Asus Radeon HD7970 3GB VS. EVGA GTX680 2GB

BF3 favours nvidia. If your on a budget get the 7970, if not get the 680, the 680 is best single gpu in the world. But if you want bang for your buck. 7970 is the way to go. That being said, I have a 680 and have had 2x 7870's in crossfire, which is supposed to be stronger then my single 680, But the gaming performance from the 680 is just incredible, Looks and feels amazing, especially compared to my previous AMD setup... (Battlefield3 Player). Good luck bro

I don't think we can say BF3 favours Nvidia anymore. Recent benchmarks have shown that with updated drivers, AMD Radeon cards perform just as good. At stock speed, maybe the 7970 is behind the GTX680 a bit, but with overclocking (I'm sure the Asus 7970 is factory OC'ed), it performs even better and it has more room for manual overclocking as well. Going higher resolutions (2560x1440) even show the stock clock 7970 comes ahead against the GTX680.

Also, what model of ASUS Radeon HD 7970 are you considering on purchasing? The reason I am asking is because their DCUII for 7970 is horrible. So if you want a good 7970 go for Sapphire, Gigabyte, MSI or XFX and save yourself form the headaches.

And if you want a good GTX 680 then you have a lot of options, however I would go with eVGA given their track record and the chance to refund you should you want to get the Titan when it comes out. Remember they have a 3 months window for refunds should a new model come out within 3 months of you purchasing different model/chip etc!

Actually recent benchmarks show the 7970 GHz easily ahead of the GTX 680 in most games (including BF3) and is cheaper. Really no reason to consider the 680 when the GTX 670 is a better value on an nVidia part. At current prices the GTX 680 is a fools buy.



http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_P...

I've read that review several times.Although the radeons were tested with newer drivers of that time,the nvidia cards were tested with old 304 drivers instead of 310 beta ones.
Normally the 680 and the 7970 ghz are +/-2 fps from each other depending on the games that are played.
The best option for you IMO would be this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
then reviewed by xbitlabs
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/evga-...

There's just too many good PhysX games out and coming out.
http://physxinfo.com/news/tag/hawken/

If the 7970 were all that much better than the 680, that might make it worth it to give up on PhysX, but these cards are essentially the same performance-wise. Add in things like lower power consumption, less heat, less noise, the 680 is just a more attractive card.

Latest review at TechPowerUp using recent drivers:




http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/ARES_II/27.html

Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Non vapor x which i play with think its the best i got for Rs 30000/- Indian rupee

Huh? Too many? You're being facetious right? More like 2 (two)... Metro: Last Light and Hawken.

You keep mentioning how great PhysX is but only 2 (two) games come to mind: Batman and Borderlands 2.

Moral: PhysX is hardly something to consider when purchasing a new video card. In fact some of the highest priced 7970 GHz editions are still cheaper than the lowest priced GTX 680's. Funny how you mention PhysX when he asked about BF3 which uses Havok physics.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=E...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=E...

Allow me to add Secret World,Planetside 2, so these make it 4 and if you look back a year or 2 you'll find ample of them.

I know, I was being facetious. They're games many don't play and never will.

What is it, 21 games since 2009 that use GPU accelerated PhysX?

I'm not trying to argue, it's just that there are those that make a fit about physx... if they like it that's fine and dandy but telling people they should make a purchasing decision based on it is a bankrupt mentality.

Russ, without getting into a back and forth with you... I respect your opinion. For me, I actually believe PhysX is exactly the best reason to base a purchase decision. All else is completely equal between these cards (more or less) the ONLY thing that separates them is PhysX. Why buy a card that can't do it, even if you never use it? For those who have it, it's comforting to know you have the option to use it for any number of games, or game demos, no compromises necessary. Like I said, if there was a clear winner, then that would be different, so looking at the unique technologies is perfectly valid.

By the way, in those Newegg links you posted, the prices are exactly the same between the 7970's and 680's.

