best videocard under for $500

Its a well known fact that 7970s at there max oc are faster than STOCK 680. 680 overclocked to 1200/7000 is exactly the same as a 7970 at 1200/1600-1700. Depending on the game give or take a frame or two. I had both and any benchmark that doesn't favor 1 or the other is within a frame. In heaven the 680 was about 1 frame faster and my 1340/71-7200 670 was about the same as well (less than a frame difference). A 770 is priced at slightly more than a 7970 and will hold its value longer than a 680 or 7970 and has GPU boost 2.0 which is WAY better for overclocking (although still a lottery). The 1 and only game you'll see an advantage on a 7970 is metro 2033 which scales with higher memory bus. Metro last light isn't as bad for this. Plus if u ever decide to run 2 cards sli is WAY better. Unless amd fixes this frame latency shit. I moved from 2 7950 to 2 670 and the difference is fluidity was night and day. I run 120hz and am not going to use radeon pro to cap my frames just to get smooth gameplay.
 
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I do not have both of those cards anymore. Just have to take my word for it.


What comeback do you speak of? It's a well known fact that 7970's at their max oc's, are faster than 680's and 770's (aka 680).

The 7950 is on average 3-7% slower than the 7970, clock for clock. You can do the math on your own.

Well known fact by whom? Reviews show otherwise quite often depending on the game in question. What max OC are you speaking of because that's quite a lottery.
 
Again a thread like this....every forum around the web is the same. Justifying your purchases and shit.
My reason for going Nvidia started with my SLI GTX460's and BF3. The smoothness and fluidity for SLI without v-sync was amazing. Drivers is another reason. All the extra's like adaptive v-sync, the monitor overclock feature, GPU boost, Physx etc. AMD just can't compete, yeah you get them cheaper with old games but you won't get fluidity and smoothness like nvidia without capping your fps and v-syncing.

Don't give me that overclocking stuff because you won't know until you have bought it and can see how far you can clock the card. Lottery shit right there. I was lucky to get very high overclockability on my reference GTX680's I can run stable on 1350\7150Mhz all day for more than a year now.

Friends and colleagues are convinced after seeing at LAN parties showing side by side gameplay of BF3, Skyrim, GRID 2, Hitman Absolution, TombRaider, Van Helsing, DiRT 2, 3, Showdown, Call of Juarez Gunslinger, Deadpool and some Indie games the smoothness of single and multi GPU comparisons. They all want smoothness because that is where you get the best experience. No matter what you offer in the form of bundles with your card and cheap prices the majority will choose the smoothness over that when they see the side by side gameplay comparisons of games.
 
Y would u roll ur eyes. I've gone threw 2 wind force 670s, zotac amp 670, MSI power edition 660ti, 2 evga ftw sig2 670s, evga reference 680, 2 sapphire oc edition 7950s, sapphire oc edition 7970 and now 780 lol.

Are you just selling them? If not I would think there is something wrong with you man.
 
Yes, I buy and sell. I like to try out everything as much as I can. I'm a video card whore.
 
Well known fact by whom? Reviews show otherwise quite often depending on the game in question. What max OC are you speaking of because that's quite a lottery.

for people who are doing custom cooling and watercooling they look at those max OC perf. there is enough data on the internet forums, tech sites like this one to prove that a HD 7970 wins more games against a GTX 770 and with higher margins. you can see that even in the best cases the GTX 770 wins are close. When HD 7970 wins in games like Tombraider, Hitman, Max Payne 3, Sleeping Dogs, COH 2 the wins are massive.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/17/asus_geforce_gtx_770_directcu_ii_video_card_review/4
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/06/msi_n770_lightning_overclocking_review/3

ASUS GTX 770 is running at 1.3 Ghz core / 8 Ghz memory. thats a fairly good OC. you can see

Metro Last Light 2560 x 1600 AAA Very high quality Very high teselation
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 50.1 fps
Gigabye HD 7970 OC - 47.1 fps

