670 Reviews are up

[aaksheytalwar]

Really looks like a masterpiece of a card. But what's the point of the 680 now? Imo there's no reason to buy a 680 instead of the 670?

If money isn't that big an object, I would say there is for some people.

1. 680 to 670 is 5-10% performance difference at stock.

2. Probably 5-10% performance difference at oc as well.

3. In some countries, or many countries for that matter, the price difference will be close to 10% or less.

So both cards make sense except in USA where pricing is in a different tier altogether.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Is this what your rant is all about? It's a video card fan thing.

There are a number of reasons for what nVidia has done so far. None of it was done as a favor that we need to thank them for. You don't seem to be interested in listening to any of them though.

+1

 

[3DVagabond]

If money isn't that big an object, I would say there is for some people.

1. 680 to 670 is 5-10% performance difference at stock.

2. Probably 5-10% performance difference at oc as well.

3. In some countries, or many countries for that matter, the price difference will be close to 10% or less.

So both cards make sense except in USA where pricing is in a different tier altogether.

Why pay an additional $100 for the 680, even assuming you could get one? If the 7970 is no longer viable at $479 (seems to be the general consensus), then I don't see why the 680 escapes the same scrutiny. Keeping in mind that the 680/7970 are ~equal clock for clock, depending on resolution, of course.

Sorry to disagree with you after you just agreed with me. Nothing personal.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

You are talking of US pricing, in India the prices are like this:

Custom 670 $600
Reference 680 $650

So there may be many buyers when the price difference is barely 10% in India In USA I myself said NO. But in other countries pricing may be different.

 

[3DVagabond]

You are talking of US pricing, in India the prices are like this:

Custom 670 $600
Reference 680 $650

So there may be many buyers when the price difference is barely 10% in India In USA I myself said NO. But in other countries pricing may be different.

Yes, it's hard with a global market. Here the 680 is ~$125USD more than the 7970 or 670, which are the same price. So, for me, nVidia isn't an option. The 7970 is much better value.

It's easier to keep discussions to the North American market (not sure why no one considers Canada and say it's only the US?) as a general rule. It saves from having to list local market conditions in every reply. Besides the average person here could care less what anything costs in India or NZ.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

You are talking of US pricing, in India the prices are like this:

Custom 670 $600
Reference 680 $650

So there may be many buyers when the price difference is barely 10% in India In USA I myself said NO. But in other countries pricing may be different.

95% of us here are in the U.S.
I paid $399 and free shipping for a oc gtx 670 with a non ref cooler. Gtx 680's are going anywhere from $500+ and then $8 shipping for a ref design. So with that info you can see why the 680 is irrelevant at that price.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I already said in the US market 680 should be sub $450 if they want to sell 670 for $400.

 

[SirPauly]

Praise almighty NV, giving 35% increase in a new generation for the same price!!!

Jeez your standard is pretty low if you find that acceptable for a full node shrink.

Agreed, the key this round is a full node shrink with new arches and yet receiving more-so evolutionary and incremental price/performance from both.

 

[railven]

Secured a GA Windforce GTX 670 for my best friend

Now to finish up his build and get our Diablo 3 fest on!

 

[guskline]

95% of us here are in the U.S.
I paid $399 and free shipping for a oc gtx 670 with a non ref cooler. Gtx 680's are going anywhere from $500+ and then $8 shipping for a ref design. So with that info you can see why the 680 is irrelevant at that price.

Irrelevant? More like overpriced for the performance. I paid the higher price for the 680 GTX 2 weeks ago and had I chosen now, I would most likely have chosen the Gigabyte 670GTX which is OCd. However, my need was for a high end card for 3 monitors and it came down to the 680 GTX vs the 7970. The higher Vram of the 7970 almost had me but the reviews for the 680 plus great Nvidia drivers convinced me to go to the 680. Those of us that have 3 monitor rigs are a very small proportion of the gaming community. However, I am starting to see more 5760 x 1080 reviews of games. The 680 GTX has been wonderful and OCs nicely. Is the 670 GTX a better bang for the buck. Most likely. 2 weeks ago I didn't have the choice. Other than paying, I more no regrets.

 

[3DVagabond]

Irrelevant? More like overpriced for the performance. I paid the higher price for the 680 GTX 2 weeks ago and had I chosen now, I would most likely have chosen the Gigabyte 670GTX which is OCd. However, my need was for a high end card for 3 monitors and it came down to the 680 GTX vs the 7970. The higher Vram of the 7970 almost had me but the reviews for the 680 plus great Nvidia drivers convinced me to go to the 680. Those of us that have 3 monitor rigs are a very small proportion of the gaming community. However, I am starting to see more 5760 x 1080 reviews of games. The 680 GTX has been wonderful and OCs nicely. Is the 670 GTX a better bang for the buck. Most likely. 2 weeks ago I didn't have the choice. Other than paying, I more no regrets.

