gtx 670 vs 7970

[aj101202]

i was going to upgrade my gpu (from a xfx hd6870) and i cant decide between the evga ftw gtx 670 or xfx 7970 (oc) they are both the same price here in the uk around £300 i was wonder which would be best the games i play are: far cry 3, gta iv, borderlands, crysis 2 (and i will be playing cysis 3 and gta 5 when they come out) I play these games at 1080p. I sometimes make youtube videos, would like your advice on which to get.

thanks.

links to the cards i am planing on getting:

7970 http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...797a-tdbc.html

670 http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...4-3677-kr.html

[TechFan@ic]

In Far Cry 3 & Crysis 3 the 7970 is faster because Far Cry 3 & Crysis 3 are AMD optimized while it edges out the 670 in crysis 2 because it has more raw performance over all.

In borderlands 2 the 670 wins , because the game is nVidia optimized & uses advanced physx.

Both GTA IV & V are both CPU intensive and thus both cards will perform similarly .

Generally speaking the 7970 has more raw performance, has more RAM & a wider memory bus, making it an excellent choice for high resolutions and/or 4x or higher anti-aliasing settings.

The card also overclocks a lot more than the 670 granting it even more performance .

The 600 series cards just don't perform well with AA set to anything higher than x2, and they suffer greatly for it .

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...g,3283-10.html

Now for some graphs from Linus's favorite website !

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-12.html

NOTE: all tests were done on the latest drivers from both nVidia & AMD .

[aj101202]

Thanks this helped i will go for the 7970 then because you also get Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite for free with it

[Opsilon]

In Far Cry 3 & Crysis 3 the 7970 is faster because Far Cry 3 & Crysis 3 are AMD optimized while it edges out the 670 in crysis 2 because it has more raw performance over all.

In borderlands 2 the 670 wins , because the game is nVidia optimized & uses advanced physx.

Both GTA IV & V are both CPU intensive and thus both cards will perform similarly .

Generally speaking the 7970 has more raw performance, has more RAM & a wider memory bus, making it an excellent choice for high resolutions and/or 4x or higher anti-aliasing settings.

The card also overclocks a lot more than the 670 granting it even more performance .

The 600 series cards just don't perform well with AA set to anything higher than x2, and they suffer greatly for it .

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...g,3283-10.html

Now for some graphs from Linus's favorite website !

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-12.html

NOTE: all tests were done on the latest drivers from both nVidia & AMD .

yes you are right, just 1 thing, the 600 series has lower MSAA performance, because it can take the advantage of other aa types

in crysis 3 you get better results just because 7970 has more raw performance ( 670 is a "downgraded" gk104 core )

If you take 4x TXAA for crysis 3 , and since it seems like more games in the future will support it, 670 is not a bad choice, just because it can do gaming, and smashes the 7970 in applications that use CUDA

and as far as games that can support TXAA, you can have 8x MSAA quality and just 4x MSAA performance hit, it's not just about fps it's how does the game look with the given fps

NVIDIA seems to be leaving MSAA ( they will support it but because of the performance hit, they will not pay to much attention to it )

so as all around card if you are not only gaming 670 is a good choice, and that is the only reason why it still costs this much

and as far as i have seen most 670's have a more consistent overclocking results, i read a lot of ppl that were not satisfied with how much you can oc your 7970 card on average, TTL youtube channel even gave the asus matrix edition silver, because he claims that he can overclock his reference card to the same lvl, and he uses that reference card in his rig "Orca" and he water cooled it.

but in AMD's favor, the 7970 has better results at over 1080p, more memory, so if you plan on only gaming, and in the future go over 1080p, just buy the 7970

[Opsilon]

Thanks this helped i will go for the 7970 then because you also get Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite for free with it

good point as well, but i hope we get advanced physx for us that have nvidia cards, otherwise this will be super sad, all crysis games so far had it, would be a shame if this one did not.

[TechFan@ic]

yes you are right' date=' just 1 thing, the 600 series has lower MSAA performance, because it can take the advantage of other aa types in crysis 3 you get better results just because 7970 has more raw performance ( 670 is a "downgraded" gk104 core ) If you take 4x TXAA for crysis 3 , and since it seems like more games in the future will support it, 670 is not a bad choice, just because it can do gaming, and smashes the 7970 in applications that use CUDA and as far as games that can support TXAA, you can have 8x MSAA quality and just 4x MSAA performance hit, it's not just about fps it's how does the game look with the given fps NVIDIA seems to be leaving MSAA ( they will support it but because of the performance hit, they will not pay to much attention to it ) so as all around card if you are not only gaming 670 is a good choice, and that is the only reason why it still costs this much and as far as i have seen most 670's have a more consistent overclocking results, i read a lot of ppl that were not satisfied with how much you can oc your 7970 card on average, TTL youtube channel even gave the asus matrix edition silver, because he claims that he can overclock his reference card to the same lvl, and he uses that reference card in his rig "Orca" and he water cooled it. but in AMD's favor, the 7970 has better results at over 1080p, more memory, so if you plan on only gaming, and in the future go over 1080p, just buy the 7970[/quote']

AMD boards support TXAA as well... & they actually outperform nVidia equivalents when using it .