Crysis 3 2560 x 1600 SMAA 2TX High settings
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 58.5
GIGABYTE HD 7970 OC - 56.1

Farcry 3 2560 X 1600 Ultra 2x MSAA
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 39.4 fps
GIGABYTE HD 7970 - 38.8 fps

Tombraider is 20% faster on Gigabyte HD 7970 OC compared to MSI Lightning GTX 770 OC. (the lightning gtx 770 review and asus gtx 770 oc reviews have different times of run for tombraider 380s and 500+ sec, so results are not directly comparable)

Hitman Absolution is just on par with a ASUS GTX 770 OC gainst a stock HD 7970 Ghz(1050 mhz). HD 7970 OC will be around 20% faster given the perf scaling we see with HD 7970

out of 5 games we see 2 games in favour of GTX 770 (metro last light, crysis 3) with < 7% margin , farcry 3 being on par and 2 games being 20% faster on HD 7970 OC (tomb raider and hitman).

if you knew basic math you will know the HD 7970 OC is faster because of its much bigger margins in the games it wins. :D
 
I didn't buy a shit ton of video cards at once. I'd buy 1 n sell it and get another etc. Wats my strange opinion on games I don't play. Don't think I voiced my opinion on any game that's not in my library ?
 
for people who are doing custom cooling and watercooling they look at those max OC perf. there is enough data on the internet forums, tech sites like this one to prove that a HD 7970 wins more games against a GTX 770 and with higher margins. you can see that even in the best cases the GTX 770 wins are close. When HD 7970 wins in games like Tombraider, Hitman, Max Payne 3, Sleeping Dogs, COH 2 the wins are massive.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/17/asus_geforce_gtx_770_directcu_ii_video_card_review/4
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/06/msi_n770_lightning_overclocking_review/3

ASUS GTX 770 is running at 1.3 Ghz core / 8 Ghz memory. thats a fairly good OC. you can see

Metro Last Light 2560 x 1600 AAA Very high quality Very high teselation
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 50.1 fps
Gigabye HD 7970 OC - 47.1 fps

Crysis 3 2560 x 1600 SMAA 2TX High settings
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 58.5
GIGABYTE HD 7970 OC - 56.1

Farcry 3 2560 X 1600 Ultra 2x MSAA
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 39.4 fps
GIGABYTE HD 7970 - 38.8 fps

Tombraider is 20% faster on Gigabyte HD 7970 OC compared to MSI Lightning GTX 770 OC. (the lightning gtx 770 review and asus gtx 770 oc reviews have different times of run for tombraider 380s and 500+ sec, so results are not directly comparable)

Hitman Absolution is just on par with a ASUS GTX 770 OC gainst a stock HD 7970 Ghz(1050 mhz). HD 7970 OC will be around 20% faster given the perf scaling we see with HD 7970

out of 5 games we see 2 games in favour of GTX 770 (metro last light, crysis 3) with < 7% margin , farcry 3 being on par and 2 games being 20% faster on HD 7970 OC (tomb raider and hitman).

if you knew basic math you will know the HD 7970 OC is faster because of its much bigger margins in the games it wins. :D

Hi there,

I have the same clocks on my GTX680 but run my CPU at 5.3Ghz on water. I'm happy that I get higher fps overall than both those cards when running single gpu config but that is just luck that I have a good chip, ASIC quality 92%.
The other thing to note is not all games run smooth and fluid on an AMD GPU and I have seen some gameplay comparisons that shows that. It kills the experience, trust me. I can only show you some videos made by PCPER on youtube but that is not a great way of showing it as youtube encodes the videos again and screws up details and smoothness again. I saw this at a recent LAN party where 2 guys were running 7970Ghz and a 7950 heavily overclocked. Nice fps in games but not smooth at all. Then they frame capped it with radeon pro and did some vsync tricks to proof its still smooth, but even with that is wasn't completely smooth and is not really a solution for me and others with 120HZ - 144Hz monitors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8udnXLrHN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY0iFojEKRU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV3eAkXqykQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc28d3FIpZc

