7970 Lightning or 680 GTX

Best single GPU card.

  • MSI 7970 Lightning

    Votes: 56 32.4%

  • 680 GTX (reference)

    Votes: 117 67.6%
  • Total voters
    173
P

PvP-ForLife

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
213
So I have decided to pick one of these.
Help me choose the most suitable, based on experiences with any of the models, oc potential and drivers stability.
 
$100+ is not worth a little bit of an overclock on the 7970. All you get is a non-reference fan, and honestly, all of the reviews I have see, the reviewers have not been able to get the OC past like 1200mhz - something pretty easily done on most REFERENCE 7970's.
 
680 GTX.

its $50 cheaper then a reference 7970. And overclocks very well.

Did I mention its $50 cheaper.

Only problem with the 680 GTX is accually finding one.
 
Phishy714 said:
$100+ is not worth a little bit of an overclock on the 7970. All you get is a non-reference fan, and honestly, all of the reviews I have see, the reviewers have not been able to get the OC past like 1200mhz - something pretty easily done on most REFERENCE 7970's.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you can't get it over 1200Mhz and you don't care about computing....definitely go with the 680. Most reference 7970's cards can get quite a ways above that mark.
 
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I wonder if the Palit Jetstream is anywhere near in sight, the reviews put it in a very good light so far.
 
there is really no reason to go with the lightening, at best it can match or possibly beat out the GTX680 at one or 2 games when OC'd to the max, so you're paying an additional $100 for the same experience.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
there is really no reason to go with the lightening, at best it can match or possibly beat out the GTX680 at one or 2 games when OC'd to the max, so you're paying an additional $100 for the same experience.
Click to expand...

In the last few hours I've been skimming through the reviews and it looks like you're spot on. Coming from a 580 Lightning I was hoping the 7970 from MSI would live up to its name.
 
If you are looking to overclock definitely consider the MSI Lightning. There are a few websites which could not get above 1200 and few who could go upto 1275 Mhz. So its a matter of sampling probability.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/16/

At those speeds ur stock GTX 680 with max OC will have a tough time beating the HD 7970 lightning max oc esp at 2560 x 1600. While making ur decision take this into consideration . Games which already run at 60+ fps aren't what matter. Its the games like BF3, Crysis 2, Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033, which really tax your GPU that count.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-7970-directcu-ii-review/23
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-680-oc-edition-review/25

Even at 1080p the OC HD 7970 beats the OC GTX 680. HD 7970 gets better at 2560 x 1600.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/10/

Look at the HD 7970 beat the GTX 680 at 1080p (when its playable).

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/02/08/gigabyte_radeon_hd_7970_oc_video_card_review/6

BF3 ULTRA 4X MSAA 2560 x 1600 - 50.5 fps avg.

Check for yourself if OC GTX 680 has been benchmarked at these demanding settings against OC HD 7970. And then make the decision
 
raghu78 said:
If you are looking to overclock definitely consider the MSI Lightning. There are a few websites which could not get above 1200 and few who could go upto 1275 Mhz. So its a matter of sampling probability.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/16/

At those speeds ur stock GTX 680 with max OC will have a tough time beating the HD 7970 lightning max oc esp at 2560 x 1600. While making ur decision take this into consideration . Games which already run at 60+ fps aren't what matter. Its the games like BF3, Crysis 2, Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033, which really tax your GPU that count.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-7970-directcu-ii-review/23
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-680-oc-edition-review/25

Even at 1080p the OC HD 7970 beats the OC GTX 680. HD 7970 gets better at 2560 x 1600.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/10/

Look at the HD 7970 beat the GTX 680 at 1080p (when its playable).

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/02/08/gigabyte_radeon_hd_7970_oc_video_card_review/6

BF3 ULTRA 4X MSAA 2560 x 1600 - 50.5 fps avg.

Check for yourself if OC GTX 680 has been benchmarked at these demanding settings against OC HD 7970. And then make the decision
Click to expand...

the BF3 page you linked shows no GTX 680, so what are you comparing it to? gtx580?
 
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Why pay 100 dollars for the same experience more or less. The lightening only appears like a better overclocker overall when it is under ln2 or something like that.

