NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Kepler 2 GB

[kzinti1]

So the best overclocking tool will be watercooling?
Is there any mention of dynamic overclocking being fully (and immovably) integrated into later editions of these 680's?
Or will the later editions of these cards, perhaps, be more manual OC friendly?
I can't help but think of the GTX 680 as being the same as going from a manual, stick-shift car to one with an automatic transmission. I prefer to change gears when I decide to, not when the car decides it's time.
This is what the auto-OCing of these videocards feels like to me.
Except, it also has a governor limiting the voltage, like a governor limiting the fuel going through a carburetor.
I don't want Nvidia telling me when, or even if, I can OC my videocards as I like. The same way that they screwed up the GTX 590's by mandating a set maximum voltage.
If this is the future of OCing videocards, then I think it sucks!

 

[Fairlady-z]

So the best overclocking tool will be watercooling?
Is there any mention of dynamic overclocking being fully (and immovably) integrated into later editions of these 680's?
Or will the later editions of these cards, perhaps, be more manual OC friendly?
I can't help but think of the GTX 680 as being the same as going from a manual, stick-shift car to one with an automatic transmission. I prefer to change gears when I decide to, not when the car decides it's time.
This is what the auto-OCing of these videocards feels like to me.
Except, it also has a governor limiting the voltage, like a governor limiting the fuel going through a carburetor.
I don't want Nvidia telling me when, or even if, I can OC my videocards as I like. The same way that they screwed up the GTX 590's by mandating a set maximum voltage.
If this is the future of OCing videocards, then I think it sucks!

I can see what your saying, but honestly OC'ing has been pretty easy for me and stable to boot. Over all very happy with the out comes I get 10945 score single card on 3Dmark11 which is pretty good considering highest I got out of my 7970s 9222.

 

[kzinti1]

Thanks. I guess I'm just not the least bit familiar with this new style of OCing.
Hopefully, it'll make more sense when these 2 cards arrive and I can work with them.
In the review, heat was mentioned as being a limiting factor, so I'm already looking for some decent water blocks.
EK has some, but they're ugly as sin. Also, EK's electroplating process is still low quality.
Even though the materials they have chosen to use are almost perfect, the thickness of the plating is far too thin.

 

[Am*]

You should read in to it a bit more Am*... the lack of knowledge on the subject precedes your post.

Enlighten me.

And before you continue to mindlessly argue a point you obviously know nothing about, I'll point you to the review of the HD6970 where the power throttling is clearly explained to you.

From YOUR OWN quote:

AMD has added options to CCC for the user to adjust the power limit in two directions which helps the underclocking/power saving crowd and the enthusiasts; NVIDIA has no option for control of their power limiting system

This is what caused problems with every Fermi card for ages on certain games (proved by the fact that games like BFBC2 took a big hit from this throttling while AMD's didn't) until they tweaked the drivers. Please continue to "mindlessly argue a point you obviously know nothing about".

AMD has their own driver problems but at least they don't suffer from the hardware throttling that the Nvidia cards have, and give you the option to disable it, as it stops a lot of potential headaches with older games that freak out during clockrate changes. That's all I've been trying to say from the start, if the Nvidia drivers had the option to disable the throttling, I'd have no problem whatsoever with it or any of their cards.

Yeah I think Am* is living in lalaland. I fail to see how AMD doing a guesswork rather than a direct power consumption measurement, is in any way better. Neither worse the way it is implemented, but it makes no difference.

Also it's all a moot point when you can set the slide to +32% so that it's absolutely imposible to hit the limit and the performance difference is 1-2% anyway. It's not trottling too much if at all at default settings. In fact that 1-2% could come from the gains from GPU Boost reaching higher heights, rather than being something the GPU "regains back" from not being trottled.

AGAIN, it DOES make a big difference until the drivers mature, which will take forever (anywhere between 8 months to 2 years, if not more). Without an option to turn off the power throttling, it is and no doubt will be a problem for a while, and your overclock will not fix it if the game is not exceeding the thresh hold usage of the GPU (it will actually make it worse), until they tweak the majority of their game setting profiles in the drivers...

 

[Anath]

Just a heads up for those of you looking to pick up a GTX680. Prices will be going up. I just got off the phone with several of my distributors, one distributor wont even sell to me because they were told by Nvidia to only sell to specific distributors until the second week of April. The other distributors have the MSRP price of around $575-$580. I just ordered a batch which should be in next week but the price i paid was higher than the $499 price they were originally going for.