TXAA is not like physx it's not locked down to nVidia cards, it's a new technology that game developers can include in their engines that any type of graphics card can benefit from .

You should start being more objective in your advice .

[TechFan@ic]

Thanks this helped i will go for the 7970 then because you also get Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite for free with it

Crysis 3 won't have PhysX , it's part of the AMD Gaming Evolved program .

[Zuba Twizta]

well, my matrix HD7970 Platinum is the fastest on the market.....so HD7970 > GTX670

[aj101202]

well' date=' my matrix HD7970 Platinum is the fastest on the market.....so HD7970 > GTX670[/quote']

wow that is a big card lol 3 slots i only have 2 slots as its itx pc and costs £539 looks nice though, i dont have that kind of money to be spending XD

[Beeblebrox]

PhysX is a pretty niche requirement when looking for a graphics card. But If you're that worried about it, just throw in a Geforce 460/650 as a dedicated PhysX card with your 7970.

[mgsstar]

I would go with the 7970 because you get Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite for free when you buy this card. If you want PhysX, you could download the drivers and use it or get a dedicated Nvidia PhysX card.

[aj101202]

I would go with the 7970 because you get Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite for free when you buy this card. If you want PhysX' date=' you could download the drivers and use it or get a dedicated Nvidia PhysX card.[/quote']

Yea i am going to go with the 7970 the place where i am going to buy it are giving away 5 free games and i dont have the slots for a physX card as i have an itx motherboard

[MegaTechPC]

Good choice. They are both great cards but AMD's new bundle gives the 7970 the definite edge.

[cheti]

http://kremlin.planet.ee/pildid/3D%20MARK%20AMD%20vs%20NVIDIA.jpg

That should answer your question. :)

Best wishes

- cheti

[Above7heInfluence]

To be honest, you won't see a major difference between either of the cards unless you doing a lot of video editing as the 600 series was made for purely gaming and not compute performance.

[Opsilon]

yes you are right' date=' just 1 thing, the 600 series has lower MSAA performance, because it can take the advantage of other aa types in crysis 3 you get better results just because 7970 has more raw performance ( 670 is a "downgraded" gk104 core ) If you take 4x TXAA for crysis 3 , and since it seems like more games in the future will support it, 670 is not a bad choice, just because it can do gaming, and smashes the 7970 in applications that use CUDA and as far as games that can support TXAA, you can have 8x MSAA quality and just 4x MSAA performance hit, it's not just about fps it's how does the game look with the given fps NVIDIA seems to be leaving MSAA ( they will support it but because of the performance hit, they will not pay to much attention to it ) so as all around card if you are not only gaming 670 is a good choice, and that is the only reason why it still costs this much and as far as i have seen most 670's have a more consistent overclocking results, i read a lot of ppl that were not satisfied with how much you can oc your 7970 card on average, TTL youtube channel even gave the asus matrix edition silver, because he claims that he can overclock his reference card to the same lvl, and he uses that reference card in his rig "Orca" and he water cooled it. but in AMD's favor, the 7970 has better results at over 1080p, more memory, so if you plan on only gaming, and in the future go over 1080p, just buy the 7970[/quote']

AMD boards support TXAA as well... & they actually outperform nVidia equivalents when using it .

TXAA is not like physx it's not locked down to nVidia cards, it's a new technology that game developers can include in their engines that any type of graphics card can benefit from .

You should start being more objective in your advice .

AMD supports TXAA? when? fxaa yes, maybe force txaa in crysis 3 but i have never seen any proof of full txaa amd support, nor does the official specification say anything about it.

If your card can't support a type of aa that just means it will not run it, you don't get txaa on older nvidia cards...

http://www.amd.com/uk/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970ghz/Pages/radeon-7970GHz.aspx#3

Physx not locked if you are using AMD cards only if you use your cpu for that or add a dedicated nvidia card for physx.

Advenced Physx is locked for AMD cards, and it's only possible with an nvidia GPU, that is what i use

If i am correct and if my statement about txaa is correct amd scores with txaa are irrelevant, and my point stays for 4x TXAA is 4x MSAA performance hit but 8x MSAA quality.

And how am i not objective? I just stated the benefit of both cards, and even recommended the AMD card to OP, i bought a 670 because i was aiming for a 660ti or a HD 7950, but my parents helped me with some cash and the best i could afford was was a 670, at the time 7970 standard was 50$ more and the GHZ edition was a 100$ more, my 670 was factory overclocked and at given time was better than a 7970 stock card ( card is binned to gtx 680 stock clock and as far as i know the only 670 with a oced memory )...