What GFX to get? 7970, 670, or Titan?

[Koba]

Hello. I simply cannot decide which GFX card to get? Right now i use on board video.. lol !

My setup is:
2500k ~ 4.2GHz
16GB ram
1200 PSU
24' inch monitor ~1900x1200

I want to play ALL my games in 1900x1200 with everything on max - Crysis 3!

So what GFX should I get you think? I'm thinking about getting the 7970 but I simply don't know if I will be able to run Crysis 3 with everything on max and still have a +40-50 FPS?

I'm also afraid if I get the 7970 or 670, I won't be able to run the NEW games coming during the year with all the eye candy on, hence why I should perhaps just go all in and get the Titan?

.. Oh and yeah.. I use 1 monitor only

So what do you guys think I should get in order to run all games in 1900x1200 with everything on max (all eye candy on) ??

Thanks

[the54thvoid]

Hi mate, welcome to TPU

I'd say one 7970 won't max out Crysis 3 at the fps you are looking for but it is a very good card to get (go custom, not stock cooler).

The Titan is obviously a better card but for your purposes and that resolution it is a bit of overkill but even that wont make 60fps on max settings (the game is a beast, a very nice one mind you).

If you can easily afford a Titan, I'd say buy one but if money doesn't grow on a tree in your back garden, I'd buy a single custom cooled 7970.

[Koba]

Hi the54thvoid! Thanks for the quick reply! The thing that irritates me is.. If I go buy the 7970 I likely won't be able to run the newer games in full resolution with all the eye candy on that I want, and I KNOW that will drive me crazy.. 1000$ is A LOT for a video card hell yeah.. But if the card really is a monster and can provide the means for me for +1 or 1½ year ahead? Hmmm

[the54thvoid]

AMD's graphics options are in the next generation consoles. You might find that their cards get a significant boost from that placement. A single 7970, with a good cooler and overclocked is a very strong card. It would serve you well.

But as you say, Titan should last longer but is it worth the x3 extra cost to you? Or, if in doubt, buy a GTX 670 and down the line, add a second for decent sli performance (and still be a lot cheaper than a Titan).

I wouldn't necessarily recommend crossfire 7970's. They work very well in some games but in others, not so good.

[Koba]

God damn it's a tough choice really. It's been bugging me for 2 whole days now... ooh boy

[silapakorn]

Go for 670sli. If you can afford Titan, you can absolutely afford these too.

My setup is very similar to yours, and my 670sli can chew any games with ease, including crisis 3.
I got 60-70+ fps at full HD, max setting

[james888]

In crysis 3 beta, my 7970 got 60fps. It did occasionally drop to 50fps. This was at 1080p not 1200p. This was at 1000 core. Crysis 3 is amd optimized also. If you can afford titan go for it.

[Koba]

It has come down to 7970 vs Titan now.

Would Titan be totally stupid to buy when I only use 1 monitor and play in resolution 1900x1200? - Remember i want to be able to play all the newest games coming this year on this resolution and with ALL eye candy on MAX!

I'm absolutely sure the 7970 won't be able to meet my wishes

[Mindweaver]

I think you should get 3x titan's to put in tri SLI to play all the console ports coming this year on this resolution and with ALL eye candy on MAX! All joke aside, just get 2x 7970's and crossfire for 2/3's the price.

[RCoon]

Originally Posted by Koba

It has come down to 7970 vs Titan now.

Would Titan be totally stupid to buy when I only use 1 monitor and play in resolution 1900x1200? - Remember i want to be able to play all the newest games coming this year on this resolution and with ALL eye candy on MAX!

I'm absolutely sure the 7970 won't be able to meet my wishes

While the titan is a beast of a card, you mind amusingly find that some games in a year will be so badly coded, you wont be able to max out everything at 60fps (a prime example of this was Need for Speed Criterion, and Assassins Creed III, 60fps was possible, but the games were terribly broken).

I can confirm xfire with AMD is excellent (I run games on 1080p at around 140 fps) but has its niggles on some games. This is a price I'd pay for a much lesser cost than a titan, and possibly more power. I intend to watercool my two GPU's as i dont intend to invest in any newer ones for quite some time. Games just arent using the full potential of cards nowadays anyway.

[tokyoduong]

Originally Posted by Koba

It has come down to 7970 vs Titan now.

Would Titan be totally stupid to buy when I only use 1 monitor and play in resolution 1900x1200? - Remember i want to be able to play all the newest games coming this year on this resolution and with ALL eye candy on MAX!

I'm absolutely sure the 7970 won't be able to meet my wishes

So you want your frames to be 60 fps with everything maxed on a 1200p screen? You won't go SLI/CF?

