Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Monday , May 14, 2012
Author:
Brent Justice
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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GeForce 680 & 670 vs. Radeon 7970 & 7950 Gaming Perf.

Wondering how the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX 670 compare to the Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon HD 7950 at stock frequencies as well as overclocked? You ask for it and we have done just that. Hold onto your hard earned cash and take note of just how the new GeForce GTX 670 compares with the rest of the competition.

continued...

Performance and Price Summary

In our recent evaluation of the GeForce GTX 670 we found such an incredible gameplay experience delivered that we needed to put together an article comparing other GPUs. The evaluation today culminates apples-to-apples game performance data from NVIDIA's top high-end GPUs and AMD's top high-end GPUs. We have compared the GeForce GTX 680, GeForce GTX 670, Radeon HD 7970, and Radeon HD 7950. The results of our comparisons are surely worth discussion.

Before we begin let's keep in mind what the current street prices are on each video card right now as this is very important when determining value to the user.

The Radeon HD 7970 can be found at $449 right now. The GeForce GTX 680, when in stock, is at around $499. The HD 7970 is currently about $50 cheaper than the GTX 680.

The Radeon HD 7950 can be found as low as $379, but mostly around $399. The brand new GeForce GTX 670 has an MSRP of $399. We are seeing prices about right at that, or just a bit higher. So the GTX 670 is therefore about $50 cheaper than the Radeon HD 7970, and at the same price as HD 7950.

On page 2 of this evaluation we looked at the out-of-box performance, stock performance of each video card. The new GeForce GTX 670, at the same price as the Radeon HD 7950 was much better performing than the 7950 in every game. We experienced GTX 670 performance up to 30% faster than the Radeon HD 7950, for the same price. When we compared the GTX 670 to the Radeon HD 7970 we found the lower priced (by $50) GTX 670 to perform on par with, or better than, the Radeon HD 7970! The $50 less expensive GTX 670 was delivering the same gameplay experience, and sometimes a better experience, compared to the more expensive Radeon HD 7970!

On page 3 we overclocked all four video cards and compared again. Even with the Radeon HD 7950 overclocked the GeForce GTX 670 overclocked was able to perform faster. In the second section, when we overclocked the Radeon HD 7970 the high overclock we achieved with that video card put it in the spot to take the performance lead. Even the GTX 670 overclocked was no matched for the overclocked HD 7970. The overclocked GTX 680 is clearly the competition for it, when you put high levels of overclocking into the mix.

So?

The Radeon HD 7970 seems to be rather limited at its factory clock speeds. We have seen some HD 7970 cards overclock as high as 1.3GHz. We have all known the 7970 to be an overclocking beast, hence one more reason to look at the cards in this light. In this evaluation, at 1260MHz you can see how much that helped the HD 7970's performance. It was the only thing that gave it an advantage over the GeForce GTX 670. At stock frequencies, the GeForce GTX 670 seems to deliver the same gameplay experience as a Radeon HD 7970. That means for a $50 savings you can get the same performance as HD 7970. But, you won't be able to match the performance of an overclocked HD 7970 as long as that HD 7970 can reach at least 1200+ MHz.

If you are not one to overclock, it is clear the GTX 670 is the better value even when compared to AMD's $449 HD 7970. The $399 GTX 670 can deliver a similar experience for less money. When compare the price compatible GeForce GTX 670 to the Radeon HD 7950, the value delta is tremendous; it is simply an embarrassing scenario for the Radeon HD 7950. The GeForce GTX 670 clearly offers much better gaming performance at the same price. At the current prices the Radeon HD 7950 cannot compete in the market.

The Bottom Line

NVIDIA has been able to manhandle AMD with each launch this generation. AMD started off strong this year with no competition in sight. NVIDIA was late to the fight, but it did not show up unarmed when it did finally show. AMD has historically held the crown for most power efficient, fast, and affordable GPUs. However, the tides have shifted with NVIDIA's "Kepler" family of GPUs. With the launch of the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX 670 we have seen NVIDIA trump AMD’s GPU efficiency, performance, and value. NVIDIA even beat AMD to the punch this time with a dual-GPU solution much in part because of the Kepler’s tremendous efficiencies.

It is also worth again noting that AMD has been having trouble this generation keeping up with driver issues and CrossFireX support. For the first four months of the Radeon HD 7970 there wasn't even an "official" driver. NVIDIA on the other hand has been quick to support new hardware with unified drivers at launch of GTX 680. Even with the launch of GTX 690 that driver already supported its next release the GTX 670 so we were able to use publically available drivers from NVIDIA's website for the GTX 670. We've also seen [here] [here] [here] how NVIDIA's SLI is smoother than AMD's CrossFireX, and in every case we've tested so far this generation we prefer SLI over CFX for the best experience. And if you have not been exposed to NVIDIA’s Adaptive VSync Technology, you should give this feature a few moments of your time.

The GeForce GTX 680 represents a tremendous piece of technology that any gamer should love to have in his rig. The GeForce GTX 670 represents what is easily the best value in enthusiast PC gaming GPUs. Pick your poison.

Kyle and I have both been running Radeon HD 7970 configurations in our primary gaming machines for months now and been happy with these solutions. Both of us are now going Green once again.

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