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7970 GHz/GTX 680 or 7990/690; microstutter with dual GPUs?

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March 12, 2013 6:05:00 PM

I am looking to upgrade my 5870 HD to a high-end card. I am hoping to have this card perform well until my new build in mid-2015. I'd like to buy now, or anytime from now until mid-May. My budget is up to $1000, but I also look for value.

My current specs:
ASUS P7P55D-E LX (one PCI-E x16 slot)
i5-750 @ 3.8 GHz
XFX 5870 1 GB
8 GB RAM @ 1140 MHz (downclocked from 1333 when overclocking CPU)
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX
1920 x 1080 monitor @ 60 Hz, FPS capped to 60

I have a few questions about my options:

1. I know that the 7990 requires an 850W PSU. My PSU is only 750W, but is good quality. What are your thoughts on the power consumption of an overclocked i5-750 coupled with a 7990 on my 750W Corsair CPU? Will the PSU manage?

2. I don't want microstutter that will make my game look like the card is under-performing. How is the microstutter situation now? I read the Tom's article and some forum posts, but cannot really figure it out. I'd like my games to maintain 60 FPS and not look like they're getting half of that. I really notice screen tearing in games, and other little things as well, so if it's visible, I will notice it.

3. What is the selling point of the GTX 680 vs the 7970 GHz edition? The 1 GB extra of video RAM? PhysX? The 7970 is priced $100-$150 cheaper.

4. Will my CPU bottleneck me with either a 7970/7990 or 680/690? How about the downclocked RAM?

5. Should I wait for the official 7990 "Malta" GPU?

6. If I wait, do you think AMD will have some game promotion in two months' time? They're selling the Bioshock Infinite (I want) and the Crysis 3 (not as much) bundle with most of their GPUs right now.

7. The 7990 is about double the performance of the 7970 and costs about twice as much. It's an even exchange, I think. But if I'm willing to spend $900 now, is it a better idea to get the 7970/680 now and a new GPU in a years' time or so?

I know that people say 7990 is "overkill" for 1080p. But Skyrim full of mods can dramatically weaken performance, for example, and according to Tom's, not even the 7990 or 690 can play Crysis 3 at max settings @ 1080p at a constant 60 FPS. This is an indicator of next-gen games, I think, so I do not fully buy the "overkill" reasoning.

Thanks for all of your replies.

More about : 7970 ghz gtx 680 7990 690 microstutter dual gpus

March 12, 2013 6:46:09 PM

well, going in order:

1. at that kind of power requirements, the differences between PSU quality can be large. how many amps can your 12V rail supply? this will tell us whether or not it can support the 7990. although if you want to be overclocking everything, you're honestly better off selling your current PSU and getting a 850-900W one

2. I would say microstutter is undercontrol for both companies; though it is important to stress that this varies from configuration to configuration and no one can say for sure how bad it might be for you. for the little bit of microstutter people still experience: Nvidia has better dual-card support (SLI) through their drivers than AMD, however, with thirdparty software like Radeon Pro and taking the time to make game specific profiles, you can more or less eliminate the problem of microstutter for an AMD configuration (albeit it's a pain in the butt). also, Microstutter is only ever an issue if your cards can't keep up. if they're maxing out at or well beyond 60fps (which for both 7990 and 690, you will be for all current games), microstutter shouldn't be an issue at all

3. this is a tricky one. I would like to say the two cards perform similarly. Tom's has the 7970 GHz in a class of it's own in the most recent edition of the graphics card hierarchy chart so many would say the 7970 GHz is SLIGHTLY better. given the price difference, most people would go for the 7970 in the current market. as for the selling points: extra 1GB of the 7970 is pretty much not used at single monitor 1080p resolution, whereas the list of games that actually have PhysX is also relatively small (but for the games that has it, it does make a difference, you can google for the list of PhysX supported games). that aside, Nvidia's 3D vision provides a much better 3D gaming experience, whereas AMD tend to have better support for multiple monitors (either for productivity or 3 screen surround)

4. an i5 750 will be bottle-necking these top end cards a little bit, however you're hitting 3.8 Ghz so it should be fine. to be honest, I'm more concerned about the downclocked memory chips. if you can hit 3.5ghz or so stable with 1333 or better, 1600 on RAM, that would be optimal in my opinion. Anyway, I wouldn't let it stop you from getting any of these cards as the degree of bottlenecking wouldn't be major, and I assume you'll be upgrading to haswell or broadwell?

