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Originally posted by ManFromSun
Very good analysis, Quizzical.
I just joined this forum, so that I can ask you this question...
As per your analysis CF7850 should give better performance than 680 because of AMD's power tune feature. Can anybody confirm? If so then it makes lot of sense for AMD to release a dual GPU based on 7870/7850 at $500 price point

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PowerTune does impact performance, as does GPU Boost, but they do it in different ways.

PowerTune starts at as fast a clock as the card manufacturer thinks is safe, and if things start to get out of hand, it ramps down. So it starts out on a premise of performance, and then controls based on safety.

GPU Boost works the opposite. It starts at a modest and safe clock speed, and then if it has room will ramp up performance. So it starts out on a premise of safety, and then controls based on performance.

The benefits of these:

PowerTune will have it's protection no matter what is running. GPU Boost, if the application is unsafe at the modest clock speed, can still damage your card, as it won't clock lower than that (without special driver exceptions).

PowerTune will have more consistent performance, as it will always be at it's maximum value (unless it detects an unsafe power or heat condition). GPUBoost performance will vary game to game, and maybe even on other conditions (ambient temperature, case airflow, etc).

You can still over clock PowerTune - you raise the default clock speed, and then PowerTune still has room to cut the clock to protect the card. GPU Boost, you can over clock the minimum clock speed, but since Boost is ramping up in nearly all games, that over clock is totally lost when the boost kicks in. It may be possible to raise the maximum limit that Boost will hit, and consider that overclocking, but that only goes into effect if the application you are running allows Boost to reach that ceiling.

At stock everything, GPU Boost looks like it would give you better benchmarks, because it can scale upwards fairly dramatically in some games. Essentially, it's auto-overclocking based on power and thermal parameters, which is nice. But you get a lot more headroom on a PowerTune card to Overclock, and if you consider that then that changes the playing field by quite a bit.

As far as the dual-GPU boards, I wouldn't put it past either nVidia or AMD to put one out closer to winter as a marketing stunt, but these are never very practical for gaming purposes.

Originally posted by Zekiah

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks guys.

I wonder how long it usually takes to get more cards in stock, seems like there's a shortage of high-end cards.

Things like this can cause problems:

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/07/tsmc-suddenly-halts-28nm-production/

Do note that even if the article is accurate, production might have long since resumed by now and we never find out the precise date.

There are also a variety of reasons for soft launches.  The longer you wait to launch a product, the more inventory you have time to build up.  But the longer you wait, the more sales you might lose to a competitor whose products are already available.  Different companies have different takes on how soon to launch cards and just how bad it is if you can't keep them in stock.  AMD and Nvidia will sometimes even decide to officially "launch" a card while saying there won't be any in stock for a couple of weeks.  That doesn't happen in most other markets for computer parts.  Intel, for example, would sooner delay a processor launch by a month than seriously risk having trouble keeping enough parts in stock to fill demand.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Zekiah

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks guys.

I wonder how long it usually takes to get more cards in stock, seems like there's a shortage of high-end cards.

Things like this can cause problems:

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/07/tsmc-suddenly-halts-28nm-production/

Do note that even if the article is accurate, production might have long since resumed by now and we never find out the precise date.

There are also a variety of reasons for soft launches.  The longer you wait to launch a product, the more inventory you have time to build up.  But the longer you wait, the more sales you might lose to a competitor whose products are already available.  Different companies have different takes on how soon to launch cards and just how bad it is if you can't keep them in stock.  AMD and Nvidia will sometimes even decide to officially "launch" a card while saying there won't be any in stock for a couple of weeks.  That doesn't happen in most other markets for computer parts.  Intel, for example, would sooner delay a processor launch by a month than seriously risk having trouble keeping enough parts in stock to fill demand.

Wow, well glad I went ahead and ordered your second choice then hehe. I checked on some reviews of both cards you listed and they preferred the Gigabyte saying it was faster and cooler. Some even said it was the best 7970 on the market currently.

The only thing that's on my mind is the 6-8 pin change, I've never installed a card before and although I know it's easy, the pin change could take time to figure out. I guess we'll see.

Thanks again for all your help.

I don't recall seeing what power supply you have.  If you've got something that can handle a 7970, it presumably has multiple 6+2-pin PCI-E power connectors.  It has a group of six "pins" (more like small boxes in a 3x2 grid), and then a group of two more dangling off to the side.  You can shove the two extra pins out of the way and use it like a 6-pin connector, or you can push the two up against the six (to make a 4x2 grid) and use it like an 8-pin connector.