Under air, alot of models barely exceed 1200 or don't even meet it.

Hardocp didn't. Guru3d didn't. tweaktown got to 1225.

And hardwareheaven and legit reviews got to 1265 and 1275.

For 100 dollars difference, it is a pretty foolish move for most people.

Also be aware that the 7970 becomes the equivalent of a gtx 480(massively inefficient) when you do get a successful overclock compared to the gtx 680.

When the 7970 was clocked to 1225 mhz, it consumed more power than 7970 in crossfire.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/46...gb_video_card_overclocked_review/index17.html

In the hardocp review, 1190 mhz was reached and the overclock caused the card to consume 71 watts more power for only 120 mhz.

Compare this to an overclocked gtx 680 which consumes only about 30 watts more or so overclocked.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/6
 
raghu78 said:
If you are looking to overclock definitely consider the MSI Lightning. There are a few websites which could not get above 1200 and few who could go upto 1275 Mhz. So its a matter of sampling probability.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/16/

At those speeds ur stock GTX 680 with max OC will have a tough time beating the HD 7970 lightning max oc esp at 2560 x 1600. While making ur decision take this into consideration . Games which already run at 60+ fps aren't what matter. Its the games like BF3, Crysis 2, Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033, which really tax your GPU that count.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-7970-directcu-ii-review/23
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-680-oc-edition-review/25

Even at 1080p the OC HD 7970 beats the OC GTX 680. HD 7970 gets better at 2560 x 1600.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/10/

Look at the HD 7970 beat the GTX 680 at 1080p (when its playable).

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/02/08/gigabyte_radeon_hd_7970_oc_video_card_review/6

BF3 ULTRA 4X MSAA 2560 x 1600 - 50.5 fps avg.

Check for yourself if OC GTX 680 has been benchmarked at these demanding settings against OC HD 7970. And then make the decision
Click to expand...

Maybe this link is what you wanted to post about BF3 7970OC (1260 core) vs 680OC (1228 core) 2560x1600.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/5
 
http://hardocp.com/article/2012/02/0..._card_review/6

Hardocp says

"As we have seen in our last two games the overclocked achieved on the GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970 has provided ample performance. We were able to increase MSAA to 4X and still have better performance than its stock speeds at 50.5 average FPS. This was by far the most enjoyable gameplay and the best performance."

I meant to say that GTX 680 OC article at hardocp did not have the maximum IQ playable settings tested. So find out what happens when the bandwidth/VRAM requirements are really pushed like 2560 ULTRA 4X MSAA.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/10/

If your idea of a 20% + difference in Metro 2033 at 1080p max settings with DOF is similar experience then please explain " similar experience ". The GTX 680 already runs upto 1.1 Ghz with Turbo.The gap will widen when u are looking at 1200+ Mhz as HD 7970 has better scaling than GTX 680 at very high core clocks.

The GTX 580 was the last generation single king GPU with no considerations of perf/watt. Enthusiasts flocked to the OC GTX 580 because the max stable performance was what counted. Why is it now that perf/watt is such a big concern. Acoustics and temps are what matter and they are taken care of pretty well by high end custom air cooled or water cooled cards.

Anyway if people are already favouring a certain brand then it does not matter about facts.
Nvidia is the stronger brand no doubt about it. But if you are looking at it impartially based on facts HD 7970 is the better card.
 
Made the switch from AMD to Nvidia. But I found out that the drivers for the gtx680 don't support PCIe 3.0 speeds on the X79, socket 2011 based motherboards. There is a registry mod I saw somewhere that should make that switch from pci2.0 to pci3.0 speeds. I hope Nvidia corrects this with next driver for gtx680. AMD has had pci3.0 support since first release of 7970 drivers.
 
raghu78 said:
http://hardocp.com/article/2012/02/0..._card_review/6

Hardocp says

"As we have seen in our last two games the overclocked achieved on the GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970 has provided ample performance. We were able to increase MSAA to 4X and still have better performance than its stock speeds at 50.5 average FPS. This was by far the most enjoyable gameplay and the best performance."

