Graphics Card Selection

[Democrab]

Considering the only really graphically intensive game for now (This rig will last until 2015 for Skylake, etc, but I don't want to guess off future events for obvious reasons) I'll be running is Skyrim with STEP, would I be best off with 2x HD7970 3GB or 2x GTX 670 2GB? I'm on a 1080p monitor but will go for 3x1080p monitors, maybe in vertical instead of horizontal (For 1920x3240 instead of 5760x1080) but that's yet to be decided, which card would be faster taking the recent HD7970 crossfire in Skyrim improvements into mind? Both cards would be watercooled and probably heavily OCed if necessary.

 

The main reason I ask is that the GTX 670s would be a little faster in terms of shader horsepower, but the HD7970s obviously have the vRAM advantage which (Running a 1.2GB card now) I know is important as hell for Skyrim.

[Neovalen]

None of the above, get a 4GB GTX 670 SLI system. Thats what I run and it eats the game alive with 60+fps with everything turned up and full ENB @ 1080p. In Surround with a good optimized ENB can keep up with doing ~40-45fps but there are UI issues and the fix (flawlesswidescreen.org) causes minor shadow irritation.

 

SLI doesn't do much in the base game but ENB does take advantage of it. There are a few minor issues but as long as you can overlook a little water shimmer you'll be fine.

Also if you play other games, I can't recommend SLI enough on those.

 

Just my humble opinion after fighting with the game for quite awhile. :) The 4GB VRAM is especially nice is surround where I've 3+ Gigs of usage.

[Democrab]

Hmm, I'll take that into consideration after I've heard from some HD7970 owners, the GTX 670s are a good $100 more each ($200 total) than I want to spend but if they're that good then I'd go for them.

[Besidilo]

Actually, you might be better off getting two 7970s and overclocking them to 1GHz or so. 3GB VRAM should be enough at that resolution anyway. They're much better value with the current price drops.

[Farlo]

Always remember to take drivers into account, AMD's have been working alright as of late, but there's nothing special and no where near the number of options in Nvidia cards.

[Besidilo]

Always remember to take drivers into account' date=' AMD's have been working alright as of late, but there's nothing special and no where near the number of options in Nvidia cards.[/quote']

 

That has not much to do with drivers, though. What you refer to as "drivers" is the whole package that comes with them. nvidia inspector, for example, sets appropriate flags in Nvidia Control Panel, not drivers as such.

 

And AMD drivers have been pretty good before I jumped the ship, plus the 7970s are unquestionably superior in terms of value. There are aftermarket models with 1GHz on core, that still overclock and destroy pretty much any single card solution out there, out of the box. Add to that recent AMD discounts and you have the VFM winners.

 

Honestly, I stopped giving a dime about various control panel settings a long time ago. You'll be able to force many settings with ENB configs anyway, such as ambient occlusion or super-sampling, if needed be.

[stoppingby4now]

Always remember to take drivers into account' date=' AMD's have been working alright as of late' date=' but there's nothing special and no where near the number of options in Nvidia cards.[/quote'']

 

That has not much to do with drivers, though. What you refer to as "drivers" is the whole package that comes with them. nvidia inspector, for example, sets appropriate flags in Nvidia Control Panel, not drivers as such.

Drivers have everything to do with it. It doesn't matter whether you use the Control Panel or nvidia inspector, they are "driver" flags and thus are directly related to the drivers.

And AMD drivers have been pretty good before I jumped the ship, plus the 7970s are unquestionably superior in terms of value. There are aftermarket models with 1GHz on core, that still overclock and destroy pretty much any single card solution out there, out of the box. Add to that recent AMD discounts and you have the VFM winners.

Can't argue with that.

Honestly, I stopped giving a dime about various control panel settings a long time ago. You'll be able to force many settings with ENB configs anyway, such as ambient occlusion or super-sampling, if needed be.

The use of ENB is game specific. While you can use some ENB versions with other various games, not all results will be the same (and some are quite horrible). Having the options that nvidia inspector provides is still very much invaluable. You also have to consider the amount of frustration developers have when creating injectors that work with ATI. Reading a lot of Boris' commentary on how much he hates ATI when trying to get aspects of ENB to work on it can be quite amusing. Nvidia has far better support for un-supported "features" than ATI.

 

The way I see the difference between ATI and Nvidia, is what the user expects to get out of it. For the non-tweakers, ATI is definitely the winner in PPP. For those wishing to get the best visual quality on a consistent basis regardless of the game, Nvidia is the reigning champion (albeit at a price premium).

[Besidilo]

I agree, Nvidia cards are a better choice for some, but most people wouldn't notice a difference.

 

TXAA, adaptive vsync, better support for many games, PhysX, CUDA, superior performance at Folding, support by ENB mods, ambient occlusion and extra AA settings that are easier to set with behavioral flags.

 

In all those regards, Nvidia cards are better (not so much for Linux support, mind you :D). It's one of the reasons I made the switch from a 6950 to a GTX 580.

 

But then again, these are all extras, most of which people don't need or wouldn't use anyway. Which is why I recommend AMD cards to most users, since they wouldn't ask to help them choose the right card otherwise.

[stoppingby4now]

Agree on all points for the most part. Though, in some cases folks just don't know what they can do with either brand, and if they had the knowledge going in they may have made a different choice (in either direction).

 

For my older UNIX workstations I use ATI cards when I don't have on-board video and just need a cheap video card. I also don't try to play games in Linux either though. The one exception is my HTPC where I'm using an Nvidia card for High Definition audio support (in Linux), which is not possible with ATI (for now at least).

[Democrab]

Both can be bad, I get random driver crashes in Technic Pack Minecraft with nVidia.

 

So, HD7970 would be best?

[Besidilo]

Both can be bad, I get random driver crashes in Technic Pack Minecraft with nVidia.

 

So, HD7970 would be best?

In my opinion, it's the best value for money at the moment, if you can leave without the nvidia's exclusive features mentioned in my previous post.

 

You should probably look into Eyefinity vs Nvidia Surround since you're going to use more than one monitor for gaming.

 

GeForce GTX 670 4GB https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130785

 

AMD Radeon 7970 3GB 1.1GHz (sic!) - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439

 

Both cards are around $450-470, depending on the model you choose.

 

I bet the 7970 with the core clocked to 1.1GHz at stock is a mighty beast. From the review I've seen, it's almost as fast as the GTX 590. Imagine what two of these cards will be like.

 

With that said, it's still looks like GeForces do a better job in Skyrim.

 

https://www.techspot.com/review/546-amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/page8.html

 

And here's some insight into whether you need 4GB VRAM or not:

 

https://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/evga-geforce-gtx-670-4gb_7.html#sect0

 

My opinion, it's probably not worth the extra $140 that you'd pay on both cards.

 

Just a quick edit, I found this Gigabyte 7970 1GHz for $420 after rebate. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125413

 

Plus you can probably get the standard cards with decent coolers for around $400, the choice is yours.

[Democrab]

I should note that I'm from Australia and can't buy off newegg, it costs a good $100 extra for the 4GB 670.

[Spiffyman]

Are 7970s a dual graphics card or is that what the 7990 is supposed to be?

[Besidilo]

Are 7970s a dual graphics card or is that what the 7990 is supposed to be?

The latter.

[Democrab]

It's pretty much AMDs single GPU flagship vs nVidia's not quite highest end card, but is so fast that it's practically equal.