Graphics Dilemma! 7970 cf or 670 Sli??

[wejjy]

Ok, so I have currently got one of each of these cards in two rigs. Im consolidating though as I just want one machine. I would like to know which of these will perform better in eyefinity setups. Ive read a huge amount of reviews, but they are always using different setups to mine, or with old drivers etc, so could do with you guys sharing your honest opinion? I will buy an extra card to match my existing one to go either Sli or CF after you guys enlighten me.

I have run the 7970 in eyefinity as a single card and have to say Ive been very impressed so far, so Im leaning that way currently...

Both cards will be under water and will be OC'd. I will also be using the rig heavily for editorial work, both images and videos in CS6 so please take that into account too.

Thanks!

[bdigital]

Wouldnt the extra vram on the 7970 give it a lead over the 670 when running three screens?

[wejjy]

Originally Posted by bdigital

Wouldnt the extra vram on the 7970 give it a lead over the 670 when running three screens?

Thats what I thought, but all of the reviews Ive looked at vary massively depending on the games played so its not as cut and dry as I expected either. nVidia seem to be more efficient with their use of Vram somehow?

[fuus]

Toss a coin?

[atc95]

The 7970 is also easier to overclock compared to the 670 so I would go with that.

[rollo]

You wont be overclocking either setup on Air in SLI or Crossfire too much heat unless you can split the cards by a slot or two.

670 SLI has better support and is what id personally go for.

[wejjy]

Originally Posted by rollo

You wont be overclocking either setup on Air in SLI or Crossfire too much heat unless you can split the cards by a slot or two.

670 SLI has better support and is what id personally go for.

Both will be under water so no problems oc'ing them, when you say better support do you mean with drivers etc?

[atc95]

Originally Posted by rollo

You wont be overclocking either setup on Air in SLI or Crossfire too much heat unless you can split the cards by a slot or two.

Originally Posted by wejjy

Both cards will be under water and will be OC'd.

lol
Edit: Wejjy already said.

[true_gamer]

This is a tough call, as I find crossfire only works well in AMD optimized games. Some games like Farcry 3 gives a slight microshutter experience. Where frames rates jump up and down all over the place, and also when getting 60FPS, it doesn't feel like 60FPS. Drivers need to be more optimized in this games, to run more smoothly.

I have found from experience that SLI is better optimized, and gives a very smooth experience. Triple SLI works very well!

Running triple monitors, 2GB VRAM is just not enough if you like all the eye candy turned up.

I use the same drivers on my HD7970M's in my laptop as would you on a desktop, so the CFX profiles are all the same.
I'm running drivers 12.11 Beta11 with the latest CFX profiles. So all my finding are from using these drivers.

HD7970 CFX runs well in these games I have tested:

BF3
Max Payne 3
Hitman
Deus Ex
Alien Vs Preditor
Dirt 3
Dirt Show Down
Sleeping Dogs
Crysis 2
Just cause 2
Medal of Honour

Games I have encountered problems, microshutter, FPS jumping up and down.

Crysis - frame rates jumping up and down - Microshutter in some parts of the game.
Far Cry 3 - frame rates jumping up and down - Microshutter. 60FPS feels like 25FPS in some cases
NFS Shift 1 - Flashing textures
NFS Shift 2 - Flashing textures
Witcher 2 - Can't get it to run in CFX maxed out.

I still have a whole catalogue of games that I haven't played or tested in CFX, as I don't have the time or space to install every game. So I only keep the games installed that I play the most.

So again this is a tough call. If your budget allows you to stretch to GTX 670 4GB cards, that is where I would put my money.

As you are only comparing the GTX 670 2GB with the HD7970, I would get the cards with the most VRAM...HD7970's, as long as you ain't too bothered about the games above causing issues.

[wejjy]

Originally Posted by true_gamer

This is a tough call, as I find crossfire only works well in AMD optimized games. Some games like Farcry 3 gives a slight microshutter experience. Where frames rates jump up and down all over the place, and also when getting 60FPS, it doesn't feel like 60FPS. Drivers need to be more optimized in this games, to run more smoothly.

I have found from experience that SLI is better optimized, and gives a very smooth experience. Triple SLI works very well!

Running triple monitors, 2GB VRAM is just not enough if you like all the eye candy turned up.

I use the same drivers on my HD7970M's in my laptop as would you on a desktop, so the CFX profiles are all the same.
I'm running drivers 12.11 Beta11 with the latest CFX profiles. So all my finding are from using these drivers.

HD7970 CFX runs well in these games I have tested:

BF3
Max Payne 3
Hitman
Deus Ex
Alien Vs Preditor
Dirt 3
Dirt Show Down
Sleeping Dogs
Crysis 2
Just cause 2
Medal of Honour

Games I have encountered problems, microshutter, FPS jumping up and down.

Crysis - frame rates jumping up and down - Microshutter in some parts of the game.
Far Cry 3 - frame rates jumping up and down - Microshutter. 60FPS feels like 25FPS in some cases
NFS Shift 1 - Flashing textures
NFS Shift 2 - Flashing textures
Witcher 2 - Can't get it to run in CFX maxed out.

