Info/Discussion : Different Versions of same Graphic Card : Comperative Analysis

[sam_738844]

What is the fundamental/architectural difference between the variants of a same GPU manufactured by same/diff providers.

I.E. I see "OC", "GHZ","AMP" editions of graphics cards in online stores with thier prices varying to each other,Need some light on their way of working and choosing the best VFM.

Digit gurus please enlighten me once again. Recently one of my friend bought an 670AMP edition from a mumbai store and when i asked him why exactly it is an AMP, he was not very clear with it, but says its better than a 7950OC! I just dont get it.

 

[Cilus]

There is no architectural difference between same version of cards. Sometimes Graphics card manufactures change the reference design offered by Nvidia and AMD, provide better cooler, high build quality, better voltage control modules and those cards are called Custom Design of the same GPU. Since most of them provide better cooling solution, sometime they are set to run by the manufacturers at a speed which is higher than the reference speed of the GPU.

For example, Sapphire VAPOR-X cards come with a Vapor chamber based cooling system designed by Sapphire and offer better cooling solution, resulting higher overclocking. MSI Lightning or Twin Frozer III design not only changes the cooling solution but also use their own printed circuit board of PCB design with higher quality voltage regulation module, higher tolerance to temperature and voltage etc.

 

[sam_738844]

There is no architectural difference between same version of cards. Sometimes Graphics card manufactures change the reference design offered by Nvidia and AMD, provide better cooler, high build quality, better voltage control modules and those cards are called Custom Design of the same GPU. Since most of them provide better cooling solution, sometime they are set to run by the manufacturers at a speed which is higher than the reference speed of the GPU.

For example, Sapphire VAPOR-X cards come with a Vapor chamber based cooling system designed by Sapphire and offer better cooling solution, resulting higher overclocking. MSI Lightning or Twin Frozer III design not only changes the cooling solution but also use their own printed circuit board of PCB design with higher quality voltage regulation module, higher tolerance to temperature and voltage etc.

Then when someone buys an AMP edition card, it mostly differs in terms of cooling? or is there anything to do with the clocks also? I heard that the 670 GPU for AMP edition is situated on a PCB that GTX680 uses and runs on default 1Ghz frequency > usual 954Mhz. I guess it is same as those GHZ edition for AMD? Also say if i buy a basic vanilla card for GTX670 and then OC it to such clock setting, then will it deliver similar graphic power?

 

[RCuber]

@Cilus.. one related question.. who assembles the reference design? Nvidia/AMD themself or would the just send the part to a different company like Asus or MSI?
Why this question came into my mind was that Nvidia/AMD don't sell GFX cards directly, hence for manufacturing a low number of reference design cards it would be too expensive.

 

[sukesh1090]

^^
i guess AMD and NIVIDIA just send the GPU to them.may be then the other companies install it on their PCBs and install their coolers.

 

[doomgiver]

@Cilus.. one related question.. who assembles the reference design? Nvidia/AMD themself or would the just send the part to a different company like Asus or MSI?
Why this question came into my mind was that Nvidia/AMD don't sell GFX cards directly, hence for manufacturing a low number of reference design cards it would be too expensive.

a "graphics card" is made of 3 things : the actual core/processor, the motherboard where it resides, and the cooling solution.

nvidia aand AMD just manufacture the "chips" or cores.
then they publish a reference card, that is a sort of masterplan, that is, all the "graphics cards" of that type must follow that pattern (arrangement of PCB components, placement of core, cooling solution, shape and dimensions of card, and its working specifications.

from all these choices, the only real variables that a "card" manufacturer can change are these :
1. working specifications (like core speed, memory clock, VRAM size) (overclocking the card a bit is a common practice, eg, AMP! extreme edition)
2. cooling solution (very important, eg, many of the stock gt4xx series used to run hot, and most manufacturers offered a non-reference cooler) (vapor-x, hawk, twinfrozr)
3. as Cilus said, they can also add higher quality components for better performance.

this ensures that the cards are not too radically different from each other, and perform almost equally.

------------

oh yeah, if you want the best bang for the buck, choose a non-OC'd (stock clocked) card with the best cooling, then overclock the hell out of it xD

overclocking a GPU is so damn easy. its child's play.
how tough can it be to play around with two simple, straightforward sliders?

thats just my advice, if you dont like the word "overclocking", you can just shell out a few K more for a factory OC'd card.

