Galaxy GeForce GTX 680 2GB or Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 GHz Edition 3GB

[ItssSteve]

Im making a custom pc and im stuck on the decision between two graphics cards

They are the same price on the website i am getting them from ($469.00):

Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 GHz Edition 3GB (Comes with free Crysis 3)

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_877&products_id=20995

Galaxy GeForce GTX 680 2GB

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=19798

The games i play most on are:

Skyrim

Battlefield 3

Farcry 3

DayZ

Borderlands 2

Total war (Shogun 2, Rome, Medieval 2, empire and Rome 2 when it comes out)

Crysis 3 (planning to buy)

I know there are alot of forums asking a similar question as this one but im having a hard time making up my mind

If anyone knows any good benchmarking websites that shows the performance on heaps of games that would help Thanks 😀

 

[Mousemonkey]

It is considered that the 7970GHz is roughly 10-15% faster thant he GTX 680! Furthermore Matto17secs will has never and will never recommend an AMD part over Nvidia this is a known fact!

I can't help but wonder why you haven't put your money where your mouth is so to speak, if you're convinced that the 7970's are so much better then why does your sig say that you have 680's?

 

[CaptainTom]

I can't help but wonder why you haven't put your money where your mouth is so to speak, if you're convinced that the 7970's are so much better then why does your sig say that you have 680's?

Because that's what he bought!!! Things change! When the 680 came out, it was the clear winner. But now things have completely changed in almost every aspect.



I will freely admit that the 680 and then 670 were the clear choice for the middle portion of the year.

 

[bystander]

When I bought my 680's, they were cheaper than the 580's and 7970's, but I bought them do improve my 3D Vision performance, which would leave me going with 670's had I done it now.

If I was not using 3D Vision, and picking as of a couple months ago, I would probably have gone 7970's, but as of a couple days ago, I would go 670's still.

If you aren't going to CF or SLI, then that leaves things a little more up in the air.

You might want to read these, they have videos to explain what they are talking about better. I had not realized what I was seeing was microstuttering in the past with my 6950's, and even to a smaller extent, 680's, but now that I know what it is, and that it can be minimized, then you have to take that into account. Smoothness of frames is at least as important as FPS, if not more so.
http://techreport.com/blog/24415/a
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-TITAN-Performance-Review-and-Frame-Rating-Update/Frame-Rat

Consider your options. You'll likely be stuck with them for 1-3 years.

 

[17seconds]

It is considered that the 7970GHz is roughly 10-15% faster thant he GTX 680! Furthermore Matto17secs will has never and will never recommend an AMD part over Nvidia this is a known fact!

Again, comments like the one above say a lot more about you than they do about me. So do you keep a score sheet or something on me, because you missed one:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/395944-33-best-graphics-card-money

And sorry dude, it's more like 3%.

 

[vmem]

sigh... time to port over something I posted on the other thread:

I must stress that we're here on Tom's forums, specifically this and other threads to point useful information to the OP and HELP him/her make an informed decision. while doing this, we must always keep in mind a few things:

1. it is their money, not ours. therefore the decision is ultimately theirs and not ours
2. even if they decide on something that we disagree with, we should feel comfortable with it because we've presented the relevant information to them, they simply chose to interpret it differently than us.

3. many of these people just want to pick a card. I've seen all to many posts where it is obvious that at the end of the day the OP don't know and could care less about small differences on max-fps, latencies, and SOME micro-stutter. ultimately they just want a card to play games on at whatever settings they're aiming for, that's the bottom line. and often enough, offerings from BOTH Nvidia and AMD will get the job done just fine.

if anyone wants to argue over which camp is actually better, you guys all know I have my own opinions, and am happy to have an open debate in a dedicated thread of three

at the end of the day, can't we just agree to disagree? if the OP feels like it, all or almost all relevant benchmarks have been posted here already. if the OP honestly doesn't give a ***, he/she can just count up votes or toss a coin. everyone here have made fair points here and there (in between highly biased/exaggerated comments to illustrate a point), and let's just leave it at that and move on

 

[CaptainTom]

sigh... time to port over something I posted on the other thread:

I must stress that we're here on Tom's forums, specifically this and other threads to point useful information to the OP and HELP him/her make an informed decision. while doing this, we must always keep in mind a few things:

1. it is their money, not ours. therefore the decision is ultimately theirs and not ours
2. even if they decide on something that we disagree with, we should feel comfortable with it because we've presented the relevant information to them, they simply chose to interpret it differently than us.

