Radeon HD 7990 Vs. GeForce GTX 690: The Crowd Picks A Winner

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flexxar

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Please rename the article to "Chris picked a winner" instead of the "crowd picked a winner". You are the one who chose to include metro. By your own admission, you say that it had known issues and that without it, they performed exactly the same.
 

rantoc

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Got both 7970cf and 680sli in different rigs with about the same mb/cpu and have to agree with the subjective result of this test, even thoo the 7970 usually win vs the 680's in pure fps the 680's feels smother and friendlier to the eyes than the fps winning cards.

Its like two cars. One is a tad faster but got a hard clutch and that means the speed comes at the price of a less than a smooth ride between gears while the other - A tad slower car have a good automatic drive so you don't even feel the transition between gears - That pretty much sums up what subjective feel i get from the different setups - One if a finesse card and the other a untamed brute forcer.

The benefit of being brand agnostic, don't let the color/shape of the logo stop you from getting a system tailor-made for your preference - A tad more speed or a smoother ride (in the case of 7970 / 680).
 

cangelini

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We're also happy positive progress is being made in CrossFire. Competition is what drives innovation (see: the state of our processor reviews).

But I disagree that because AMD has a problem in Metro, with and without Eyefinity or frame-pacing, that it should be ignored. The problem should be fixed so that anyone with an AMD card can enjoy the game if they want to.

With that, I appreciate the constructive feedback guys. I know where we need to focus in the future, should we decide to do an event like this again. All the best!

Chris
 

usbgtx550

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Despite this data, I still feel that the 7990 or 7970 cf is a solid buy. My roomate's computer is running a 7970 cf setup and it runs flawlessly. From his experience I'm looking at buying a second 7850 for crossfire when battlefield 4 comes out.
 

cmi86

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I fully agree that whatever issues are conflicting the 7XXX CF and metro need to be addressed (not used as free points for the competition in a comparison that is being conducted to devise a "winner") because it is a very fun, very visually entertaining game. It used to play horrendously on ANY AMD config until 4A dropped that patchhttp://www.pcgamer.com/2013/05/16/metro-last-light-fov-patch-released-also-fixes-amd-issues/ and now it plays beautifully on both my 7870 LE and previous 6950 CF ( This is why i think this issue may only effect 7 series CF's) I just wish games weren't so coded for one or the other that they need a patch to even be playable on one or the other. Just write the games and let everyone enjoy them equally regardless of GPU maker.
 

brucek2

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My take away from this article is that while there are many areas where Nvidia & AMD offer similar performance; and a few where AMD offers somewhat better performance; there are at least a few gaping traps where AMD just completely fails compared to Nvidia -- such as does not do multi-card surround, and does not play Metro.

My choice would therefore be Nvidia, not so much because I'm preferring it over AMD, but because recently AMD just seems defective or absent. Even if I don't care about any of the known AMD default cases right now, who says my next use case won't be another of them?

Anyway, all of that is temporary. There will be a next generation of cards and results there could be different. The more enduring take way for me is still that for at least most of a year, AMD shipped a defective crossfire solution and didn't acknowledge it and wouldn't have fixed it if they weren't finally called out on it after extensive investigation by the press. I find it implausible AMD did not know about the problem, leaving the likely conclusion that AMD's top management decided to just screw over gamers for as long as they could get away with it. And as long as those same people are still calling the shots, AMD just seems like a trap waiting to happen (or one that is happening and hasn't been discovered yet.)
 

Marcus52

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"You have one friend who swears by Fords, but only because the company didn’t take any bailout money, you suspect. That sort of fanaticism doesn’t help you—you’re going to actually be driving this thing."

I am highly offended that you would call me a fanatic because I think good business practices are a legitimate reason to favor a company.
 
ahh (updated) posted them on the other comparison haha oops

the 13.10 beta drivers are out and this is what their site says

Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta Driver for Windows:

AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta includes all of the features/fixes found in AMD Catalyst 13.8 Beta2
PCI-E bus speed is no longer set to x1 on the secondary GPU when running in CrossFire configurations
Rome Total War 2: Updated AMD CrossFire™ profile
improves CrossFire scaling up to 20% (at 2560x1600 with extreme settings)
resolves corruption issues seen while playing the game
Saints Row 4: Updated AMD CrossFire profile
improves CrossFire scaling up to 20% (at 2560x1600 with ultra settings)
Metro Last Light: Updated AMD CrossFire profile
improves CrossFire scaling up to 10% (at 2560x1600 with ultra settings)
Includes a number of frame pacing improvements for the following titles:
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
Sniper Elite
World of Warcraft
Max Payne 3
Hitman Absolution
 
Great article. It's no surprise that Nvidia's hardware-level frame pacing, in use for over two years, is better than AMD's just released beta-driver software solution that's "still a work in progress".

I would actually like to see this type of blind side-by-side testing on single cards. Earlier this year, the Tech Report similarly uncovered microstutter in AMD's single cards. The issue was apparently quickly fixed... or was it? Either way, it's still an important question, which cards deliver the most fluid gameplay experience?


