Ebuyer are doing both the 7970 and the 670 for basically the same price of about £320 with Gigabyte's Windforce cooler. I'm looking for a new high end card, and I presume that, given these are the same price, I should buy the 7970, right? (Just checking) Gaming on 1920X1080 Vote please
What resolution do you game at? 1920x1080 I would get the GTX 670 2GB, Above that I would be looking at the HD7970 because of the extra VRAM. Shop around, and I'm sure you can fine a HD7970 for £275. Check the market place here, as I'm sure you will find one there.
I think Lyser (sorry, can't remember the spelling) might have a Asus HD7970 left, i know 3 of us bagged one each, and he had 4 to start with. Sam
I did a simlar investigation myself recently. The answer was a 7970 for me, because my res is 2560 x 1440 and the 3gb VRAM comes in very handy. The card performs very well at the higher resolutions.
I would say hd 7970... cause overclocked it will beat the gtx 670.... and its easier to overclock than a gtx 670... so yea hd7970 (y)
Just to clear this up...Overclock the GTX 670 and it will beat a HD7970 that's been OCed...OCing on both is easy to do...Click on a slider and drag.... (See what I did there?....Nevermind...)
Thanks for replies, but I "just gotta have" a custom cooler Hmm, still fairly unclear what to get... Although am swayed toward 7970 tbh, as the Anand's comparison shows, it does seem to beat the 670, and if you put up the 680 vs the 7970 GHz to substitute an OC'ed 670 and 7970, the 7970 still looks better... And then Hardware Canucks has compared both cards with the Giga Windforce coolers, and found that the 7970 was 3 degrees hotter but 4 Db quieter under load, so it seems the 7970 will be slightly quieter, although OC'ed I suspect otherwise... TechPowerup's performance summary shows that both the 670 and 7970 are neck and neck. Every site I check just seems to make it less clear which is better. I just wanna know which performs better in games overclocked, all other attributes (price, temps, etc) seem pretty much identical between the 2 cards. This is the bloody 560ti vs 6950 again, where they're both so close (although the 560ti eventually pulled out a lead I spose on price), and I'm running out of teeth to gnash...
The 670 performs better then the 7970 at higher resolutions, but ironically lacks the VRAM to effectively deal with them... unless you get the 4GB version. However, at the res the OP states he's working at, I'd go for the 7970 if performance is the only issue. Do not forget though, that the 670 is a much more power efficient card, and the performance difference is only really a few percent at lower resolutions. All things considered, the 670's power savings are not to be ignored. Lower power means less stress on PSUs, lower heat, hence lower noise, especially as the OP wants third party cooler designs. Upon reflection... my choice would be the 670. Once OCed it actually performs pretty much the same as the 7970.. even OCed 7970s.
The comparisons will all need to be updated soon. The thing with the 7970 is that the original version was essentially underclocked and released with poor quality drivers. It meant it looked quite bad in comparisons next to a 680 or 670. The 'GHz' edition comes with much better drivers giving quite a boost, and the original 7970s are almost all guaranteed to clock to the same speed. I'd definitely avoid the reference cooler though, it's very noisy according to the reviews.
I'd say 670, but at the end of the day you've done your research and not settled on either, toss a coin and let fate decide
Well, went for the 670 in the end, what the comments seem to lean to anyway Just waiting for it to get here now Edit: Wow, free delivery from Dabs=card delivered the day after ordering
I have a 7970 very quiet and runs very cool. If at any stage I decide to get a 30 inch or run three screens I will have no worries.
I would have gone for the 7970 GHZ edition myself. But in this arena you can't really pick a 'bad' card. 670 is solid. If only both companys would get on top of their drivers...