These are just some example that I could find online but showcases crossfire vs SLI in smoothness. And this is even present in single AMD GPU's. You have to see this in real life side by side. Best is to go to a LAN party and see who is willing to try it out.
In recent surveys by steam hardware stats here: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
You can see that the majority has Nvidia hardware now 52% and AMD at 33% you see the AMD graph decreasing. If you click on the video card description look for the AMD 7950 - 45th & 7970 - 46th position, they're almost at the bottom of the list with only 0.66%!
The GTX680 is higher up in the list at 24th position with 1.12% almost double that of the 7950 & 7970, GTX670 at 12th position with 1.44% and the GTX660 at 10th position with 1.56% and lastly GTX660 Ti at 21th position with 1.19%. All these are mid to high end Nvidia cards which a lot more people bought and are still playing on. This already tells you what most pc gamers prefer.

And some more devastating AMD news:
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/AMD-may-discontinue-Radeon-HD-7990
 
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Hi there,
The other thing to note is not all games run smooth and fluid on an AMD GPU and I have seen some gameplay comparisons that shows that. It kills the experience, trust me. I can only show you some videos made by PCPER on youtube but that is not a great way of showing it as youtube encodes the videos again and screws up details and smoothness again.

I saw this at a recent LAN party where 2 guys were running 7970Ghz and a 7950 heavily overclocked. Nice fps in games but not smooth at all. Then they frame capped it with radeon pro and did some vsync tricks to proof its still smooth, but even with that is wasn't completely smooth and is not really a solution for me and others with 120HZ - 144Hz monitors.

These are just some example that I could find online but showcases crossfire vs SLI in smoothness. And this is even present in single AMD GPU's. You have to see this in real life side by side.

On SLI vs CF Nvidia is ahead at the moment and has been for the Kepler generation. AMD cannot compete in multi GPU experience atleast till the CF frame pacing driver arrives. so you are correct on multi gpu. but single GPU AMD is definitely on par

you can see a HD 7970 Ghz vs GTX 770 . the HD 7970 Ghz has better frametime performance in most cases.

http://techreport.com/review/24996/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-graphics-card-reviewed/4
 
On SLI vs CF Nvidia is ahead at the moment and has been for the Kepler generation. AMD cannot compete in multi GPU experience atleast till the CF frame pacing driver arrives. so you are correct on multi gpu. but single GPU AMD is definitely on par

you can see a HD 7970 Ghz vs GTX 770 . the HD 7970 Ghz has better frametime performance in most cases.

http://techreport.com/review/24996/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-graphics-card-reviewed/4

Sort of because out of the 100+ games on my steam and anyone's steam library there are a ton of other games where it isn't smooth which review sites will never use because they aren't triple A titles.

Back to the 7950 & 7970 which are almost 2 years old now and anybody that has or had one wouldn't get another as an upgrade to crossfire because of the frame pacing issues and AMD constantly delaying that driver fix so since this year a lot of 7950 & 7970 owners sold that and upgrade to Nvidia GTX770\780 which they can and will upgrade again in a year or 2 by adding another 770\780 with better performance, smoothness & fluidity. The steam hardware survey reflects the decrease in AMD GPU's so can't deny the facts period.
 
It depends on how the 'used' market is. Often you can just as well sell your own card and buy one newer gen. card in return and have almost equal performance, but without the added heat and SLI / CF issues.
 
for people who are doing custom cooling and watercooling they look at those max OC perf. there is enough data on the internet forums, tech sites like this one to prove that a HD 7970 wins more games against a GTX 770 and with higher margins. you can see that even in the best cases the GTX 770 wins are close. When HD 7970 wins in games like Tombraider, Hitman, Max Payne 3, Sleeping Dogs, COH 2 the wins are massive.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/17/asus_geforce_gtx_770_directcu_ii_video_card_review/4
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/06/msi_n770_lightning_overclocking_review/3

ASUS GTX 770 is running at 1.3 Ghz core / 8 Ghz memory. thats a fairly good OC. you can see