If you answered yes to both then Titan is your only option. Crysis series has always been the most graphically intensive game(and metro 2033). If any card can run Crysis 3 then it will surely run any game within the next year.

[RCoon]

Originally Posted by tokyoduong

Crysis series has always been the most graphically intensive game(and metro 2033). If any card can run Crysis 3 then it will surely run any game within the next year.

On this note, my two 7950's at 1ghz core can run Metro 2033 at 60+fps on max Eye Candy, as well as Crysis 3 on Very High, but not ultra, then i see fps hit around the 45 mark.

EDIT: I just noticed you have a 1200w PSU. The only reason to buy that is for SLI/XFire, so why not go that route?! Otherwise you paid a lot for a PSU you wont use over 65% consumption.

[tokyoduong]

Originally Posted by james888

In crysis 3 beta, my 7970 got 60fps. It did occasionally drop to 50fps. This was at 1080p not 1200p. This was at 1000 core. Crysis 3 is amd optimized also. If you can afford titan go for it.

Originally Posted by RCoon

On this note, my two 7950's at 1ghz core can run Metro 2033 at 60+fps on max Eye Candy, as well as Crysis 3 on Very High, but not ultra, then i see fps hit around the 45 mark.

EDIT: I just noticed you have a 1200w PSU. The only reason to buy that is for SLI/XFire, so why not go that route?! Otherwise you paid a lot for a PSU you wont use over 65% consumption.

something does't match up here

[Koba]

Originally Posted by RCoon

On this note, my two 7950's at 1ghz core can run Metro 2033 at 60+fps on max Eye Candy, as well as Crysis 3 on Very High, but not ultra, then i see fps hit around the 45 mark.

EDIT: I just noticed you have a 1200w PSU. The only reason to buy that is for SLI/XFire, so why not go that route?! Otherwise you paid a lot for a PSU you wont use over 65% consumption.

my 1200w PSU I got "free" from my dealer since my old 800w died suddenly.
The main reason why I don't wanna go SLI / CF is because of 2 things:

1) The NOISE of 2 GFX cards during load will be extremely loud?
2) The power consumption will be twice as high as if I were only using 1 gfx card, doh Higher electric bill :/

3) Never tried it before so.. heh.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Koba

1) The NOISE of 2 GFX cards during load will be extremely loud?
2) The power consumption will be twice as high as if I were only using 1 gfx card, doh Higher electric bill :/

After running dual GPUs for nearly 10 years, I'd say overall noise increase is about 15%. Proper cooling can easily make that less. Overclocking isn't what started the enthusiast cooler market...high-power systems did.

Power consumption averages about +80%, since scaling is not 100% efficient. I've gotten close to twice no problem, but usually only when overclocking.

I pay about $95 a month for PC power, mostly my rigs and my son's. So a bit over $30 a month each. Most are running using dual GPUs all the time, although I do tend to swap my own rig down to single GPU, and I recently changed my memory testing rig to single GPU as well. I typically run high-end CPU overclocks, but not very big GPU overclocks, since I want quiet GPUs, and buy two rather than clocking one sky-high.

For real gaming, I'd personally recommend buying the single most powerful GPU you can. For me, Titan is far too overpriced over the 7970, so the highest stock 7970 you can get, either an ASUS Matrix Platinum, MSI Lightning, or Powercolor Devil13 card would be what I'd would be looking at. I beleive all three of those cards have 1100+ GPU speeds out of the box.


Right now I have an ASUS Matrix Platinum 7970 and an ASUS Direct CUII TOP, and two Gigabyte Windforce 7950s. The Matrix is my number 1 choice here.

When running dual GPUs overclocked, PSU is THE MAJOR FACTOR in how high you can clock. I run a 1200W PSU for OC, but stock, dual GPU, for me is around 500 W, using two GPUs and a 3960X with 16 GB of ram. Overclocking, my PSU is definitely the limit.

[Koba]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

After running dual GPUs for nearly 10 years, I'd say overall noise increase is about 15%. Proper cooling can easily make that less. Overclocking isn't what started the enthusiast cooler market...high-power systems did.

Power consumption averages about +80%, since scaling is not 100% efficient. I've gotten close to twice no problem, but usually only when overclocking.

I pay about $95 a month for PC power, mostly my rigs and my son's. So a bit over $30 a month. Most are running using dual GPUs all the time, although I do tend to swap my own rig down to single GPU, and I recently changed my memory testing rig to single GPU as well. I typically run high-end CPU overclocks, but not very big GPU overclocks, since I want quiet GPUs, and buy two rather than clocking one sky-high.