Originally posted by Quizzical

I don't recall seeing what power supply you have.  If you've got something that can handle a 7970, it presumably has multiple 6+2-pin PCI-E power connectors.  It has a group of six "pins" (more like small boxes in a 3x2 grid), and then a group of two more dangling off to the side.  You can shove the two extra pins out of the way and use it like a 6-pin connector, or you can push the two up against the six (to make a 4x2 grid) and use it like an 8-pin connector.

Hmm, well I was reading up on that and I saw some that said you could and some that said you couldn't do that. From what I read, the extra two are for grounding?

My PS is a couple of years old, it's an Antec...I think 600W.

You can't use a 6-pin connector as an 8-pin connector or vice versa, but if you have a 6+2-pin connector, you can use it as either one.  6+2-pin connectors are pretty ubiquitous these days, and I can't think of the last time I saw a power supply review of a unit with an 8-pin connector that wasn't 6+2-pin.  You could check on your power supply to see exactly what it has.

Once you have all of the pieces sitting in front of you, it will probably be pretty self-explanatory.  It's stuff like put the square peg in the square hole and the round peg in the round hole, and not the other way around.  In fact, even a monkey can do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1DPQW0e9ufM

To be fair, the monkey only did some of the steps, not all of them.

Originally posted by Quizzical

You can't use a 6-pin connector as an 8-pin connector or vice versa, but if you have a 6+2-pin connector, you can use it as either one.  6+2-pin connectors are pretty ubiquitous these days, and I can't think of the last time I saw a power supply review of a unit with an 8-pin connector that wasn't 6+2-pin.  You could check on your power supply to see exactly what it has.

Once you have all of the pieces sitting in front of you, it will probably be pretty self-explanatory.  It's stuff like put the square peg in the square hole and the round peg in the round hole, and not the other way around.

Gotcha. I'm guessing the pins are there, the supply is fairly new. I know the card comes with adapters as well, shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Lol on the vid.

One thing that I think is interesting with the GTX 680 and 7970 is region pricing.

I live in the United States so that's where I tend to think of by default.   In some other markets the 7970 is actually slightly cheaper than the GTX 680.   So when people ask about price cuts I wonder about that.   I tend to lurk around on the AnandTech boards quite a bit and many people posting there are listing prices in other countries.

For what game do we need those cards exactly?

Even tho i think 680 is more powerfull on single monitor then 7970 if you have a 6xxx series or 5xx series i dont realy see the need to upgrade my whole system to buy those cards. Unless they release games that realy are next gen for todays videocards and i dont see this happen for at least another 1.5 year(untill maybe new consoles are on market)my system can handle any game on market right now.

To many people just go after new cards pop them on there motherboards(manytimes older ones) and dont see any improvement becouse of famous bottleneck issues.

If you buy a AMD7xxx or NV6xx remember its best you have new generation MB gen3 with new CPUs or you wont get much improvement.

Asking 500+ euros for card while industrie is on almost standstill for 6 years is alot i stick with my 6970 for while i run most games on ultra with no problem OC most and optimize my rig so i can play games smooth.

Im not a real fan of both branches i buy what get me most for my euro if AMD or NVIDIA is good and right price ill buy dont matter to me witch one.

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Originally posted by Zekiah

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Originally posted by Quizzical
I don't recall seeing what power supply you have.  If you've got something that can handle a 7970, it presumably has multiple 6+2-pin PCI-E power connectors.  It has a group of six "pins" (more like small boxes in a 3x2 grid), and then a group of two more dangling off to the side.  You can shove the two extra pins out of the way and use it like a 6-pin connector, or you can push the two up against the six (to make a 4x2 grid) and use it like an 8-pin connector.

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Hmm, well I was reading up on that and I saw some that said you could and some that said you couldn't do that. From what I read, the extra two are for grounding?
My PS is a couple of years old, it's an Antec...I think 600W.

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Power supply is very importend more importend then most think remember that.

Install came without a hitch, this thing is a monster. Thanks again Quiz. 

So what happens when you overclock the cards?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/5

Unsurprisingly, the GeForce GTX 680 gains less than you might naively expect from the higher clock speeds, because it was already getting some of that benefit from GPU Boost.  The Radeon HD 7970 doesn't have that problem, and overclocking is arguably safer because you still have PowerTune to save you from games that push your card too hard.

