GTX 670 or GTX 680 for 5760x1080

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Gaiden133

[H] Ninja
Joined
Aug 6, 2004
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Hi all,

I plan on upgrading from my CrossfireX 6950's to the 6 series nvidia cards.

I game on 5760x1080, which 6xx series solution would be ideal for me to maximize price/performance? Rest of rig in sig.

  • GTX 670 2GB Windforce - $410
  • GTX 670 SC 4GB - $519
  • GTX 680 SC 2GB - $499
  • GTX 680 4GB - $569
  • Neither - recommend something else
 
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Unless you plan on going with SLI I wouldn't bother with a 4GB card. Actually, even with SLI it probably isn't worth it - I would certainly take a 2GB 680 over a 4GB 670.
 
Forceman said:
Unless you plan on going with SLI I wouldn't bother with a 4GB card. Actually, even with SLI it probably isn't worth it - I would certainly take a 2GB 680 over a 4GB 670.
Click to expand...

+1 agreed.

Everyone always goes up in arms about needing 4gb worth of RAM at these resolutions that OMG its so needed or OMG no its not needed blah blah.

There have been PLENTY of reviews that show that 2gb is enough, and while you might believe them or not, its not like a single card would be able to push fps enough to have the 4gb matter.
 
I'd have to ask: are you planning on changing resolutions soon? Possibly increase from 1080p monitors to 1440p or 1200p? If not, you should be fine with just the 2gb if you don't load in lots of extra texture mods.

If you're thinking about increasing the resolutions via changing monitors in the next couple of years or you have an unhealthy obsession with HD textures, I would recommend getting the 4gb version just to cover all the bases.

Also wanted to note that I found:
$559.99 EVGA vs $569.99 ZOTAC (I love EVGA!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130799
 
Thanks for the responses!

@Cube Rhino: I don't plan on changing resolutions soon, no. Unless I receive a sick offer for three used u2311H's, which I doubt :D

Is the best price/performance increase to go with SLI'd GTX 670 2GB windforce from my XFire 6950's ?
 
MD's HD 5770 has long been the only real option for people looking to spend around $150 for a graphics card but now finally NVIDIA is trying to muscle into this price bracket. In order to do this, they are launching a new graphics card called the GTX 550 Ti 1GB which incorporates a revised GF106 core (now dubbed the GF116) alongside some forward thinking technology
 
I would recommend a MSI HD 7950 OC for USD 310 after rebate or Gigabyte HD 7970 Windforce for USD 420 after rebate. Both these cards are better deals than GTX 670 at USD 410. I am assuming that you will overclock your card to get as much performance as possible.

The MSI HD 7950 OC comes with a HD 7970 PCB. confirmed by newegg user reviews and the hardforum post

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1704168

You can easily overclock to 1.15 Ghz and get performance better than Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition running at 1050 Mhz. clock for clock HD 7950 is 3 - 5% slower than HD 7970.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/01/xfx_radeon_hd_7950_black_edition_video_card_review/8

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125413

And for Eyefinity the HD 7900 cards are better. Just read the latest HD 7970 Ghz edition reviews

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...on-Review-Taking-GTX-680/Overclocking-and-Con

"I found it pretty interesting how the performance differences played out. NVIDIA's GTX 680 seemed to win at the lower resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 most of the time, but fell behind at 2560x1600 and 5760x1080 regularly. While the added frame buffer on the AMD cards might have helped that, I really think it is just a difference in how the architectures are designed. And even though most gamers are on 1080p or lower resolutions, I would assume that gamers looking to spend ~$500 for a graphics card are planning for bigger screens (or more of them). "

you could read other Radeon HD 7970 Ghz reviews from hardwarecanucks, tomshardware, techreport, anandtech, techpowerup. the opinion is that at higher resolutions HD 7970 Ghz is faster than GTX 680. the same can be said of overclocked HD 7950 and overclocked GTX 670.

HD 7970 Ghz is just a HD 7970 at 1050 Mhz. The Gigabyte HD 7970 Windforce (1 Ghz) easily overclocks to 1150 Mhz at stock voltage and even higher with voltage tweaking.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/02/08/gigabyte_radeon_hd_7970_oc_video_card_review/3

The windforce cooler is capable of handling 1250+ Mhz overclocks on HD 7970 as mentioned in the above review. so think about it and make your purchase.
 