For real gaming, I'd personally recommend buying the single most powerful GPU you can. For me, Titan is far too overpriced over the 7970, so the highest stock 7970 you can get, either an ASUS Matrix Platinum, MSI Lightning, or Powercolor Devil13 card would be what I'd would be looking at. I belive all three of those cards have 1100+ GPU speeds out of the box.


Right now I have an ASUS Matrix Platinum 7970 and an ASUS Direct CUII TOP, and two Gigabyte Windforce 7950s. The Matrix is my number 1 choice here.

When running dual GPUs overclocked, PSU is THE MAJOR FACTOR in how high you can clock. I run a 1200W PSU for OC, but stock, dual GPU, for me is around 500 W, using two GPUs and a 3960X with 16 GB of ram. Overclocking, my PSU is definitely the limit.

cadaveca: I've found a 7970 with 1050 MHz.. I guess that card should be quite good giving it's pre standard ones that are down on 900 stock?

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Koba

cadaveca: I've found a 7970 with 1050 MHz.. I guess that card should be quite good giving it's pre standard ones that are down on 900 stock?

1050 is a bit low to me. IT is quite common. that 1100 MHz seems, to me, to very much be the cream of the crop for chips right now.

...and, you can get two, most likely, for the cost of a single Titan.

Original 7970 is 925/1375 MHz stock, and the GHZ edition is 1050/1500. the 100 MHz chips are usually high-bin GHz-edition chips, but you may get lucky and get an original non-boost GPU(they tend to have lower voltage).


Original 7970 is 1.1 V - 1.175V. GHz Edition seems to be 1.2 V - 1.275V. Temperatures are very similar between the two.

[Koba]

I'm so much thinking of getting this card here:

Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz 3GB GDDR5 1050 MHz 6 GHz

The 1000$ for the Titan is killing me. Would never forgive myself spending that amount of money on a video card!

[Slizzo]

Originally Posted by Koba

I'm so much thinking of getting this card here:

Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz 3GB GDDR5 1050 MHz 6 GHz

The 1000$ for the Titan is killing me. Would never forgive myself spending that amount of money on a video card!

I wouldn't get a titan unless you were doing 2d or 3d surround (3 monitors), or if you needed the compute performance for 3d animation/modelling/other things.

[james888]

Originally Posted by tokyoduong

something does't match up here

I wasn't lying. Crysis 3 beta is over so I can't go check again. Must be crossfire scaling issues.

[Chummmleee]

I would highly suggest not buying the Titan due to the fact that it just came out & you're bascally buying the name. But i do recommend SLIing two 670 4gbs this is what ill be doing in a week or so when my card comes, but if you have the cash step up to a 680 SLI, from what i've heard they actually are more powerful than a Titan just do to the fact you're indeed running SLI
I dont really like AMD due to some of the cheap products they make for example their Processors & also personal expereince with bad customer service

[GamerGuy]

Originally Posted by Chummmleee

I dont really like AMD due to some of the cheap products they make for example their Processors & also personal expereince with bad customer service

Let me get this straight, you don't like their CPU, hence you are not recommending their GPU's? Bad customer service with their board partners, or AMD itself? As for cheap products like their lower end CPUs and GPUs, that is where they can make the most money as not everyone can afford, or need, high end rigs. I believe a vast majority of PC makers use low to mid end chips based on price range, while they are some custom PC makers who would have high to extreme level parts. My 8600M GS died on me due to a manufacturing defect that nV was well aware of, and refused to acknowledged.....did I swear off nV just because of this "bad experience"?

To OP, the Titan is simply silly in terms of price/performance, you'd be better off with 2x HD7970/7950/GTX670, they'd be cheaper and faster than a single Titan.

[DarkOCean]

i'd say go for a 7970 now and maybe another one later when you fell you need more power.
Titan is a nice gpu but not that much faster to warrant the price, even if you have the money for it still dont worth it. It's not about money its a matter of principle.

[zilla]

Originally Posted by GamerGuy

Let me get this straight, you don't like their CPU, hence you are not recommending their GPU's? Bad customer service with their board partners, or AMD itself? As for cheap products like their lower end CPUs and GPUs, that is where they can make the most money as not everyone can afford, or need, high end rigs. I believe a vast majority of PC makers use low to mid end chips based on price range, while they are some custom PC makers who would have high to extreme level parts. My 8600M GS died on me due to a manufacturing defect that nV was well aware of, and refused to acknowledged.....did I swear off nV just because of this "bad experience"?

To OP, the Titan is simply silly in terms of price/performance, you'd be better off with 2x HD7970/7950/GTX670, they'd be cheaper and faster than a single Titan.

Bolded for emphasis (BFE)

[Chummmleee]

Originally Posted by zilla

Bolded for emphasis (BFE)

He blatantly said that he could afford a GTX Titan ? I don't know what makes you think he cant afford anything else?