5. the official 7990 might be worth waiting for just to get better drivers support etc. (also, I'm curious to see how AMD might make it better than powercolor's version since they'll have nearly an extra year to work on it). but at the end of the day, it's not the biggest deal.

6. chances are, AMD will continue their promotion/marketing campaign with new games in a few months time. but it may not be the current games as they'll probably move to new ones

7. for longevity, I personally prefer getting single card solutions, selling the card when a new generation comes out (and proves to be worth the upgrade), and getting the new card. if you think about it, that'll be ~$450 now, you'll get between $200-300 back, and probably pay $400-500 for the new card. it'll come out to $750 total in the worse case situation, and you'll have $150 left over :p 

as for skyrim, my 7970 is hitting ~50-60fps with a ton of high-res mods etc. and I'll be following my plan for upgrades illustrated in point 7. so yes, I am one of those people who thinks a 7990 is overkill. the thing is, if you get something now and you're not going to use it's full potential, it's overkill. because in the Tech world, that unused potential can only DEPRECIATE in value over time.
March 12, 2013 6:46:34 PM

I don't think your CPU is going to bottleneck anything unless you're playing at low res or old CPU bound titles.

You can roll with two 680s or a 690 and your current PSU. Wait to buy them? Why? If you get two flagship card (or a dual gpu card), you can always sell when the next gen comes out and pay for a little more than one of the next one. If I were going to wait, I'd wait for the next gen of Nvidia cards altogether.

I get no microstutter with my two 680s. I've run across 3 monitors in Surround at 4800x900. I've run on a 3D 120Hz monitor in 2D and 3D. I've never had to turn any details down (haven't played Crysis 3 yet though either, but from reviews I still think I'd be ok). I've played Skyrim, Crysis 2, Metro 2033 and BF3.

I haven't seen microstutter since I sold my Radeon 5850s 2 years ago. It's frustrating forking out money and looking at choppy stuttery video while your frame rates are way up there as they were with my 5850s. I would not trust that AMD has this problem licked as of yet. Based on my experience, I definitely wouldn't put a lot of money into an AMD multiple GPU setup again. I really need serious convincing that AMD gives a darn about their multi-GPU customers (even though they're the minority). I hope they are more competitive these days, but like I said it will take some serious first-hand evidence of this for me to consider AMD again.

Also, I wouldn't bet on Crysis 3 being the preview of next-gen games. The original Crysis brought generations of video cards to their knees. Then you look at other games that look pretty darn good and wonder why Crysis does what it does to your system without looking better.

At 60Hz, screen tearing is always a possibility with a high-end GPU setup. If you sink some $$$ into a 120Hz 3D monitor and run it at 120Hz in 2D, perceivable tearing just goes away.

I definitely would not call any video setup overkill because I love to push the frame rates myself with all the details cranked.

Finally, I would never base my decision to buy a video card on some game promotion or giveaway. Get the good hardware and pick up the games as necessary.
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March 12, 2013 8:33:52 PM

Even though microstutter is worse in crossfire, it still does exist in SLI.

Single GPU is the only way to go if you want completely smooth video ... but then the FPS could be too low.

There is usually a compromise.
March 13, 2013 5:36:16 AM

smeezekitty said:
Even though microstutter is worse in crossfire, it still does exist in SLI.

Single GPU is the only way to go if you want completely smooth video ... but then the FPS could be too low.

