People are going to act like the 7970 isnt a HUGE improvement over the 580?

24%? Did you pull that number out of your behind?

20% improvement is.... not that fantastic. Evolutionary, at best. The card is still too expensive.

24%? Did you pull that number out of your behind?

kaitanuvax

50% improvement is.... fantastic. Extraordinary in fact . The card is a bargain.

XaosII

HD 7970 is a great GPU,that's true,but I as a 580 owner,simply don't feel the need to upgrade,my card can more than easily deal with almost any modern game on max.

[QUOTE="XaosII"]

50% improvement is.... fantastic. Extraordinary in fact . The card is a bargain.

CorpseExecutor

20% improvement is not extraordinary. And at $500 to go from 40 FPS to 50 FPS.... really?

20% improvement is not extraordinary. And at $500 to go from 40 FPS to 50 FPS.... really?

Or you are just an opinionless AMD/ATI fanboy...

24% average improvement, and thats on beta drivers. By the time Kepler releases, the 7970 will have mature drivers and be around 50% faster than the gtx 580. Thats a massive improvement. Finally, you need to also consider that the 7970 is underclocked. Normally I dont like to mention overclocking, but it is both realistic and necessary to mention since this card is a beast. 400MHz increase to the core clocks on air is normal with this card. This is an area that the gtx 580 simply cannot compete in. I keep hearing people say "its barely an improvement". If you believe this then you are either: 1) a fanboy, or 2) ignoring the facts. The truth of the matter is that the 7970 stomps the gtx580 into the ground. Argue all you want but the benchmarks dont lieCorpseExecutor

Even if it is, how much difference will it make in practical terms compared to the GTX580?

The GTX580 will run nearly any game at a substantial resolution and at maximum detail at 60fps. You will achieve the same with a 7970 (plus a handful of more demanding titles). So unless you're going for an eyefinity setup, you'd just be spending $500 for the bragging rights.

u mad?CorpseExecutor

I'm not "mad". But your a fanboy attacking people with a different opinion as being fanboys themselves. Pot calling the kettle black as I see it. Too bad cause it diminishes your argument or at least you credibility. But someone only level 2 and with only 9 post, 5 of them here, may not know this yet. Just sayin'.

HD 7970 is a great GPU,that's true,but I as a 580 owner,simply don't feel the need to upgrade,my card can more than easily deal with almost any modern game on max.

Rocker6

You need to go and .... ....... Do you get off on going around saying well I already have a 580 so I dont see it as an upgrade. Are you for real what he is saying is that if you need an upgrade then the 7970 is a better opion then the 580 at this time...... Were did he say if you have a 580 you should run out and get get the 7970 amd tosse the 580 MY GOD what is wrong with you. Yes we get you have a god like video card. hey just to bring it up I have 6870 crossfire so i do not se any reason to upgrade to 580 every time someone talks about that card.

7970 is a great gpu if you have a AMD 5000 series or lower imo, I myself have a Ati 5850 and would like to upgrade but the price is just to high maybe the 7870 or 7950 will have a decent price tag.

[QUOTE="CorpseExecutor"]u mad?Rickylee

I'm not "mad". But your a fanboy attacking people with a different opinion as being fanboys themselves. Pot calling the kettle black as I see it. Too bad cause it diminishes your argument or at least you credibility. But someone only level 2 and with only 9 post, 5 of them here, may not know this yet. Just sayin'.

^^Rickylee, You make a good point. Seems to me the TC was a bit over zealous by taking an opinion and turning it into a non-negotiating argument where his feelings were the only truths that mattered. I read into it as if he felt his opinion was being persecuted by what he supposedly read on tech sites and forums on the subject he raised, that no one was giving this new card the just dues he felt it deserves.

He obviously is an AMD/ATi fanboy, which is fine if you can express you favoritism in a balanced and objective manor which I interpreted as him not doing so. He seemed to express himself as matter of fact, my opinion is correct and if you don't agree with me your's is not. I see that offen in threads posted here and other sites and that greatly disappoints me because I feel it just takes so much away from creative and constructive discussion.

Yes the 7970 is shaping up to look like a very successful high end video card, but that doesn't take anything away from say the GTX580 (which is also a fantastic high end card and what the comparison is obviously being made to) by saying the new offering from AMD will "stomp it into the ground", then challenging anyone to dispute his claims.

I think what this person doesn't fully understand is that this is the normal progression of competition which everyone that has interest in PC's and PC gaming benefits from. Nvidia will be releasing their next offering down the road a bit which will then challenge AMD's latest and greatest. It's a win/win for all of us. And not everyone is always ready to up grade to the highest end and most expensive card being released. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's the smallest % of the video card market.

To me, it's OK to fly one's colors, but I think one should just go about it in a more objective and mature manor when doing so. It makes for a much better exchange of opinions and ideas.....Of course this is all just my opinion on the topic posted here, but we are as we're perceived.

