Another 770 vs. 7970 question

[Shaun311]

I'm sorry, I've read a lot of posts and reviews on these cards, so I should know the answer, but I still have to ask. I just bought the SAPPHIRE 100351SR Radeon HD 7970 3GB card and plan on picking a second one up next month, then a third next year. I'm scared I made the wrong decision because I am seeing that maybe I should have gone with the GIGABYTE GV-N770OC-2GD GeForce GTX 770 2GB. I don't play Battlefield, or COD, or games like that (online), but I do play FEAR, Bioshock, Dead Space, various racing, and stuff like that. The 770 card is cheaper right now, but I don't know if it will be if I got my 7970, sent it back, got reimbursed, then bought the 770. My system is the crosshair V formula Z with an FX 8350, 8GB of vengence 1600 ram, which I am upgrading to the Sniper 2133, and a fully modular Kingwin 1000 watt psu bronze plus. Please help because I am getting this card in the mail by Wed, and I need to know if I should contact the online dealer about it or not.

 

[duhmentia]

If you already have the 7970 keep it. It will last a lot longer than the 770 and you won't have to upgrade as soon.

 

[rolli59]

My theory is that those cards are so close in performance that you cant go wrong with either one. I would stick with the 7970.

 

[monsta]

I would only return the 7970 if you plan to go multi gpu, the 7970 on its own will run better than having two in crossfire.
If you plan on going with two cards in the future , the 770 would be better in SLI. Crossfire still has some issues, but if you are only going single card then stick with the 7970.
Ask the retailer if sending it back will cost you anything too, if it doesn't then go for the 770 as you said its also cheaper.

 

[Shaun311]

Thank you guys for such a fast response! That makes me feel a bit better on my decision, but now I am a bit worried about the Multiple GPU. I do plan on buying a second one next month, then maybe even a third sometime next year. Man, why does this have to be so complicated!!??

 

[Shaun311]

My theory is that those cards are so close in performance that you cant go wrong with either one. I would stick with the 7970.

So what would you think about the multiple GPU issue like monsta said?

I would only return the 7970 if you plan to go multi gpu, the 7970 on its own will run better than having two in crossfire.
If you plan on going with two cards in the future , the 770 would be better in SLI. Crossfire still has some issues, but if you are only going single card then stick with the 7970.
Ask the retailer if sending it back will cost you anything too, if it doesn't then go for the 770 as you said its also cheaper.

 

[rolli59]

There have been issues but getting better and better with every driver release so I would not worry about it. Addressed here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/catalyst-13.8-frame-pacing-crossfire,3595.html

 

[photonboy]

There have been issues but getting better and better with every driver release so I would not worry about it. Addressed here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/catalyst-13.8-frame-pacing-crossfire,3595.html

Agreed.
I believe DX9 is not yet fixed so you can get a PERCEIVED 30FPS when gaming so until that's fixed, for DX9 games disable Crossfire and use one GPU.

Crossfire's come a long way otherwise. I think AMD wasn't even aware of certain issues until NVidia pointed a lot of them out, now AMD appears to be working hard to fix these problems.

You should periodically read about FRAME TIME benchmarking and why things stutter. If you had an NVidia card I'd say look into a G-Sync monitor in the future.

 

[Shaun311]

Again, thank you very much for the information. I kinda wish I went for the 770 now, but I think I would be happy with the 7970. Sucks that I realized after the purchase that the 770 was cheaper, but what are you gonna do? I didn't know that the min FPS was a factor in the matter. I just looked for benchmarks with the highest frame rate, so now I know, and knowing is half the battle! I guess I'll see when the card comes, because now I realized that the card may be too thick for a three way set up. I have two cards in my computer now, so I will place the 7970 in between the two and see if it fits. If so, I guess I will keep the card, and if not maybe I will be getting the 770.

 

[redeemer]

Nvidia has its shares of problems as well, cannot wait to get rid of my 680's.

 

[photonboy]

Nvidia has its shares of problems as well, cannot wait to get rid of my 680's.

Why so?
I have a single Asus 680 and absolutely love it. Any HARDWARE issues have nothing to do with NVidia, that's a vendor issue such as Asus or Gigabyte.

SLI is superior to Crossfire, and NVidia's drivers are more stable overall so I'm interested to know what you wish to replace them with.

Not bashing you, I'm just curious. (on a side note, I thought my recent problems were NVidia driver issues and it turns out it was a faulty DDR3 stick). Ran memtest, found stick. Problem solved.

 

[photonboy]

Again, thank you very much for the information. I kinda wish I went for the 770 now, but I think I would be happy with the 7970. Sucks that I realized after the purchase that the 770 was cheaper, but what are you gonna do? I didn't know that the min FPS was a factor in the matter. I just looked for benchmarks with the highest frame rate, so now I know, and knowing is half the battle! I guess I'll see when the card comes, because now I realized that the card may be too thick for a three way set up. I have two cards in my computer now, so I will place the 7970 in between the two and see if it fits. If so, I guess I will keep the card, and if not maybe I will be getting the 770.

3xCrossfire is very, very problematic.
Not only is there often little to no performance increase (varies by the game) but stutter and other issues can be very problematic.

Tom Peterson from NVidia talked about this for NVidia's SLI with PCPER (slides and everything) and I know it's worse with Crossfire.

