GTX 680 4Gb SLI or AMD 7970 GHz Crossfire

[metalent]

So I made a thread earlier this year about getting a GTX 680 or GTX 670, but kind of been contemplating the 680 or 7970 since waiting for a bit. I thought about the GTX Titan, but can't convince myself to spend $1,000 on a single GPU. I would much rather get 2 cards and get better performance.

I'm looking at this GTX 680 because I heard/read that it is one of the better cards that runs cooler and better performance

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121705

I thought about getting the 690, but I'm kinda on the fence with it.

For AMD, I don't know much about the brands on that side. I have heard that this one is pretty good

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439

Has the ASUS ROG 7970 GHz performed well? Because that is the one that I would like to get if I got AMD

http://www.amazon.com/DirectCU-1000...&qid=1362627304&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+7970+ghz

Now I know there isn't much difference with high end cards, but I really just would like some opinions. I know some games have Nvidia favored setting like PhysX and some others. All I've ever had is Nvidia, so I don't really know if the difference with PhysX on and off is noticeable if I had AMD. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[bystander]

Maybe you don't know, but I and anyone who bothers to check does know. AMD has fixed the lattency and stuttering problems. Look up crysis 3's lattency tests abd you will see AMD beating Nvidia half the time. WAKE UP! Your 680's are great, but there are not infallible.

Maybe you don't know, but those who are making those claims, are doing so with the updates. Those updates have not done anything to help the crossfire runt frame issue. They helped with latency issues in a few games, but that is another issue all together, which affected single and multi-GPU setups. This is a crossfire only issue, that has nothing to do with latency, and everything to do with frame metering.

 

[ilysaml]

Maybe you don't know, but those who are making those claims, are doing so with the updates. Those updates have not done anything to help the crossfire runt frame issue. They helped with latency issues in a few games, but that is another issue all together, which affected single and multi-GPU setups. This is a crossfire only issue, that has nothing to do with latency, and everything to do with frame metering.

SURPRISE, it's already been minimized a lot with the CCC 13.2 Beta7 and will be completely eliminated in the next few updates, here it is, review it and read the the conclusion carefully;
http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times

 

[bystander]

SURPRISE, it's already been minimized a lot with the CCC 13.2 Beta7 and will be completely eliminated in the next few updates, here it is, review it and read the the conclusion carefully;
http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times

Surprise!, it has nothing to do with frame metering in crossfire. Nothing at all. Surprise! that was just a sample with the first 3 games they looked at for fixing the frame latency issue. Those are 2 different issues, if you are not aware and the latency issue has just begun to be fixed. It is not solved either, though I'm not sure how close they are, as its been over a month since the first 3 games were dealt with.

Here, this is from the same site, written AFTER the review you gave:

http://techreport.com/blog/24415/a

Interestingly, in this page of Ryan's Titan review, he reproduces images that suggest a potentially serious problem with AMD's CrossFire multi-GPU scheme. Presumably due to sync issues between the two GPUs, only tiny slices of some frames, a few pixels tall, are displayed on screen. The value of ever having rendered these frames that aren't really shown to the user is extremely questionable, yet they show up in benchmark results, inflating FPS averages and the like.

That's, you know, not good.

As Ryan points out, problems of this sort won't necessarily show up in Fraps frame time data, since Fraps writes its timestamp much earlier in the rendering pipeline. We've been cautious about multi-GPU testing with Fraps for this very same reason. The question left lingering out there by Ryan's revelation is the extent of the frame delivery problems with CrossFire. Further investigation is needed.

Again, look at the date. "February 26, 2013" A whole month AFTER you claim it was fixed.

That is not to say that AMD won't start work on fixing this issue, but it is currently unaddressed.

 

[ilysaml]

First of all, the 13.2 Beta7 has been released 26.02/2013. how come the article was written 16/01?
Frame Metering? It was all about Microstutter, Frame Latency & Rate.

The driver does not yet contain the new video memory manager. Our intention is release a new driver in a few weeks, which does include the new Video memory manager, which will help resolve latency issues for DX11/DX10 applications.

Frame latencies: a new frontier
One of the tougher questions we had for AMD, in the wake of our discovery of these latency issues and their subsequent move to fix them, was simply this: how can we know that we won't see similar problems in the future? Dodd addressed this question directly in our correspondence, noting that AMD will be changing its testing procedures in the future in order to catch frame latency problems and prevent them:

Up until this point we had mostly assumed that there were occasional flickers in frame rate, but we had thought these were related to the fact that modern games mostly have streaming architectures and limitations of scheduling in the OS. We definitely will start regular measurements to ensure we track improvements, and stop regressions. Long term, we want to work with game developers and Microsoft to ensure these kinds of latency issues don't keep cropping up.
That's exactly the sort of answer we want to hear, and we'll be watching and testing future Radeon drivers and GPUs in order to see how well AMD executes on that plan.

That's with the latest 13.2 Beta7

They Keyword is just a "Driver Update".

 

[bystander]

Sorry to break it to you, but these are 2 separate issues. You'll have to read the article to understand. The latency issue was affecting single cards, but this one only affects crossfire. It isn't a problem with frames being slow to be rendered, it is a problem with the two cards in AFR not coordinating their output. The tradition FRAPS method of measuring does not work, which is why every latency test with crossfire in the last month has commented on their multi GPU frame latency tests are inaccurate.

Stick your head in the sand if you like, but that will not solve the issue. Had TechReport not brought the frame latency issue to AMD's attention, that would still be a problem. Now that Pcper has brought this up, AMD could actually work on it. I'm sure you'd rather live in ignorance, right?

