EDIT : replaced Sapphire stock cooling system with arctic cooling accelero xtreme, card is now SILENT, see post #19 below
hi there
I just received these 2 cards :
- Asus GTX670 direct cu II 2gb
- Sapphire HD7950 mac edition 3gb
I thought some could have a hard time deciding as I did so here is my feedback for what its worth.
I am no tech expert, just a 3D artist (modeler) and occasional gamer.
Basically I feel these cards performance is very close so the choice is not simple.
the system is macpro 4.1 2,93 / 8gb RAM / SSD drive
I used osx 10.8.3 and win 7 64bit with latest drivers from nvidia and AMD
here are the results of a few benchmarks I ran :
GTX670 / HD7950
luxmark (osx - OpenCL) 658 / 1458 (see here for explanation)
unigine heaven (osx - OpenGL) 51,1 fps / 53,6 fps
unigine heaven (win7 - OpenGL) 57,3 fps / 54,5 fps
unigine heaven temperature 68° / 68°
cinebench (osx - OpenGL) 28 fps / 33,42 fps
cinebench (win7 - OpenGL) 36,2 fps / 60 fps
3Dmark (win7 - dx11) 7493 / 7133
Gaming
only games I could run are sleeping dogs and dishonored which unfortunatelty are not the most demanding, so I could hardly feel any difference.
dishonored (max settings) feels a little more fluid with GTX670 but it is very close.
EDIT : just tried Batman arkham city which is a much more demanding game.
with max settings, the performance is at GFX670 advantage by a small but clear margin.
The game uses PhysX engine which is nvidia exclusive so it probably helps the framerate.
few games use the technology so it is again probably not the best benchmark.
3D work
maya 2012
very similar viewport performance with both cards.
mudbox 2013
again performance is quite similar, hd7950 feel slightly faster, nothing very obvious.
as a reference default head smoothed to 32 million polygons is slightly laggy with both cards, yet very confortable to work. you can easily work up to maybe 70/80 million
Subdividing model is faster with HD7950
EDIT : for some reason mudbox preview shadows are not working with GTX670 with windows7, they are working with osx but the quality is poor (similar to GT120), HD7950 shadows look good with both systems.
Zbrush
zbrush doesn't rely on GPU much so performance is similar.
if you need CUDA cores (octane/AE...) the choice will be obvious, only nvidia supports it.
sound levels
GTX670 is much more quiet.
idle is silent (similar to GT120), it can be noisy but not as much and less often than HD7950
HD7950 can get quite loud (it does each startup) but when idle or regular use noise is reasonnable, still it is the most noticeable noise in the system.
temperatures
hd7950 blows hot air (outside the case) and the plastic cover quickly gets very hot.
asus cooling system is way better, the heat is contained in the metal pipes mostly,
the air is not hot so the fact it is blown inside the case is not a concern.
summary
HD7950 mac edition
+ opengl performance slightly better
+ opencl performance
+ boot screen (I don't care myself, I'm using bootchamp to reboot to windows from osx desktop)
GTX670
+ directx performance
+ price
+ CUDA
+ much better cooling system
there is no winner here, it depends on your priorities.
Opengl is the most important criteria to me but I am actually sending back the HD7950 as I like my system to be quiet being used to the silent GT120 and macbook.
the performance difference seemed slight to me in real use, despite what cinebench benchmark is saying (not sure this old benchmark is any good actually)
EDIT: changed my mind after noticing shadow bug in mudbox, I am keeping the sapphire 7950. tough choice
hi there
I just received these 2 cards :
- Asus GTX670 direct cu II 2gb
- Sapphire HD7950 mac edition 3gb
I thought some could have a hard time deciding as I did so here is my feedback for what its worth.
I am no tech expert, just a 3D artist (modeler) and occasional gamer.
Basically I feel these cards performance is very close so the choice is not simple.
the system is macpro 4.1 2,93 / 8gb RAM / SSD drive
I used osx 10.8.3 and win 7 64bit with latest drivers from nvidia and AMD
here are the results of a few benchmarks I ran :
GTX670 / HD7950
luxmark (osx - OpenCL) 658 / 1458 (see here for explanation)
unigine heaven (osx - OpenGL) 51,1 fps / 53,6 fps
unigine heaven (win7 - OpenGL) 57,3 fps / 54,5 fps
unigine heaven temperature 68° / 68°
cinebench (osx - OpenGL) 28 fps / 33,42 fps
cinebench (win7 - OpenGL) 36,2 fps / 60 fps
3Dmark (win7 - dx11) 7493 / 7133
Gaming
only games I could run are sleeping dogs and dishonored which unfortunatelty are not the most demanding, so I could hardly feel any difference.
dishonored (max settings) feels a little more fluid with GTX670 but it is very close.
EDIT : just tried Batman arkham city which is a much more demanding game.
with max settings, the performance is at GFX670 advantage by a small but clear margin.
The game uses PhysX engine which is nvidia exclusive so it probably helps the framerate.
few games use the technology so it is again probably not the best benchmark.
3D work
maya 2012
very similar viewport performance with both cards.
mudbox 2013
again performance is quite similar, hd7950 feel slightly faster, nothing very obvious.
as a reference default head smoothed to 32 million polygons is slightly laggy with both cards, yet very confortable to work. you can easily work up to maybe 70/80 million
Subdividing model is faster with HD7950
EDIT : for some reason mudbox preview shadows are not working with GTX670 with windows7, they are working with osx but the quality is poor (similar to GT120), HD7950 shadows look good with both systems.
Zbrush
zbrush doesn't rely on GPU much so performance is similar.
if you need CUDA cores (octane/AE...) the choice will be obvious, only nvidia supports it.
sound levels
GTX670 is much more quiet.
idle is silent (similar to GT120), it can be noisy but not as much and less often than HD7950
HD7950 can get quite loud (it does each startup) but when idle or regular use noise is reasonnable, still it is the most noticeable noise in the system.
temperatures
hd7950 blows hot air (outside the case) and the plastic cover quickly gets very hot.
asus cooling system is way better, the heat is contained in the metal pipes mostly,
the air is not hot so the fact it is blown inside the case is not a concern.
summary
HD7950 mac edition
+ opengl performance slightly better
+ opencl performance
+ boot screen (I don't care myself, I'm using bootchamp to reboot to windows from osx desktop)
GTX670
+ directx performance
+ price
+ CUDA
+ much better cooling system
there is no winner here, it depends on your priorities.
Opengl is the most important criteria to me but I am actually sending back the HD7950 as I like my system to be quiet being used to the silent GT120 and macbook.
the performance difference seemed slight to me in real use, despite what cinebench benchmark is saying (not sure this old benchmark is any good actually)
EDIT: changed my mind after noticing shadow bug in mudbox, I am keeping the sapphire 7950. tough choice
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