Well.. As of now, both of my builds are superior, and OP should pay close attention to who he listens to on this subforum because a lot of you are useless trolls. Only two people I respect on here thus far are Dolar and Urbanshaft (urban because he's been around here a LONG LONG time).

Awaiting Dolar's new builds though, as I'm sure he'll be able to do very well improving on some of the parts I did better on.

I'll translate, he thinks his builds are better, they aren't.

XFX 7970 vs PoV 680. It's the closest thing I could find, and the 7970 is quite far ahead.

http://www.tweak.dk/review/XFX_Radeon_HD_7970_Black_Edition_3GB/1459/6/1

BF3:



Although here's an even newer benchmark that shows otherwise, the 680 is slightly ahead of a stock reference asus 7970 DCUII.

1080p:
http://hardocp.com/images/articles/1361915444mQwWwGD0oO_5_5.png

1600p for 680:
http://hardocp.com/images/articles/1361915444mQwWwGD0oO_5_1.png


Shows the same sight as before, with the 680 falling behind on higher resolutions.

This post was edited by Klexmoo on May 21 2013 11:44am

They are... They are quite a bit better x_x

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/508?vs=555

the first 5-6 are in favor of the 7970, the last 30 are all in favor of the GTX 680. Seems to be biased toward people who only look at the first few stats and then go "AMD ROX."

Overall, in this benchmark (I've seen you people throw around anandtech before as reliable...) the GTX 680 is superior, and draws less power than the 7970 (which is a huge issue in the case of his 500w PSU).

Your comparison looks horribly skewed also, as wtf is "Point of View" ? and they're showing like $500 versions of the 7970 boosted at the top.

Not to mention that they didn't even TEST their (very odd/unheard of brand) 680 at higher resolutions, where it performs best!

This post was edited by Mitchymo on May 21 2013 11:48am

The 680 would be best paired against the 7970 GHz, but there's no benchmark out there that's worth using. I posted the only stuff I could find, can't do better than that. I agree on the fail with the 2560x1440 missing. The reason for the uppermost benchmark was to test the XFX, although it had a decent reference 680 so I picked it out since it's a newer benchmark

This post was edited by Klexmoo on May 21 2013 11:53am

Well the one I posted (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/508?vs=555) is definitely reliable, more so than Passmark and it was a direct comparison of base 680 vs base 7970 (the ones in our builds).

680 came out on top overall, 7970 had its moments though! If I were doing an absolute budget build, I could reduce the cost of my build by $40 and choose the 7970 without sweating it.

But in our current builds, there is room for the slight upgrade with the 680, so that's why I chose it.

I have the exact same price as Dolar's, with higher performance, and more power for future OC/upgrades (and you'd be hard pressed to power that 7970 on a 500w PSU, as the 7970 sucks way more power than the gtx 680).

This post was edited by Mitchymo on May 21 2013 11:56am

This is actually pretty interesting when looking at single card vs xfire vs sli power consumption: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-scaling-bottleneck,3471-10.html

And just for lulz, I found this one a while ago.. never gonna get near that card: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rog-ares-ii-dual-gpu-review,3458-8.html (bottom chart)

This post was edited by Klexmoo on May 21 2013 12:04pm

That is interesting, but overall the 680 prevailed: (from the article)





This post was edited by Mitchymo on May 21 2013 12:24pm

Update :
Buying on May 22th. *Last day of the sales
Since theres a two way option going on here, I'd like to list some more specific uses/details here.

#1. I would put Gaming Performance First

#2. OverClock 2 day/ week (not so important)
#3. Streaming 3day/week (not so important)

#4. Buying with ME (memory express) because it has 25% price beat
#5. Case doesnt really matter, Good air flow, see through, Cheap, LED light would be great

#6. Balance Rig. Not planning on Crossfire it.
#7. 12% tax in Canada

#8. already owned 24" and 27" Samsung Screen
#9. keyboard, mouse, Headset is excluded on the budget

#10. Thank You So Much for Helping me out guys! Competition always gives the best result. But please be peaceful with it. Don't overwork for a stranger on the internet. :)