Evga 680 GTX or wait?

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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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Which card?
Basically it boils down to budget first and the NVidia vs AMD features. At the lower pricing AMD has arguably better value. NVidia has PhysX, Adaptive VSYNC, TXAA, and perhaps better driver support.

Forget the HD5970 completely and focus on one of these:
HD7850/70, HD7950/70, GTX660Ti, GTX670, GTX680

On the lower end you can find some quality HD7850 2GB cards for about $200.

On the high end, there's the ASUS GTX680 TOP edition for $540 at NCIX.

Some games won't benefit above the HD7850 and some will look best with the GTX680.

POINTS:
1) Get at least 2GB of VRAM regardless of card (some have only 1GB)
2) Get a quality brand with a good cooling solution (Gigabyte, Sapphire Tech, Asus)
3) I was going to add MSI but I'm concerned about the above link re overvolting.
4) The GTX680 should be paired with an i5-750 CPU or better. Most games won't benefit from a better CPU but some will. Overclocking the i5-750 or similar CPU seems to be sufficient for the few games that need more CPU power.

5) NCIX and Newegg are good places to start
6) Investigate if Borderlands 2 is still being offered with the GTX660Ti and higher NVidia cards.

Here's a list of some games that look best with a GTX680:
- Witcher 2
- BF3
- Skyrim (HD Texture Pack/mods)
- Batman AC (disable PhysX and DX11 to prevent stutter though)
- Total War Shogun 2
- Bulletstorm
- Metro 2033

That's just some of the games, however there is a much LONGER list of games that even an HD7850 2GB card can max out completely at 1920x1080 and 60FPS or can almost max out.

So again, it comes down to your budget and the games you wish to play. I absolutely love my ASUS GTX680 TOP card. I'm now playing Witcher 2 and it's just able to achieve 60FPS about 90% of the time with everything max at 1920x1080 (only ubersampling is disabled.)

Investment notes:
- People who buy the more expensive card, on average don't upgrade their cards as often
- My TOTAL internet, PC electricity, average hardware and game cost over a THREE YEAR PERIOD is about $3000
- The difference between an HD7850 and GTX680 is approximately $300
- So the difference in cost for me was about 10% of my overall gaming expense, not only that I got more enjoyment, and finally I would likely would end up upgrading sooner if I'd gotten "only" and HD7850.

Everyone is different though. And HD7850 2GB card is just fine for Diablo 3, Skyrim and many other games and there isn't a single game that exists that won't still look good with this card.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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*The Asus GTX680 TOP card is $540 and is a far, far better card than the EVGA you linked. That 4GB that adds to the cost is pointless for every game except Skyrim. Even then, I have SKYRIM plus the official HD texture pack and max out at 1.5GB VRAM usage.

Adding one or multiple high-res HD packs or other mods to Skyrim also drives down the frame rate. Just because people have used 3GB of VRAM also doesn't mean a 2GB card won't perform as good. Most of the textures can quickly be swapped with System RAM. When you have lots of VRAM it doesn't bother.

Long story short, if you have the money for that EVGA card, you'll be far happier with an Asus GTX680 TOP:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/55064-asus-gtx-680-directcu-ii-top-review.html

If you want the BEST gaming experience the above ASUS 680 is arguably it (I avoid multiple GPU's due to micro-stutter. Plus the 680 is plenty for a single monitor.) Actually the absolute BEST would be to have another 660Ti or higher dedicated for a PhysX but I'm not spending $300 just for a PhysX card.

Speaking of which, apparently Borderlands 2 is one of the few games that gets PhysX done correctly. A GTX670 can max out the game visuals with PhysX on high and still get a solid 60FPS whereas several titles have PhysX so demanding that you need two end cards to use it and still get 60FPS (I'm looking at YOU Mafia 2).
 
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JJ1217

JJ1217

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^ The 680 TOP is a very heavy card, and a three slot card. Most motherboards which support two way SLI/Xfire wouldn't be able to effectively cool two of those, because they will most likely be sandwiched together.

You would also probably need a GPU bracket to stop the card bending your PCIe slot.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Sorry, but I don't believe you know what you are talking about.

The GTX680 and HD7970 GHz card are back and forth depending on the game. Here's Crysis 2 for example:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/55064-asus-gtx-680-directcu-ii-top-review-6.html

The Asus GTX680 TOP is getting almost 84FPS average compared to a stock HD7970 which gets almost 70FPS and the HD7970 GHz card which gets 74FPS.

Their are some games that favour the HD7970 GHz card.

