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7970 overclocked vs a gtx 670 overlocked?

50K views 238 replies 47 participants last post by  Penryn 
#1 ·
Hey guys, here I am going back for another "needly" of more information.
Just found out that the GTX 670 are like 50-70 dollar cheaper on newegg.
I was actually been leaning towards a Sapphire 7970 OC edition but then I've been reading SO MUCH different threads from other sites, and they said GTX 670 would be a better choice.
I'm planning on overclocking which ever card i am going to get, BUT only on its stock voltage. Most people who got a Sapphire 7970 OC edition oc'd it at 1125/1575 which is easy on any 7970 cards. Some got it to 1200/1600, that I think is cause by the Dual Bios that they have on this card but I have no further info whether this is overclock at stock voltage.
On other threads and reviews, I see GTX 670 overclocking its core clock more than 1200mhz O.O (omg). Though, I don't fully understand this overclocked, Boost overclock ***** Nvidia on their card. I haven't used any Nvidia cards after I sold my GTS 250 =.= . Those people on those threads/reviews say that it will out perform the 7970 even if they are both overclocked.. None of those threads/reviews showed any information whether both cards are overclocked on stock voltage, so I assume they have it overclocked at its MAX and probably the voltage are also overclocked too.

I mostly play BF3 @1080p, I see even at stock GTX 670 has better performance on this game. Though, I don't want it to be able to perform well on 1 or 2 games. I want it to at least perform every game, new generation games or this generation games and that's what the benchmarks for the 7970s are showing me.

I have two links of both cards I'm planning on getting:
7970 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982
670 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423

First, I want to know what we ca expect on a safe overclock @stock voltage for the 7970? is this going to out perform the gtx 670? is it worth the 50-70dollar difference?
2: is the 670 can out perform the overclocking setting of the 7970 when it is also overclock? I've other reviews saying it overclocks 1200+, 1300mhz.. I still cannot believe that!?
Where can i find an information that says when both are overclocked at it stock, one of these cards are going to perform better overall? or at least an info relative to that.

FYI: I'm not really sure how important it is for me the features of the cards, (though the 1gb additional on the AMD will be helpful in near future but I think I'll be upgrading to the newest card at that time..next year
tongue.gif
) those adaptive vsync, or 3D, I never touched any features on any of my cards except overclocking it. (that can be a feature too, right?)

I hope my point on this thread is clear, even though I really have bad sentence structure which leads to my lack of education of grammar.
TBH, I am quite an AMD/ATI fan, since I really have never encountered any issues, except that it was really hard to overclock an AMD Phenom II 1090T CPU.. for it was.

just to make sure, the important thing i wanted to know how much both perform when overclocked without any change on the voltage! XD
 
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#2 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by beastmith View Post

Hey guys, here I am going back for another "needly" of more information.
Just found out that the GTX 670 are like 50-70 dollar cheaper on newegg.
I was actually been leaning towards a Sapphire 7970 OC edition but then I've been reading SO MUCH different threads from other sites, and they said GTX 670 would be a better choice.
I'm planning on overclocking which ever card i am going to get, BUT only on its stock voltage. Most people who got a Sapphire 7970 OC edition oc'd it at 1125/1575 which is easy on any 7970 cards. Some got it to 1200/1600, that I think is cause by the Dual Bios that they have on this card but I have no further info whether this is overclock at stock voltage.
On other threads and reviews, I see GTX 670 overclocking its core clock more than 1200mhz O.O (omg). Though, I don't fully understand this overclocked, Boost overclock ***** Nvidia on their card. I haven't used any Nvidia cards after I sold my GTS 250 =.= . Those people on those threads/reviews say that it will out perform the 7970 even if they are both overclocked.. None of those threads/reviews showed any information whether both cards are overclocked on stock voltage, so I assume they have it overclocked at its MAX and probably the voltage are also overclocked too.
I mostly play BF3 @1080p, I see even at stock GTX 670 has better performance on this game. Though, I don't want it to be able to perform well on 1 or 2 games. I want it to at least perform every game, new generation games or this generation games and that's what the benchmarks for the 7970s are showing me.
I have two links of both cards I'm planning on getting:
7970 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982
670 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423
First, I want to know what we ca expect on a safe overclock @stock voltage for the 7970? is this going to out perform the gtx 670? is it worth the 50-70dollar difference?
2: is the 670 can out perform the overclocking setting of the 7970 when it is also overclock? I've other reviews saying it overclocks 1200+, 1300mhz.. I still cannot believe that!?
Where can i find an information that says when both are overclocked at it stock, one of these cards are going to perform better overall? or at least an info relative to that.
FYI: I'm not really sure how important it is for me the features of the cards, (though the 1gb additional on the AMD will be helpful in near future but I think I'll be upgrading to the newest card at that time..next year
tongue.gif
) those adaptive vsync, or 3D, I never touched any features on any of my cards except overclocking it. (that can be a feature too, right?)
I hope my point on this thread is clear, even though I really have bad sentence structure which leads to my lack of education of grammar.
TBH, I am quite an AMD/ATI fan, since I really have never encountered any issues, except that it was really hard to overclock an AMD Phenom II 1090T CPU.. for it was.
just to make sure, the important thing i wanted to know how much both perform when overclocked without any change on the voltage! XD
If you like to play BF3 then get the GTX 670, that particular Gigabyte model seems to be one of the better ones around for overclocking and the cooler is awesome. There is a thread floating around on these forums with a lot of owners of that particular GTX 670 which are doing over 1300mhz core rock stable.

