Graphics card recommendations: GTX 670, GTX 680 or GTX 770

By MindTrickz
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MindTrickz

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Hey guys, I need a little advice on graphics card upgrade. I've been on a mission to future-proof my PC so I can run all the upcoming games such as Witcher 3, Battlefield 4 etcs on their best quality settings. And to ensure that the card holds for about 3 years.

My budget is somewhat limited to the price of the three cards I mentioned in the title, so Titan, GTX 690 and the 780 are out of my price range. The price of those cards are insane in Denmark, and I refuse to fork out that much for a single piece of hardware.

Anyway, My question is whether the GTX 770 which costs about 3100kr($482 US dollars) here in Denmark is faster/better enough than the GTX 670 to justify 900kr ($140) price difference. And if so, is the GTX 770 better than the GTX 680? They both cost about the same.

 

My Current Rig:

Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz, 8MB
RAM: Kingston DDR3 HyperX 1600MHz 8GB
Cooler: Noctua NH-L12 CPU
PSU: Antec Earthwatts EA 500 watt <----------- I'm upgrading this with the Graphics card.
GFX: EVGA Geforce GTX 460 v2 1GB

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Mindovermaster Moderator

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What PSU are you upgrading to?

 

I'd go with the 770, newest technology, and just a tad better than the 670. (IIRC)

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SnowRanger13

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The GTX770 uses the same chip as the GTX680 with the same number of cores enabled (1536) but the 770 has a higher base clock rate, a higher memory clock rate and has GPU Boost 2.0 (which is adaptive clock rate technology meaning long as the chip stays within it's thermal threshold the clock speed will rise).

 

If all 3 are within the budget the GTX770 is best.

 

660<660Ti<760<670<680<770<780<Titan.

 

A good place to compare would be Anandtech's GPU2013 bench site: http://anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/583

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Andre S. Veteran

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I think I'll go with the 770. To be more precise; the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 770 AMP! Edition

 

It'll be a tight squeeze but it barely fits in my case. The card is MASSIVE.

Don't know about that specific model, but don't pay extra for factory overclocks and nice looking custom coolers. Doesn't matter what the card looks like once it's in your case, and you can easily overclock it yourself (if you really care about the small difference that makes). More important is get a card that's silent and cool. The Gigabyte Windforce, MSI Gaming and ASUS DirectCU II models are very good in this regard.

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MindTrickz

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Don't know about that specific model, but don't pay extra for factory overclocks and nice looking custom coolers. Doesn't matter what the card looks like once it's in your case, and you can easily overclock it yourself (if you really care about the small difference that makes). More important is get a card that's silent and cool. The Gigabyte Windforce, MSI Gaming and ASUS DirectCU II models are very good in this regard.

I agree completely, but the reason I choose that one is because of it's dimensions. All the others ones you mentioned are at least 28.5 to 30 cm in length or 11 inches to 11.8 inches. I do not think they will fit my case, and frankly I rather spend an extra 20 on this factory overclocked card rather than buy a brand new case for $200 which will fit the ones you mentioned.

 

Btw, the above Zotac one is 26.6 cm or 10.4 inches.

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+Majesticmerc MVC

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FYI, the non-disclosure agreement on the new ATI card benchmarks is lifted next week, so wait until then to make your purchase. If the ATI cards are priced well, you might see significant discounts on Nvidia hardware in the coming weeks.

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+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹

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depending on what resolution you play at,  i am sure you will be happy with either card for a few years.   i have

Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz

Nvidia 670

16 GB ram

 

 

and there has being no game that at 1080p resolution i could not run at absolute max settings!   and i doubt there will be soon.

i am thinking 16gb ram helps too.  but seriously, unless you plan to run at higher then 1080p resolution (or run multiple monitors), you should be fine for a few years.

 

 

so i would save $140 dollars for sure.  almost 50% price premium for a marginal perfomance improvement (definately not 50% improvement)   plus nothing there is even close maxing out 670 if you play at 1080p

 

save $140 now and then (if you feel the need to) upgrade in 2 years instead of 3 to get a much better deal overall.      670 price is a sweet spot now.     no reason to spend more if you are not going to use it.

it wont be futureproof, since the tech evolves soon and going with the best performance/price ratio always makes sense.

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IceBreakerG

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If you don't mind waiting a couple of weeks, AMD's new R9 280X is good competitor to the GTX 770.  Best of all, it costs $100 less too.  Anandtech released their review last night along with benchmarks.  It's a solid card, especially at the $299 price point.  I was almost dead set on the GTX 770 as well, but I decided to wait to see what AMD did since it was so close.  I really want the R9 290X (or the R9 290), but I think it will be out of my price range.  Anandtech's review is here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7400/the-radeon-r9-280x-review-feat-asus-xfx

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+Majesticmerc MVC

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It's possible that the R9-290 will release at roughly the same price as the 770, given that the 290X is competing with the GTX780/Titan. I do expect the R9-290 to be significantly more powerful though, so it's unlikely.

That all being said though, if you're set on Nvidia, expect 700 series graphics cards to drop sharply in price over the coming weeks. Nvidia can't compete like this if their cards cost $100 more but offer the same performance.

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Boo Berry

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Yeah, Nvidia will probably drop their prices to better compete with AMD's new cards. However I do agree with IceBreakerG about the R9 280X recommendation, with is a rebranded 7970 GHz edition, if Nvidia's prices don't drop.