3. many of these people just want to pick a card. I've seen all to many posts where it is obvious that at the end of the day the OP don't know and could care less about small differences on max-fps, latencies, and SOME micro-stutter. ultimately they just want a card to play games on at whatever settings they're aiming for, that's the bottom line. and often enough, offerings from BOTH Nvidia and AMD will get the job done just fine.

if anyone wants to argue over which camp is actually better, you guys all know I have my own opinions, and am happy to have an open debate in a dedicated thread of three

at the end of the day, can't we just agree to disagree? if the OP feels like it, all or almost all relevant benchmarks have been posted here already. if the OP honestly doesn't give a ***, he/she can just count up votes or toss a coin. everyone here have made fair points here and there (in between highly biased/exaggerated comments to illustrate a point), and let's just leave it at that and move on

This thread needs to close. OP listen to this:

The 670, 680, 7950, and 7970 are all very strong cards. However at this moment the 7950/7970 is simply head over heals, the best deal. There is a reason they are selling out constantly. Now someone will probably respond to me with some BS about non-existent latency or made up driver problems but the fact is neither company has serious problems with either.

Good luck!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

This thread needs to close. OP listen to this:

The 670, 680, 7950, and 7970 are all very strong cards. However at this moment the 7950/7970 is simply head over heals, the best deal. There is a reason they are selling out constantly. Now someone will probably respond to me with some BS about non-existent latency or made up driver problems but the fact is neither company has serious problems with either.

Good luck!

ill be the person to give you BS about the non-existant latency, but the bs just came out of your mouth because its not non-existant or there wouldnt be articles detailing it specifically. I wont go any further than this because its already been said but its YOUR bs that claims something doesn't exist when it has been documented clearly by multiple sites, and then you are so arrogant to say "op listen to this" like you are the only one that knows anything. i wont stand for BS and allow people to be mislead, just want the facts, so stop posting opinions and post facts.

 

[Guest]

ill be the person to give you BS about the non-existant latency, but the bs just came out of your mouth because its not non-existant or there wouldnt be articles detailing it specifically. I wont go any further than this because its already been said but its YOUR bs that claims something doesn't exist when it has been documented clearly by multiple sites, and then you are so arrogant to say "op listen to this" like you are the only one that knows anything. i wont stand for BS and allow people to be mislead, just want the facts, so stop posting opinions and post facts.

Who cares?Its some dumb new test that most dont care about.You want facts?Facts are this ive owned 3 7950's and 3 7970's and havent had an issue with any of them.Another fact the 13.2 beta fixed all this and now nvidia has a higher frame rate latency in newer titles.You clearly havent owned a 78 or 7900 series to even make a statement about them other then to bring up old news and since this news the latency issue has been fixed.

 

[CaptainTom]

Who cares?Its some dumb new test that most dont care about.You want facts?Facts are this ive owned 3 7950's and 3 7970's and havent had an issue with any of them.Another fact the 13.2 beta fixed all this and now nvidia has a higher frame rate latency in newer titles.You clearly havent owned a 78 or 7900 series to even make a statement about them other then to bring up old news and since this news the latency issue has been fixed.

Don't worry I'm sure Nvidia fanboys will invent a new test to make themselves feel better.

 

[bystander]

Who cares?Its some dumb new test that most dont care about.You want facts?Facts are this ive owned 3 7950's and 3 7970's and havent had an issue with any of them.Another fact the 13.2 beta fixed all this and now nvidia has a higher frame rate latency in newer titles.You clearly havent owned a 78 or 7900 series to even make a statement about them other then to bring up old news and since this news the latency issue has been fixed.

I personally can see it. I have seen it in the past, but didn't realize that it was microstuttering as a result of my video cards. Take a look at this video, which should make it quite apparent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLcq6IQz-sM&feature=player_embedded

Now that I know that what it is, I now know that I have seen this with my 6950's in the past. I even see it once in a while on the 680's.

Now ask me, which side looks better (you have to watch one side at a time for a period of time. Watching both at once doesn't really show you anything).

EDIT:
Here, guess which card produced which side:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Md1Xpwq1X0&feature=player_embedded
When they turn around corners, the stuttering is far more apparent. Also, if you go to the end of the video, there is a link with the result.