*+

i agree, bunch of people are saying the 7970 is only a bit stronger than the 580 gtx. That may be true, but it don't matter if its 1% better or 100% better, its the best card on the planet, and you pay for the best thats all there is to it. To me 24% is a reasonable improvement but you need to understand thats at stock clocks. There are also other factors you should consider like crossfire capability and power consumption. Im thinking the 7xxx series crossfired will be even better than the radeon 6xxx series. The radeon 6xxx series was ALREADY demolishing nvidias 500 series sli scaling. So crossfired i think the 7xxx series will be some kind of monsters, with close to 100% scaling. To compare the 7970 to the 580 gtx is like comparing the 580 gtx to the geforce radeon 6950 2gb/560ti (or a bit better than that)

All I know is that my friend is looking to a buy parts to build a monster of a desktop. For a few extra dollars, he can get a card that blows the 580 out of the water and has better OCing potential. If you already have a 580, there's no need to upgrade, but I'm confused about why people say it's too expensive, and then go on about the merits of the 580 or any recent Nvidia card as if they're the epitome of fair pricing. After the initial launch, 580s are out there in numerous different forms, with numerous sales going on at any one time. Still, the cheapest 580 I can find from NCIX and Newegg is the Zotac GeForce GTX 580, which after a rebate comes to $489.54. The cheapest 3GB version of the 580, which is a fairer comparison to the 7970, is the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 (ZT-50103-10P) for $539.99. Many 3GB models are upwards of $600. So a 7970 at around $550...is pretty fair. It's not a great price that will bring cards off the shelves in record fashion, but AMD/ATI has only rarely elicited that kind of reaction for their cards despite having produced superb tech for a long time, often beating Nvidia to the punch. The market has shown they want to wait for Nvidia to release a product before they decide to upgrade. This places AMD in a sore position, where they can either release tech early and try to make money off early adopters, or they wait to release tech when Nvidia does, and get beaten by Nvidia despite offering cheaper and equivalent(or nearly equivalent) products. AMD/ATI can't afford to offer consumers the deals they used to give, because consumers didn't give a crap and didn't reward AMD/ATI with larger marketshare. Now that AMD/ATI decides to give a fair price for their product rather than a huge discount, people go and whine about how it lacks value, despite having rigs with cards that also were priced fairly upon release. The 7970 is good value. It doesn't blow anything out of the water at stock, but if you OC it right, it can be a worldkiller. It's rare for any new card to absolutely dominate all past gens and also be priced at less or equal to it's predecessors. Lockedge

you realize AMD is a larger company than nvidia right? They make more profit than nvidia does, and have a bigger marketshare for video cards than nvidia does.....

24% average improvement, and thats on beta drivers. By the time Kepler releases, the 7970 will have mature drivers and be around 50% faster than the gtx 580. Thats a massive improvement. Finally, you need to also consider that the 7970 is underclocked. Normally I dont like to mention overclocking, but it is both realistic and necessary to mention since this card is a beast. 400MHz increase to the core clocks on air is normal with this card. This is an area that the gtx 580 simply cannot compete in. I keep hearing people say "its barely an improvement". If you believe this then you are either: 1) a fanboy, or 2) ignoring the facts. The truth of the matter is that the 7970 stomps the gtx580 into the ground. Argue all you want but the benchmarks dont lieCorpseExecutor

This board is full of plebes, of course they will love the company that has better marketing no matter what, just ignore them.

you realize AMD is a larger company than nvidia right? They make more profit than nvidia does, and have a bigger marketshare for video cards than nvidia does.....

blaznwiipspman1

I am more than fine with my GTX580 for the forseeable future. What could i possibly gain from getting a 7970? PC games just are not that demanding anymore. Maybe in a year or two i will look at upgrading to something else.

Let's see. New architecture, smaller lithography, more expensive, and still only about 15-20% better than a card that's basically an improved version of 2009 technology. And people are acting like it's the end-all for Nvidia. Keep in mind, every single time Nvidia has vastly outperformed AMD/ATi, and forced them to sell almost at a loss. Let's wait and see Nvidia's 28nm offerings, and then we can talk.

Let's see. New architecture, smaller lithography, more expensive, and still only about 15-20% better than a card that's basically an improved version of 2009 technology. And people are acting like it's the end-all for Nvidia. Keep in mind, every single time Nvidia has vastly outperformed AMD/ATi, and forced them to sell almost at a loss. Let's wait and see Nvidia's 28nm offerings, and then we can talk.

QQabitmoar

IIRC, the R300's were quite a bit better than Nvidia's counterparts back in the day. And I couldn't say that Nvidia "vastly outperformed" ATi/AMD with evey subsequent generation; with the last few generations, AMD has been at most, maybe 20% behind Nvidia with their high-end parts.