I still have a whole catalogue of games that I haven't played or tested in CFX, as I don't have the time or space to install every game. So I only keep the games installed that I play the most.

So again this is a tough call. If your budget allows you to stretch to GTX 670 4GB cards, that is where I would put my money.

As you are only comparing the GTX 670 2GB with the HD7970, I would get the cards with the most VRAM...HD7970's, as long as you ain't to bothered about the games above causing issues.

Thanks for taking the time to reply with that amount of detail mate, its exactly what I was looking for! I could go for the 4Gb 670's but I have a 2Gb version thats only a couple of months old, cost me nearly £400 with the block and when I asked for a price check is only worth £250 so a bit of a hit considering. The 7970 seems to be the way Im leaning at the moment, its been an awesome card oc's like mad and seems to favour my games too!

Do you know which cards would work better in CS6 by any chance as thats probably 75% of my PC's usage and will make a huge difference to my day to day work?

Hmmm hate these kind of decisions!! Thanks for replying so far guys! Super helpful!

EDIT: Could I run with one 4GB 670 for the time being and the upgrade to second when funds permit?

[true_gamer]

Originally Posted by wejjy

Thanks for taking the time to reply with that amount of detail mate, its exactly what I was looking for! I could go for the 4Gb 670's but I have a 2Gb version thats only a couple of months old, cost me nearly £400 with the block and when I asked for a price check is only worth £250 so a bit of a hit considering. The 7970 seems to be the way Im leaning at the moment, its been an awesome card oc's like mad and seems to favour my games too!

Do you know which cards would work better in CS6 by any chance as thats probably 75% of my PC's usage and will make a huge difference to my day to day work?

Hmmm hate these kind of decisions!! Thanks for replying so far guys! Super helpful!

EDIT: Could I run with one 4GB 670 for the time being and the upgrade to second when funds permit?

No worries mate.

I couldn't help you in regards of running Adobe CS6 as I don't have it. Sorry.
I'm sure other user on here will know more about that.

Cheers,

Simon.

EDIT: As to your last Edit:

You can run one 4GB GTX 670, but you will be dropping the eyecandy to medium setting with no AA in most cases.

[rollo]

Depends what your doing in adobe cs6,

Mercury, speed grade, after effects Ect run alot better on nvidia due to cuda support but it is still heavily dependent on a high end multi core CPU more than any Gpu.

[wejjy]

Since most of my work is in CS6 (dreamweaver, photoshop, after effects, prem pro etc) and thats what keeps the ££'s coming in I think its best to prioritise that area above games. If I go for 2x 670 4gb's and run them in Sli on air will I cook them? Thinking of helping my budget for a while until I get some extra cash and the can watercool them later?? Case will be well vented with fans galore!

[rollo]

No you would not cook them, 6 series is heat and power frugal temps would be 70-80c they can take 100c.

Boost may disable itself.

[wejjy]

Thanks! Sorted then! Cant wait!!

[damien c]

Originally Posted by wejjy

Since most of my work is in CS6 (dreamweaver, photoshop, after effects, prem pro etc) and thats what keeps the ££'s coming in I think its best to prioritise that area above games. If I go for 2x 670 4gb's and run them in Sli on air will I cook them? Thinking of helping my budget for a while until I get some extra cash and the can watercool them later?? Case will be well vented with fans galore!

I run 2x MSI GTX 680 2Gb card in SLI on Air and they are quite close to each other and have managed to overclock them for benching etc, but running at stock they max out at about 80c to 85c.

If I remeber tonight I will get a pic of it for you to show how close they are but there is about maybe a slot between them.

[wejjy]

Originally Posted by damien c

I run 2x MSI GTX 680 2Gb card in SLI on Air and they are quite close to each other and have managed to overclock them for benching etc, but running at stock they max out at about 80c to 85c.

If I remeber tonight I will get a pic of it for you to show how close they are but there is about maybe a slot between them.

That would be great thanks! I will be using an Asus Gene V so think spacing is fairly generous but would be awesome to use for reference, thank you!

[damien c]

Originally Posted by wejjy

That would be great thanks! I will be using an Asus Gene V so think spacing is fairly generous but would be awesome to use for reference, thank you!

Dependant on what slot's you can use for Dual SLI depends on what slot's you can use, with my board I can only use slot's 1+2 and it appears my board doesn't support Tripple SLI a there was no bridge for it in the box.

I will get a PIC up when I can, as I am at home at the moment but I am logged in to work so will get it uploaded at around 16:10pm today for you.

[Mechh69]

I have older cards but this does relate I have 3 260GTX OC cards and a 9600 for Physx on air, they run a little warm but nothing that has killed them in the past 3+ years I think it has a lot to do with the airflow in your case. I don't have temps while gaming or heavy usage in TRI SLI but if you want when I get home tonight I can give you some temps. I know the 670 runs a lot cooler than the 260s so it may give you an idea what you can do with TRI SLI and physics on air.

[andrew8200m]

I prefer Nvidia cards however 7970cf is faster tha 670 sli now. New drivers have resulted in better optimization and as such your games will run faster under dual cards but potentially marginally slower in single however I believe since the GHz edition card categorisation came in to play the 7970 is also faster in single too.