Oddly, some tests have shown SMOOTHER gameplay with 3xCrossfire so things may be all over the map. I'm not sure how to get reliable results, and remember CROSSFIRE DRIVERS have changed a lot recently.

Don't forget DX9 is not yet fixed so I have no idea what 3xCrossfire with DX9 would do. Better than single GPU or worse? Better than dual-GPU or worse? No idea.

Your post said you only had one card otherwise I would have warned you earlier.

If you want to TEST, you can't trust FRAPS results. You'd have to try running the game with a single GPU, 2xCrossfire, and 3xCrossfire and get a feel for what gives the best results. You have to test EACH GAME on its own.

 

[Shaun311]

Again, thank you very much for the information. I kinda wish I went for the 770 now, but I think I would be happy with the 7970. Sucks that I realized after the purchase that the 770 was cheaper, but what are you gonna do? I didn't know that the min FPS was a factor in the matter. I just looked for benchmarks with the highest frame rate, so now I know, and knowing is half the battle! I guess I'll see when the card comes, because now I realized that the card may be too thick for a three way set up. I have two cards in my computer now, so I will place the 7970 in between the two and see if it fits. If so, I guess I will keep the card, and if not maybe I will be getting the 770.

3xCrossfire is very, very problematic.
Not only is there often little to no performance increase (varies by the game) but stutter and other issues can be very problematic.

Tom Peterson from NVidia talked about this for NVidia's SLI with PCPER (slides and everything) and I know it's worse with Crossfire.

Oddly, some tests have shown SMOOTHER gameplay with 3xCrossfire so things may be all over the map. I'm not sure how to get reliable results, and remember CROSSFIRE DRIVERS have changed a lot recently.

Don't forget DX9 is not yet fixed so I have no idea what 3xCrossfire with DX9 would do. Better than single GPU or worse? Better than dual-GPU or worse? No idea.

Your post said you only had one card otherwise I would have warned you earlier.

If you want to TEST, you can't trust FRAPS results. You'd have to try running the game with a single GPU, 2xCrossfire, and 3xCrossfire and get a feel for what gives the best results. You have to test EACH GAME on its own.

I have been playing around with my new card now for almost a week, and I have to say it CRUSHES EVERY GAME I own, and since the card is so thick I wouldn't be able to run 3 way anyway. The only way I could is if I put them on my loop, and by time I pay for the third card, and at least 2 water blocks, I should just upgrade to whatever is out by then. I am sure that getting the second card will be more than enough for any game for the next few years so I am going to stop there. I'm sure that like my 2x 6870s I just replaced with this 7970 (which doubled them in FPS) if I spent another even say $200 at minimum a couple years down the road for a third 7970 and another $250 for everything to cool two of the three I might as well buy the 8xxx or 9xxx whatever is out then and far succeed two of these 7970s. Hell, hopefully by then I will be running Steam on Linux with every game running properly, and the AMD drivers will work well! Can't wait for that to happen! Thanks for the heads up on the 3 way issue though. I think I should be safe with 2 cards, and just stop there.

 

[corvetteguy1994]

I would only return the 7970 if you plan to go multi gpu, the 7970 on its own will run better than having two in crossfire.
If you plan on going with two cards in the future , the 770 would be better in SLI. Crossfire still has some issues, but if you are only going single card then stick with the 7970.
Ask the retailer if sending it back will cost you anything too, if it doesn't then go for the 770 as you said its also cheaper.

im sorry that statement is false. i have 2 in CF and i will say 2 is better than 1.

 

[Shaun311]

I would only return the 7970 if you plan to go multi gpu, the 7970 on its own will run better than having two in crossfire.
If you plan on going with two cards in the future , the 770 would be better in SLI. Crossfire still has some issues, but if you are only going single card then stick with the 7970.
Ask the retailer if sending it back will cost you anything too, if it doesn't then go for the 770 as you said its also cheaper.

im sorry that statement is false. i have 2 in CF and i will say 2 is better than 1.

Yeah, My two 6870s ran double FPS than 1 did on just about everything. To my surprise though, I honestly expected to see like a 10 to maybe 20 FPS boost from my new 7970 than my 2x6870s, and holy crap was I wrong! My one 7970 doubled my 2x6870s, and when I saw the results I was just floored! At that point, I was like forget this, I'm keeping this card and definitely getting a second one! HAHA!

 

[corvetteguy1994]

I would only return the 7970 if you plan to go multi gpu, the 7970 on its own will run better than having two in crossfire.
If you plan on going with two cards in the future , the 770 would be better in SLI. Crossfire still has some issues, but if you are only going single card then stick with the 7970.
Ask the retailer if sending it back will cost you anything too, if it doesn't then go for the 770 as you said its also cheaper.

im sorry that statement is false. i have 2 in CF and i will say 2 is better than 1.

Yeah, My two 6870s ran double FPS than 1 did on just about everything. To my surprise though, I honestly expected to see like a 10 to maybe 20 FPS boost from my new 7970 than my 2x6870s, and holy crap was I wrong! My one 7970 doubled my 2x6870s, and when I saw the results I was just floored! At that point, I was like forget this, I'm keeping this card and definitely getting a second one! HAHA!

right on! im super satisfied with Tahiti XT. i was able to score just over 18,000 on firestrike. such a good chip.