 

[geneticallygenius]

Still feel at 1920 x 1080 an Nvidia SLI is the way to go.

And resolutions above that, don't even touch an Nvidia card. AMD crossfire is your best bet for 2500 or triple monitor.

It's simple as that.

Forget driver issues or anything.

 

[ilysaml]

Sorry to break it to you, but these are 2 separate issues. You'll have to read the article to understand. The latency issue was affecting single cards, but this one only affects crossfire. It isn't a problem with frames being slow to be rendered, it is a problem with the two cards in AFR not coordinating their output. The tradition FRAPS method of measuring does not work, which is why every latency test with crossfire in the last month has commented on their multi GPU frame latency tests are inaccurate.

Stick your head in the sand if you like, but that will not solve the issue. Had TechReport not brought the frame latency issue to AMD's attention, that would still be a problem. Now that Pcper has brought this up, AMD could actually work on it. I'm sure you'd rather live in ignorance, right?

Yeah I'd rather to.

 

[redeemer]

7970GHz Xfire no question about it

 

[redeemer]

Minimum FPS wasn't even what I was talking about anyways. Microstutter, hitching, jitterying, that is what I was talking about. Many people use FPS limiters to fix it on Crossfire setups, even if YOU don't.

Just because you don't seem to be bothered about microstutter, doesn't mean others aren't. Even BigMack70 uses a FPS limiter to avoid stuttering. Look at the article on the crossfire issue, the comments are full of "Just use a FPS limiter".

If you aren't notice it, it may be due to v-sync or you don't care. The tests are without v-sync, though v-sync is a limiter too. How they compare with v-sync is in question as well. Luckly, the full article, when it is done, is suppose to include v-sync numbers, good or bad (7970's may do good in v-sync, we just don't know yet).

Either way, the end result matters more than FPS unless you benchmark.

Even SLI suffers from stuttering this is only a big deal because AMD has the balls and admitted it! Crysis 3 has major stutters and performance dips on my SLI setup. I see stutter on BF3 as well, currently Tomb Raider has the problem as well

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-07-nvidia-apologises-to-tomb-raider-pc-players-plagued-by-geforce-issues

 

[bystander]

Even SLI suffers from stuttering this is only a big deal because AMD has the balls and admitted it! Crysis 3 has major stutters and performance dips on my SLI setup. I see stutter on BF3 as well, currently Tomb Raider has the problem as well

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-07-nvidia-apologises-to-tomb-raider-pc-players-plagued-by-geforce-issues

It is true, there is some stutter in some games, but not like the crossfire issue, which is pretty bad, unless you use a limiter or v-sync.

You are comparing a new release bug, with a wide spread issue.

Feel free to read about the crossfire issue, but keep in mind, this particular article is talking about when not using v-sync. You should read the links in it. It also talks about more than the crossfire issue, and just general information about all the causes of stutters for all platforms.
http://techreport.com/blog/24415/a

I personally was running 6950's prior. With v-sync, I was did not see a lot of problems, though I always saw a bit of stuttering here and there. I was not aware that it was considered microstutter.

 

[bystander]

Look, you can believe the reviews or not. New testing methods are coming as the article I linked showed. You can believe it or not, but since both TechReport and THG has started putting a disclaimer on all their crossfire benchmarks recently, I tend to believe it. Hardocp has always mentioned an issue with crossfire in many of their reviews as well.

If you don't believe it, fine, but remember that the person you are recommending this setup may not use a fps limiter or v-sync, and will have to live with it.

 

[metalent]

So before we get TOO off track. If I went Nvidia, Is EVGA still the way to go? I have read that the 680 can get up to the same temps as my 470, which isn't exactly what I want. I have heard the ASUS DCUII TOP edition is pretty stellar and runs cool. I always have trouble differentiating the reviews on temps.

 

[trajan2448]

680s if you must use Multi Gpu. However the Titan for almost the same dollars has ultra low latency, NO runt frames, and is silky smooth. Titan is 3 to 4x faster than the FASTEST Crossfire in frame delivery times. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/60166-nvidia-gtx-titan-vs-sli-crossfire-15.html
I wouldn't touch Crossfire until it fixes these problems.

 

[CaptainTom]

So before we get TOO off track. If I went Nvidia, Is EVGA still the way to go? I have read that the 680 can get up to the same temps as my 470, which isn't exactly what I want. I have heard the ASUS DCUII TOP edition is pretty stellar and runs cool. I always have trouble differentiating the reviews on temps.

Almost all EVGA cards I have come across from friends broke within a couple years. Yes they have good customer support, but why do we all know this? THEY BREAK!

For AMD I know SAPPHIRE builds their cards like tanks, but I have no clue who else to trust on NV. I would guess MSI and ASUS are good choices...

 

[bystander]

Unfortunately, cards break. I have experience from most brands of cards breaking. Diamond, EVGA, MSI, Pony, XFX and ASUS. Sadly, high end cards are fragile.

 

[RussK1]

So before we get TOO off track. If I went Nvidia, Is EVGA still the way to go? I have read that the 680 can get up to the same temps as my 470, which isn't exactly what I want. I have heard the ASUS DCUII TOP edition is pretty stellar and runs cool. I always have trouble differentiating the reviews on temps.

I have 2x ASUS GTX 680 DC2T and I'm happy. Quiet and cool... also consider the MSI GTX 680 Lightnings.

Both of my cards have a high ASIC (87%/83%) so that's good and is indicatve that Asus uses higher binned chips for their top tier cards.