Let's see. New architecture, smaller lithography, more expensive, and still only about 15-20% better than a card that's basically an improved version of 2009 technology. And people are acting like it's the end-all for Nvidia. Keep in mind, every single time Nvidia has vastly outperformed AMD/ATi, and forced them to sell almost at a loss. Let's wait and see Nvidia's 28nm offerings, and then we can talk.

QQabitmoar

its more like 30-40% stronger and thats without an overclock. After overclock, its game set and match.

So this this card won't work on my current motherboard(nforce 790i Ultra SLI)?percech

Where the heck do they even breed these kind of fanibois? Is it really that poisonous to plant seeds at system wars with Crysis pc picts? Hurry douse some damage control!

No is not a big improvement, every generation for the last few has been that percentage *facepalm*. Wake me up when somebody makes a 100% boost with 50% reduction in power.

[QUOTE="percech"]So this this card won't work on my current motherboard(nforce 790i Ultra SLI)?jtcraft

how does it compare to the HD6990 or GTX590TheGrudge13

[QUOTE="QQabitmoar"]

Let's see. New architecture, smaller lithography, more expensive, and still only about 15-20% better than a card that's basically an improved version of 2009 technology. And people are acting like it's the end-all for Nvidia. Keep in mind, every single time Nvidia has vastly outperformed AMD/ATi, and forced them to sell almost at a loss. Let's wait and see Nvidia's 28nm offerings, and then we can talk.

blaznwiipspman1

its more like 30-40% stronger and thats without an overclock. After overclock, its game set and match.

No, it's definitely closer to 15-20%. Go read up on some more benchmarks, you'll see it. And I can't get why people talk about overclocking a card when comparing cards...as if the other one can't also be overclocked. Anyway, I doubt the Kepler rumours are true (some stuff about the 780 being 232% better than the 580 in 1440p 4xAA BF3 ultra) (yes, that's 232%, not a typo) but if they are even close to the real thing, AMD's in trouble.

Anyway, I think everyone expected a much larger performance increase with the lithography change and all...

Yeah, if all goes well, I'm gonna upgrade to this card from my GTX 280. My only gripe is that it's not gonna have Physx support.percech

[QUOTE="percech"]Yeah, if all goes well, I'm gonna upgrade to this card from my GTX 280. My only gripe is that it's not gonna have Physx support.Lockedge

[QUOTE="Lockedge"][QUOTE="percech"]Yeah, if all goes well, I'm gonna upgrade to this card from my GTX 280. My only gripe is that it's not gonna have Physx support.percech

[QUOTE="blaznwiipspman1"]

[QUOTE="QQabitmoar"]

Let's see. New architecture, smaller lithography, more expensive, and still only about 15-20% better than a card that's basically an improved version of 2009 technology. And people are acting like it's the end-all for Nvidia. Keep in mind, every single time Nvidia has vastly outperformed AMD/ATi, and forced them to sell almost at a loss. Let's wait and see Nvidia's 28nm offerings, and then we can talk.

QQabitmoar

its more like 30-40% stronger and thats without an overclock. After overclock, its game set and match.

No, it's definitely closer to 15-20%. Go read up on some more benchmarks, you'll see it. And I can't get why people talk about overclocking a card when comparing cards...as if the other one can't also be overclocked. Anyway, I doubt the Kepler rumours are true (some stuff about the 780 being 232% better than the 580 in 1440p 4xAA BF3 ultra) (yes, that's 232%, not a typo) but if they are even close to the real thing, AMD's in trouble.

Anyway, I think everyone expected a much larger performance increase with the lithography change and all...

umm, read this thread, its 25% stronger on average before any drivers, overclock etc. There are plenty of links provided in this thread already. After the 7970 is overclocked, its much stronger still. Also if the 780 is that powerful then the 8970 will be that powerful if not stronger. thats all there is to it.

[QUOTE="percech"][QUOTE="Lockedge"] PhysX is going out the door. GPUs alone are capable of doing all the physics processing themselves, and IIRC Havok has already taken the majority of the market with their CPU based physics processing. PhysX is kind of cool, but unnecessary and almost irrelevant at this point in time. Where the technology is heading, PhysX is on its last legs. The 7970 had huge development to increase its computing capabilities, and I'm sure that Nvidia's next card could do anything PhysX does without PhysX, but they'll likely still use tit as a proprietary draw, prodding devs to make use of that tech to give itself a slight advantage. However, if you feel it's super important, then by all means, hold off. Your call. I just don't see PhysX as being tech that will be relevant in the future.Lockedge

also not to mention physx can be done on extremely weak cards. There are ways to get physx working with a radeon card and another nvidia card in the second slot with cracked drivers. Its pretty easy, but for most people the trouble isn't worth the hassle.

There arent enough games that utilize it for Physx to be a buying point imo. Iantheone

You'd be surprised how many people think otherwise.

[QUOTE="Iantheone"]There arent enough games that utilize it for Physx to be a buying point imo. kaitanuvax

You'd be surprised how many people think otherwise.