There is usually a compromise.


I'm going to guess you've never tried SLI and just read an article about microstutter. The microstutter in SLI is not perceivable. If it occurs, you don't even notice.
March 13, 2013 7:37:12 AM

ubercake said:
smeezekitty said:
Even though microstutter is worse in crossfire, it still does exist in SLI.

Single GPU is the only way to go if you want completely smooth video ... but then the FPS could be too low.

There is usually a compromise.


I'm going to guess you've never tried SLI and just read an article about microstutter. The microstutter in SLI is not perceivable. If it occurs, you don't even notice.


same with the more recent AMD cards, at least that's the case with my pair of 6850s until I got my current 7970. also keep in mind that the extent of microstutter can vary greatly from system to system and card to card as it originates from performance differences between cards and drivers being unable to correct/modulate it
March 13, 2013 7:44:55 AM

ubercake said:
smeezekitty said:
Even though microstutter is worse in crossfire, it still does exist in SLI.

Single GPU is the only way to go if you want completely smooth video ... but then the FPS could be too low.

There is usually a compromise.


I'm going to guess you've never tried SLI and just read an article about microstutter. The microstutter in SLI is not perceivable. If it occurs, you don't even notice.


I hope you're right. I'm strongly considering getting SLI GTX 680 4GB Classifieds, and the difficulties of SLI are the only things that are making me hesitate. Other than microstutter, have you ever run into any other issues with having two 680s? Is there problems when playing older games at all? I don't have much computer experience, so I'm hoping it's pretty simple to play with dual-GTX 680s.
March 13, 2013 7:53:53 AM

echamberlin8 said:
ubercake said:
smeezekitty said:
Even though microstutter is worse in crossfire, it still does exist in SLI.

Single GPU is the only way to go if you want completely smooth video ... but then the FPS could be too low.

There is usually a compromise.


I'm going to guess you've never tried SLI and just read an article about microstutter. The microstutter in SLI is not perceivable. If it occurs, you don't even notice.


I hope you're right. I'm strongly considering getting SLI GTX 680 4GB Classifieds, and the difficulties of SLI are the only things that are making me hesitate. Other than microstutter, have you ever run into any other issues with having two 680s? Is there problems when playing older games at all? I don't have much computer experience, so I'm hoping it's pretty simple to play with dual-GTX 680s.


I have not run into issues with microstutter. If it's there, it's not perceivable. I haven't had a problem playing older games. I haven't had any issues whatsoever since I went to an SLI setup. My first was with two 580s and last year I updated to two 680s. I've had nothing but great performance with SLI. There are no difficulties with SLI. You put the card(s) in your system and install the drivers.

The thing you have to consider is you only have one slot for a video card on your motherboard. So you'd be looking at a 690 on your current motherboard if you want an SLI setup. Otherwise, a single GTX 670 2GB card will give you almost the same performance as a GTX 680 and would make a good choice for a single card solution. You don't need more than a 2GB card if you're not running beyond 5760x1080 resolutions.
March 13, 2013 10:36:53 AM

Thank you for the replies.

Vmem, I will answer you first. The PSU's 12V rail provides 60 amps. This is a link to the PSU. Perhaps waiting for the official 7990 is a good idea, as it will supposedly be released soon. Thanks for the input about buying a single card and then selling it for a next-generation card, as those next-generation cards should be quite a bit more powerful than these current ones. I think that I'm just disappointed that the best single card AMD (and nVidia) have to offer over a Q3 2009 card (my Radeon 5870) is the 7970/680, excluding the Titan. It will soon be Q2 2013 and the 7970 is about twice as powerful as the 5870 in DX9. I have never seen such a slow pace of performance increases as far back as I can remember. By the time Q3 comes around, AMD and nVidia will still be pushing the 7970/680 as their high-end, single GPU cards. That's four years for double the performance.

