GTX 680 vs 7970 Ghz?

[RandomSauce22]

I am building my first rig soon and have been stuck on picking a GPU. I am deciding between a GTX 680 or a Radeon 7970 Ghz edition (links below). I have seen such mixed opinions and would like a clear answer. I will be playing at 1920x1080 and was wondering if the 7970's 3gb of VRAM will pose an advantage over the 680? Also, would either be better for SLI or CrossfireX? I have been leaning towards the 7970 because it is cheaper and supposedly out-performs the 680 and overclocks better. I have also heard that either card may perform better in certain games.

GTX 680:
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Signature2-Dual-Link-Graphics-02G-P4-2687-KR/dp/B008AFZ0VQ

7970 Ghz:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008WAMV3Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008WAMV3Y&linkCode=as2&tag=c09_11-20

Any insight is appreciated and feel free to ask any questions or make other suggestions (my budget is no greater than $500).

 

[DarkSable]

The extra RAM will not help, but the 7970 does have considerable overclocking headroom. That being said, nvidia has the advantage when it comes to smoothness of gameplay - AMD can look choppy even at high framerates.

That being said, you shouldn't even be considering a 680. Yes, it's the "top of the line," but that's a marketing scheme to get people who don't know what they're doing to buy it. The 680 is only 5% faster than a 670 (2-3% after overclocking both cards), but it's 25-30% more expensive.

When you take into consideration that a 2GB 670 will max basically every game out there at 1080p and 60fps...

 

[RandomSauce22]

Thank you for your feedback! I was originally considering a 670. So you would recommend the 670 over the 7970 as well?

 

[blazorthon]

Actually, the Nvidia is smoother argument is very subjective and not well tested enough to be conclusive, especially in the face of the new drivers. That said, like the 670 versus the 680, I wouldn't consider the 7970 over the 7950 if you overclock- the difference is similarly negligible despite the significant price difference.

To choose between the two, we'd have to look at benchmarks of the most recent drivers. Unfortunately, benchmarks are few and inconclusive as of right now for both AMD and Nvidia, so I'd say just go for whichever side you prefer for other reasons. IE if you like PhysX, just go for the Nvidia, if you like heavier MSAA and lighting features, go for AMD, etc.

I can conclusively say that the difference in memory capacity between 2GB and 3GB per GPU is not worth minding. It makes no difference except in a few extreme situations that you won't experience with only a single GPU anyway. AMD does generally have the advantage in overclocking headroom.

 

[RandomSauce22]

What would Nvidia's Physx offer that AMD's cards would not?

 

[blazorthon]

What would Nvidia's Physx offer that AMD's cards would not?

It's a decent realism feature that is supported properly by only a few games such as Borderlands 2 and the Batman games. AMD has features that can be said to compete with it such as AMD's far greater affinity for MSAA (smooths out jaggies without blurring the picture like FXAA does) and advanced lighting features that rely on OpenCL/Direct Compute performance that are supported by games such as Sleeping Dogs and a few others*

*MSAA is supported by pretty much all games; PhysX and compute-accelerated lighting features are only well-supported by a few games each. PhysX technically has more supporting games, but most of them have poor support for it.

It's difficult to objectively say that one card is better than the other because what card beats what keeps changing in different situations as drivers get updated and some aspects of such a statement are too subjective.

 

[RandomSauce22]

It seems like the 7970 would be the way to go.

 

[Mousemonkey]

What would Nvidia's Physx offer that AMD's cards would not?

Eye candy, in games where it's used the graphical are just better and the smoothness argument is about as subjective as the quality of driver argument, the fans of either side will argue that it not a problem regardless of evidence that suggests otherwise.

 

[blazorthon]

It seems like the 7970 would be the way to go.

I prefer AMD this generation, I just wanted to say that that doesn't make the 670 a bad choice and it's difficult to objectively argue one over the other whereas it's easy to argue that they're both great options.

 

[RandomSauce22]

I think I will save $50 and go with the 7970

I currently have an AMD based laptop with a discrete-class 7520g GPU. For a $500 laptop I am quite impressed. I have had a good experience with AMD so I will go with the 7970.

Thanks go out to everyone for your insight!

 

[Novuake]

Hehehe another one.

I prefer the HD7970. Its more fun to play with and its much cheaper.

But hey, if you think PhysX is your thing, then go for the GTX680. Any of the 2 will be more than sufficient.

 

[redeemer]

7970Ghz no doubt unless your a 3D junkie like me!

 

[burntpizza]

The extra RAM will not help, but the 7970 does have considerable overclocking headroom. That being said, nvidia has the advantage when it comes to smoothness of gameplay - AMD can look choppy even at high framerates.

That being said, you shouldn't even be considering a 680. Yes, it's the "top of the line," but that's a marketing scheme to get people who don't know what they're doing to buy it. The 680 is only 5% faster than a 670 (2-3% after overclocking both cards), but it's 25-30% more expensive.

When you take into consideration that a 2GB 670 will max basically every game out there at 1080p and 60fps...

Problem fixed with catalyst 13.2 beta 3 on most games. AMD is just as smooth as Nvidia but faster. Most Flickering on DX9 games are also fixed.

http://techreport.com/blog/24247/as-the-second-turns-further-developments

With HD 7950, but you get the gist. 1 to 5 ms is not a big deal at all

 

[Novuake]

Problem fixed with catalyst 13.2 beta 3 on most games. AMD is just as smooth as Nvidia but faster. Most Flickering on DX9 games are also fixed.

http://techreport.com/blog/24247/as-the-second-turns-further-developments

With HD 7950, but you get the gist. 1 to 5 ms is not a big deal at all

AMD is still not as smooth as Nvidia. But it is MUCH better.