 

[Am*]

Just a heads up for those of you looking to pick up a GTX680. Prices will be going up. I just got off the phone with several of my distributors, one distributor wont even sell to me because they were told by Nvidia to only sell to specific distributors until the second week of April. The other distributors have the MSRP price of around $575-$580. I just ordered a batch which should be in next week but the price i paid was higher than the $499 price they were originally going for.

That's probably Nvidia's way of asking AMD to kindly drop the prices.

 

[kzinti1]

Just a heads up for those of you looking to pick up a GTX680. Prices will be going up. I just got off the phone with several of my distributors, one distributor wont even sell to me because they were told by Nvidia to only sell to specific distributors until the second week of April. The other distributors have the MSRP price of around $575-$580. I just ordered a batch which should be in next week but the price i paid was higher than the $499 price they were originally going for.

A further sign that Nvidia wants to make every penny it can off of these GTX 680- MID-Level videocards, before the better ones start showing up in a couple of months.
At the same time, Nvidia is trying to get people used to the idea of having to pay a very steep premium to buy these newer, faster cards when they do arrive.
While I don't like it, it's a very good business plan. 1st, sell these mid-level cards at the price of what's supposed to be a top-level card. This is to make these cards seem to be more than they actually are and to make a killing on them at the outset.
It also forces AMD to reconsider their own pricing structure and make it appear as if AMD is actually ripping its own customers off, planting the seed of mistrust in AMD's customers, driving down AMD's share of the videocard market and converting quite a few of their customers to Nvidia.
Next, raise the prices of these 680's, making it appear as if there's some kind of shortage, making even more people think that they'd best buy these cards while they still can. Yet another premium over an already overpriced, less than the best, videocard.
Wait a month or two, bring out the real top performing cards, reduce the present 680's to todays level of around $500, where Nvidia is still making a killing, and charge $600 to $800 for the new, actual top-level cards.
It's so obvious what Nvidia is doing I'm surprised no mention has been made of it before. Especially by main-stream review sites such as TPU.
Extremely dirty pool, Nvidia! Even though, at the same time, I'm quite impressed at the simplicity and guaranteed success of your plan.
IF, your newer cards coming out within a couple of months are worth what you think they'll be, of course. I think your plan is well worth the gamble inherent in such a scheme. If it works, you'll have forever crushed AMD. Possibly even putting them completely out of business.
Bravo!

 

[sergionography]

That's probably Nvidia's way of asking AMD to kindly drop the prices.

more like their way of saying "AMD we r better than you, y u not recognize??" lol

 

[kzinti1]

They already know Nvidia will always be able to beat them.
Just as AMD knows that they're fighting a losing battle against Intel.
It's really a shame, all around. Everybody, especially the consumers, will never, ever get the best possible equipment.
Intel and Nvidia has no reason to do the best they possibly can since they have exactly zero competition.
Everything everybody offers for sale has already been beat, on paper.
The only thing Nvidia and Intel has to do is to go into production and publicly humiliate AMD with overwhelmingly superior products.
RIP, AMD. :shadedshu

 

[N3M3515]

They already know Nvidia will always be able to beat them.
Just as AMD knows that they're fighting a losing battle against Intel.
It's really a shame, all around. Everybody, especially the consumers, will never, ever get the best possible equipment.
Intel and Nvidia has no reason to do the best they possibly can since they have exactly zero competition.
Everything everybody offers for sale has already been beat, on paper.
The only thing Nvidia and Intel has to do is to go into production and publicly humiliate AMD with overwhelmingly superior products.
RIP, AMD. :shadedshu

Do you even remember Radeon 9700 ?? LOL
You think nvidia has always had the better performing card? LOL
Ati being a MUCH smaller company than nvidia, put the Geforce Ti4600 to shame with the Radeon 9700, and from there ati had always the better performing single gpu card until Geforce 8 series arrived.
9700 pro > Ti 4600 http://www.anandtech.com/show/970 (lol, with aa and as it was like 100% better sometimes more)
9800 pro > 5800 Ultra http://www.guru3d.com/article/3d-prophet-radeon-9800-pro-review/
9800XT > 5950 Ultra http://www.anandtech.com/show/1174/60 / http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-radeon-9800-xt-review/17
X800XT PE> 6800 Ultra http://www.anandtech.com/show/1314/11
X1800XT > 7800 GTX http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/r520reviewxvxv/conclusion.htm
X1950XTX > 7900 GTX http://www.anandtech.com/show/2069/14

So, if they did that back then of course they can do that again and then after a while will again be nvidia on top and......i think you get it.