If you're going to make claims then back them up. Benchmarks don't lie. Also, there are NVidia specific features like:
- PhysX
- TXAA (upcoming Unreal 4 engine default AA method)
- Adaptive VSYNC

Ridiculous Cooler? Sure it's big, but the larger heatsink helps keep it quieter than any other card at this performance level. It mounts in my case solidly, I don't need the extra card slot it hides so where's the downside?

Not to start a war or anything, but I don't see how you can claim this is a waste of money. FYI, your statement about the memory bandwidth is completely wrong. There's some truth with the GTX660/660Ti but not the GTX670 and 680.

Overclocking the HD7970:
There was a little truth to that, but not necessarily enough to trounce the GTX680 on a regular basis. Also the heat went up significantly causing much more fan noise. You also need to be careful and have quality power components and good cooling to do this properly which adds to the price. There's a reason OC versions cost more.

I challenge you to show me an HD7970 that is:
a) cheaper than a GTX680, and
b) can beat a GTX680 in most benchmarks, and
c) also match the LOAD NOISE level of a GTX680

(and again, there's the NVIDIA specific features. FYI, Adaptive VSYNC is pretty useful, maybe AMD will add it to their drivers at some point... )

 
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JJ1217

JJ1217

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PhysX is not a reason to buy a Nvidia card, you can easily do it if you have a AMD master card and a GTS 450.

AMD cards will be superior in the upcoming Unreal Engine 4, they have much more GPGPU power.

Adaptive VSync can be added in a driver update as well.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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a) PhysX is simply a BONUS feature. Your suggestion of adding PhysX is to get an NVIDIA CARD? And of course you need the hacked drivers as well. Hardly a situation for everyone.

b) AMD is better for Unreal 4 due to better GPGPU? You better investigate that again because it's dead wrong. Tim Sweeney even stated that at this point the only cards optimized for the Unreal 4 engine are the Kepler ones.

Also, Kepler cards have the TXAA anti-aliasing support that the UNREAL 4 engine uses. It's a much more efficient AA method. Current AMD cards would have to use a different method therefore lowering frame rates.

Here's one link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Kepler-Nvidia-Tim-Sweeney-Unreal-Engine-UE4,15571.html

By the way, the single KEPLER card referenced at the end that the UNREAL 4 engine is optimized for is the GTX680.

c) Adaptive VSYNC: Sure Adaptive VSYNC can be added by AMD to their drivers. I even said so. Being ABLE to do a thing and having DONE a thing are completely different.

This is fun.
 
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sherlockwing

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Another thing about those benchmarks:

They are technically running at stock settings(only the reviewed card get some OC benchmarking):

HD7970 comes with a 925 Mhz stock clock(Ghz obviously have a higher stock clock)

GTX 670(stock clock =915Mhz) comes with at least 980 standard boost clock, most card comes with 1050 and up, the ASUS Top card's out of the box boost can top 1200Mhz depend on the card( your actual boost Mhz is between 70-110 higher than what's listed on the box, this is known as a "Kepler Boost" on Overclock.net).

So it is not surprising that GTX 670 out of the box can equal 7970 and Top can beat 7970, since Nividia cards were running at much higher than their stock clock.

HD7970 with its unlocked voltage average 1200+Mhz on clock when overclocked-> that's 31%+ Overclock.

and ASUS TOP would run at least 1150 Mhz out of the box, 1400 Mhz Overclock on those cards are very rare due to voltage locks->and that's only a 21% Overclock.

This is why 7970 is a better overclocker, and when both are Overclocked 7970 edges out OCed 670 with 10%+ more overclock..
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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We could discuss this whole HD7970 vs GTX680 all day I guess. Most of my games run at maximum quality and I was more sold on the FEATURES that NVidia had. If GPGPU is critical than AMD wins there but I have no need of it. Even my video transcoding is done on the CPU solely.

I did try to find any information that proved an HD7970 was better than a GTX680 once overclocked but it was hard to find reliable data. Again, my GTX680 (Asus TOP) is optimized for noise and overclocking the HD7970's above factory defaults has a massive impact on fan noise.

One of the articles I read on overclocking summarized this:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/06/21/amd_radeon_hd_7970_ghz_edition_video_card_review/9

"AMD also states that the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is "Retaking the Performance Crown," but with the highest stable overclock the performance was not better than an overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 as we showed here and here... "

Anyway, I love my 680, and if you get an HD7970 it's not like you'll be disappointed. Once performance is similar I recommend people look to FEATURES (NVidia-> PhysX/A-VSYNC, UNREAL 4 optimized, AMD-> GPGPU etc) and LOAD NOISE.
 