Metro Last Light 2560 x 1600 AAA Very high quality Very high teselation
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 50.1 fps
Gigabye HD 7970 OC - 47.1 fps

Crysis 3 2560 x 1600 SMAA 2TX High settings
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 58.5
GIGABYTE HD 7970 OC - 56.1

Farcry 3 2560 X 1600 Ultra 2x MSAA
ASUS GTX 770 OC - 39.4 fps
GIGABYTE HD 7970 - 38.8 fps

Tombraider is 20% faster on Gigabyte HD 7970 OC compared to MSI Lightning GTX 770 OC. (the lightning gtx 770 review and asus gtx 770 oc reviews have different times of run for tombraider 380s and 500+ sec, so results are not directly comparable)

Hitman Absolution is just on par with a ASUS GTX 770 OC gainst a stock HD 7970 Ghz(1050 mhz). HD 7970 OC will be around 20% faster given the perf scaling we see with HD 7970

out of 5 games we see 2 games in favour of GTX 770 (metro last light, crysis 3) with < 7% margin , farcry 3 being on par and 2 games being 20% faster on HD 7970 OC (tomb raider and hitman).

if you knew basic math you will know the HD 7970 OC is faster because of its much bigger margins in the games it wins. :D


Why stop at custom and watercooling? If everyone isn't using hard-wired volt mods and LN2 then all other results are invalid. Maybe you can see where I'm going with this, but I'm guessing you probably can't or refuse. Its fine though Raghu, keep drinking that AMD koolaid.
 
Why stop at custom and watercooling? If everyone isn't using hard-wired volt mods and LN2 then all other results are invalid. Maybe you can see where I'm going with this, but I'm guessing you probably can't or refuse. Its fine though Raghu, keep drinking that AMD koolaid.

predictable. refrain from personal attacks.
 
That card looks like alot of fun. I would be all over it if it priced around $300. A decent overclocked HD79x0 is still better.

I have to disagree with you. Any person looking to purchase a NEW GPU isn't going for an almost 2 years old GPU with no future and upgrade path.

Only way to go now is GTX700 series or if you have time to wait Maxell or see what AMD brings out which is all rumors atm.
 
I have to disagree with you. Any person looking to purchase a NEW GPU isn't going for an almost 2 years old GPU with no future and upgrade path.

Only way to go now is GTX700 series or if you have time to wait Maxell or see what AMD brings out which is all rumors atm.


I'm in no rush to upgrade. Both of my HD7950s provide me with lots of gaming ability and fun.
 
I have to disagree with you. Any person looking to purchase a NEW GPU isn't going for an almost 2 years old GPU with no future and upgrade path.

Only way to go now is GTX700 series or if you have time to wait Maxell or see what AMD brings out which is all rumors atm.

I disagree, in the next 2 years, 2gb of Vram will not be enough for games. Even the new COH2 and BF4 alpha and showing 2gb might not be enough.

And with AMD getting the console win, look for games to use even more since 99% of the new xbox/ps4 console games will be ported over.

I think the only good option right now for Nvidia cards is a to go 4gb on the 760/770, or get a 780 with 3gb of memory.
 
I disagree, in the next 2 years, 2gb of Vram will not be enough for games. Even the new COH2 and BF4 alpha and showing 2gb might not be enough.

And with AMD getting the console win, look for games to use even more since 99% of the new xbox/ps4 console games will be ported over.

I think the only good option right now for Nvidia cards is a to go 4gb on the 760/770, or get a 780 with 3gb of memory.

In a way 50/50, the only games I have seen and tested that taxed 2GB VRAM was Crysis 3 with all the bells and whistles turned up, Skyrim with a lot of mods and Crysis 2 with MalDoHD mods that is still on 1 monitor at 1080p. The majority of AAA titles barely make it over 1GB VRAM playing at 1080p and some level of Anti-Aliasing. I know that on multi monitor at higher resolution 2GB is a joke.
The consoles will only do 1080p so if that is your resolution which the majority of pc gamers have your good on 2GB VRAM for the next few years. I know I will (GTX680 2GB VRAM SLI) enjoy it for the coming years easily. I just hope more developers go with very high def. textures and great tessellation and make use of all our VRAM. But definitely in the future 4-6GB VRAM will have to be the norm.