Interesting that you chose the 680 for multi monitor over the 7970. I would have thought the 7970 would be the better choice. More memory, more bandwidth, generally better scaling with higher resolution...

 

[Lonbjerg]

Interesting that you chose the 680 for multi monitor over the 7970. I would have thought the 7970 would be the better choice. More memory, more bandwidth, generally better scaling with higher resolution...

Several reviews have shown that the amount of RAM cannot be directly compared arcross architechtures...or bandwith...you should know this already...so why this posting?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Within several months 2gb VRAM will fall short for eyefinity, tho it is okay today, in less than a year it won't be. So unless you plan to upgrade within 1 year 7970 is better for eyefinity due to future proofing

 

[exar333]

Within several months 2gb VRAM will fall short for eyefinity, tho it is okay today, in less than a year it won't be. So unless you plan to upgrade within 1 year 7970 is better for eyefinity due to future proofing

And in a year 90% folks with Eyefinity will have already replaced their existing 3x7970 or 670 or 680 with something new/better. Upgrade when you need to. If thats a year, cool. If thats 3 years, cool too. People play different games, different mods, different AA levels. There is no 'one size fits all'. Im happy for that actually.

 

[Silverforce11]

AMD launch price for 7970 was $550 and did not improve price/perf

NV launch price for 680 was $500 and gave 35% more performance than 580, for the same launch price.

What are you talking about, it's not that long ago for people to forget.

7970 > gtx580 (it's direct competitor), slightly higher priced for a lot more performance. So no, they did launch with improved price/perf vs their competition. Factoring in easy OC which scale near perfect, its a huge leap vs 580 and 6970. We all know it was clocked low, almost everyone on these tech forums who owns a 79xx OCs it.

FOUR months later NV launched the new competitor to beat AMD's price/perf, as they should, they were late.

Imagine if FOUR months from now, AMD launches a refresh and it beats the gtx680, are you going to say that the gtx680 is horrible and overpriced, offering no price/perf gains?

The point here is the time-frame involved.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

What are you talking about, it's not that long ago for people to forget.

7970 > gtx580 (it's direct competitor), slightly higher priced for a lot more performance. So no, they did launch with improved price/perf vs their competition. Factoring in easy OC which scale near perfect, its a huge leap vs 580 and 6970. We all know it was clocked low, almost everyone on these tech forums who owns a 79xx OCs it.

FOUR months later NV launched the new competitor to beat AMD's price/perf, as they should, they were late.

Imagine if FOUR months from now, AMD launches a refresh and it beats the gtx680, are you going to say that the gtx680 is horrible and overpriced, offering no price/perf gains?

The point here is the time-frame involved.

Honestly, you are the only guy in this forum who I call INTELLIGENT

+1 bro. Keep up the good work.

 

[thilanliyan]

95% of us here are in the U.S.
I paid $399 and free shipping for a oc gtx 670 with a non ref cooler. Gtx 680's are going anywhere from $500+ and then $8 shipping for a ref design. So with that info you can see why the 680 is irrelevant at that price.

I thought you were only gonna pay $250 for increased performance? Couldn't resist?

 

[SirPauly]

What are you talking about, it's not that long ago for people to forget.

7970 > gtx580 (it's direct competitor), slightly higher priced for a lot more performance. So no, they did launch with improved price/perf vs their competition. Factoring in easy OC which scale near perfect, its a huge leap vs 580 and 6970. We all know it was clocked low, almost everyone on these tech forums who owns a 79xx OCs it.

FOUR months later NV launched the new competitor to beat AMD's price/perf, as they should, they were late.

Imagine if FOUR months from now, AMD launches a refresh and it beats the gtx680, are you going to say that the gtx680 is horrible and overpriced, offering no price/perf gains?

The point here is the time-frame involved.

Sure, it offered "some" price/performance gains but the key is the 28nm HD 7970 was going head-to-head with a 14+ month old already heavily premium 40nm sku -- really speaks for itself. Probably one of the weakest price/performance gains on a full node in the history of GPU's with its launch drivers -- and AMD charged more of a percentage MSRP gain over the percentage performance gain over-all when compared to their HD 6970. That 549 was sure warranted alright.

Don't know where you're getting 4 months from.

 

[blastingcap]

What are you talking about, it's not that long ago for people to forget.