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@Raghu78: Thanks for the AMD recommendation.

Coming from the 6950 CrossfireX, the experience with AMD drivers hasn't been stellar lately. I'm leaning to trying out the nV Surround and seeing how the experience is, comparatively.

The articles you list out are also a little dated. I checked out a more recent one by [H] on the gigabyte gtx 670, and it has it competing head to head or even better most of the time than the 7970.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/25/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_670_oc_video_card_review/

Honestly, I would opt for picking up two 7970's if there was a more compelling reason to, considering its slightly more expensive than the gtx 670 as well.
 
Gaiden133 said:
@Raghu78: Thanks for the AMD recommendation.

Coming from the 6950 CrossfireX, the experience with AMD drivers hasn't been stellar lately. I'm leaning to trying out the nV Surround and seeing how the experience is, comparatively.

The articles you list out are also a little dated. I checked out a more recent one by [H] on the gigabyte gtx 670, and it has it competing head to head or even better most of the time than the 7970.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/25/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_670_oc_video_card_review/

Honestly, I would opt for picking up two 7970's if there was a more compelling reason to, considering its slightly more expensive than the gtx 670 as well.
Click to expand...

I think you need to check out the HD 7970 Ghz edition reviews i mentioned. the HD 7970 running at 1050 Mhz is faster than GTX 680 (1056 ) according to all reviews at 5760 x 1080 . I don't think the GTX 670 is a match for a HD 7970 when you run both cards overclocked.

As for drivers performance it would be better to get feedback from HD 7970 CF users running the latest 12.7 beta (12.7 whql should be out within next 4 -5 days) .

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038941231&postcount=70

here is a user running HD 7970 Tri fire and praising the performance of the 12.7 beta drivers. the situation is pretty decent with 12.7 beta.

If from personal experience you want to go Nvidia thats fine. and if you go Nvidia get a 670 4GB. you don't want to run out of VRAM after spending 1000 bucks on a SLI setup. At 5760 x 1080 definitely 4GB is required if you want to run high AA settings (BF3 Ultra 4X MSAA) .

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/05/03/nvidia_geforce_gtx_690_dual_gpu_video_card_review/3

BF3 5760 X 1200 Ultra 4x MSAA

GTX 680 SLI - avg 40.1 fps min 14 fps
HD 7970 CF - avg 45.7 fps min 34 fps

With overclocking performance can get to 45 - 50 fps avg on a GTX 680 but you need 4 GB to avoid those huge drops which badly affect min fps.

With BF3 Ultra 4x MSAA you can see fps drops to below 20 fps on GTX 680 SLI, mostly running out of VRAM. so get 4 GB GTX 670 as a minimum.
 
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That's assuming you consider 40 FPS in BF3 to be playable. Most people don't, and at playable settings you don't need 4GB even at multi-monitor resolutions. The cards just don't have enough GPU horsepower to outrun the 2GB of VRAM.

From the [H] review:

The biggest question in regards to performance and gameplay experience about GeForce GTX 680 SLI was if the 2GB of VRAM per GPU and lesser memory bandwidth compared to Radeon HD 7970 would be a hindrance. Our testing has clearly answered that question. In fact, in every game we tested, GTX 680 SLI offered a better gameplay experience compared to Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX. We specifically tested at NV Surround and Eyefinity at the maximum resolution of our configuration at 5760x1200 to see if there would be any bottlenecks. We found that the new GeForce GTX 680 SLI has the performance where it counts
Click to expand...

We know exactly what you guys are thinking. The Radeon HD 7970 has 3GB of VRAM, the GeForce GTX 680 has 2GB; the Radeon HD 7970 has 264GB/sec of memory bandwidth and the GeForce GTX 680 has 192GB/sec of memory bandwidth. You'd expect Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX to simply blow GeForce GTX 680 SLI out of the water at 5760x1200. The simple fact is, it does not, and in fact GeForce GTX 680 SLI provides a better gameplay experience with better performance. Amazing, but true.
Click to expand...

In every game we tested GTX 680 SLI was faster, and provided gameplay options Radeon HD 7970 CFX did not. We were not bottlenecked at all at 5760x1200 with GTX 680 SLI. In fact, in BF3 Multiplayer GTX 680 SLI provided better performance, higher in-game settings, and a smoother experience, and this is a highly memory sensitive game. When we looked at power utilization we found GeForce GTX 680 SLI was more efficient in every single game, using less power, but giving us more performance.
Click to expand...