Remember that in the original review, a GTX 680 won with a single monitor, and a 7970 won with three monitor Eyefinity, though both were close.  Now with a single monitor, it's basically a tie.

There are still some caveats, of course.  The 7970 has an MSRP that is $50 higher.  It's also widely available, unlike the GTX 680.

It is also interesting that when overclocking the 680, that it's power draw more or less equalled the 7970 (although it isn't clear if that is the stock 7970 or an OC'ed 7970 in the review, and the older 7970 review uses a different power measurement so I can't make any direct comparisons to that).

Overclocking the 680 requires two adjustments:
Lifting the GPU Boost TDP cap (Power Target), and then tweaking the GPU Boost gain (Clock Offset). Neither setting alone will really over clock your card. Even Clock Offset won't automatically over clock your card, it just tells GPU Boost to raise the clock more aggressively than normal when ramping up (by adding +XXX Mhz to the default auto-increment steps). Power Target lets GPU Boost go even higher than it normally would cap at by lifting the TDP cap.

This is more or less analogous to the PowerTune over clock settings, where Power raises the PowerTune TDP cap, and then your standard clock speed adjustments increase the card speed.

Except that even when overclocking, the results are going to vary from program to program, as you still have to rely on GPU Boost to kick the card up.

I think for this generation, I still really like PowerTune better, and the fact that you can still directly impact the performance of the card via clock adjusts, but I have to hand it to nVidia - the 680 is a great performer, GPU Boost is a good technology (although it still doesn't totally protect from exceeding a TDP, it is a step in the right direction and protects from the vast majority of unintentional power spikes). For $50 difference, if I were to buy a new card today, I probably would go back to nVidia for the 680 over the 7970.

The performance is essentially a wash, the power use is essentially a wash. They both over clock well (albeit in very different manners). The difference in VRAM has proven to be a non-issue, even in high multi-monitor resolutions with VRAM-hungry games (BF3 mostly). The 680 supports up to 4 monitors on a single card, the 7970 up to 6, and both support multi-GPU (3-way for the 680, Quad for the 7970).

Really the biggest difference comes down to $50 and availability.

Overclock and xfire is where 7970 shines by a large margin and leave 680 far behind.

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Originally posted by Quizzical
So what happens when you overclock the cards?
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/5
Unsurprisingly, the GeForce GTX 680 gains less than you might naively expect from the higher clock speeds, because it was already getting some of that benefit from GPU Boost.  The Radeon HD 7970 doesn't have that problem, and overclocking is arguably safer because you still have PowerTune to save you from games that push your card too hard.
Remember that in the original review, a GTX 680 won with a single monitor, and a 7970 won with three monitor Eyefinity, though both were close.  Now with a single monitor, it's basically a tie.
There are still some caveats, of course.  The 7970 has an MSRP that is $50 higher.  It's also widely available, unlike the GTX 680.

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Who plays on 25xx resolution hahaha...

On 19xx resolution the 7970 outperforms by huge margin and leave 680 far behind in most modern games not to mention the OC and xfire 3DMARK DX11 SCORE its huge for 7970 compare to nvidia's score.

Originally posted by Classicstar

 

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Originally posted by Quizzical
So what happens when you overclock the cards?
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/5
Unsurprisingly, the GeForce GTX 680 gains less than you might naively expect from the higher clock speeds, because it was already getting some of that benefit from GPU Boost.  The Radeon HD 7970 doesn't have that problem, and overclocking is arguably safer because you still have PowerTune to save you from games that push your card too hard.
Remember that in the original review, a GTX 680 won with a single monitor, and a 7970 won with three monitor Eyefinity, though both were close.  Now with a single monitor, it's basically a tie.
There are still some caveats, of course.  The 7970 has an MSRP that is $50 higher.  It's also widely available, unlike the GTX 680.

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Who plays on 25xx resolution hahaha...

On 19xx resolution the 7970 outperforms by huge margin and leave 680 far behind in most modern games not to mention the OC and xfire 3DMARK DX11 SCORE its huge for 7970 compare to nvidia's score.

At 1080p, there isn't that much to say other than, "They both let you max settings with smooth frame rates.  Maybe you should consider a cheaper video card?"

And who cares about synthetics like 3Dmark?  Synthetics are too easy to cheat at, and not necessarily representative of real gameplay.