AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3 GB

[librin.so.1]

Normally, if I would to choose between GTX 680 and HD 7970, I'd go for the 7970.
Too bad various circumstances keep me tied to using Nvidia GPUs

EDIT: Talking about overclocking duds, I had a GeForce 7600 GT, that only went up by 8 Mhz on stock voltage

 

[cedrac18]

AMD has a very good gaming + compute chip in the HD 7970. Even when the inital reviews were out most reviewers appreciated the overclocking headroom and scalability in performance. With the launch of GTX 680 Nvidia beat the HD 7970 in a stock configuration. Everybody who has a HD 7970 card which overclocked well (1125 at stock volts and 1200+ with extra voltage) knows that HD 7970 OC performance is faster than GTX 680 OC. At 1080p/1200p its a contest, higher up there is only one card which can be called the fastest card - HD 7970. the launch of HD 7970 Ghz edition is just to beat the GTX 680 in stock and win the marketing battle. Also the latest drivers also have played a part in that win with siginificant improvements in Dirt 3, Skyrim, Batman AC (MSAA). So its actually not just hardware which has titlted the scales, but a mix of hardware and software. If people don't acknowledge that basic fact they are just in denial.

Some of the most demanding games clearly run better on HD 7970 especially at max settings. BF3, Crysis 2, Witcher 2 / Witcher 2 EE, Anno 2070, Shogun 2, Batman AC, Alan Wake, Dirt Showdown, Metro 2033, Crysis Warhead . Radeon HD 7970 wins most of the games except Shogun 2. BF3 is pretty much equal on both cards. Even Batman AC runs faster at 8X MSAA on HD 7970, though on FXAA its clearly faster on GTX 680. The rest run faster on HD 7970. the gap gets wider at 1600p and multi monitor, which is where a USD 500 flagship card's performance really matters. Even these most demanding games run at 60+ fps at 1080p. So I don't see any merit in judging them by 1080p performance when playabililty differences are going to difficult to tell because all these cards are giving more than sufficient performance. The gap in games like Alan Wake (25%), Metro 2033(20%), Crysis Warhead (25%), Witcher 2 (20%) especially at higher resolutions is very significant. The most important point is none of these games hit 60 fps at 1600p. And frankly these are the games which truly tell us about these high end cards. Games which do 100+ fps at 1600p aren't going to give any idea of the true capabilites of their architectures and performance.

Also overclocking does not have guarantees and the responsibility lies on the user to extract max possible performance. There are chances of getting a chip which is a dud at overclocking. So assuming that every chip will overclock reliably is a big mistake. With the AMD Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition the cards are guaranteed to run at those speeds. When the GTX 680 launched and HD 7970 users mentioned that a HD 7970 at similar clock speeds would beat the GTX 680 , lots of people said only stock configurations should be compared. Fair enough. Now that same theory should be applied.

Amen brother you nailed perfectly what i have been thinking thinking the whole time.

 

[Super XP]

This GHz Edition card looks like a marketing move. As a whole the HD 7970 is a great card, but I don't think I would pay more money for the GHz edition personally. Anyhow I'll be waiting for the HD 8000 series seeing how I always skip a generation.

 

[ValenOne]

Guys i don' get it....If the 7970GHz is around 2-3% faster than a reference GTX 680 then why not overclock that and get like 5% a better card ? Isn't that common knowledge ? We Are talking about an OC'ed version of the normal 7970 so shouldn't we compare it with an OC'ed version of the GTX 680 ?

Techpowerup haven't included Dirt Showdown with it's latest patch.

Don't be so sure... I own both nv and amd.and when it comes to choosing the right one, It's matter of what a person needs for what he pays. and I'm not being fanboyictic, It's the truth that AMD has much less cash to spend on engineering and development than nv and yet they've built the larger GPU. If there were no GTX 680 and GK104, They'd still be selling those 7970 at 550+, and now they've cut the prices, they're making less money than nv however you cut it.
GTX 680: Small die, less memory chips (same rated speed as 7970), cheaper "to build" PCB.
7970: exact opposite.