You say that the i5-750 will be bottlenecking if not run at 3.8 GHz (have been running at 3.8 GHz since January 2011). What makes you say this? I'm curious because most of performance charts say that Sandy Bridge is about 10% better than Lynnfield, and Ivy Bridge is maybe 5% better than Sandy Bridge. Even a full 20% extra performance is less than modest, but games will likely not run 20% faster, even if other applications will. Also, I'm not planning on upgrading my CPU until mid-2015. With an SSD and this CPU, everything is so fast that a new build seems completely unnecessary.

About the memory -- I've also heard that 1600 is the sweet spot. I cannot seem to overclock it any more than the ~1150 range. Should I buy a pair of 1866 sticks (worst case scenario being them being downclocked to the ~1600 range) or would the performance increase not be worth it? I don't care about a 1-5% jump either way, as I am looking for value.

Ubercake, I only have one PCI-E slot, so I can only do one card. I also cap my frames at 60 via vSync, which is more than smooth enough for me. I don't actually get tearing, as I do cap the FPS, but I was just saying that if it is disabled by default, I would notice it, as I'm sensitive to those things (my girlfriend and my brother, for example, do not notice). This was said in the larger context of perceiving visual irregularities, like microstutter, which I've never seen, coming from a single 7800 GT in 2005 and a single 5870 HD in 2010. Perhaps later I will look into a 120 hz IPS monitor and cap it at 120 then.

Also, I'm not exactly basing my card decision on a game bundle. But it is the icing on the cake, especially for a title that I planned to buy, which in effect reduces the total that would come out of my wallet, anyway. I don't see any advantages of getting a 680 vs a 7970 GHz, as the price difference is significant, the 7970 GHz is generally faster, but does have that 1 GB less of video RAM, which may not matter. I was asking what the advantages were, as many people seem to select it over the 7970, so it must have some advantages.

So then you're saying that I'm likely to see less microstutter on a 690 than a 7990? That's very good to know. About waiting -- due to classes, I will not have much time to use my new card until May.
March 13, 2013 11:03:08 PM

booseek said:
Thank you for the replies.

Vmem, I will answer you first. The PSU's 12V rail provides 60 amps. This is a link to the PSU. Perhaps waiting for the official 7990 is a good idea, as it will supposedly be released soon. Thanks for the input about buying a single card and then selling it for a next-generation card, as those next-generation cards should be quite a bit more powerful than these current ones. I think that I'm just disappointed that the best single card AMD (and nVidia) have to offer over a Q3 2009 card (my Radeon 5870) is the 7970/680, excluding the Titan. It will soon be Q2 2013 and the 7970 is about twice as powerful as the 5870 in DX9. I have never seen such a slow pace of performance increases as far back as I can remember. By the time Q3 comes around, AMD and nVidia will still be pushing the 7970/680 as their high-end, single GPU cards. That's four years for double the performance.

You say that the i5-750 will be bottlenecking if not run at 3.8 GHz (have been running at 3.8 GHz since January 2011). What makes you say this? I'm curious because most of performance charts say that Sandy Bridge is about 10% better than Lynnfield, and Ivy Bridge is maybe 5% better than Sandy Bridge. Even a full 20% extra performance is less than modest, but games will likely not run 20% faster, even if other applications will. Also, I'm not planning on upgrading my CPU until mid-2015. With an SSD and this CPU, everything is so fast that a new build seems completely unnecessary.

About the memory -- I've also heard that 1600 is the sweet spot. I cannot seem to overclock it any more than the ~1150 range. Should I buy a pair of 1866 sticks (worst case scenario being them being downclocked to the ~1600 range) or would the performance increase not be worth it? I don't care about a 1-5% jump either way, as I am looking for value.


