5970 Dying...What are my options

Schtask

Schtask

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
436
Well...My 5970 is finally starting to bite it. First, I was getting weird performance issues in BF3 and now I've got a dead display port and an intermittent GPU problem. At any rate..Sick of it, so it's time for a new card.

I'm leaning heavily towards Nvidia this go round. ATI has been getting under my skin with slow driver releases, bad driver releases, terrible driver releases. The microstuttering is getting annoying as well, although on a dual gpu card I guess that is to be expected.

I game at 5760x1200. My specs are decent...X58, I7 920, 1000w PSU, Corsair SSD.

I'm thinking a 680 would be lovely, with the intent to eventually go with two. A 690 would be nice as well, although harder to find. Thoughts? Anyone with a 4gb 680 FTW that can say it helps gaming at high res?
 
Crixus said:
Well...My 5970 is finally starting to bite it. First, I was getting weird performance issues in BF3 and now I've got a dead display port and an intermittent GPU problem. At any rate..Sick of it, so it's time for a new card.

I'm leaning heavily towards Nvidia this go round. ATI has been getting under my skin with slow driver releases, bad driver releases, terrible driver releases. The microstuttering is getting annoying as well, although on a dual gpu card I guess that is to be expected.

I game at 5760x1200. My specs are decent...X58, I7 920, 1000w PSU, Corsair SSD.

I'm thinking a 680 would be lovely, with the intent to eventually go with two. A 690 would be nice as well, although harder to find. Thoughts? Anyone with a 4gb 680 FTW that can say it helps gaming at high res?
Click to expand...

Whats your budget ? The HD 7900 cards have come a long way with the latest driver releases. For your resolution they are ideal. If you want to go Nvidia go for single or dual GTX 670 4 GB cards depending on your budget.
 
are you willing to go for watercooling if you can fit that within your budget. There are some very good HD 7950 deals for USD 320 - 350. clock for clock there is not a big difference between HD 7950 and HD 7970. You can pick two of those HD 7950 cards and go for a watercooling setup. think about it.
 
If your budget is around $1000, then just go for it and pick up a pair of GTX680's. Or a pair of GTX670's for $800'ish. Either one would handle gaming at your resolution with no problem.
 
Okay...You think an X58 mobo w/ the 920 will bottleneck it at all or is it still good?
 
No, get a 680. if thats not enough get 2. I have a 680 it's totally worth it. I had an ATI or AMD card that sucked due to drivers
 
I had the last round of AMD cards and have found Nvidia to be much smoother. I lived on newegg for a month to get one 680 when i did
i was not dissappointed. My specs are similar to yours. you might lose a few frames a second compared to Z68 Z77 but not much
 
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I upgraded from 6950 unlocked to 7970 since i got a 30" dell. I would have been quite happy with it. Got a msi with aftermarket cooler. Been decent overclock to 1150mhz np. But i dont play alot of games. And AMD card are quite abit cheaper then nvidia card for the same tier i think. Since you have budget of 1000, that may not matter much.
 
go for a 7970 overclock it to 1200mhz and you're set for at least 2 years.
 
No more dual gpu's for me. I've had one or two every generation since the 9800 gx2. I have finally learned from my mistakes and will not be going that route again.
 
680 takes my vote. Generally excellent drivers that gets released every few months and has more features than AMD offering.

The dual GPU offering this time around from Nvidia is great as well. Extremely silent for a dual GPU and it has incredible performance that isn't crippled like the usual dual GPU.
 
Thank you all for the help. I've read some other thoughts on the forums that claim the 7970's perform better at higher res....The [h] review contradicts that a little. It's all a bit confusing.
 
Well, the AMD vs nVidia argument is eternal and bitter. However, I'll post my thoughts.

The actual GPU part of the 680 is stronger than the GPU part of the 7970. However, it is somewhat hamstrung by 2GB RAM over a 256-bit bus.