79x0's haven't gimped 64bit DP FP and allocated enough transistors for it.

 

[N3M3515]

We Are talking about an OC'ed version of the normal 7970 so shouldn't we compare it with an OC'ed version of the GTX 680 ?

Because Ghz Edition is the direct rival pricewise?

 

[HellasVagabond]

Because Ghz Edition is the direct rival pricewise?

When we compare high end cards we don't really group cards every 50$ so $500,550 and 600 cards belong more or less in the same league.
That aside however there are many factory OCed GTX 680's going for $520-540 (check pricegrabber) while the 7970 GHz edition (reference design) goes for around $490-510 so personally i can't figure out why people keep talking about prices when you can get a faster card, with less noise and temperatures for around the same cash.

 

[Athlon2K15]

When we compare high end cards we don't really group cards every 50$ so $500,550 and 600 cards belong more or less in the same league.
That aside however there are many factory OCed GTX 680's going for $520-540 (check pricegrabber) while the 7970 GHz edition (reference design) goes for around $490-510 so personally i can't figure out why people keep talking about prices when you can get a faster card, with less noise and temperatures for around the same cash.

Who is we?

 

[HellasVagabond]

Last time i checked anyone who can give over $500 for a card....Unless you are telling me that you would give $500 and not $550 for example....Still if you read my Entire post you will see that there's really no price difference.

 

[radrok]

You really think that AMD would have clocked Tahiti as low as 925MHz if Kepler was already out? I don't think so.

The most fair comparison is the one made between the GTX 680 and HD 7970 GHz edition.

 

[Athlon2K15]

well there is certainly a point where you can no longer justify the price to performance you receive. for instance i purchased a 470 on launch day a few years back for 329 but for 75 more i could have gotten a low end 480 vanilla but the performance difference wasnt that much better

 

[HellasVagabond]

True, you can get an factory OCed 670 which costs less and is not much slower than the 7970GHz edition nor the 680 but we are not talking about that.

What we are talking about is which is the best card at around the $500 mark and i simply can't agree that it's the 7970 GHz which is just an OCed version of the normal 7970, not when you can get a Factory OCed GTX 680 at around the same price, with better performance and less noise/temperature levels. It's simple logic actually, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[radrok]

I was just talking about reference vs reference, of course custom models are better there is no doubt about it , especially when there are Lightnings and Classified out which imo are the best custom cards on the market.

 

[N3M3515]

True, you can get an factory OCed 670 which costs less and is not much slower than the 7970GHz edition nor the 680 but we are not talking about that.

What we are talking about is which is the best card at around the $500 mark and i simply can't agree that it's the 7970 GHz which is just an OCed version of the normal 7970, not when you can get a Factory OCed GTX 680 at around the same price, with better performance and less noise/temperature levels. It's simple logic actually, nothing more, nothing less.

For all intends and purpouses Ghz is a reference card
reference vs reference

oc vs oc:
This and this settles it then?
Still, imho best deal of those two is the 7970, same perf, 80 bucks less

 

[HellasVagabond]

For all intends and purpouses Ghz is a reference card
reference vs reference

oc vs oc:
This and this settles it then?
Still, imho best deal of those two is the 7970, same perf, 80 bucks less

Reference cooler or not the card is just an OCed 7970, that's all that really matters. And then we also have the price which is almost identical with the ones for custom GTX 680's.

Why not vs this for example ?
ASUS GTX680-DC2T-2GD5 GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit ...

And again you are not talking about the GHz edition so it's off-topic. Custom 7970's have been around for months and still can't surpass custom GTX 680's (just like with reference vs reference).

 

[Athlon2K15]

depends on the benchmark no?

 

[HellasVagabond]

Well if you use DIRT for example and generally games that are "sponsored" by either camp yes but generally with "neutral" games NV is slightly faster. That's also why AMD rushed to release the GHz edition, let's not forget that.

 

[N3M3515]

Reference cooler or not the card is just an OCed 7970, that's all that really matters. And then we also have the price which is almost identical with the ones for custom GTX 680's.