I meant to say that GTX 680 OC article at hardocp did not have the maximum IQ playable settings tested. So find out what happens when the bandwidth/VRAM requirements are really pushed like 2560 ULTRA 4X MSAA.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/10/

If your idea of a 20% + difference in Metro 2033 at 1080p max settings with DOF is similar experience then please explain " similar experience ". The GTX 680 already runs upto 1.1 Ghz with Turbo.The gap will widen when u are looking at 1200+ Mhz as HD 7970 has better scaling than GTX 680 at very high core clocks.

The GTX 580 was the last generation single king GPU with no considerations of perf/watt. Enthusiasts flocked to the OC GTX 580 because the max stable performance was what counted. Why is it now that perf/watt is such a big concern. Acoustics and temps are what matter and they are taken care of pretty well by high end custom air cooled or water cooled cards.

Anyway if people are already favouring a certain brand then it does not matter about facts.
Nvidia is the stronger brand no doubt about it. But if you are looking at it impartially based on facts HD 7970 is the better card.
Click to expand...

You can find instances where the gtx 680 is leading by a similar deficit as the 7970 in the same review(22-32%)

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1886/4/

And frankly Arkham city is more relevant at this point in time because it is newer(Metro 2033 is a 2 year old game) and the better game.

You can't just say one game is faster and say it is faster across the board.

The rest of the titles they trade blows or are very close to each other which I mean they give a similar experience. Considering this card is 100 dollars more and consumes more power, the gtx 680 is the better card for most people. This is a very different scenario than the gtx 580 vs the 6970.

Even when overclocked, the 6970 had a very difficult time reaching the same speed as a gtx 580 speed. When both were clocked to the max, the gtx 580 lead grew even more because it was the better overclocker on top of being the faster card.

This situation isn't like the gtx 580 compared to the 6970. The gtx 580 won across the board while consuming more power. Performance is the most important metric and the lightning doesn't win by enough generally to be considered the faster card.

When you have similar performance and you lose in, power, price(the second most important attribute and sometimes the first)I don't know how you can have the opinion.

"But if you are looking at it impartially based on facts HD 7970 is the better card."

If it was the better card, reviews for the gtx 680 would not have been as positive. In regards to performance, the gtx 680 was the faster card when both were at stock and compared to each others reference models. When both cards are brought up to max clocks the speed from both cards are comparable where they trade blows.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_gtx680/5.htm
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-overclock-guide/16
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-680-overclock-guide/12

I don't think you will find a review out there where when both cards are overclocked, they are not trading blows.

Also considering the poll results, your opinion is the minority and probably wrong as all the reviews for the gtx 680 say it is the better card. The 7970 is overpriced currently, the accumulating stock is showing this(as well as the small price drops from some models) and for the 7970 to be a better card, it needs to be priced lower than the gtx 680 considering at stock clocks, it is generally the slower card. I might take a lightning over a gtx 680 if they were the same price but with a 100 dollar difference, it makes less sense than a stock 7970.
 
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Taking an overall look at your arguments it seems they favor the 680. Right now, I just hope that in the next few days/weeks we will get to see some custom models in the market.
This would be the better of the scenarios, but the waiting game is frankly awfully.
 
Since the 7970 Lightning is made by MSI, it shouldn't even be considered in the running. MSI is an utterly terrible, shitty company with terrible customer service.
 
Daggah said:
Since the 7970 Lightning is made by MSI, it shouldn't even be considered in the running. MSI is an utterly terrible, shitty company with terrible customer service.
Click to expand...

This is the first time I hear this, did you have any negative experiences with them ?
 
tajoh111
Batman Arkham city is far better on GTX 680. Alan Wake is an even more recent popular game which runs better on HD 7970.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/857-12/benchmark-alan-wake.html

I agree for both cards there are games which run better on them.Also look at the most demanding games as a good indicator for the future. Games which run at 60+ fps at 2560 x 1600 maxed out don't matter as much as games which stress your GPUs at 1920 x 1080 (below 60 fps) and even more at 2560 x 1600. The compute performance is higher on Radeon HD 7970. There are going to be more games which use more demanding compute shaders in the future. Metro 2033 with DOF is a good example. For compute performance bandwidth is a big factor.You also have to understand that more bandwidth demanding games will come in future. Also you are paying 100 USD extra for the quality of the board and components. These provide better stability and acoustics/temps when overclocked. Do you mean to say the stock GTX 680 has the same quality of components of a MSI Lightning or a Sapphire TOXIC. Wait till you see the price of EVGA high end GTX 680 designs.