 

[getdamafiaonyou]

I'm not going to speak benchmarks, I'm just going to give the OP some insight. I have a sapphire 7970, NON GHZ. It did NOT overclock very well, currently i'm sitting at my max of 1100 mhz core and 1600 mhz mem clock. Which considering I think it's not a great overclock is pretty good. I'm on 1 Monitor currently at 1080p, I'll be adding 2 more soon. BF3 runs at a min of around 88 fps (this is what I have seen, not taken a record of) and crysis 3, on multiplayer at max settings, runs normally over 60fps, but dips lower at times. On single player I get a steady 30+. I was always a fan of Nvidia, although never a constant avid builder or pc gamer. But I do not regret my decision to get rid of my 660ti in favor of the AMD as opposed to the 680 which I was considering. I believe (I dont benchmark to back this up) but if you are going with 1 monitor, Nvidia is probably a good, solid, stable choice (as long as your not trying to pinch pennies), but if you want to go multi, AMD is a must. Anyways, just my 2 cents, at the end of the day your looking at competing cards, so it comes down to situation/preference.

 

[vmem]

oi... looks like this thread is still somewhat going strong lol.

you guys realize that most OPs only care about having an enjoyable gaming experience right? fps, latency, micro-stutter etc etc. most people could care less about the benchmarks and statistics as long as they can game on the settings they find visually appealing and enjoy...

 

[iam2thecrowe]

oi... looks like this thread is still somewhat going strong lol.

you guys realize that most OPs only care about having an enjoyable gaming experience right? fps, latency, micro-stutter etc etc. most people could care less about the benchmarks and statistics as long as they can game on the settings they find visually appealing and enjoy...

so basically your saying, it doesnt matter if he got a 680 or a 7970, it would be able to max out any game at 1080p no problems. I agree. I dont think you could be disappointed with either, i dont think either card suffers enough from any of the mentioned problems since they are both extremely high end cards. I think the only things to be considered in the end would be price, weather or not physx gpu acceleration of the 680 would be necesarry for the OP(maybe look at youtube videos for the difference between physx on and off), and the AMD card would be better for resolutions over 1080p and situations with 8xaa, and the new tomb raider if they want advanced hair, yeah yeah, although patched and driver updates may have fixed it, dont really care for tomb raider at all, more looking forward to Thief 4.

 

[Gennaios]

between the two of them i would go for the gtx 680 in most benchmarks i have carried out is totally beats the 7970!
they actually have a difference in FPS in most games!

if you play at resolutions until 1920x1080 go for the gtx 680 but for higher resolutions or triple monitors the +1gbvram of the 7970 would be really helpfull!

 

[vmem]

oi... looks like this thread is still somewhat going strong lol.

you guys realize that most OPs only care about having an enjoyable gaming experience right? fps, latency, micro-stutter etc etc. most people could care less about the benchmarks and statistics as long as they can game on the settings they find visually appealing and enjoy...

so basically your saying, it doesnt matter if he got a 680 or a 7970, it would be able to max out any game at 1080p no problems. I agree. I dont think you could be disappointed with either, i dont think either card suffers enough from any of the mentioned problems since they are both extremely high end cards. I think the only things to be considered in the end would be price, weather or not physx gpu acceleration of the 680 would be necesarry for the OP(maybe look at youtube videos for the difference between physx on and off), and the AMD card would be better for resolutions over 1080p and situations with 8xaa, and the new tomb raider if they want advanced hair, yeah yeah, although patched and driver updates may have fixed it, dont really care for tomb raider at all, more looking forward to Thief 4.

Yup, basically that's my point and I prefer to not get into technical details in these threads unless the OP specifically asks about them. glad we can find some common ground lol

 

[Guest]

between the two of them i would go for the gtx 680 in most benchmarks i have carried out is totally beats the 7970!
they actually have a difference in FPS in most games!

if you play at resolutions until 1920x1080 go for the gtx 680 but for higher resolutions or triple monitors the +1gbvram of the 7970 would be really helpfull!

Thats funny because in about 75 reviews ive seen the 7970 wins everytime

 

[Gennaios]

its funny but its not true!7970 wins the gtx 670 is many games(in some gtx 670 get better fps)cause the chipset!

with the gtx 680 no man its different!i should not say it totally beats the 7970 beacause the 7970 is better in more games!
it lacks other things!the gtx offers better quality of graphics which i consider more significant...!

 

[Ed Palmer]

the performance of Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 is surely faster than N680 card. with more memory size, it is useful for BattleFiends or multiple monitor configuration. the AMD driver seems a headache to Skyrim gamers....It's still a decent card

 

[Gennaios]

every card has its drawbacks!some amd drivers can cause some crashes in some games
or for example GTX series graphics cards crash many times in Tomb Rider!