bodyboarder
Member
Glad I've held off.
Diamond AMD Radeon HD 7970's are going for $479.99, with a 20$ rebate you can get them for $459.99.
I might have to jump in again. But my 6950 isn't really getting a workout with most of my games. idk.
maybe you're not playing the right games![]()
I'd consider that if I hadn't just popped in another 5850 for crossfire for $99. Overclocked to 875/1200 on both and I'm scoring better than a stock 7970 in just about everything.Diamond AMD Radeon HD 7970's are going for $479.99, with a 20$ rebate you can get them for $459.99.
And in stock. Your turn Nvidia.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161399
$449 for a 7970.
$459 on newegg.ca no rebate as well.
You are right, I should have rephrased that.I disagree, everybody likes to compare 7970 to 670, but 7970 when fully overclocked battles well with a 680 and is cheaper (there is currently a 7970 on newegg for $435 after rebate), plus comes with an extra 1GB of RAM.
Basically people point at the 7970 but neglect that 670 also makes 680 a bad deal by the same token. Or put another way, people dont compare 7970 to 680.
In the link I posted, the 1075 7970 beats the 670 in 14 out of 20 tests, (whereas it only won 9/20 at 925), so at least this should make it more clear to people 7970's strengths. Too many people just look at stock benchmarks and who has the longer bars, that's why boost was such a devilish idea for nvidia since stock now=auto overclocked for them, and it also allows the usual review site cherry picking chips to have a bigger effect on reviews (EG, picking chips that boost higher=better stock benches, whereas before cherry picking only effected overclocking).
As for 7950, yes when overclocked it supposedly makes a monster chip, near 7970 levels. With 7970 prices falling though it's less compelling.
My dream was AMD to officially drop the 7950 to 350 or so because of 670, then we might see some near 300 AR in time, and that would have been tremendous value. It hasnt happened as much as I expected though (though to be fair checking just now I see one for $340 after rebate, most of them still hang near $390)
needs more cooling
Apparently Tahiti v2 is coming with really low voltage and stock clocks of 1.1GHz. Also powering the 7990.
So are you saying there's going to be a refresh of the 7800 line coming soon too?
So are you saying there's going to be a refresh of the 7800 line coming soon too?
Yes. If anything I expect to see downward price adjustments on the 7800 series once Tahiti v1 (7970 @ 925MHz & 7950 @ 800MHz) get price cuts/rebrands.IIRC Dave Baumann said on B3D that these optimizations already found their way into the first Pitcairn and Cape Verde chips, it was only too late for Tahiti.
Rather than simply replacing the original Radeon HD 7970, AMD sees its 1000+ MHz model coexisting. Prices are going to start at $500, the company says, and were assuming that covers the reference-class board. Cards with aftermarket cooling will almost certainly cost more. Expect to start seeing availability next week, with broader supply rolling in the week after.
Again, AMDs factory cooler is disturbingly loud, so avoid that. But if board partners can tack on more interesting solutions, like the ones we saw in our Radeon HD 7950 round-up, and still manage to keep prices close to $500, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition will take its place in front of the GeForce GTX 680.
Here's the rub, though. In a world without GeForce GTX 670, Nvidias 680 might still be on our radar, and wed have a proper grudge match on our hands in the high-end space. Thats simply not the case anymore, though. Today, there are other high-end GPUs that offer nearly as much performance at much more attractive prices, dissuading us from either companys single-GPU flagship.
We already know that GeForce GTX 670 performs within a few percentage points of 680, and for $100 less. Moreover, once Catalyst 12.7 goes public and puts the older 7970 in the same league as GeForce GTX 680, itd simply make more sense to save the $50 and do a little overclocking of your own. Shoot, I have two retail 7970s here that both hit the core frequency limiter in Overdrive at 1125 MHz, and have no troubling achieving the same 1500 MHz memory settings as the GHz Edition card.
Theres no guarantee that 7970s will continue overclocking as well as they have been, particularly now that AMD is saving the top-binned ASICs for this new model. However, wed rather save some money and come close. For that reason, the original Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 670 remain our favorite gaming graphics cards.
6 years is a long time to wait, but patience, perseverance, and more than a few snub moves against NVIDIA have paid off for AMD. For the first time in 6 years we can say that AMD is truly competitive for the single-GPU performance crown. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition isnt quite fast enough to outright win, but it is unquestionably fast enough to tie the GeForce GTX 680 as the fastest single-GPU video card in the world today.
With that said, AMD has made a great sacrifice to get to this point, and its one thats going to directly impact most users. AMD has had to push the 7970GE harder than ever to catch up to the GTX 680, and as a result the 7970GEs power consumption and noise levels are significantly higher than the GTX 680s. Its unfortunate for AMD that NVIDIA managed to tie AMDs best gaming performance with a 104-series part, allowing them to reap the benefits of lower power consumption and less noise in the process. Simply put, the 7970GE is unquestionably hotter and uncomfortably louder than the GTX 680 for what amounts to the same performance. If power and noise are not a concern then this is not a problem, but for many buyers they're going to be unhappy with the 7970GE. Its just too loud.
Of course this isnt the first time weve had a hot & loud card on our hands historically it happens to NVIDIA a lot but when NVIDIA gets hot & loud they bring the performance necessary to match it. Such was the case with the GTX 480, a notably loud card that also had a 15% performance advantage on AMDs flagship. AMD has no such performance advantage here, and that makes the 7970GEs power consumption and noise much harder to justify even with a performance at any cost philosophy.
The end result is that while AMD has tied NVIDIA for the single-GPU performance crown with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the GeForce GTX 680 is still the more desirable gaming card. There are a million exceptions to this statement of course (and it goes both ways), but as we said before, these cards may be tied but they're anything but equal.
Noise issues aside, were finally seeing something that we havent seen for a very long time: bona fide, cut throat, brutal competition in the high-end video card segment for the fastest single-GPU video card. To call it refreshing is an understatement; its nothing short of fantastic. For the first time in 6 years AMD is truly performance competitive with NVIDIA at the high-end and we couldn't be happier.
Welcome back to the fight AMD; weve missed your presence.
7970ghz sounds beast, but stock cards seem fucked as hell cooling wise. Going to wait for some custom ones. 6970 still serve me well though.
They really need to improve those stock layouts. Is nvidia as bad as amd this regard? I mean, that fan is TINY for that card, what the hell.
The cooler on the 670 was embarrassingly poor.
I have the same setup. In my experience CF either works perfectly (~2x scaling) or basically not at all (no scaling or negative scaling). Doubling framerates in BF3 for less than a c note was pretty nice.I'd consider that if I hadn't just popped in another 5850 for crossfire for $99. Overclocked to 875/1200 on both and I'm scoring better than a stock 7970 in just about everything.
EDIT: I should mention that I'm also going to post a mini-review soon on the state of crossfire today with this series of cards. I can tell you right now from preliminary estimates, that scaling has come a long way since these cards were first reviewed. Just about every scenario I've tested is very close to 2x now with new drivers and the latest application profiles. AMD would probably rather hide this little known fact.
Only two major problems I've run into thus far have been Crysis 2 not working with MSAA and crossfire, and the Sapphire Extreme card I added can't be voltage adjusted without flashing the BIOS. Otherwise, it has been a real pleasure to double performance on the cheap.
When the heck do you need that much?![]()