HD7950 vs. GTX 680 2gb

20salmon

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Jun 23, 2013
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I have a Gigabyte HD7950 Windforce from 2013, and I was recently given a Zotac GTX 680 2gb from 2011 by a friend.

So I've got two cards, I'll be selling one of them. I've looked at GPU comparisons, and learned that the GTX has a slight edge over the 7950, but im sceptical since the GTX is older, and is only 2gb compared to the HD's 3gb.

I've put both up for sale, and I'm currently awaiting offers. My question for you fair people, is if the difference between these cards is significant enough to warrant favoring one over the other, or if I should just sell whichever one I get the best offer for. I'm comfortable overclocking whichever card I keep.

Thanks :)
 
Solution
You should benchmark/OC both and let us know which one you prefer. Pretty sure the 680 comes out on top, 7950 was the direct competitor to the 670 (which I used to own), 680/7970 are a class higher.

It doesn't take much tweaking to stay under 2gb and keep in mind the tweaking also helps raise min fps/less dips which means smooth all the time.

680 will keep you at 60fps more often than the 7950 with the same settings most of the time, settings that put you over 2gb on the 7950 won't be performing great anyway.

When I go over 2gb on my 3gb 780ti, the settings are pretty high at that point and would tax the hell out of, for example a 4gb 960/380 (similar speed to 680/7950) where vram is plenty but the gpu still isn't fast enough.

You should benchmark/OC both and let us know which one you prefer. Pretty sure the 680 comes out on top, 7950 was the direct competitor to the 670 (which I used to own), 680/7970 are a class higher.

It doesn't take much tweaking to stay under 2gb and keep in mind the tweaking also helps raise min fps/less dips which means smooth all the time.

680 will keep you at 60fps more often than the 7950 with the same settings most of the time, settings that put you over 2gb on the 7950 won't be performing great anyway.

When I go over 2gb on my 3gb 780ti, the settings are pretty high at that point and would tax the hell out of, for example a 4gb 960/380 (similar speed to 680/7950) where vram is plenty but the gpu still isn't fast enough.

 
Solution
The 7950 is going for $180 on Amazon.
The 680 is going for $220.

They perform the same, and if you can sell them both, you can get a GTX970 that out performs them, or puts a dent in the balance of a 980. I'd say use the 680 and sell the 7950 because the hype around GCN and the Ashes of Singularity bench showing that the 7000 series still have life left in DX12. I believe the benchmark is biased, but it's all the media have to go on, so if things change, the card will cool off again, so sell it while it's on a hotstreak.
 
Thanks for the feedback :) very helpful.

Followup question:
The PC I inherited came with an i7 2700k. At what point (what GPU) would this CPU become a bottleneck for a new graphics card (gaming wise)?
 
joshyboy82 has a great point in selling both for a 970!

As you can see I have the i7 2600/780ti with amazing performance and plan to get the next pascal x80ti with no issues and same goes for you.

Once that monster of a build starts to show it's age which should be a while will I get a new CPU, people are still recommending i5s for gaming builds and there currently isn't a ANY i5 that outperforms the 2nd gen i7s.