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/28/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_sli_video_card_review/9

Drivers may certainly be helping AMD get more performance now, since that is an older article, but it isn't going to change the 680s (or 670s) performance, which wasn't VRAM limited in their testing.
 
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Forceman said:
Drivers may certainly be helping AMD get more performance now, since that is an older article, but it isn't going to change the 680s (or 670s) performance, which wasn't VRAM limited in their testing.
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The min fps definitely would improve allowing for a better playable experience.

hardocp quote

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/05/03/nvidia_geforce_gtx_690_dual_gpu_video_card_review/3

BF3 Ultra 4x MSAA performance

"The first apples-to-apples comparison we wanted to make was to push graphics settings up to 4X MSAA + FXAA. At this setting we do experience what feels like texture or memory swapping, causing slowdowns, choppiness and overall an unplayable gameplay experience on GTX 690 and 680 SLI. It doesn't quite show up in framerates, but it is there when you play the game. We cannot explain the low dip below 30 FPS toward the middle of the graph with the GTX 690. GTX 680 SLI didn't do this, but again neither were playable at this setting to begin with. "

Its clear that VRAM is an issue here. With a very high overclock (1.3+ Ghz) this setting would be playable on GTX 680 SLI. the avg fps would be close to 50 fps and with 4GB VRAM your min fps won't fall badly and stay around 30 fps.

so definitely there are scenarios where 4GB VRAM is required even in today's games. Skyrim with mods at 5760 x 1080 will easily cross the 2GB VRAM limit. In future games this can only get worse.So if you want to run the GTX 680 SLI or GTX 670 SLI at 5760 x 1080 for a couple of years 2GB is not going to be enough.
 
This is very interesting stuff - thanks for the discussion around the area. Seems like there is still some difference of opinions of whether high resolutions (>= 5760x1080) will benefit from the 4GB cards versus 2GB, and not a clear cut answer.
 
raghu78 said:
Its clear that VRAM is an issue here. With a very high overclock (1.3+ Ghz) this setting would be playable on GTX 680 SLI. the avg fps would be close to 50 fps and with 4GB VRAM your min fps won't fall badly and stay around 30 fps.
Click to expand...

Good luck finding a pair of 680s that do 1300+. Yes, there are edge cases where VRAM can become an issue (you can always make it an issue by running ridiculous, unplayable settings) but for all but the most extreme users you aren't going to run into those situations. The 4GB cards are 20-25% more expensive than the 2GB cards, but the only time they provide any performance benefit is in situations where you are VRAM limited, and according to all the testing I've seen, the only time you are VRAM limited is when the game already has unplayable frame-rates. How many people really think 50 FPS is playable/desirable in BF3? Get 2GB cards, turn down the settings to something actually playable, and play at 60+ with $200 in your pocket.
 



yeah people saying 2gb is plenty are fools, they dont know what they talking about, enthusiasts dont play at 720p. 4gb 670 or 680 is definately what you want at that res OP.

games that support SLI will only use the 2gb of the card in the first slot as well, if i recall correctly
 
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As has been said before, you can always create a situation where VRAM is a limit, no matter how much you have. But just because you can, doesn't mean you would in normal use.
 
On average how much VRAM does it take to run just the the desktop @ 5760x1080 on Windows 7?
 
Forceman said:
As has been said before, you can always create a situation where VRAM is a limit, no matter how much you have. But just because you can, doesn't mean you would in normal use.
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Normal use for me is 4x ssaa @ 1080p. Plenty of games will benefit from extra VRAM with even those settings. Unreal engine 4 is on the way. We will likely need more than 2gb for games in the near future.
 
Ozymandias said:
To run just the desktop, you barely need a video card. I wouldn't worry about VRAM.
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Thank you Ozymandias but I was interested in learning the exact number. After a bit of searching it comes out to 16MB per 1920x1080 display (48MB for a triple monitor setup). Running a single instance of Firefox chews up ~120MB according to others. Again these amounts are nearly insignificant for someone with a 2GB or 4GB card but it is interesting to know what the baseline is for running the DE in W7.
 
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