cant decide which one i want

[GamerGuy]

Originally Posted by animal007uk

Same for me, Everything has always worked as intended. While some people may have problems it does not apply to all of us and that is why i also don't take this bullshit around the net as fact.

Same here, I've been running CF setups since having 2x HD2900XT to 2x HD3870 X2 to 2x HD5870 to 3x HD7970, no real issue other than with the HD2900XT's. Sometimes, the driver refused to install, and I'd had to reinstall a few times for it to stick. But, the Cat driver has come a long way since, and I've had only minor issues every now and then, nothing game breaking, and nothing really worth mentioning. And before the nV boys jump on me, let's just say that I also have a pair of GTX670 in SLi in my 2nd rig, and other than minor issues every now and then as well, they're nothing to write home about. Also have a HD6990 in my 3rd rig, and dare I say it? It runs very nicely as well.....that's why, when I hear some peeps being quite vocal about ATi/AMD drivers, I go, "Huh? What driver issue?"

And fanboys always going for, "But AMD driver sux the big one...." argument really have nothing else bad to say, so this is their mantra, their backup fallback line.

[erixx]

670 here with 0 issues, and I mean ZERO. Just playing without ever caring to enter the cards options panel. That is what I appreciate most of a videocard, not a few pennies less or a few pixels more.

[jormungand]

GA GTX670 WF3 user here. just awesome card til now. pick your side hd 7970 wf3 is at $399 in newegg last time i saw. both cards are amazing.
right now you can get a single gpu card that has twice or triple the render of $550 or $600 cards 2 or just 1 year ago. why people hesitate on this. simple $400 card play fullll!!!

[Cotton_Cup]

+1 to 7970 and + 1 to gtx 670, have both in hand and all are good even at bf3 ^_^

[RCoon]

670 will get higher frames in some games, 7970 will get higher frames in other games.
There really is no real way to claim one is better than the other. Go with personal preference of ATI or NVidia, and personal preference of manufacturers, Asus, XFX, Gigabyte etc, and buy the cheaper one.

[Theoddis]

well i got the 7970 ... and now im RMAing it bad tearing and artifacting. It doesnt happen all the time but just enough to make it look like ass... and i mean WoW looks like ass, it was better with a single GTX460. skyrim i get purple trees and a lot of tearing and nothing ive done with the drivers or clock speeds has helped, AA on AA off its still the same may have just gotten a bad card ill give em one more shot to make me happy then im back to Nvidia

[ruff0r]

Originally Posted by Theoddis

well i got the 7970 ... and now im RMAing it bad tearing and artifacting. It doesnt happen all the time but just enough to make it look like ass... and i mean WoW looks like ass, it was better with a single GTX460. skyrim i get purple trees and a lot of tearing and nothing ive done with the drivers or clock speeds has helped, AA on AA off its still the same may have just gotten a bad card ill give em one more shot to make me happy then im back to Nvidia

Keep us up to date.

[MxPhenom 216]

Originally Posted by Theoddis

mostly just WoW, Skyrim,New Vegas and Dark Souls for now BF3 and borderlands 2 later if i need my FPS fix but i think only BL2 and BF3 uses PhysX

Battlefield 3 does not use PhysX. IIRC like BC2 it uses the Havok engine for its physics. BL2 is so far the only AAA title out right now that uses PhysX in a way that actually makes a difference in the game.

I would get a HD7970 over the GTX670. Cheaper and performance about the same as the 670, and then its skies over the 670/680 in compute, which is becoming more important in games these days.

[d1nky]

+1 7970

[LDNL]

Out of 3 ATI cards i've owned, had a problem with all of em but always found a fix or a compromise. With Nvidia, SLI profiles were once buggy and got fixed pretty quick but no problems with single card configurations. Owned 7 Nvidia cards.

[the54thvoid]

Originally Posted by Theoddis

well i got the 7970 ... and now im RMAing it bad tearing and artifacting. It doesnt happen all the time but just enough to make it look like ass... and i mean WoW looks like ass, it was better with a single GTX460. skyrim i get purple trees and a lot of tearing and nothing ive done with the drivers or clock speeds has helped, AA on AA off its still the same may have just gotten a bad card ill give em one more shot to make me happy then im back to Nvidia

Well that sucks a bit but it can happen with any card from any vendor. A custom 7970 is still the better option over a single 670. The 3GB matters, playing bioshock (admittedly at 2560x1440 on ultra) I've seen the memory use go well beyond 2GB.

