Sapphire HD 7970 Toxic 6Gb

[hurleybird]

Attachment 124998

FX8150- Moar cores! HD7970 More VRAM! Both- the biggest epeen in the cosmos!

SB and 680 - More performance......not the relevant buying metric these days.

Well, except for the fact that @ 1150/1500 you're looking at quite easily the fastest card ever.

I agree thoug that 6GB is not going to be needed except maybe GPGPU stuff.

[Ice009]

I really wouldnt stress out about needing any more than 1280 Mb up to 1920x1200 which is exactly what I'm looking forward to next on the GTX 660 cards, or with 2 Gb on GTX 680s up to 5760x1080. If anyone has triple 1440p monitors, then I'm certain that they are knowledgeable enough to already know that they need a minimum of 3 Gb Vram for that resolution.

What would you need for triple 1920 x 1200?

[eXa]

I think 2gb is enough unless you are planning on modding games with texture packs and so on.

[Mungri]

What would you need for triple 1920 x 1200?

SLI 2 Gb GTX 680s are running no worse than crossfire 7970s in BF3 ultra at triple 1080p, but I'd still say get more than that anyway if using 3 monitors, 3-4 Gb (7970 or 4 Gb GTX 680 whenever it releases)..

1280 Mb* up to 1080p, 2 Gb up to 1440p, 3+ Gb for triple monitors is enough.

*Can get away with 1 Gb in BF3 and any other similarly Vram heavy game if you dont mind lowering your AA to either 2x MSAA or FXAA. But I wouldnt advise buying anything less than a 1280 Mb GTX 570 or the upcoming GTX 660 now because there will be more games being released that need at least that much at 1080p. GTX 560 Ti and 6950 are already obsolete to me, I'm just holding on for price drops.

[zanzabar]

What would you need for triple 1920 x 1200?

most game engines load things based on the horizontal resolution so 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 use the same amounts of vram most of the time.

[D749]

I love how people, especially here, complain about a card having MORE memory - even if it isn't "needed." Ridiculous.

[The Jesus]

I love how people, especially here, complain about a card having MORE memory - even if it isn't "needed." Ridiculous.

I know, right? This is XtremeSystems. There is more completely unnecessary BS on here than any other forum I use in terms of computer builds.

[OgaiB]

Fantastic videocard! GPU and memory overclocked crazy! And it's only on air!
Thanks for sharing!

[D749]

Wonder if someone will make a block for this.

[The Jesus]

Wonder if someone will make a block for this.

I can't tell if those individual heatsinks will come off or not. If it was a reference 6GB, the 7970 blocks would theoretically fit. Oh well, maybe Tiborr will mention something.

[HuffPCair]

6gigs? that is insanely awesome, I have no use for it at all, but I would imagine it would help with eyefinity and maybe will allow them to put 100 monitors together hahaha

[Kristoferr]

bhavv would you stop trolling in every single Radeon and Nvidia thread about your opinion on amount of memory needed? Im sure everyone already got your point of view from previous topics you have posted.

However, its nothing more fun than adding fuel to the fire. I have two slides for you from one overview:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/..._card_review/5

1332910830lxuqiwXcM0_5_3.gif
1332910830lxuqiwXcM0_5_4.gif

You see that HD tends to overbuffer itself above its limits and so makes game minimum framerates drop drastically, making game literally unplayable.
GTX handles its memory a lot better way, but since it only has 2Gigs, the result is same. With Ultra settings in BF3. it constantly spikes under 20FPS making game choppy and unplayable.

This is perfect example how Radeon can very much benefit from 6GB of Vram and GTX could have more as well.

[wez]

Ton of cards with 3gb already, so I see nothing wrong with offering a 6gb version for those that need it. You know, no one is forcing anyone to buy it.

[kromosto]

if this continues like this cpu will share gpus ram instead of gpu sharing system memory lol :P

[Chrono Detector]

Nice, a 6GB card, this card will be useful for multiple monitors

[kromosto]

Nice, a 6GB card, this card will be useful for multiple monitors

and also can process more data at a time in gpgpu

[cold2010]

bhavv would you stop trolling in every single Radeon and Nvidia thread about your opinion on amount of memory needed? Im sure everyone already got your point of view from previous topics you have posted.

However, its nothing more fun than adding fuel to the fire. I have two slides for you from one overview:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/..._card_review/5

1332910830lxuqiwXcM0_5_3.gif
1332910830lxuqiwXcM0_5_4.gif

You see that HD tends to overbuffer itself above its limits and so makes game minimum framerates drop drastically, making game literally unplayable.
GTX handles its memory a lot better way, but since it only has 2Gigs, the result is same. With Ultra settings in BF3. it constantly spikes under 20FPS making game choppy and unplayable.