First of all, you're very welcome, we're all here to help :) 

1. Powercolor actually never published a TDP for their 7990 card (or none that I could find anyway)... however, we all know that a 7970 has a TDP of 250W. let's over-estimate and say a 7990 has a TDP of 500W. now on a 12V rail, this translates to 500W/12V = 41.7A. long story short, you should be fine with your 60A on the 12V rail :) . Of course, please keep in mind that PSUs do deteriorate overtime, and it would be foolish of me to guarantee you that you're ok. but just FYI, if for some reason your PSU cannot supply enough power, because Corsair is a great manufacturer, chances are your PSU won't blow. instead, you'll probably have trouble booting up, hit a BSOD while gaming, or something like that, so you'll know that you need a new PSU if this occurs.

2. I'm not sure if I was clear before, but I meant that the i5-750 should have no problems clocked at 3.8GHz and I'm not sure if it will have issues if you clock it back down. of course, at the end of the day, you clearly stated that you're in for value and not the extra 1-5% of max performance, so your PSU should be perfectly fine.

3. I still really don't like the idea of 1150 MHz memory sticks. if you can get it to 1333 I would be much happier. however, again, you're out for value here, and I would say that unless you're getting unsatisfactory performance, just stick with your current set up. (though , this case, honestly just get a 7870 or 7870LE, you'll save a lot of money and if you overclock it you won't miss out much in performance).

Long story short, I must reiterate that I'm personally against the idea of "future-proofing" simply because the field moves rather quickly and sometimes in unpredictable ways. my own personal philosophy has always been to get exactly what I want/need now, and just sell/upgrade later down the line when new needs arise. selling tech that's just barely out of date really isn't so bad and you get decent enough returns for your investments.

anyway, just my 2 cents. let's see what other people says
March 14, 2013 6:54:45 AM

Vmem, thanks for the answer.

I think that I will actually go with some variation of the 7970 and overclock that instead of the 7870. I've read that the Sapphire Vapor-X (3 GB version) overclocks well. Perhaps that is the best one? There are no 5-star rated 7970s on Newegg, but this one seems to get the best reviews and people overclock it past 1200 core/1600 mem. I don't want to be bothered with an after-market cooler when overclocking so this is why I'm looking at this one.

About the memory, I will ask around on the memory forum. The thing is that I don't know if it is hampering my performance. I can't get it past 1140 MHz because my motherboard allows only three options given my overclock: 1140, 1600+, and 1800+. The computer does not boot up with the 1600+ option.
March 14, 2013 7:36:23 AM

booseek said:
Vmem, thanks for the answer.

I think that I will actually go with some variation of the 7970 and overclock that instead of the 7870. I've read that the Sapphire Vapor-X (3 GB version) overclocks well. Perhaps that is the best one? There are no 5-star rated 7970s on Newegg, but this one seems to get the best reviews and people overclock it past 1200 core/1600 mem. I don't want to be bothered with an after-market cooler when overclocking so this is why I'm looking at this one.

About the memory, I will ask around on the memory forum. The thing is that I don't know if it is hampering my performance. I can't get it past 1140 MHz because my motherboard allows only three options given my overclock: 1140, 1600+, and 1800+. The computer does not boot up with the 1600+ option.


Personally, I agree that the sapphire vapor-x would be your best choice. I am on an much earlier version of the card, sapphire dual-x (before the era of 7970 ghz edition), and I have overclocked to 1150core/1600mem stable, so chances are hitting 1200/1600 or even higher should not be a problem on a vapor-x. sapphire also has a very good reputation as a video card assembler/manufacturer

As for the memory, I have never owned a Lynnfield chip, so I'm not that familiar with the system. I would say if you have money left over, getting a 1600mhz set of memory (8gb is sufficient) is only $50 or below, so it's not so bad. but to be honest it only makes maybe a 5% difference
March 14, 2013 9:19:50 AM

Thanks for the reply, vmem. I will still wait for the Malta cards to come out, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going with the 7970 Vapor-X. It is not in stock now at Newegg anyway, so I will have to wait. It is to expensive elsewhere.
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