[Theoddis]

well i bitched and moaned and they still wont give me a RMA shipping label.... buuut that are going to upgrade it to a vapor X ghz edition .... i R happy

[ruff0r]

Originally Posted by Theoddis

well i bitched and moaned and they still wont give me a RMA shipping label.... buuut that are going to upgrade it to a vapor X ghz edition .... i R happy

Excuse me but why aren't they giving you an RMA label?

[Theoddis]

no the RMA label i got.they just wont pay to ship it but ill pay shipping for a GHz edition
upgrade

[m1dg3t]

Sucks you had problem/s... What vendor? Saphire i bet, they have wicked awesome CS!

Since you went from an Nvidia to an ATi did you do a driver sweep in safe mode to make sure you cleared out all the Nvidea code? Wouldn't want you to be chasing a continual problem...

[erocker]

Originally Posted by Theoddis

I keep getting mixed reveiws on each from fanboys on ether side

Stop listening to "fanboys" and read reviews.

[m1dg3t]

Originally Posted by erocker

Stop listening to "fanboys" and read reviews.

+1.

It shouldn't even really be a question, more performance for less money... Seems obvious to me

[Theoddis]

Originally Posted by m1dg3t

Sucks you had problem/s... What vendor? Saphire i bet, they have wicked awesome CS!

Since you went from an Nvidia to an ATi did you do a driver sweep in safe mode to make sure you cleared out all the Nvidea code? Wouldn't want you to be chasing a continual problem...

yea sapphire its not as good as EVGA but still not horrible

[Theoddis]

Originally Posted by m1dg3t

Sucks you had problem/s... What vendor? Saphire i bet, they have wicked awesome CS!

Since you went from an Nvidia to an ATi did you do a driver sweep in safe mode to make sure you cleared out all the Nvidea code? Wouldn't want you to be chasing a continual problem...

if you heard a big loud boom that was my facepalm that went though my head and around the earrth back to my elbow pushing it in deeper...

[Theoddis]

nvidia you cheeky bastards i figured driver sweeper would get rid of all the invidia drivers but i found one hiding along with a physX driver .... cleaned and done now to see if that fixes my problem

[m1dg3t]

Sometimes one guy is hiding, waiting to make a surprise visit! Hopefully it fixed now

[Theoddis]

well looks like its doing good so far I am going to stress test it later and runn a couple benchmarks

[m1dg3t]

Nice! Just play some games man

[Hood]

My 2 cents - after a few years of not really caring, I eventually came to the conclusion that ATI/AMD cards have too many issues (crashes, freezing, blue screens, buggy drivers and dodgy CCC versions). So far none of these issues with my 550 Ti or 660 Ti (in 1.5 years), just smooth gameplay, usually beyond my expectations regarding frame rates and detail.
I suppose that these days AMD's products are more refined and I'm sure that they're priced very competitively, and software/driver issues are mostly past history, so now it comes down to personal preference. Others may have had the opposite of my experience, so you can't disqualify AMD on my say so. Only you can decide in the end, and your opinion won't really count until you've tried a few from both camps.

[Whitestar]

I have had tons of both AMD and nVidia cards and I have been happy with all of them. My best buys I think was the GTX 8800 (if I remember correctly) and my recently retired Radeon 5970.

I honestly haven't noticed much difference in driver support other than that in the past few years AMD has been a little late with Crossfire support. But other than that I'd say it's a tie.

Just recently I bought a GTX 670. The reasoning behind that was that I have had Crossfire (5970) for several years now. So this time I thought I'd try SLI and see if that is indeed smoother than Crossfire like many claim. If it weren't for SLI then I'd probably go for a radeon card, since they're a bit cheaper.

Read the reviews that test games that you play or will play the most. That's what you want: the smoothest experience in the games that you think you will play the most. That's why it's very important to check the minimum framerate in the reviews. The longer the fps stays above your screen's refresh rate the smoother the experience will be, if you play with vsync on that is. And if your card can deliver the frames at an even rate. (Sigh!) it's not easy is it.