7970 > gtx580 (it's direct competitor), slightly higher priced for a lot more performance. So no, they did launch with improved price/perf vs their competition. Factoring in easy OC which scale near perfect, its a huge leap vs 580 and 6970. We all know it was clocked low, almost everyone on these tech forums who owns a 79xx OCs it.

FOUR months later NV launched the new competitor to beat AMD's price/perf, as they should, they were late.

Imagine if FOUR months from now, AMD launches a refresh and it beats the gtx680, are you going to say that the gtx680 is horrible and overpriced, offering no price/perf gains?

The point here is the time-frame involved.

I understand your point, but you may want to understand the typical hardcore gamer's perception. We waited for 28nm and were excited to hear about these new chips coming out. Historically a full node process shrink meant cramming more transistors per square mm, and higher perf/watt AND higher perf/price. AMD has also had a history of undercutting NV's prices since the HD4870 launch, which technically launched BEFORE NV's chip. I think it was the HD5xxx that really cemented HD's rep for not charging a large premium despite having a monopoly on 40nm for a long time. HD5xxx's launch price also didn't move price/perf backwards. And HD6xxx also launched at reasonable prices.

And then HD7xxx happened. A full node shrink gave better perf/watt, but AMD went BACKWARDS on price/perf and for the first time in a long time charged a hefty premium for its temporary monopoly. This was unexpected behavior, and did not generate goodwill. You may argue that the price/perf metric should be 7970 vs 580 instead of 7970 v 6970, but nobody was expecting AMD to pull an NV. NV gets away with its premiums due to its larger market share (for discrete gaming-grade graphics), larger mindshare (so many years of market share dominance, sponsorships, etc. and domination of HPC and pro graphics compared to AMD), NV-specific advantages (PhysX/CUDA, and now GPU Boost, Adaptive Vsync, triple monitor without adapters, SLI that works, TWIMTBP, etc.)

Fair or not, AMD lost some goodwill among gamers due to its pricing of HD7xxx, and NV just gained goodwill due to their undercutting AMD's pricing, especially with the 670.

 

[Silverforce11]

You can say it was a weak perf/$ gain, and there's no doubting that. But it did improve perf/$ and perf/w when it was released. Also, the entire selection on 28nm has been terrible perf/$ outside of the 7850.

 

[SirPauly]

But it did improve perf/$ and perf/w when it was released.

It did!

 

[Crap Daddy]

FOUR months later NV launched the new competitor to beat AMD's price/perf, as they should, they were late.

Imagine if FOUR months from now, AMD launches a refresh and it beats the gtx680, are you going to say that the gtx680 is horrible and overpriced, offering no price/perf gains?

The 680 was launched on the 22 March 2012 with imediate availability (limited but nevertheless). 7970 was available on the 9th of January, that's TWO and a HALF months not FOUR.

 

[Lonbjerg]

The 680 was launched on the 22 March 2012 with imediate availability (limited but nevertheless). 7970 was available on the 9th of January, that's TWO and a HALF months not FOUR.

Oh, don't mention the word "paper launch"...red team has decided that that term only applies to NVIDIA and the GTX680 right now

 

[Silverforce11]

The 680 was launched on the 22 March 2012 with imediate availability (limited but nevertheless). 7970 was available on the 9th of January, that's TWO and a HALF months not FOUR.

If you're gonna compare paper launches, the 7970 was launched in 2011 right???

But otherwise, fine, change it to 2 and a 1/2 months.

Edit: Yes, i consider all the OOS at every major retailer a paper launch.

 

[thilanliyan]

Fair or not, AMD lost some goodwill among gamers due to its pricing of HD7xxx, and NV just gained goodwill due to their undercutting AMD's pricing, especially with the 670.

And what about all the goodwill nV lost for all the times they were charging more than AMD?

Oh right, they never lost any goodwill, because people are willing to give nV a pass when they charge at a premium rate, because they have "better drivers", lol.

One incident from 2005 still sticks in my head...I was discussing which vid card to buy with an acquaintance and I said I was going to buy a X1800 card, and he was like, "WHAT?! Why aren't you buying nVidia??!!". I told him ATI cards were just as fast if not faster and I had good experience with them. He actually couldn't believe it, and insisted nV were better, mostly because he didn't know much about ATI.

Basically, most people have the perception that nV is better (definitely the average person does), and they definitely have better brand recognition (kudos to nV for getting to that stage). I personally think nV and AMD are pretty equal on most fronts (INCLUDING DRIVERS!! ), at least for my uses, which does not include multi-GPU, PhysX, or CUDA. The only concrete reason I have right now to choose AMD over nVidia is bitcoin mining...heck, one of my 6950s has already been paid for by mining.

/end rant