And a note for Chris A., it's too bad you have to be subjected to all that vitriol and denial. It's not your supposed bias, or the games you used, or the drivers you used, or the sequence of the test, or the amount of people in the room; this crap happens in every review where AMD doesn't match up. You called it, people just want to hear what they want to hear, and attack anything that doesn't match their preconceived conclusion.
 

saudagar

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The AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta just released and supports the Metro last Light with frame pacing support, maybe that would change the tides
 

Drakan

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This test is made by people decision.

I didn't read the beginning, but you told the guys which gaming rig had which hardware ? So instead of choosing Nvidia or AMD they would say "1 or 2" so the decision wouldn't be biased (even if they are not fanboys, human mind is tricky)
 

yannigr

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What a coincidence. 13.10 is out. I guess someone who is going to do a full review and organize an event forgot to ask AMD if they where about to publish a new driver. Another coincidence. Half games of the test get an improvement with the new beta driver.
 

jrizzz

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Great article and great event. Wish i could've been there to celebrate with you guys. I mean, there really is nothing better than food, tech, and some quality craft beer lol
 

flexxar

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There was just too much evidence of bias for me to keep my mouth shut. In Don's article, he kept all of the games that Tom's uses for all of their benchmarks. He specifically left out Metro because of known driver issues, but he did note it in the article. Then Chris writes an article that adds games that amd was known to do bad in and removes games that amd was known to do well in. Even in the comments, he thoroughly states his bias towards nvidia. In the article, he gets 6 people per test to vote on a system and most of the tests are won by one vote. That is not a proper statistical analysis of anything. I bet if he went back the next day, he would have completely different results.

I'll sum it up for you...
A self proclaimed nvidia enthusiast (in the comment section) sets up a rigged test (adding and removing games to give the edge to nvidia) and then tests only 6 people per test. He even states that without metro (had known issues before the test), they both performed the same. When most of the tests were won by only one vote, he declares "The crowd picks a winner".

If he took science and statistics like that to the scientific community for anything, he would have been laughed right out the door. It's BS all the way through. I wouldn't be so upset if he didn't announce that there was a winner when there was clearly not enough evidence to declare one.
 

brucek2

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By that logic none of these tech sites could ever review a graphics card. Articles usually take several weeks to create, and if a driver from one or the other mfrs didn't come out during that time, its a sure bet there'll be one shortly.

The relevant factor to me is that these cards and games have mostly already been out for months, or at least weeks. If the purpose of these articles is to inform gamer customers, your post seems to be implying that customers should have been OK waiting all these weeks/months before playing these games. But that's not OK with me. Games and cards have shelf lifes of relevancy, and these drivers are already very very late for a card that has already consumed a significant fraction of the time during which it will be king of the hill.
 

cmi86

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Denial ?? He INTENTIONALLY dropped a KNOWN WORKING TITLE for a KNOWN NON WORKING TITLE and then proceeded to even give the 690 the points from that round when he knew full well it wasn't going to work to begin with, That's not denial on my part, it's BS on HIS part and Toms. If you agree with this behavior then I am sorry to inform you but it is indeed you who is in denial.
 

brucek2

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Is there a non working title for nvidia that was intentionally excluded? Because if so that's the type of bias I'd want to know about. Otherwise the fact that there are one or more AAA titles that play poorly on a card seems like important information to me and entirely worthy of highlighting in a review.

In fact, I'd be happy if the reviews for all cards included a section on the top handful of mainstream situations in which that card struggled. Those are typically the situations that most concern me as a buyer -- assuming I sized my system right for my requirements in the first place, its the surprises that are going to get me, not the most typical / average / safest cases.

Of course I understand that using the same bench-marking friendly titles over and over makes the most sense as far as being able to compare reviews/systems over time.
 

cmi86

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I suppose you probably missed that comment about the GTX-760 being my favorite card atm...
 

cmi86

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Thing is they were supposed to be comparing the game play quality of the 2 cards, not the compatibility issues. These compatibility issues have already been pointed out and well known for quite some time I don't see the sense in intentionally injecting one of these titles in to a competition to see which card "Plays" games better when the title is not even playable. I have no issues with Don pointing it out in the driver review article and the omitted the results because they were an obvious technical issue. I have a problem with someone intentionally injecting a known issue game in to a game play competition and then awarding points based on this. You have to be able to PLAY a game to judge it's game PLAY experience. It feels like to me this title was intentionally placed to instill a negative impression. I'm not trying to flame, I'm trying to point out obvious BS. If it were the other way and this was happening to a green card id be the same way because it's not about the card maker, its about the principle.
 

cmi86

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My opinion on this matter stays the same and no amount of argument will change my mind. This article and several others go to quite obviously show that it's not always a fair draw in these reviews and comparisons and that regardless of professional neutrality personal opinion almost always plays a role to some effect, don't believe me read below. That being said I really have nothing more to say so I will digress before I am painted as a flame baiting troll for simply pointing out the truth, the truth that may contradict popular opinion but none the less the truth.

" I tell them that the 690 is a more elegantly-built product and that AMD's solution to its issues is still a beta driver." At $1000, it's 690 all the way. I feel so strongly about the workmanship that went into the actual construction of 690 and Titan that I petitioned Nvidia for access to the guys who came up with the ID for a story that I hope will be coming soon."

Angelini's words not mine.
 


No, I didn't.
 
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