And don't get me started with amd cpu's...

 

[kzinti1]

I'm not concerned with ancient history. Today and tomorrow are all that counts as far as computers are concerned.
You obviously should realize this.
You should also quit looking behind you. Keep your eyes to the front and on the prize.

 

[N3M3515]

I'm not concerned with ancient history. Today and tomorrow are all that counts as far as computers are concerned.
You obviously should realize this.
You should also quit looking behind you. Keep your eyes to the front and on the prize.

Obviously you don't have any idea of the purpose of my post, so, i suggest not to talk of what you don't know.

Ancient history?

Bottom line: AMD, can design a better card(maybe next series), and for all of our sakes they must, or you want only one graphic cards company?
They have more resources than the first time they did.

 

[sergionography]

They already know Nvidia will always be able to beat them.
Just as AMD knows that they're fighting a losing battle against Intel.
It's really a shame, all around. Everybody, especially the consumers, will never, ever get the best possible equipment.
Intel and Nvidia has no reason to do the best they possibly can since they have exactly zero competition.
Everything everybody offers for sale has already been beat, on paper.
The only thing Nvidia and Intel has to do is to go into production and publicly humiliate AMD with overwhelmingly superior products.
RIP, AMD. :shadedshu

what in the world are you talking about?? 3 month of extra time after AMD release to come up with 6% better performance on average for gaming but with weaker compute capabilities and weaker scaling, how on earth is that humiliating AMD LOL
AMD is still very much in the game, even against Intel, maybe not in Raw x86 performance but they have the edge in multimedia and the apus and are sure giving Intel a run for its money.
Not to mention both upcoming Xbox and ps4 will use AMD based solutions with ps4 being an AMD apu with gcn, just imagine how much advantage AMD. Will have when console ports were amd based from the start, hardware isn't always everything you know, its about creating a whole ecosystem, amd has always been good at that, remember when they introduced x86-64 as we know it today?well lets just say the whole industry followed and AMD. Was the leader in that aspect

 

[xenocide]

what in the world are you talking about?? 3 month of extra time after AMD release to come up with 6% better performance on average for gaming but with weaker compute capabilities and weaker scaling, how on earth is that humiliating AMD LOL

When it's priced lower, runs quieter, runs cooler, and uses less power, it's a pretty big upset. It beats AMD in everything but Compute, which a fraction of even the enthusiast market needs. By your own definition the HD7970 is a one trick pony--Compute. Do you really want to pay $75 more for a card that is better in Compute tasks alone? As well as eating more Power, running several degrees hotter, and is louder? I don't.

AMD is still very much in the game, even against Intel, maybe not in Raw x86 performance but they have the edge in multimedia and the apus and are sure giving Intel a run for its money.

What multimedia? The i7-2600k beats the FX-8150 in everything but 7-Zip. As you go down the line the FX-6xxx series is vastly inferior to the i5 lineup, and the FX-4xxx series is--to be honest--awful. APU's are AMD's only real competitive market. Intel is expanding into the Mobile market as well, something AMD still has no answer to, and with their manufacturing capabilities, will be able to conquer that in I'd say 2-3 years time. AMD isn't on life support, but they are hardly a dominating force. Their only competitive CPU's are basically propped up by their GPU's.

Not to mention both upcoming Xbox and ps4 will use AMD based solutions with ps4 being an AMD apu with gcn, just imagine how much advantage AMD. Will have when console ports were amd based from the start, hardware isn't always everything you know, its about creating a whole ecosystem, amd has always been good at that, remember when they introduced x86-64 as we know it today?well lets just say the whole industry followed and AMD. Was the leader in that aspect

Rumors are not facts. The rumors are full of tons of holes. I have severe doubts both companies are trying to crush the used game market like they are alleged to, and although I love the idea, I am not sure an x86-based console is the cards for Sony, I know they are having... disagreements with IBM, but I don't know that they will abandon PowerPC-based consoles entirely. I'm pretty sure that would make backwards compatibility with PS3 games near impossible, and that would severely cripple them out of the gates.

AMD cannot ride their one major victory forever. Yes, Athlon 64 and the introduction of x86-64 was a huge accomplishment, but that was what? Almost a decade ago? What huge innovations have they done since that? They were poised to capitalize and never managed to do it. They were offering superior products, that were years ahead of Intel, at lower price points for a couple years back then. They should have been able to ride that momentum way better than they did.