 

[sam_738844]

a "graphics card" is made of 3 things : the actual core/processor, the motherboard where it resides, and the cooling solution.

nvidia aand AMD just manufacture the "chips" or cores.
then they publish a reference card, that is a sort of masterplan, that is, all the "graphics cards" of that type must follow that pattern (arrangement of PCB components, placement of core, cooling solution, shape and dimensions of card, and its working specifications.

from all these choices, the only real variables that a "card" manufacturer can change are these :
1. working specifications (like core speed, memory clock, VRAM size) (overclocking the card a bit is a common practice, eg, AMP! extreme edition)
2. cooling solution (very important, eg, many of the stock gt4xx series used to run hot, and most manufacturers offered a non-reference cooler) (vapor-x, hawk, twinfrozr)
3. as Cilus said, they can also add higher quality components for better performance.

this ensures that the cards are not too radically different from each other, and perform almost equally.

------------

oh yeah, if you want the best bang for the buck, choose a non-OC'd (stock clocked) card with the best cooling, then overclock the hell out of it xD

overclocking a GPU is so damn easy. its child's play.
how tough can it be to play around with two simple, straightforward sliders?

thats just my advice, if you dont like the word "overclocking", you can just shell out a few K more for a factory OC'd card.

ok..now an altogether different question...can an OC'd or AMP edition card be paired with a stock to form a SLI/CF? also can same generation cards be paired with? like say one 7850 and 7870 CF or an GTX560 and GTX560Ti SLI?

 

[Cilus]

For SLI, you need exactly same card and for Crossfire, you need cards from same generation.

in SLI, you can use a reference model with a custom one but both the card will run at the speed of the slowest one among them.

In case of CF, both cards can run their own speed.

 

[gagan_kumar]

For SLI, you need exactly same card and for Crossfire, you need cards from same generation.

there goes my dream of cf'ing 7950 with new 8000 series(when they come and become cheaper).....

So how much we can increase the performance of factory oc'ed cards by overclocking?

 

[skeletor]

^ if you want to buy a card now, then buy it now. HD 7000 series came out in January. But only after 6-7 months the prices became stable (and cheap) as far as India is concerned.

If HD 8000 comes out in April, prices will become stable at around October. That's a lot of time.

Buy now and be done with it. Don't expect the prices to drop around the launch.

I got my HD 6950 in October November 2011. HD 7850 came out in February and for the most part of the year, it costed more and offered minimal performance increase. Only now HD 7850 dropped at around 14K which is less than what HD 6950 costed.

also can same generation cards be paired with? like say one 7850 and 7870 CF or an GTX560 and GTX560Ti SLI?

HD 7850 and HD 7870 crossfire = possible.
HD 7850 and HD 7770 crossfire = not possible.
HD 6990 and HD 6970 or HD 6950 crossfire = possible.
GTX 590 and GTX 570 or 580 SLI = not possible.
GTX 560 and GTX 560 Ti SLI = not possible.

For AMD, you need the the card to be from the same "sub" generation i.e. chip family. 78xx, 79xx, 69xx. One small exception is HD 58xx and 5970 were the same chip family. HD 5970 utilized to HD 5870 chips. So they could be crossfired. One small exception again, HD 5770 and 6770 crossfire was possible since 6770 was a rebranded 5770 - this also means they were the same chip family.

For nVidia SLI, you need the same CHIP in both the cards. Only GTX 560 Ti and GTX 560 Ti SLI is possible.

AMP, OC etc. editions don't come into picture. They are nothing more than fancy names used by card manufacturers. Basically they have clock speed and cooler differences. Chip remains exactly same.

 

[sam_738844]

now its clear picture...thanks to ico again. I dont understand why Nvidia still has there old-gen cards like 560,560ti,even 570 and 580 with high price tags where their Kepler Counter Parts offer way more with almost same price figures! They should lower them down! Why would anyone bother the buy a GTX560 instead of a GTX660? Although am talking about flipkart prices. not sure local if stores offers differences.

 

[doomgiver]

because india.

shopkeepers still have 8400GS's in their shops

 

[sam_738844]

because india.

shopkeepers still have 8400GS's in their shops

8400 GS is a choice people have to make when they suffer from awfully short funds and still want to play games which are like 3-4 years old. I know many people in my hometown surprisingly talented while gaming but cant afford more than that...I used to be in their league 5 years back and i comprehend the hard truth that Gaming is no free lunch, and never will be, one will invariably require high-end hardware to keep pace with ever-evolving graphic engines...on the contrary many are there..emphasis on "MANY" who are..unfortunately has not moved up in the world due to a thousand reasons as we know how India is a home of Million Little Kids who have no "Reload option" in their careers... sad...so 8400GS is a breather to them..My question is while nvidia 5XX and the like costs so much as 12-20K, why the GPU-makers are not planning to tune them down now when at the same price, people who CAN afford, can buy 6XX cards!, they should allow people to buy those fermi cards at lower price so that more people can at least taste the power they offered as thethen rulers.

there goes my dream of cf'ing 7950 with new 8000 series(when they come and become cheaper).....