Over all the edge will go to the GTX 670 as long as you are gaming at 1920X1200 below and honestly Nvidia's driver support is much better as well.
 
#3 ·
Honestly I would just get whichever is cheaper. The gtx 670 is going to be better for BF3 and the two cards are going to be within 5% of each other depending on the game as some games favor AMD cards and some favor Nvidia cards.

As for overclocking, it is pretty much just luck. You are just playing the silicon lottery. You can have two identical 7970's or 670's and one could max out at 1150mhz and the other 1300mhz. Every chip overclocks different.

Although I believe the gtx 670 would overclock better on stock voltage. This is because I've seen many 1200-1300mhz gtx 670's and that has to be on stock voltage as gtx 670's do not have voltage control, so you cannot increase the voltage without hard modding the card.
 
#4 ·
In before the war of benchmarks....

Edit: Google reviews on both cards. READ a wide range of reviews, with a variety of games used.

IMHO these are the top 3 review sites: HardwareCanucks, [H]ardOCP and AnandTech. <---Check out reviews from these sites to figure out which card would be best for your needs.
thumb.gif
 
#5 ·
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by beastmith View Post

I mostly play BF3 @1080p, I see even at stock GTX 670 has better performance on this game. Though, I don't want it to be able to perform well on 1 or 2 games. I want it to at least perform every game, new generation games or this generation games and that's what the benchmarks for the the 7970s are showing me
Yeah BF3 at 1080p the edge goes to GTX 670 given that you are going to restrict yourself to stock voltage OC. So your realistic clocks on Sapphire HD 7970 are 1150 - 1200 depending on the chip you get. But throw in a wider range of games and the advantage is with the HD 7970. do the research and you will see that.
 
#7 ·
Overall hd7970 is faster than gtx670 so i vote 7970
 
#9 ·
I would love to get the gigabyte model of the 670, or maybe a 7970, but I am limited to two 6-pinpsu connectors
frown.gif
Must deal with ugly EVGA 670
frown.gif
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by beastmith View Post

What 7970 card did you buy?
Reference.
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by raghu78 View Post

Yeah BF3 at 1080p the edge goes to GTX 670 given that you are going to restrict yourself to stock voltage OC. So your realistic clocks on Sapphire HD 7970 are 1150 - 1200 depending on the chip you get. But throw in a wider range of games and the advantage is with the HD 7970. do the research and you will see that.
Its funny how even while being restricted to stock voltage that the GTX 670 can still reach a frequency just as high and most of the time even higher than a volt modded HD 7970. As for the other games you mention there are some which go to ATI and others that go to Nvidia.

Single LCD or 1920X1200 the obvious choice is a 670 or 680. Triple screens or super high res the obvious choice is a 7950 or 7970.