This is perfect example how Radeon can very much benefit from 6GB of Vram and GTX could have more as well.

very interesting here!

Multiplayer

GeForce GTX 680 SLI - Using the highest in-game settings of ultra, along with HBAO and default motion blur, we found that the highest playable setting was FXAA at 5760x1200 on GTX 680 SLI. At 5760x1200 FXAA and the highest in-game settings we were averaging 60-70 FPS, and the lowest framerate we saw was 50 FPS. This setting allowed an incredibly smooth multiplayer experience.

In terms of performance with Radeon HD 7970 CFX we had to lower the ambient occlusion setting of HBAO down to SSAO in order to get smooth enough performance. With GTX 680 SLI we were able to keep ambient occlusion at the higher HBAO mode, but with 7970 CFX the performance wasn't there to give us a smooth gameplay experience with HBAO enabled. We had to disable HBAO and use SSAO instead. We also had to disable motion blur all together. By turning off motion blur and turning the AO quality down to SSAO, performance felt smooth enough to us. However, there are some hardcore players that may still find that not quite smooth enough. In that case, you could disable AO all together, and with that disabled completely it provides a large smoothness increase.

Once we did all that, then it was only playable at FXAA, just the same as GTX 680 SLI. When we increased to 2X and 4X MSAA, performance was choppy and unplayable. Even though 7970 CFX has more memory, and a higher memory bandwidth, that didn't do anything for us here in multiplayer over GTX 680 SLI. While both setups were at FXAA, GTX 680 SLI had the better experience since HBAO was enabled

Multiplayer Summary - GTX 680 SLI offered the best multiplayer experience, despite it having less VRAM capacity and memory bandwidth. We were able to run with motion blur enabled and HBAO turned on at 5760x1200 with FXAA and averaged 60-70 FPS. This amount of performance is perfect for multiplayer, and with the highest in-game settings enabled the game looked great at multiplayer. AMD Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX struggled for performance, even though it had more RAM and memory bandwidth. To get the game to feel smooth enough with enough performance we had to lower ambient occlusion and motion blur. GeForce GTX 680 SLI was the clear winner in multiplayer

[Kristoferr]

Yes. I didnt want to quote the text myself since everyone can read it from that review. All of it just confirms what i sayd in my last post. Radeon doesnt handle memory as well as GTX and GTX just doesnt have enought to keep framerates steady in high settings while playing surround mode.

About theyr final comment. It clearly talks against their slide from BF3 Ultra settings MP64. I have a feeling that reviewer likes green better than red. . But i belive the results are accurate.

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Sapphire Toxic is not available in Europe yet. I wonder if the price would stay under 500-520€, since the cheapest 7970 goes with 400-410 already.

[WangChung]

Would be awesome for people running 3x30" monitors (or more). Could also be a "low budget" replacement for some of the workstation cards for GPU rendering, they tend to like giant graphics memory buffers.

And as a great man once said, "This isn't AffordableSystems.org"

[Cold Fussion]

Only 6GB of ram? How will that play the games 20 years from now with such a pathetic amount?

[ClockZ]

Card looks well built, going to be exspensive.

[ice_chill]

This is more marketing to say "We can do it and we did it first" this gets people noticing Sapphire. Even HD7990 won't need 6GB.

[Cold Fussion]

Would be awesome for people running 3x30" monitors (or more). Could also be a "low budget" replacement for some of the workstation cards for GPU rendering, they tend to like giant graphics memory buffers.

And as a great man once said, "This isn't AffordableSystems.org"

Much better off with a quadro or tesla for that.

[N19h7m4r3]

Much better off with a quadro or tesla for that.

Exactly. I find it odd that people are complaining about the GTX 680 not having enough RAM or compute power for workstations and rendering. That's what the Quadro and Tesla lines are for. They're much better than the GeForce equivalent at it.


Also I find nothing Xtreme about 6GB of RAM. It just reminds me of budgets cards with 2GB ram when they came out. Also when did XtremeSystems turn into ExpensiveSystems.

Perhaps if most games needed more than 2-3GB just to run at max settins at normal resolutions of 1080/1440 I would agree, but I just see it as a waste really.

Sure if someone needs/wants 6GB they're welcome to go buy it. If they plan on Modding Skyrim I expect near photorealism from the mods after they harp on about the game + mods "needing" more than 2-3GB.

[WeaponX]

Also I find nothing Xtreme about 6GB of RAM. It just reminds me of budgets cards with 2GB ram when they came out. Also when did XtremeSystems turn into ExpensiveSystems.

XtremeSystems and costly usually go hand in hand.