Why not vs this for example ?
ASUS GTX680-DC2T-2GD5 GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit ...

And again you are not talking about the GHz edition so it's off-topic. Custom 7970's have been around for months and still can't surpass custom GTX 680's (just like with reference vs reference).

That asus costs 70 bucks more, perf wise the same and don't forget Ghz edition is reference, it's not about you opinion if it is or not man....

 

[HellasVagabond]

It's a reference OCed edition. If you are so concerned about custom coolers go ahead and compare it to the link you gave of the EVGA SC which is also a reference OCed GTX 680. It's still a no-win situation performance-wise and the reference cooler of the GTX 680 is still a lot quieter.
Like i said simple logic, nothing more.

 

[ValenOne]

Well if you use DIRT for example and generally games that are "sponsored" by either camp yes but generally with "neutral" games NV is slightly faster. That's also why AMD rushed to release the GHz edition, let's not forget that.

On GK104's SMX unit, 192 cores shares 256KB register storage and 64KB cache/buffer.

On AMD GCN's CU (compute unit), 64 cores shares 64KB local data storage(LDS) + 16KB cache. Each CU has a total of 256KB register storage.

AMD Radeon HD 7970 has better support for GpGPU(compute shader) i.e. less cores for a given storage.

 

[HellasVagabond]

You can never compare different architectures just by looking at the specifications sheet. It's like when someone compares GPU clocks and thinks they matter.

As for compute power i said it before, you can purchase a prev. generation with more power compared to the new gen cards by both camps.

 

[pantherx12]

Not for AMD the 7xxxx cards absolutely wipe the floor with their older cards.

Unless I've misread what your trying to say.

 

[HellasVagabond]

Well i have yet to see a full comparison including the latest GTX 6xx / 7xxx series in terms of compute power but last time i checked it myself the GTX 570/580/590 wiped the floor with the HD 6xxx series so i think they would also do the same with the 7xxx series, unless AMD managed to increase their performance by 200-400%.

 

[raghu78]

Well i have yet to see a full comparison including the latest GTX 6xx / 7xxx series in terms of compute power but last time i checked it myself the GTX 570/580/590 wiped the floor with the HD 6xxx series so i think they would also do the same with the 7xxx series, unless AMD managed to increase their performance by 200-400%.

lets just say Nvidia doesn't stand a chance if you are talking about compute performance. AMD is the only high end compute + gaming chip in town.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6025/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-catching-up-to-gtx-680/14

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-benchmark,3232-14.html

 

[atikkur]

lets just say Nvidia doesn't stand a chance if you are talking about compute performance. AMD is the only high end compute + gaming chip in town.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6025/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-catching-up-to-gtx-680/14

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-benchmark,3232-14.html

that's true.. but please remember, in gaming compute it only utilizes fp32 or hardly uses fp64,, which is nvidias fp32 compute performance is still not way too behind of radeons. so i guess, there is nothing too lose of kepplers or any nvidias compute gaming. it is just how nvidia has big advantage in tesselation, and radeon (now) has big advantage in compute... it is draw.

 

[HellasVagabond]

lets just say Nvidia doesn't stand a chance if you are talking about compute performance. AMD is the only high end compute + gaming chip in town.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6025/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-catching-up-to-gtx-680/14

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-benchmark,3232-14.html

You do realize that the "comparison" you are showing here is flawed in many ways right ?
1st I doubt they used the latest drivers for the GTX5xx series, naturally that is since there's no way they still have the samples and even if they did it would take too much time to do benchmarks all over again.
2nd In some charts we see the GTX570/580 but in None do we see the GTX590.
3rd In other charts we don't even see the GTX5xx series.

Aside these flaws however it seems to me that even the GTX580 is doing extremely well even against the 7970GHz Edition and we are talking about a card with already almost 2 years in the market.
Regardless i really doubt there's a faster compute card than the GTX590 right now so i can't understand your last statement. Unless of course you speak about a single chip card.