But we're all getting derailed here. This is about the Nvidia GeForce GTX680, which is in fact a phenomenal card.

 

[RigRebel]

i dont think they mean clock for clock, i think what they mean is how much performance can you squeeze out of both cards for the end user who is interested in overclocking.
im not sure on the top overclocks records but i know some people got real high overclocks with the hd7970.
of about 1180 or something, so while that is still lower than kepler, it is like 20% from stock, 1340 for kepler is also about 20% off from stock(since kepler already clocks to 1100 when needed) yet it doesnt scale well(because overclocking kepler is complex and it pretty much makes the max boast 1340 rather than making it native)
but i get what you mean tho, there is no such thing as "fair"
nvidia did a clever move to get as much power out of the envelope as possible, and they did a darn good job, not to mention how handy that will be for oems who are on a restricted thermal/power envelope for laptops and what not.
having oems and power restrictions in mind its interesting tho to see how both teams had their approach to efficiency and battery life, amd pushing for max idle time with zero power, and nvidia pushing for different power states and turbo and what not(and it makes sense since nvidia for the most part always gets paired with an intel cpu that has a integrated gpu for low power. meaning nvidia's optimus does the job for them)

EDIT: i just came across these 2 benchmarks of both cards maxed out with their clocks
my conclusion was somewhat correct, hd7970 gains more momentum when overclocked

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx680/6.htm

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/powercolor_lcs_hd7970/7.htm

i specifically posted the links on the battlefield because nvidia seemed to have an edge in that game, but overclocked they match eachother, even tho nvidia is clocked at 1300 something while amd is in the 1200 range.


http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx680/5.htm

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/powercolor_lcs_hd7970/6.htm

same thing going on with arkam city

tho i would take this with a grain of salt because im not sure how legit this website is, but what do you think?

And yet another AMD vs NVIDIA thing...........

Guys, please be more carefully and read fully when quoting me.. I said "I've read and the first one. said same thing but went on to further say something like "the only fair way to tell is to compare clock to clock"
I said I read a couple of reviews about it.. .the "clock for clock" refers to the first article I read. Also in that ariclet they say they turned off the Nvidia turbo or something to that nature. And that's the same one I first saw that showed the 3-way and 4-way sli figures with the xfire beating it. My co-worker showed it to me and sent me the link to my work email I belive. I don' t remember where the article was from he found it not me. I think I have the link at work. If I can find it i'll post it.

PS N3M3515... it's the search for the truth thing for me and the truth is AMD hates to admit when they're wrong or when they've been beat and the AMD crowd loves to think that the GNC thing is AMDs crowning jewel and huge victory over Nvidia when in fact it's nothing more than a re-vamped Fermi; but, Kepler is a Fermi/GNC hybrid so there technology evolves no biggy but at least I can call it like it is unlike some AMD fan boys and start saying "yeah the 7970 is the best single fastest processor" before Nvidia even had the time to bring their next gen GPU to the table. The 7000 was next gen so AMD should have waited for Nvidia's next gen 600s to show up before they went around bragging cause uh.. what now ? lol

If it's an AMD vs Nvidia thing it's cause AMD fans think they are the rebel forces and Nvidia the big bad evil tyrant and personally I believe Nvidia is not the Darkside.
Sorry for late posts.. .rather busy lately.
PSS> Doesn't surprise me the GTX 680 is not as scalable, neither was the 580 or 570. The 560 was the SLI beast on scalability IMO and the 660 or 660ti is the one I'm planing for
No I didn't read much of your post today either but I'm only commenting on the parts were you replied about my post so there lol jk. ... swamped about to transfer data and wipe drive as we speak. peace

 

[N3M3515]

PS N3M3515... it's the search for the truth thing for me and the truth is AMD hates to admit when they're wrong or when they've been beat and the AMD crowd loves to think that the GNC thing is AMDs crowning jewel and huge victory over Nvidia when in fact it's nothing more than a re-vamped Fermi; but, Kepler is a Fermi/GNC hybrid so there technology evolves no biggy but at least I can call it like it is unlike some AMD fan boys and start saying "yeah the 7970 is the best single fastest processor" before Nvidia even had the time to bring their next gen GPU to the table. The 7000 was next gen so AMD should have waited for Nvidia's next gen 600s to show up before they went around bragging cause uh.. what now ? lol

