7970 or gtx 680

I second the 2 7950s.

It also appears that the 8000 series of AMD cards will be rebranded 7000 series from the info posted from CES.
 
I had a 680, loved it, but alot if people say 7970. f you had an AMD system i'd say definitely the 7970.
 
when it comes down to it he two cards perform pretty much the same but with some games you will get better performance with nvidia and in other games you will get better performance in AMD cards. Which means that if you want the stuff that AMD provides or the stuff that NVIDIA provides than go for which ever extras you really need or want. The drivers although are deffinatly better with NVIDIA because they are frequently updated very often (this is no argument really).
 
7970 any day of the week. The Price:Performance ratio is far superior!

Yep, having owned a GTX 670/GTX680 and now a 7970 Lightning BE, the 7970 defiantly performs better, In BF3 my FPS rarely drops below 60fps (latest AMD Beta Driver) (all max @ 1080p) where'as on the 670/680 it would drop down to the high 40's in some parts of the maps.

You can get 2 7950's and crossfire them for about £400 or less if you get the free games.

If you want a single powerful card go for the MSI 7970 Lightning BE.

I'm very happy with mine, does 1250 with a slight increase in voltage, its back at stock since I've not come across a game which needs the extra power (well apart from FC3 which brings the card to its knees with 8xaa).
 
sounds like you had something wrong with your 680 because i got 80 and higher fps on bf3 with a single evga 680 classified with max settings, with 2560 1440 resolution i got 60 very solid fps. although this is with an evga classied version so i would expect higher fps
 
both cards are close in performance but more games play better with nvidia cards and the driver updates are usually better. overall, the 680 will outperform the 7970 and both overclock very well if you get a good gpu that is

The main advantage of the 7970 is that eyefinity is better than nvidia's solution for multi-screen setup and the cards are cheaper. However, the 680 is more power efficient and will run cooler, therefore, the cooling solutions are very quiet, i have an asus directCUII 680 overclocked and it is silent and very cool, the performance is fantastic.
 
you must have had a doggy 670/680 cause i have owned both a 670 and 680 and both have blitzed battlefield 3, min fps never drops below about 55 and averages at around 70 - 80, all on ultra
 
Sounds like propaganda baloney to me...AMD drivers are currently blowing 680's out of the water except on BF3.

i also find that hard to believe nvidia drivers are updated monthly and amd drivers are updated much wider apart although the amd hardware is fine i just think the driver support is a bit lacking, the 680 and 7970 are both good cards just get either, they are both good overclokers. me personaly i would go foir nvidia 680 because i like evga branding and warranty customer service and overcloking ability which evga don't to amd cards which is a shame
 
The truth is that 7970s and 680s perform toe-to-toe with 7950s and 670s hot on their heels when overclocked.

There's no real value in going red or green at this level performance wise - it totally depends on which game you are playing and the drivers that are out at the time.

I have 2x 7950s and don't suffer from any noticeable microstutter (almost all of that is solvable by using vsync and an fps limiter). There is a dull whine from the cards at load but I only hear it when I don't have my speakers on! It doesn't take much to cover it up although I can see how that can annoy some people.

There is a good argument for going xfire with AMD 7900 series cards because of the extra vRAM which will likely become more important in the next 12-24months. Equally a couple of 4gb 670s is a good shout too but you'll run out of GPU power before vRAM there down the line.

Regarding drivers - you are always best off getting the best single card you can afford (gtx 680/690/HS7990 are possible exceptions to this because of the price premium). After that I'd say that from my experience xfire compatibility has been getting pretty good with AMD application profiles ever since the middle of the HD5000 release period. Probably about 80%+ of games work perfectly with xfire out of the box today and the others get fixed within a couple of months typically. That may or may not annoy you. I tend to never get anything on release tech wise because there are bound to be issues given the limited amount of testing everybody does these days and the reliance on hotfixing post release with live retail clients. That goes for games, software and hardware.

You pays your money and takes your choice. I think both options are reasonable.
 
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The nvidia cards are more reliable in the sense that the fps they are giving is true , the ati cards often read a higher fps in say a program like fraps , however the nvidia card on the exact same settings plus anti aliasing will say it has a lower frame rate but be smoother , you can look it up on youtube to verify this there are numerous videos and examples all over the internet , so dont just take my word for it , ATI is usually cheaper , and from experience its usually for a good reason
 
The nvidia cards are more reliable in the sense that the fps they are giving is true , the ati cards often read a higher fps in say a program like fraps , however the nvidia card on the exact same settings plus anti aliasing will say it has a lower frame rate but be smoother , you can look it up on youtube to verify this there are numerous videos and examples all over the internet , so dont just take my word for it , ATI is usually cheaper , and from experience its usually for a good reason

i didn't know that was true but i do belive you, does that same effect work on benchmarks as well because that would be interesting to know. The reason why i went for nvidia was because of fxaa and the other nvidia branded software effects as well as their driver support which is outstanding
 
The nvidia cards are more reliable in the sense that the fps they are giving is true , the ati cards often read a higher fps in say a program like fraps , however the nvidia card on the exact same settings plus anti aliasing will say it has a lower frame rate but be smoother , you can look it up on youtube to verify this there are numerous videos and examples all over the internet , so dont just take my word for it , ATI is usually cheaper , and from experience its usually for a good reason

Umm.. WHAT? You gotta be kidding me! :lol:
 
As far as i can tell it does because the numbers coming out of the card are the same , i dont know however if this is specifically driver related or a hardware issue , but considering price and the old addage 'you get what you pay for' i have a suspicion hardware may be a factor , but personally it is enough to sway me away from ATI
 
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