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luciferano

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I specifically said with overclocking, not at stock. That's true because most 7970 GHz Edition cards and even many great 7970s can hit around 1.3GHz or higher on the core with a little overvoltage and at that point, AMD generally wins. They most certainly would trounce that overclocked 680 on a regular basis. You don't need extravagant power delivery nor cooling to work with the 79xx cards. Better cooling and power delivery, yes, but not by much. The difference between a decent 500W and 600W PSU in price is extremely minimal and any case that someone would buy with a 680 would be plenty for a 7970 too.

Not many 7970s aren't cheaper than the 680s.

Excluding reference any probably a few crap non-reference cards, the 7970s and especially the great 7970s and 7970 GHz Editions are simply better at overclocking than even that 680 TOP.

At the prices of the 680, you might as well get a great 7950 and this water/hybrid cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186083

I'm also willing to bet that its not loud, based on my experience with its counterpart.

TXAA is supported in ONE game. It's great competition for MSAA, but it's simply not supported well enough.

Adaptive V-Sync was made pretty much irrelevant by virtual V-Sync with HyperFormance.

PhysX sucks performance that the AMD cards can put to use elsewhere, so it's hardly an advantage, just a different setting to enable (one that most games can throw onto the CPU anyway) for personalizing the experience according to how you like it. Besides, AMD has their own advantages too. They have OpenCL and more commonly Direct Compute features that Kepler cards simply can't play like the 79xx cards can. So long as TXAA is poorly supported, they have a distinct advantage in MSAA since it hardly impacts AMD's performance in comparison to Nvidia's.

I'm not trying to downplay what Nvidia has, the 680 is still a very great card, but you're making it difficult not to when you're acting as if Nvidia has such heavy advantages when it's simply not true.
 
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luciferano

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That link was from June and the overclock that they managed on it was not very good at all. It was a mere reference card, probably the reason for the poor overclock for a 7970 GHz Edition. Heck, I've known some excellent 7950 models to overclock a little better than that.
 
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renz496

renz496

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i think it will be very hard to get your hands on '7990'. AFAIK only power color and club 3D did offering 7990 to the market as of now.



IMO for people that really wants physx it is easier for them directly using nvidia cards. yes you can combine the two but for people with only one PCI-E slots such an option is not possible. also to make the dedicated physx card really working you're going to need hacked driver for it. that's why the easiest way for people that really want to experience physx it is better to opt for nvidia cards. even better the most recent nvidia gpu are powerful enough to handle physx without the aid of dedicated physx card.

for people that already radeons but want physx they can add nvidia gpu as a dedicated physx. to me that's ok because they already have radeon in their pc. but for people that are looking for new gpu and want physx it is better for them to get nvidia card directly rather than dealing with radeon + nvidia for physx. for all it's worth physx did not change the gameplay or how will you're going to play. they just add more eye candy to the game. so i think folks with radeon definitely shouldn't feel bad just because they can't have extra eye candy provided by nvidia physx.



we haven't seen unreal engine 4 in action in real games yet so you can't say so unless you have real source for this. for all i know epic has always working closely with nvidia and with unreal engine 4 they will integrate physx into the engine just they did with unreal engine 3
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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UNREAL 4 and PHYSX:

UNREAL 4, like Unreal 3 will be used by many different game makers. The decision to use PhysX or not will be done by them. I'm not certain if Unreal 4 will have its own physics engine or not. Considering we have Havok as well, I suspect not.

Other:
I agree with your other PhysX comments.

HD7990:
I assume this is a dual-GPU like the GTX690. Therefore it will also have the same micro-stutter issue that even NVidia admits is a problem. The problem is that the GPU's end up rendering the frames at slightly different speeds so even at 60FPS the actual time difference between individual frames is different.

So if you had a CAR travelling right to left at a constant velocity, rather than having the same distance travelled between frames it would vary and that issue can be vary annoying. Also, at times where you don't move around much (and don't buffer new data) micro-stutter is mostly gone but then the transition once you start moving is jarring.

It's funny to see NVidia employees interviewed who say "Yeah, I'm getting a GTX680 SLI solution because I want the best gaming experience" and then see an NVidia employee get interviewed and discuss the problem.

Maybe GTX800 will bring the magic (NVidia did state they're actively researching a hardware fix for future cards. A partial fix exists in the GTX690 called Frame Rate Metering.)
 
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renz496

renz496

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i know what kind of physic engine used in game will be determined by it's developer. i just mention that the upcoming unreal engine will come integrated with physx. the option to use or incorporating other physic engine with UE4 might be optional. no official words yet but there are indications that the upcoming UE4 will indeed integrating nvidia physx into the engine. i could be wrong though :p. if some how i was wrong then i will stand corrected :)

http://physxinfo.com/news/7771/gdc-2012-physx-and-apex-will-make-it-to-unreal-engine-4/

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/pcmruo/nvidia--gdc-2012--tech-demo-walkthrough-part-2--cam-

 
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