If it's an AMD vs Nvidia thing it's cause AMD fans think they are the rebel forces and Nvidia the big bad evil tyrant and personally I believe Nvidia is not the Darkside.

fyi, nor nvidia or amd like to admit defeat ....duh!
if it's an amd vs nvidia blah blah blah, both sides always come up with idiotic fanatical stuff to defend their brand......that's old news, it's not exclusive to any brand they both do the same thing, what every fanboy should try is OBJETIVITY.

cheers

 

[RigRebel]

fyi, nor nvidia or amd like to admit defeat ....duh!
if it's an amd vs nvidia blah blah blah, both sides always come up with idiotic fanatical stuff to defend their brand......that's old news, it's not exclusive to any brand they both do the same thing, what every fanboy should try is OBJETIVITY.

cheers

EXACTLY, which is why I simply point out the truth when the AMD side wants to over exaggerate...Duh ! you're not telling me anything I don't know. I had AMD in the day. I thought the K5, the Duron and the K-7 thunderbird was awesome. I even had an old 2600 pro (not a great card but nice) back in the day. I leaned more to the 500 series because it had better tessellations. I'm not even opposed to owning AMD now if they can show me something better in the same category and same price I'd buy it... Right now for me though, the GTX 600 "possibly" looks like a the best platform for me and' I'm waiting on the 660 cards.

Ps... for someone that comments on "another forum for AMD vs Nvidia" seems like you're getting in on it or caught up in it too, perhaps on the AMD side ? Maybe that's why the multiple rants/ (snide) posts. OBECTIVITY ? lol This is actually just another case to prove my point that I mention AMD skewing things cause they can't admit defeat and now someone jumping in to defend them with articles from years ago that are off TOPIC a.k.a not related to Kepler (which is what this thread is about) and that old reviews none keeps! lol. Real objective there huh ? My posts were about Kepler (which the thread title states is the topic) and you're pulling the 9700 out the closet to defend AMD ? lol.. Objective ? Not even close. Seems like you're the one turning this into an off topic AMD vs. Nvidia thing. My posts where 100% on topic about Kepler as it relates to those reviews stated... again, OBECTIVITY?? where's yours?

Do you even remember Radeon 9700 ?? LOL
You think nvidia has always had the better performing card? LOL
Ati being a MUCH smaller company than nvidia, put the Geforce Ti4600 to shame with the Radeon 9700, and from there ati had always the better performing single gpu card until Geforce 8 series arrived.
9700 pro > Ti 4600 http://www.anandtech.com/show/970 (lol, with aa and as it was like 100% better sometimes more)
9800 pro > 5800 Ultra http://www.guru3d.com/article/3d-prophet-radeon-9800-pro-review/
9800XT > 5950 Ultra http://www.anandtech.com/show/1174/60 / http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-radeon-9800-xt-review/17
X800XT PE> 6800 Ultra http://www.anandtech.com/show/1314/11
X1800XT > 7800 GTX http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/r520reviewxvxv/conclusion.htm
X1950XTX > 7900 GTX http://www.anandtech.com/show/2069/14

So, if they did that back then of course they can do that again and then after a while will again be nvidia on top and......i think you get it.

And don't get me started with amd cpu's...

No I don't remember the 9700, must not have been worth remembering. lol
Ps AMD bulldozer CPUs suck but it's off topic. I've already posted on that s3v3ral s3v3ral pages ago. (needed a patch for single threading, FX 6100 bad batches, hyperthreading pipes so big you could fit a truck through but who cares for gaming because only 2 hyperthreading games on the market, civ 5 and Oblivion, a.k.a it's a gimic...> "the truth will set you free"> my point... yadda yadda bla bla)

 

[N3M3515]

EXACTLY, which is why I simply point out the truth when the AMD side wants to over exaggerate...Duh ! you're not telling me anything I don't know. I had AMD in the day. I thought the K5, the Duron and the K-7 thunderbird was awesome. I even had an old 2600 pro (not a great card but nice) back in the day. I leaned more to the 500 series because it had better tessellations. I'm not even opposed to owning AMD now if they can show me something better in the same category and same price I'd buy it... Right now for me though, the GTX 600 "possibly" looks like a the best platform for me and' I'm waiting on the 660 cards.

