no evidence to support the idea of PhysX "taking off"... people have been wondering when that would happen ever since Ageia started releasing PPUs like 8 years ago and it never has. No Physics engine is going to take off in a big way when it restricts the user base to Nvidia GPUs when there are other physics engines that are just as good that don't require using Nvidia-only tech.

I know that some forms of physx are software only, but I thought the forms in metro and borderlands where nvidia only. I've been mistaken before.

I used hl2 and painkiller as examples of games that use different, software based physics engines. Painkiller uses havok. not sure about hl2( it could be
proprietary to the source engine). I honestly don't see physx taking off in its current form either( a return to software or licensing to amd and intel, maybe).

PPUs were expensive niche products with next to no market. With perfectly viable software physics engines available, they were doomed to fail.

 

[luciferano]

Like I said earlier, PhysX is a gimmick unless you play the very few games that use it properly. Metro 2033 has it, but doesn't make very good use of it, although it's better than nothing. Batman:AC makes great use of it, but that game is so poorly coded that it has far to many other problems that can show up occasionally (although I think that it has been improving). Borderlands 2, like Metro 2033, doesn't use it as well as Batman does, but it does use it better than Metro 2033. However, that game is one that I haven't been fond of. It looks outdated to me even when I've played it with PhysX on friend's machines and I'm just not a fan of it. The original Borderlands was better despite being older.

I expect the upcoming Metro game to use it much more extensively than Metro 2033 does, but assuming that the next Metro game is any good (I think that it will be), it might literally be the first proper PhysX game in quite a while and it might be years before another pops up. If you don't believe me, then check out the wiki for PhysX games and look at how many DX11 titles have it and then look at how many of them use it extensively. The number is kinda sad. Even OpenCL/Direct Compute have gotten a better showing in game usage lately.

Ironically, a lot of games can use the CPU for Physics processing, something that AMD just happens to have the extra cores for with their six and eight core CPU offerings.

 

[selayan]

Regardless I think Physix has even taken a toll on most cards right now. Look at scores of BLS2 with Physix running on full. It takes a hefty pc to run physics fully including cpu and gpu.

 

[jtenorj]

So you can use physx in BL2 with a radeon even if there is no nvidia card in the system, huh? Very interesting. I'll have to make a mental note of that.

Yeah, I've mentioned both the physx page at wikipedia and the one on nvidia's own website as negative talking points for physx support(or lack thereof).

I am learning so much lately and I absolutely love it! Thanks ya'll. Keep it comin'.

 

[selayan]

So you can use physx in BL2 with a radeon even if there is no nvidia card in the system, huh? Very interesting. I'll have to make a mental note of that.

Yeah, I've mentioned both the physx page at wikipedia and the one on nvidia's own website as negative talking points for physx support(or lack thereof).

I am learning so much lately and I absolutely love it! Thanks ya'll. Keep it comin'.

Some games can run physix off the cpu, very intense process weather its running off gpu or not. You don't need a super computer but even with physix, frames were not any better under all that load.

 

[payne18]

Well thanks to everyone,looks like im going for the Vapor-X 7970 GHZ,the problem is that is out of stock and the 20$ rebate ends at 9/30 T_T with some luck maybe is again in stock till 30/9 xD

 

[selayan]

Well thanks to everyone,looks like im going for the Vapor-X 7970 GHZ,the problem is that is out of stock and the 20$ rebate ends at 9/30 T_T with some luck maybe is again in stock till 30/9 xD

I've been waiting with an out of stock message since 9/18. Signed up for auto notify and I don't think it is working because I spoke with one guy at overclock.net who bought one two days ago and he was signed up for notifications too, never got one said he just kept checking that day and it was there suddenly.

 

[luciferano]

If you don't want to wait, then the Gigabyte WindForce 7970 GHz Edition is a decent runner-up to the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 GHz Edition and I think that it's in stock.

 

[selayan]

Yeh but that one has coil whine, the Vapor X uses premium components.

 

[luciferano]

Yeh but that one has coil whine, the Vapor X uses premium components.

That may be true, but not all units of models affected by coil whine actually have it bad, let alone badly enough to be heard over other components and the game(s). If OP was to play with a headset, then OP would probably not be able to notice even cards that have very bad coil whine. If the Vapor-X ends up not being an option, would you recommend something over the Gigabyte Windforce?

 

[selayan]

Honestly if it was not an option you could take a chance with a MSI Lightning or Powercolor Vortex II PCS+ 7970 that one uses premium components. Other than that I don't know. I could not stand the last 7970 I had, don't play with headphones and It whined even on web pages.

Another alternative for coil whine is Asus Dc2 version

 

[payne18]

I've been waiting with an out of stock message since 9/18. Signed up for auto notify and I don't think it is working because I spoke with one guy at overclock.net who bought one two days ago and he was signed up for notifications too, never got one said he just kept checking that day and it was there suddenly.

Ye another guy told me the same,well I will just keep refreshing the vc link everytime I can lol

 

[selayan]

Yeh this can be tricky as it may be in stock for one min and usually the emails can take up to 15 minutes to a day to notify you so unless you are on there all day refreshing I dunno lol.