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7970 GHz vs. GTX 680

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Graphics card Authority

Four 7970s GHz editions will beat three GTX 680s by a large margin. The individual cards are very similar in performance. The 7970s also tend to overclock extremely well.
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Graphics card Expert

How many monitors are you planning to plug in? 5?

Even with 5 I would go with 3-Way SLI. Quad-fire may have too many compatibility/performance scaling problems. I would say tri-fire is an overall better solution than quadfire.

Anyway, 3-Way SLI, even if it has similar framerate as tri-fire tends to give more consistent framerates and thus feel somewhat smoother.

lchrisk said:
Get the vanilla 7870s, and oc them. The performance increase is substantial.

Or he can shell out the extra 50 and get the 7950. Overclocked it can outperform the stock 680's. I have clocked mine to 1235MHz.
Graphics card Authority

lchrisk said:
Get the vanilla 7870s, and oc them. The performance increase is substantial.

Something tells me that if he's thinking about spending $1600 on video cards, he's not too concerned about cost effectiveness :lol: 
Graphics card Expert

willard said:
Four 7970s GHz editions will beat three GTX 680s by a large margin. The individual cards are very similar in performance. The 7970s also tend to overclock extremely well.

True. But only if a game can take advantage of it. If resolution is not high enough he may see worse performance.

yyk71200 said:
True. But only if a game can take advantage of it. If resolution is not high enough he may see worse performance.

He may be using multiple monitors though. If he/she's using multiple monitors then the crossfire/sli will be necessary. And we can exclude the worse performance issue.
Graphics card Authority

yyk71200 said:
If resolution is not high enough he may see worse performance.

That doesn't make any sense. By reducing the load performance drops? Not how that works.
Graphics card Expert

willard said:
That doesn't make any sense. By reducing the load performance drops? Not how that works.

I am talking in relative terms. Quad-fire may have worse performance than tri-fire because it has higher overhead. Only at resolutions when tri-fire starts being a bottleneck, quad starts being faster.
Graphics card Expert

Remur said:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/lNUE

Don't judge, I love overkill. This is my first desktop in a very, very long time. Anyways, I can't find a power supply to support this build. Any recommendations? and is there anything anybody would change to this build?

Nice. If you decide to go with tri-SLI, get 4GB versions. 2GB will be a bottleneck at very high resolutions.

willard said:
That doesn't make any sense. By reducing the load performance drops? Not how that works.


believe it or not, some games dont give any performance increase when you add a 2nd gpu, etc.
Graphics card Master

Is anyone else concerned about the buggy behavior or quad-fire? People with tri-fire and quad-fire have often run into support issues, and bugs. Tri-fire and tri-sli usually give a more enjoyable experience.

What is the monitor setup you are going for? There comes a point that the extra power may not be worth the problems that often go with it.

willard said:
That doesn't make any sense. By reducing the load performance drops? Not how that works.

Some games don't take advantage of the second gpu. An example being GTA IV. It didn't pick up my second 7950 so only one was working in that game.

bystander said:
Is anyone else concerned about the buggy behavior or quad-fire? People with tri-fire and quad-fire have often run into support issues, and bugs. Tri-fire and tri-sli usually give a more enjoyable experience.

What is the monitor setup you are going for? There comes a point that the extra power may not be worth the problems that often go with it.


I was considering a triple monitor setup but I decided against it because seeing the black borders when looking between monitors would ruin the atmosphere of the games for me. Instead, I'm getting a 120Hz 24" BenQ monitor and another 24" ASUS monitor for multitasking. I do a lot of video editing.
Graphics card Master

Remur said:
I was considering a triple monitor setup but I decided against it because seeing the black borders when looking between monitors would ruin the atmosphere of the games for me. Instead, I'm getting a 120Hz 24" BenQ monitor and another 24" ASUS monitor for multitasking. I do a lot of video editing.


You might consider the new ASUS 144hz monitor. Either way, 120hz+ is awesome from my experience, and I really like the 3D too.

If you are going with 1 1080p monitor, even for 120hz, there is no reason at all to go beyond 3, and 2 is probably enough.

A lot of the times you can't reach 120 FPS, it will be due to the CPU bottlenecking you.

I agree... for 2 monitors stick with 2 GPU's.

I would even consider a single 7990 or 690, and if anything I would consider buying a 2nd one AFTER confirming the single 7990/690 performance not quite enough yet.
Graphics card Expert

7970 = 250 Watts

680 = 195 Watts.

Quad 7970 = 1,000 Watts

Tri 680 = 585 Watts.

Your 680's will fix the supply capacity problem.

With this kind of cash, you need to get yourself a 27 inch 2560X1440 or 30 inch 2560X1600 monitor. You can get them on EBAY with no dead pixels for about 340 and 720 bucks respectively.

There's this thing you use when you have complicated setups, it makes them stable, and makes stuff work - its called "Drivers" - This is something AMD/ATI has failed to produce for the past 10 years.

So, if you want paper to look great, you should go with 4x7970. If you want to actually use your system, I'd go with 680's.

If you think I'm joking, call any local custom computer builder, and ask them what they refuse to install in clients computers because of wasted "warranty" time spent on diagnosing graphics card problems.
Graphics card Expert

25000x16000 ..?

If you wanna make something with that resolution, then go to quad solution..:D 

Overkill graphics must serve overkill monitor...deadly combination for your pocket..:D 

Well, i think it maybe too big resolution for any card for handle it..
Graphics card Expert

Remur said:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/lOm6

I'll probably add a third monitor within a month or two after the build is complete and do some triple monitor gaming.

There is a problem with dual monitor gaming: Bezel Right in the center. Three top of the line GPUs is plenty for three monitors (save maybe for some rare cases like Witcher 2 with Ubersampling on). So, maybe you should do three GPUs and three monitors now?
Graphics card Expert

Remur said:
TriFire 7970 GHz or 3-Way GTX 680 4GB FTW+?

Well... I would probably go with SLI i that case. SLI tends to deliver more consistent and thus smoother framerates even if the average framerates are similar. However, crossfire is still a good solution and should be cheaper.

yyk71200 said:
Well... I would probably go with SLI i that case. SLI tends to deliver more consistent and thus smoother framerates even if the average framerates are similar. However, crossfire is still a good solution and should be cheaper.

I have both sli and crossfire setups. I have right now 7950's crossfired and they are as consistent as sli in frame rates. I think that they are equal in consistency.
Graphics card Authority

yarmock said:
believe it or not, some games dont give any performance increase when you add a 2nd gpu, etc.

I should clarify. What I was saying didn't make sense was that using a lower resolution resulted in a performance hit.
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