PvP-ForLife

The GTX 680 is a good gaming card. When 2 cards are similar at max possible performance look at other factors like future longevity of their architectures. The compute heavy Radeon HD 7970 is better when looked at from that perspective. The websites provide information and their opinions. You need to look at a lot of reviews and a large sample of games and then make a well informed decision.
 
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The MSI Lightning is a fantastic card for a 7970, however the price is just a huge turn-off when a reference AMD 7970 is already overpriced in comparison to a stock reference 680. If they were the exact same price, it becomes a tougher choice, but the 680 is still quicker than the Lightning 7970 so its hard to justify it unless you're just really AMD loyal.

Right now, its hard to justify any high end card other than a 680 right now considering its faster, runs cooler, and draws less power than the competition. I think the 7xxx series is amazing for sure, but they were overpriced from the release and now even more overpriced in the face of their competition.
 
tajoh111

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/10/sapphire_hd_7970_oc_edition_video_card_review/7

At 2560 x 1600 ultra 4x MSAA the stock GTX 680 with turbo upto 1.1 Ghz is running at avg 42.9 fps min 25 fps . 950 Mhz Sapphire avg 40 fps min 27 fps. The Sapphire HD 7970 OC at 1280 Mhz is rocking with an avg 50.7 fps min 34 fps. Almost 94% scaling for an extra 330Mhz core speed. (1280 / 950 x 40 x 0.94 = 50.66 ) The GTX 680 will be hard pressed to beat this at 1.3 Ghz even with a 100% scaling (42.9 x 1.3 /1.1 = 50.7). We know a 100% scaling is not going to happen. And the chances of higher OC than 1.3 Ghz are lesser and even then scaling is a factor.

Lots of people in these forums are telling the GTX 680 runs better by comparing a 925 Mhz HD 7970 against a GTX 680 even though 1 Ghz HD 7970 versions have been selling from day one. Almost all cards reach 1.1 to 1.125 Ghz on stock voltage settings by just maxing out the sliders in CCC. Its as easy as that. Most of the benchmarks showing the GTX 680 running faster at stock clocks with the help of Turbo upto 1.1 Ghz will look different against a 1.1 Ghz HD 7970 . This is what I meant

"But if you are looking at it impartially based on facts HD 7970 is the better card".

There haven't been any GTX 680's shown to be clocked significantly faster than 1.3 Ghz on air. At max overclocks the HD 7970 is looking better than GTX 680 OC when compared across a larger number of games. And for people who say comparing a stock GTX 680 vs MSI Lightning HD 7970 is not fair. Its not AMD's fault for having released their GPU earlier which enabled custom designs to come out at the same time as the GTX 680 release.
 
680 is the better buy due to price. If the prices were equal I'd say custom-cooled 7970.
 
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I am not going continue to bother arguing if you say Alan Wake is the more popular title.

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/batman-arkham-city-ships-6-million-6349980

http://www.pixeljumpers.com/2012/03/13/alan-wake-surpasses-2-million-sales-worldwide/

They are not even in the same league. Arkham city sold more in the first week than alan wake has done up till now. Alan wake should run better considering it is an xbox 360 exclusive and ran on AMD hardware during that time. Once a person starts to posts something that is an outright lie or completely off the truth, I realize there's no point in arguing because that person will pull facts out of thin air to try to win an argument or troll.

Look at the conclusion of Kyle review of the review you just posted, the 80 dollar difference is too much for a card that isn't faster. You keep on ignoring all the conclusions of every single review your posting. Read them and take them to heart, because your living in a fantasy world(based on the Alan wake being the more popular title). This isn't the same situation as the gtx 580 vs the 6970. We don't have a across the board faster card that justifies it's higher cost.
 
raghu78 said:
Almost all cards reach 1.1 to 1.125 Ghz on stock voltage settings by just maxing out the sliders in CCC.
Click to expand...