But they're not equal... gaming is close but also factor in non-gaming the 7970 non-GHz (also previous gen. from nVidia and Radeon) crushes Kepler. I think it's unfair to mention physx (when there's a lack of usage) and completely avoid mentioning the the weaknesses of Kepler and Compute. I believe far more people use GPGPU than they do playing games with PhysX so it's worth mentioning.

The release of Titan is a different story and I may whistle a different tune then (and may buy one if pricing isn't outrageous). Right now rumor has it that it'll be priced around $1,300 (which is insane) and perhaps dropping to $899. If it's close to a 690 on performance then I'll sell a kidney to get it.  

I know about the Newegg links, I filtered them for highest priced Radeon 7970 GHz vs lowest priced GTX 680's.

I recently recommended a Gigabyte Windforce 7970 GHz to a mate of mine. BF3 @ 1440p is no problem.

It is dual slot, stays reasonable cool and is not too loud

It's purely my opinion but I would go with what Jay-Z said. I would not go with an EVGA 680... Way too overpriced just for a name on a box.

7970 is roughly equal to GTX680 at 1080p stock with the GTX680 being slightly faster.

Once you overclock both the 7970 is considerably faster
Once you go 1440p+ and multimonitor the 7970 is considerably faster

The 7970GHz is faster than the GTX680 at 1080p stock, the difference only increases with overclocking and multimonitor/high res.

But don't get the Asus one, it's 3-slot and is mediocre compared to Vapor-X and windforce offerings.

I agree that according to purchase decision it depends on the consumer's needs and whether it is a deciding factor for him or not.But I think you are making a mistake buy comparing GPGPU compute with PhysX.Although physx requires computation it has been custom programmed for each cuda core of a gtx gpu and I don't know how it exactly works out,but the higher no. of cores in Kepler do give it an advantage when it comes to physx w.r.t to previous gen nvidia cards as well as HD 7970.In short any compute intensive task that is based on physx is ideal for gtx 600 series otherwise 7970 is the way to go.Now you can check it out in some benchmarks yourself.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20120502/physx-test-gtx-680-vs-g...

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Borderlands...

Good questions and statements here. I for one would NOT base the purchase decision on PhysX; too few games out there that take advantage of it and you're paying more to get that feature.

I have been asking myself this same question as the OP as I'm about to make a GPU purchase. My conclusion is go with the MSI R7970 3GD5/OC; at $399.99 it's a no-brainer! In fact, my next option would have been a GTX 670 2GB; MSI's Twin Frozr version is $379.99.

Yes, the R7970 has a higher TDP at 25% higher than the GTX 680. But, MSI address the heat dissipation very well with their Twin Frozr solution. Much has been said about ASUS and their DirectCUII cooling solution but the Twin Frozr is better. It's relatively easy for the DirectCUII to cool a GTX 680 at low noise levels as the 680 has a lower thermal footprint. But, as soon as they applied that solution to their version of the 7970 it became apparent that it did not cool a 7970 as well as the Twin Frozr solution. Yes, you hear mention about how the card will run louder but reviews shows that setting the fan speed to only 40% produced a very reasonable & tolerable amount of noise while maintaining the card at 70 degrees Celsius at full load which is very much OK.

I made the decision to go with the MSI R7970 because as of now I value 120Hz gameplay over WQHD. However, sometime this year I can see reputable manufacturers like ASUS, BenQ, Viewsonic, Dell & LG bring WQHD 120Hz panels into the market. At which time I'll upgrade my ASUS 144Hz monitor. Yes, I can go out and find monitors such as the Korean Yamakasi Catleap2B that have WQHD with refresh rate OC'd to 120Hz out of the box. But, you are going out on a limb without proper support. I'm going to wait for the big manufacturers to bring WQHD 120Hz panels to market and when that time comes my MSI R7970 with 3GB of VRAM will be up to the task of providing me the quality signal I'll want on a 2560x1440 resolution at 120Hz. I'm hoping to sit out the next generation of cards when they are released. The last card I purchased was an Sapphire Toxic HD 4870 in early 2009 for a great price. I purchased 2nd one a year later for CrossFire and they are now showing their age. So, I like my cards to last me at least 3 years.

Hope this helps should you still be undecided two months later.