Drivers:
NVIDIA 304.48 Beta
AMD 12.7 Beta
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/55064-asus-gtx-680-directcu-ii-top-review-2.html
The reference GTX 680 wins nearly all benchmarks head 2 head vs the 7970/7970 GHz. While the GTX 680 DCii sweeps nearly all benchmarks in this review.( Yeah I know it's pre-overclocked)
BF3 with[/B] 4xMSAA
314
316
Batman with 4xMSAA
314
314
Crysis 2
314
317
Deus Ex
315
314
Dirt 3
316
317
Metro 2033
315
316
Shogun 2:Total War
317
316
Skyrim
311
317
Wargame: EU Escalation
315
317
The Witcher 2
315
317[/quote]

At the end of the day they are all very close trading blows with each other so imo there is no clear winner. Just pick the card that best suits your needs and consider driver support along with features.
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrehenius View Post

If you mostly play BF3, then I'd say just go with the 670, they're cheaper, can OC just as well (Luck of the draw) and they perform well at 1080p and in BF3 specifically. So no need to throw extra cash for the 7970 where you won't see much improvement on.
You seem to have a 7970 urself. How much did u get from overclocking it at stock voltage?
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobsM6S View Post

Its funny how even while being restricted to stock voltage that the GTX 670 can still reach a frequency just as high and most of the time even higher than a volt modded HD 7970. As for the other games you mention there are some which go to ATI and others that go to Nvidia. I should have known you would stick your head into this thread for the purpose of damage control.
rolleyes.gif

Single LCD or 1920X1200 the obvious choice is a 670 or 680. Triple screens or super high res the obvious choice is a 7950 or 7970.
[/quote]

There's like a 5-10% difference in performance.. but it seem 7970 can play more games if overclocked a little bit more. UGH!
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Benchmarksli View Post

Quote:
There's like a 5-10% difference in performance.. but it seem 7970 can play more games if overclocked a little bit more. UGH
Wha?
wha-smiley.png
Have you seen the benchmarks they have on Anandtech? with just GHZ version of 7970, it was on par more in performance than the GTX 680.
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by drbaltazar View Post

might need to search a bit more there is a 7970 that is 379$
Link?
proof.gif
 
#21 ·
As Arrhenius said 1080p and below Nvidia is better, higher than that or multimonitor and you want AMD.
If you're going to need compute though get the 7970 without a doubt.

Edit: Keep in mind that the 7970 Ghz edition is only available on stock coolers for the time being, once they are available on custom coolers they'll probably pull slightly ahead of 680s IMHO.

Don't forget that Nvidia's drivers are better though.
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Benchmarksli View Post

That's not why I was thrown off by your comment....BOTH of these cards regardless of overclocks absolutely kill all games currently on the market.
tongue.gif
I wanted to have a card that can outperform its competitor now, the next year or two. I haven't seen gtx 670/680 outperformed 7970 testings. Although, it was all a close call on most of the testing but it doesn't change the fact that since it beats(on most testings) the gtx 680 by a small percentage then it goes with the gtx 670 as well.
 
#25 ·
670/680/7970 are ALL pretty close in terms of performance. The 7970 pulls ahead of the 670/680 sometimes, and vice versa. IMHO, Id go for a 670 and OC it some, if you want to. Best price/performance, as how I see it.
 
#26 ·
As an owner of plenty 7970's they are beast. This generation both cards are equal. Also the gtx670 is way better deal than gtx680. For like 2-4% more performance you need to give 100$ more. For the op. You want a plug and play gpu without the need of tweaks? Then you buy gtx670. If you play 1400p or in eyefinity then just go 7970. They have more bandwidth and more raw power than nvidia's offer so 7970 is better for higher resolution.

As i read you play at 1080p. My feeling is that you dont need a high-end gpu for 1080p(except 120hz). The high-end gpu is for higher resolution setups like 1400p or 3x1 eyefinity/surround. My mate wanted to buy a gtx670 with monitor@1080p. He finally bought a 7850 with a lot less money and overclock this beast and he cap 60 fps in all games (in some with drop some settings but nothing so low). My suggestion for 1080p is ati:7850/7870 nvidia:w8 for gtx660
 
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