"Almost" all is the keyword there. Even when my 7970 worked, it couldn't even reach 1 GHz.
 
From the results of this poll (70% 680, 30% 7970) I can conclude that 30% of [H] readers are drunk or stoned when they're on here.

I kid, I kid. Couldnt resist. ;)
 
tajoh111 / TroyX
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/13817/alan-wake/
Alan Wake on X360 sold more than 1 mn units. Thats a decent start for a new franchise. Even though the X360 version was released in May 2010 Alan wake on PC has been released in Feb 2012 with significant improvements in image quality compared to the X360 version. Its quite demanding on the GPUs Here is a link to an interview about the Alan Wake engine's advanced capabilities like state of the art deferred shading renderer with MSAA, FXAA, volumetric fog system, volumetric light and SSAO,Motion Blur, Dynamic Shadows, Depth of Field, landscape and foliage system with huge view distance (2km), dedicated CPU thread running Havok Physics with things like tornadoes affecting gameplay.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...mpared-to-360-looks-great-at-60-fps/Download/

If this is not a relevant title for benchmarking I rest my argument . I have played Alan Wake with max settings on PC and it looks gorgeous. I have also played Batman Arkham City. Both are good games.

You seem to be telling that we should only test games which are mentioned in Nvidia's reviewer guide. Obviously being a TWIMTBP title Batman Arkham city runs better on GTX 680. But telling that only the most popular games by retail sales should be tested is not a sound argument. The original Crysis and Crysis Warhead on PC were not great sellers in retail. But almost every website has been using them for testing graphics cards. They were tested as they were demanding and were good indicators of GPU performance. Why do you keep ignoring any game other than Batman where Radeon HD 7970 does well. Look at a larger variety of games before you draw conclusions. And you keep telling me about bias. :D
 
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tajoh111 / TroyX
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/13817/alan-wake/
Alan Wake on X360 sold more than 1 mn units. Thats a decent start for a new franchise. Even though the X360 version was released in May 2010 Alan wake on PC has been released in Feb 2012 with significant improvements in image quality compared to the X360 version. Its quite demanding on the GPUs with the GTX 680 barely crossing 30 fps at 2650 x 1600 . http://www.hardware.fr/articles/857-12/benchmark-alan-wake.html . Here is a link to an interview about the Alan Wake engine's advanced capabilities like state of the art deferred shading renderer with MSAA, FXAA, volumetric fog system, volumetric light and SSAO,Motion Blur, Dynamic Shadows, Depth of Field, landscape and foliage system with huge view distance (2km), dedicated CPU thread running Havok Physics with things like tornadoes affecting gameplay.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...mpared-to-360-looks-great-at-60-fps/Download/

If this is not a relevant title for benchmarking I rest my argument.

Have you played the game before saying it sucks. I have played Alan Wake with max settings on PC and it looks gorgeous. I have also played Batman Arkham City. Both are good games. Alan Wake for PC has been recieved positively by critics and gamers. It sold 2 million units across PC and Xbox 360 put together.

http://asia.gamespot.com/news/original-alan-wake-sales-cross-2-million-6365940

http://asia.gamespot.com/alan-wake/reviews/alan-wake-review-6351154/

You seem to be telling that we should only test games which are mentioned in Nvidia's reviewer guide. Obviously being a TWIMTBP title Batman Arkham city runs better on GTX 680. But telling that only the most popular games by retail sales should be tested is not a sound argument. Then we should only test games which top NPD retail sales charts. The original Crysis and Crysis Warhead on PC were not great sellers in retail. But almost every website has been using them for testing graphics cards. They were tested as they were demanding and were good indicators of GPU performance. Why do you keep ignoring any game other than Batman where Radeon HD 7970 does well. Look at a larger variety of games before you draw conclusions. And you keep telling me about bias. :D
 
The real problem with 680GTX and all Nvidia cards is the lack of Display port and you have to have two freaking cards to run nVsurround or whatever their equivalent of eyefinity is.
 
I would get the GTX 680 or wait. Rumor has it AMD has a 7970 sequel (single die) to counter gtx 680.
 
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