They still need to work and optimize those alpha's which by the way some run on dev kits (pc's with Nvidia hardware). Even at the E3 they showed some game I forgot and you could see a pc running it with GTX670 in there and Intel CPU.
 
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Bf3 is the only game I've ever seen a real problem in performance when not enough vram. My 560ti 1gb setup stuttered like crazy with msaa applied even tho it was pushing over 80fps.
 
I just hate when some AMD lovers keep pushing that aging 7900 series card in peoples face, especially the ones wanting to upgrade NOW not yesterday or 1 year ago.
So you can overclock guess what the other vendor can overclock like beasts as well. I can my friends can so does tons of people online easily.

The now cards are the GTX700 series or Titan which for this thread doesn't fall in the category recommendation for this price point OP specified.

Same thing goes for CPU's, do you see me or others recommending a 2 year old cpu to somebody wanting to upgrade to something new now?
 
I just hate when some AMD lovers keep pushing that aging 7900 series card in peoples face, especially the ones wanting to upgrade NOW not yesterday or 1 year ago.

The question asked is for the best card under $500 and I am being honest based on my personal experience and many hours of personal research.

AMD will have an upgraded new card in the future but at present they don't have any other card for under $500 that I can base an opinion on.


I like the MSI GTX 770 lightning alot and even though it trails the HD7970 in GPU ability and lower memory interface I still would like to own one to water cool and over clock it to its max limits. I think it is over priced and should have been released at $349.99 to really compete with HD7970.

I think alot of people are not satisfied with sub $500 card performance.

The only card that I could really recommend as a good upgrade from HD7970 or GTX 680 is the GTX 780.
 
They may match in a few benchmarks but over all the HD7970 is better, it has larger memory interface, more powerful gpu capable of higher graphic processing and compute proessing and more memory.

Cherry on top is HD7970 has lower cost.

Ya on paper specs are usually better for AMD. Wonder what holds them back...hmmmmm...drivers ? I think its funny that review the 770 has the slight edge with a 1241mhz clock (other than tomb raider which I beat in 10 hours on a 670 maxed out smooth as butter so who cares). That's nothing for a 770. The 7970 is at 1275mhz which is amazing. I'd say less than half the 7970s out there will do 1200 core with reasonable temps and voltage. Ud be extremely unlucky to get a 770 that ddidn't do over 1200.
 
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Ya on paper specs are usually better for AMD. Wonder what holds them back...hmmmmm...drivers ?



The drivers do keep getting better so that is nice but I've managed to get alot of performance out of my HD7950s with the drivers that are available and its great to know that as the drivers improve so will the performance.
 
The drivers do keep getting better so that is nice but I've managed to get alot of performance out of my HD7950s with the drivers that are available and its great to know that as the drivers improve so will the performance.

Well ya just the driver that fixes frame latency would be nice. So the 100fps it says on your screen feels like 100 instead of 40. Had 7950s. Only game that didn't feel like a bag of shit was bf3. Crysis 3 was horrible. Not even playable on 2 cards just a mess.
 
GTX 770 and it isn't even close. $399 for a gpu that beats the 680 and 7970 and also easily overclocks to 1200+ boost.
Now if you're going triple screen, then you could make an argument for the 7970 with its extra gig of vram.
 
GTX 770 and it isn't even close. $399 for a gpu that beats the 680 and 7970 and also easily overclocks to 1200+ boost.
Now if you're going triple screen, then you could make an argument for the 7970 with its extra gig of vram.



No argument needed. The HD7970 is superior in over all gpu processing ability and the larger memory interface helps when over clocking.

The memory on the GTX 770 is very fast, I like that alot but it isn't a better card.
 
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