GPU Upgrading, 670 FTW or 7970

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mrdanger

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Hello everybody, about a year ago I purchased a EVGA GTX 560 Ti. While it worked fine for a while, it has recently developed a "coil whine". So I'm looking for a Christmas present to myself with a new GPU.

Currently looking at the following two cards...

EVGA Geforce GTX 670 FTW 2GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 3GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

I play a lot of FPS and RPGs (Black Ops, Skyrim, WoW) mainly with little to no video editing/rendering. I run 2x 1080p monitors.

Basically I want to know which one best suits my needs. Also, any other recommendations for similar cards are welcome. What is the performance difference between a 7970 and it's GHz bigger brother? Is it worth the extra $80 for what I plan on using it for? (Kinda hesitant on spending $470 on a new card)

Current build:

Mobo: ASRock Z77 Extreme4
CPU: Intel Core i5-3750 3.4GHz
RAM: Corsair xMS3 8GB
HDD: Vertex 4 128gb SSD (2TB 7200 RPM HD)
GPU: EVGA GTX 560 Ti OC
PSU: Corsair TX750 Watt
Display: 2x 23" ASUS 1080p Display
 
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For my money the 7970 has the best performance. The extra memory helps quite a bit, and there's virtually no difference from the ghz addition.

darksparten

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Honestly normal 7970s are a joke at this point, they were released too early so even a normal GTX670 tramples over them, not to mention a factory OC'd FTW edition, the 7970GHz edition is the only real contender.

Here are some much better 7970s:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001

I'd go with the first Gigabyte 7970GHz edition, the 7970GHz edges out the GTX670 in most benchmarks, and it's the same price.

Good luck!
 
I personally love my 670 - I can max most games at 120 frames a second, max more intense games at 60... and get about 40-50 on the most intense/badly coded games out there.

That being said, I'd probably go with the 7970 - you can overclock it (if you get lucky) to be a GHz edition for free. Also, if you end up grabbing another of those Asus monitors in the future, Radeon cards handle larger resolutions better.
 
Hi,

QUICK ANSWER:
I recommend this card-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125438

LONG ANSWER:
Because PRICES change and there are SALES, and COUPONS for GAMES it's not always easy to simply recommend one card.

If the same basic VALUE is there, I prefer NVidia for the following reasons:
- PHYSX
- TXAA (future AA method in UNREAL 4 etc)
- GPU Boost (some HD7970 GHz have this)

Cooling:
Let's get this out of the way:
*do NOT buy a high-end gaming card with reference cooling. The noise difference is huge!

This is my recommended GTX670:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125438

The cooler is VERY quiet compared to most GTX670's, the quality appears excellent and the performance value of the card itself is quite good.

VIDEO RAM:
I should make a comment about VRAM here as you have two monitors.
a) Do you really game on two monitors? I can understand three, but with two monitors the middle of the screen is where the monitors meet. Yuch.

b) 2GB is plenty for pretty much every game even with two monitors.

c) 2GB isn't quite enough for THREE MONITORS, however then you've got other problems as a single GPU isn't powerful enough either. That means SLI. I'm not a fan due to micro-stutter (yes, it's a big deal but let's PLEASE not discuss it here). Micro-stutter is reduced a lot by having three cards. I recently recommended a 3x (GTX670 4GB) setup to someone with three monitors and it was a real pain to pick the right motherboard for bandwidth, get cooling correct etc.

**My experience:
My system is fairly similar except I have the GTX680 (ASUS TOP). I have several games that benefit over a GTX670 but most would run almost IDENTICAL. My card also costs about $540 still. I game on a 2560x1440 monitor but mostly use 1920x1080 as the visual difference is minor but the performance hit is about 30%.

I absolutely love gaming on this high-res 27" screen. I wouldn't want it smaller. I wouldn't want it larger. I don't like multi-monitor gaming (bezel split). 3D is interesting but not a big deal to me especially since you need TWICE the processing power to support it.

SUMMARY:
- determine the VALUE (gaming performance benchmarks, price of card, coupons for games)
- I recommend the GTX670 in general but if you think an HD7970 is a lot better value than it's good too.

- quality card, with good aftermarket cooler.
- 2GB of VRAM is adequate
- gaming on two monitors? (bezel issues)


 

lycros

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I actually own that Sapphire 7970, I bought it during the thanksgiving sales. It's very quiet and at load the sound profile is not annoying. I've already overclocked it to GHz levels 1050/1500 (core/mem) no voltage increases needed, and the temperatures are the same.
 
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