7970 nvidia equivalent

[Devo234]

hi all
im thinking about getting an asus 7970 but ive heard rumours that the amd cards have some driver issues so i was wondering if this is true and also what would be the equivalent nvidia card.

thanks in advance

 

[Josh Weston]

A gtx670.

 

[Devo234]

thanks josh.
can you shed any light on the driver issue rumours ive heard?

 

[Josh Weston]

Can't say I have, no. As far as i'm aware, Nvidia are usually the top dog on the driver side of things, but i've recently heard that the 7970's been 'buffed' by a recent driver update. So, don't really know what to tell you on that one.
Some users on here have been saying how the 7970 is now faster than a 680 - that may be worth bearing in mind

 

[VengeanceUK]

but then again who knows what the next round of nvidia drivers will bring to level the field or surge ahead again lol

 

[Devo234]

maybe they were just rumours spread by ati haters lol.
That is worth bearing in mind and also from what ive seen so far the 7970s are alot cheaper so would be easier to Xfire too

 

[Shift87]

A GTX 680 would be the equivalent, the biggest known driver issue with the 7970 that wasn't it acting oddly in one particular game was when 2 displays were plugged in the drivers would crash and cause a blue screen when the card wasn't doing much like web browsing, but was fine with games. Since 12.7 they have fixed that.

Xfire adds issues as well and unless your playing above 1920x1080 then its really not needed. With an overclocked card I can max every game I own shy of metro 2033 without the frame rate dropping below 60fps and even in metro its only a minor drop from time to time.

That being said a 670 can do that as well or maybe not quite as well but damn close. Is the 7970 worth the extra cost? One other thing to note if your going with a cheaper card like a reference design one the 7970 isn't all that quiet either once that fan gets going.

 

[Devo234]

thanks for that info Shift.
and it also brings me onto my next question which is which design is better? i really like the design of asus model with the two fans. but is msi or sapphire better? whats the main differences between the designs...

 

[PEXON]

The new Catalyst drivers are solid. Using them with my vanilla 7970 and the only games it loses out to a 680 are in BF3 and Skyrim, two games that I don't play anymore because they lost longevity lol.

 

[TheKeyboardDemon]

IIRC it was the 7970Ghz editions that were beating the 680 cards for performance.

 

[PEXON]

1GHz is easy to OC a 7970 to. @1GHz its a great card, especially now that the drivers are getting there, previous drivers were poo.

 

[TheKeyboardDemon]

I think the Ghz cards are more than just upping the clock speed to 1000mhz, I think they also increase memory bandwidth to 6000mhz and add extra VRAM giving them either 3gb and 6gb models.

Here are the Sapphire 3gb and 6gb model specs. Sapphire also have a Toxic edition which boosts clock speeds to up 1200mhz.

 

[AverageNinja]

A GTX 660Ti is equivalent to a HD 7950. The GTX 670 is still about 10FPS in games like BF3 and stuff. In skyrim the GTX 670 is even 30fps faster.

 

[WiganflightsimSteve]

I recently bought the MSi R7970 3Gb Twin Frozr Lightning card, no driver issues at all and the twin fan design is actually pretty quiet.