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MindTrickz

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If you don't mind waiting a couple of weeks, AMD's new R9 280X is good competitor to the GTX 770.  Best of all, it costs $100 less too.  Anandtech released their review last night along with benchmarks.  It's a solid card, especially at the $299 price point.  I was almost dead set on the GTX 770 as well, but I decided to wait to see what AMD did since it was so close.  I really want the R9 290X (or the R9 290), but I think it will be out of my price range.  Anandtech's review is here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7400/the-radeon-r9-280x-review-feat-asus-xfx

 

 

 

Yeah, Nvidia will probably drop their prices to better compete with AMD's new cards. However I do agree with IceBreakerG about the R9 280X recommendation, with is a rebranded 7970 GHz edition, if Nvidia's prices don't drop.

 

I've seen the 280X benchmarks. They are on par with the GTX 770. Only a few percent difference, but nothing that will justifiy the $100 difference.

 

I think I'll hold off at the moment and see if there is a price drop from Nvidia or to see if the 290X; which is supposed to compete with the GTX 780 is priced anywhere near the GTX 770. IN which case I'll just snap up the 290X.

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MindTrickz

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Took a  thorough look at both AnandTech and Tom's Hardware's review of AMD's new cards, and the verdict is in. The R9 280x crushes the GTX 770 and is also $100 cheaper. That is freaking amazing.

 

I'm glad I held off and waited as some suggested in this thread. I'm now waiting until the 15th (when Amd's embargo on the R9 290x is lifted) to see if Amd's flagship card can outperform the GTX 280 and if it is priced reasonably. If it is I'll be buying.

 

Quick question, since it looks like I'll be buying AMD now, how is the driver support? My last Radeon card was when they were still Ati and the drivers were buggy as hell.

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psionicinversion

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i think the 290 will be $400-450 and the 290x will be pushing upwards of $600 maybe slightly more but yeah the 280X looks sweet, im waiting for the sapphire toxic one which should arrive 18th october and its ?270 then overclock the crap out of it. i reckon i can get 1250 easily with 7.5-8Ghz ram boost.

 

Or get the 290 (pends on price)... the 290 should be getting bit over 2500 stream processors and the 290x is bit over 2800. The 290 and 290x will be using the new "hawaii" cores so theyll probably be expensive at first then get price cuts within 3 months i reckon

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Boo Berry

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Took a  thorough look at both AnandTech and Tom's Hardware's review of AMD's new cards, and the verdict is in. The R9 280x crushes the GTX 770 and is also $100 cheaper. That is freaking amazing.

Yep, the R9 280X is looking pretty damn good indeed for that price point.
 

I'm glad I held off and waited as some suggested in this thread. I'm now waiting until the 15th (when Amd's embargo on the R9 290x is lifted) to see if Amd's flagship card can outperform the GTX 280 and if it is priced reasonably. If it is I'll be buying.

I have 2 780's right now, and I'm in the same boat too. I'm waiting to see how well the 290X performs, however I don't expect it to go for anything less than $599 to $699. The Mantle API has got me very interested in investing in 2 290X's for some hardcore Battlefield 4 on 3 screens. :D Of course, I want to see how well the 290X performs against the 780 in Linux too.

 

Quick question, since it looks like I'll be buying AMD now, how is the driver support? My last Radeon card was when they were still Ati and the drivers were buggy as hell.

The last couple AMD drivers for me in my AMD machine have worked just fine without issues on both Windows and Linux, no complaints there. They've really stepped up in regards to driver quality and frame pacing in the last 6 months now, so slowly we should see even more performance/stability improvements in the drivers. Also again, I want to see how well AMD's drivers mature versus Nvidia's on Linux, especially in regards to OpenGL performance as time passes (both AMD and Nvidia have released new public documentation that the open-source driver developers can use). That, and I want to see if they port Battlefield 4 + Mantle to Linux.

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Astra.Xtreme

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Took a  thorough look at both AnandTech and Tom's Hardware's review of AMD's new cards, and the verdict is in. The R9 280x crushes the GTX 770 and is also $100 cheaper. That is freaking amazing.

 

I'm glad I held off and waited as some suggested in this thread. I'm now waiting until the 15th (when Amd's embargo on the R9 290x is lifted) to see if Amd's flagship card can outperform the GTX 280 and if it is priced reasonably. If it is I'll be buying.

 

Quick question, since it looks like I'll be buying AMD now, how is the driver support? My last Radeon card was when they were still Ati and the drivers were buggy as hell.

Keep in mind that the R9 280x is simply a 7970 with a slightly higher clock and memory speed.  From the benchmarks I've seen, it's pretty much spot on with the GTX 770 in terms of performance.  Also, the R9 will use considerably more power than the 770.  AMD cards are very power hungry. So it'll likely generate more heat and noise.  Personally I've had much better luck with Nvidia and their drivers, so I'd wait and see if they drop the price of the 770, and if they do, I'd get that.

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Boo Berry

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It's a rebranded 7970 GHz edition, which easily trounces the 770 (which itself is a rebranded 680) but you don't get the newer features like TrueAudio (like anyone really cares, seriously?). But like you said, it's more power hungry and it does run a little hotter (wait to see which vendor's cooling solution works best, I guess). But DEFINITELY don't consider the 7990 unless you want a year-round space heater. :p

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MindTrickz

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Keep in mind that the R9 280x is simply a 7970 with a slightly higher clock and memory speed.  From the benchmarks I've seen, it's pretty much spot on with the GTX 770 in terms of performance.  Also, the R9 will use considerably more power than the 770.  AMD cards are very power hungry. So it'll likely generate more heat and noise.  Personally I've had much better luck with Nvidia and their drivers, so I'd wait and see if they drop the price of the 770, and if they do, I'd get that.

 

I know, but isn't the 770 basically a re-branded 680? It would essentially be same.

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