Ps... for someone that comments on "another forum for AMD vs Nvidia" seems like you're getting in on it or caught up in it too, perhaps on the AMD side ? Maybe that's why the multiple rants/ (snide) posts. OBECTIVITY ? lol This is actually just another case to prove my point that I mention AMD skewing things cause they can't admit defeat and now someone jumping in to defend them with articles from years ago that are off TOPIC a.k.a not related to Kepler (which is what this thread is about) and that old reviews none keeps! lol. Real objective there huh ? My posts were about Kepler (which the thread title states is the topic) and you're pulling the 9700 out the closet to defend AMD ? lol.. Objective ? Not even close. Seems like you're the one turning this into an off topic AMD vs. Nvidia thing. My posts where 100% on topic about Kepler as it relates to those reviews stated... again, OBECTIVITY?? where's yours?




No I don't remember the 9700, must not have been worth remembering. lol
Ps AMD bulldozer CPUs suck but it's off topic. I've already posted on that s3v3ral s3v3ral pages ago. (needed a patch for single threading, FX 6100 bad batches, hyperthreading pipes so big you could fit a truck through but who cares for gaming because only 2 hyperthreading games on the market, civ 5 and Oblivion, a.k.a it's a gimic...> "the truth will set you free"> my point... yadda yadda bla bla)

Give it a rest, you didn't understood my post.
(long story short, the dude was saying nvidia is inmortal and amd never would be able to bring a faster graphic card, so i said it is highly probable, because they have done it before and with less resources, and also i posted the evidence in the links.)
9700 not worth remembering, man you hit it out of the park LOL
GTX680 is a very good card, cheers.

 

[RigRebel]

Give it a rest, you didn't understood my post.
(long story short, the dude was saying nvidia is inmortal and amd never would be able to bring a faster graphic card, so i said it is highly probable, because they have done it before and with less resources, and also i posted the evidence in the links.)
9700 not worth remembering, man you hit it out of the park LOL
GTX680 is a very good card, cheers.

ah ok, well in that case, my appologise for taking you out of context. Agreed, I think his statement is inaccurate, can't predict that far ahead, AMD has had a good product in the past and still does although their prices need to come down to compete with Kepler atm. I will tell you back in the day (i don't know if this is still true) that because AMD (AIT at the Time) had onboard encoding and decoding versus Nvidia driver based decoding... the AMD/ATI could reach 16million colors and (although a couple frames slower) ALWAYS looked better to my eyes.

:handshake: thank you,

PS. (off topic) Hey since you seem to have a good grasp on the AMD side (no diss intended) what have you heard about an AMD PCI-E 3.0 compatible chipset ? Is one coming out yet ? Are the 7000s 3.0 compatible?

The reason why I ask is that the FX6200 is out and (although still behind the 2500k) it's priced nice and I heard the windows patch fixed single threaded gaming quite well. I'm wondering just now if they have a chipset and card that will do the 3.0 .. got a NZXT Vulcan case I don't know what to do with and I'm not going Ivy Bridge now that Hawell is due next year.
Peace. sorry for the little "competition"

 

[N3M3515]

ah ok, well in that case, my appologise for taking you out of context. Agreed, I think his statement is inaccurate, can't predict that far ahead, AMD has had a good product in the past and still does although their prices need to come down to compete with Kepler atm. I will tell you back in the day (i don't know if this is still true) that because AMD (AIT at the Time) had onboard encoding and decoding versus Nvidia driver based decoding... the AMD/ATI could reach 16million colors and (although a couple frames slower) ALWAYS looked better to my eyes.

:handshake: thank you,

PS. (off topic) Hey since you seem to have a good grasp on the AMD side (no diss intended) what have you heard about an AMD PCI-E 3.0 compatible chipset ? Is one coming out yet ? Are the 7000s 3.0 compatible?

The reason why I ask is that the FX6200 is out and (although still behind the 2500k) it's priced nice and I heard the windows patch fixed single threaded gaming quite well. I'm wondering just now if they have a chipset and card that will do the 3.0 .. got a NZXT Vulcan case I don't know what to do with and I'm not going Ivy Bridge now that Hawell is due next year.
Peace. sorry for the little "competition"

Afaik, pci express 3.0 support comes Q3 this year, and this: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-1090FX-1070-SB1060-pcie-3,13918.html
I also read, i think in hard forum, that the radeon 7xxx series have to be more than double the bandwidth of the 6xxx series cards to saturate pcie 2.0 16x. You probably will not be seeing any advantage of using pcie 3.0 over pcie 2.0 in the next generation of cards unless they can make that unlikely jump.