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I went from crossfire 7970s to a single 7970 and I just recently picked up a EVGA GTX 780 ACX cooler. This was the first time a video card has wowed me since the 8800GTX series. The 7970s in crossfire did provide high FPS numbers, but there were constant FPS drops (demanding games), stutters, and lack of driver support for some games. A single 7970 wasn't enough to run some games on max settings and had a couple hiccups here and there, even on lowered settings. I had reference models and they were HOT and LOUD. They were able to OC up to 1100mhz, but with the increased voltage it ran really hot, hitting 85-90c easily with the fans sounding like jet engines.
Fast forward today, my 780 idles at 25c and gaming loads at 45-50c (vsync on). Benchmarking, it only hits just under 70c (overclocked) and it's nearly silent. The 780 under LOAD is the same as my 7970 at idle. The Nvidia drivers were painless, unlike AMDs. Overclocking was painless, it easily reached 1200mhz boost with stock voltages. In benchmarks like Unigines, 3dmark11, etc. It's almost as fast as my TWO 7970s in crossfire and doing it at 65c and almost silently. Granted my 7970s were stock speeds, this is still amazing from a single 780. Of course, if I had a custom cooler on the 7970, I would be able to OC it, but it's still nowhere as impressive as the 780. Yes, the 780 does cost more, but I would honestly have a single 780 than two 7970s given the choice after owning two 7970s for a year. Too many games have stuttering issues with crossfire.
Playing Bioshock on high settings, the 7970 was able to stay at 60FPS, most of the time, with the very occasional drop to 55 and back up during battles and such. However, these stutters takes away from the gameplay. I was able to ramp settings up to ultra on the 780 and it was so smooth. There were no drops and the whole gameplay experience felt different.
Oh yes, and the automatic overclocking, underclocking, is pretty ingenious. It helps lower temps which lowers fan noise. I was playing an older game and the GPU underclocked itself below stock clocks and was still able to play at a very smooth 60FPS with no drops.
Anyone on the fence between the two, it is definitely worth it. Good job with the 780 Nvidia, and great job on the ACX cooler EVGA.
Fast forward today, my 780 idles at 25c and gaming loads at 45-50c (vsync on). Benchmarking, it only hits just under 70c (overclocked) and it's nearly silent. The 780 under LOAD is the same as my 7970 at idle. The Nvidia drivers were painless, unlike AMDs. Overclocking was painless, it easily reached 1200mhz boost with stock voltages. In benchmarks like Unigines, 3dmark11, etc. It's almost as fast as my TWO 7970s in crossfire and doing it at 65c and almost silently. Granted my 7970s were stock speeds, this is still amazing from a single 780. Of course, if I had a custom cooler on the 7970, I would be able to OC it, but it's still nowhere as impressive as the 780. Yes, the 780 does cost more, but I would honestly have a single 780 than two 7970s given the choice after owning two 7970s for a year. Too many games have stuttering issues with crossfire.
Playing Bioshock on high settings, the 7970 was able to stay at 60FPS, most of the time, with the very occasional drop to 55 and back up during battles and such. However, these stutters takes away from the gameplay. I was able to ramp settings up to ultra on the 780 and it was so smooth. There were no drops and the whole gameplay experience felt different.
Oh yes, and the automatic overclocking, underclocking, is pretty ingenious. It helps lower temps which lowers fan noise. I was playing an older game and the GPU underclocked itself below stock clocks and was still able to play at a very smooth 60FPS with no drops.
Anyone on the fence between the two, it is definitely worth it. Good job with the 780 Nvidia, and great job on the ACX cooler EVGA.