The 7970 has 3GB RAM over a 384-bit bus, but the actual GPU is measurably slower.

As you push more and more pixels, the RAM and bus size become more important. At all single-monitor resolutions, the 680 just kinda wins assuming you don't have a God-chip 7970. As you enter eyefinity, the 7970 starts catching up, and the more pixels you push the more it takes over. However, at entry eyefinity (1080p X 3) the 680 is still even or ahead. [H] member Vega ran some tests at some of the more extreme eyefinity resolutions (which I'm aware you won't be using but still) that put some perspective on how the cards scale at, say, 1440p x 5.

So at your resolution, the cards trade blows depending on overclocks and specific games. 7970's are quite a bit cheaper though, and eyefinity is a more mature technology than NV Surround (can do 5x1, for example).

AMD drivers have also improved a TON compared to when a lot of the 7970 vs 680 reviews were first done.
 
Definitely get the 690 if you managed to find one with good price.

Because:

1- Less power / less heat
2- Takes less space = better air flow.
3- Pretty much same performance as SLI 680, only a TINY bit slower which won't be noticeable.
4- From what I've read the 690 will have less micro stuttering issues compared to SLI 680s (forgot the exact reason, either some new built in technology or they're running off the same PCI-E lane, not sure)
5- High quality components!
 
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It is not under warranty any longer. And yes....it was pricey..I think I paid around 700 for it when it came out. I actually fixed the display port problem this afternoon (broken connector) and I'm not quite sure what to make of the second gpu. At this point, I'm not even sure that what I'm seeing isn't just a driver related issue. I do know that it still runs most other games well in eyefinity at decent settings. After some additional research online I've found that every 5970 owner has big problems in bf3, so no surprises there.

The card is old.....I feel like it is time for a new rig, I'm just a little perplexed with AMD and their terrible driver issues, and Nvidia with their lack of memory bus and shoddy nvidia surround software. To top it off, current gen games are all crappy console ports...so what's the point these days anyway. Maybe I should just ride it out and wait for next gen. Depressed.
 
Wait it out for the next generation of cards. It'd be the most cost effective and give you the biggest jump.

I fell to the hype and got a 7970, but i definetly should not have gotten a second one, until i needed it.
 
Crixus said:
It is not under warranty any longer. And yes....it was pricey..I think I paid around 700 for it when it came out. I actually fixed the display port problem this afternoon (broken connector) and I'm not quite sure what to make of the second gpu. At this point, I'm not even sure that what I'm seeing isn't just a driver related issue. I do know that it still runs most other games well in eyefinity at decent settings. After some additional research online I've found that every 5970 owner has big problems in bf3, so no surprises there.

The card is old.....I feel like it is time for a new rig, I'm just a little perplexed with AMD and their terrible driver issues, and Nvidia with their lack of memory bus and shoddy nvidia surround software. To top it off, current gen games are all crappy console ports...so what's the point these days anyway. Maybe I should just ride it out and wait for next gen. Depressed.
Click to expand...

True, AMD was slow to get out driver optimizations for the 7xxx series. However, an AMD card purchased today won't have that issue from everything I've been hearing. Even crossfire seems to be pretty solid with the latest issue.
 
Are you thinking of selling your dieing 5970? I might be interested, let me know what your looking to get for it.
 
I don't think it's dying...The displayport problem was the cable not the card. I don't know about selling yet. This gen of cards from green and red are both seeming not worth it atm.
 
If your budget is $1000 you could probably pick up a couple 680s off the forums here for that price, shipped.
 
I went from a 7970 to two 7950... i had some problems with UPLS but now it is working ok..

I game with 3 monitors and I can say one graphic card is not enough, well I could play BF3 in 3 monitors with one 7970 but not everything on max, with two 7950 I can set everything to max.

I was thinking about 2x 670 or 2x7950, I went for AMD because 1Gb more memory and each card was 15% cheaper.
 
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