So how much we can increase the performance of factory oc'ed cards by overclocking?

Bold above is similar query from me.

 

[doomgiver]

i can oc my hd6770 to 975/1340, from 775/1200.

25.8%/11.6% increase. this will run stable for a long time, but there are rare instances of texture shearing in some games, most noticible in skyrim.
hence, my everyday OC is 900/1300. good enough.

this way, you can expect significant fps gains.

...

and yes, i didnt think of it that way.^^

 

[saswat23]

very much informative discussion

 

[sam_738844]

i can oc my hd6770 to 975/1340, from 775/1200.

25.8%/11.6% increase. this will run stable for a long time, but there are rare instances of texture shearing in some games, most noticible in skyrim.
hence, my everyday OC is 900/1300. good enough.

this way, you can expect significant fps gains.

Nice! you mentioned about texture Shearing in-game, is it an indication that one has overclocked the card too much? Also, please post temperature table at those clock speeds. Like Cilus and Ico said, amp and OC edition cards come with custom coolers, hence they might just prove worth the money spent if someone further overclocks the already OC'ed cards! I'm not sure about two things, first, if one can integrate or implement cooling solutions of their own explicitly over graphic cards like its there for CPUS ( custom coolers ), buying a stock and then adding coolers. 2nd, is it really a good idea to up-clock already OC'ed cards again?

very much informative discussion

Is the Above is a sarcastic statement? Just being Curious

 

[saswat23]

Is the Above is a sarcastic statement? Just being Curious

Not at all. I really mean it.

 

[sukesh1090]

if one can integrate or implement cooling solutions of their own explicitly over graphic cards like its there for CPUS ( custom coolers ), buying a stock and then adding coolers

possible but gfx card coolers are not widely available in india.so better to avoid it.

is it really a good idea to up-clock already OC'ed cards again?

there is no particular limit for overclocking.it all depends upon the temperature and stability.each individual card(not model) ocs differently.for instance if you buy 2 stock 7870 from a shop and oc it.then the first card may hit 1000MHz(stable) but the other one may refuse to go above 950MHz.
so simple answer for your question is yes you can further OC the already oced cards but there is no guarantee for that.you can go as high as possible provided the temperatures are within the boundary and the system is stable.

 

[doomgiver]

Nice! you mentioned about texture Shearing in-game, is it an indication that one has overclocked the card too much? Also, please post temperature table at those clock speeds. Like Cilus and Ico said, amp and OC edition cards come with custom coolers, hence they might just prove worth the money spent if someone further overclocks the already OC'ed cards! I'm not sure about two things, first, if one can integrate or implement cooling solutions of their own explicitly over graphic cards like its there for CPUS ( custom coolers ), buying a stock and then adding coolers. 2nd, is it really a good idea to up-clock already OC'ed cards again?

yes, any sort of "not normal" behaviour means that your OC is not stable.
these are called artifacts, and can range from texture shearing (polygonal areas of static, random colors), missing textures (texture replaced by green/pink checks), banding, basically, anything from here : glitch_art: dedicated to the art of databending

there are aftermarket coolers for GPU's too. both air cooled and water cooled.

 

[sam_738844]

Not at all. I really mean it.

then !

yes, any sort of "not normal" behaviour means that your OC is not stable.
these are called artifacts, and can range from texture shearing (polygonal areas of static, random colors), missing textures (texture replaced by green/pink checks), banding, basically, anything from here : glitch_art: dedicated to the art of databending

there are aftermarket coolers for GPU's too. both air cooled and water cooled.

Seriously Those "Arts" are deep ! I remember there happened an incident with one of my friends PC while he tried to crank up an already OC'ed card a year back and then faced dangerous overheating. He told me that he used EVGA precision X and Nvidia Ntune to do that and later found it too optimisitic to have a "GTX 460 Barbeque" in his cabinet, so god put some good sense into him and he lowered the sliders down. BUT...here comes the surprise, even now after one year, he faces moderate overheating in his GPU and says that his card, somehow managed to retain the modified clock speed even after reset. AS he believes it, he used GPU-Z and many more tools to track it but always found factory clock speed in his card. But the Temperature graph while at load and the FPS gain and (then some drop spikes due to throttling ) strongly indicates that his card, very unusually, is still overclocked, and its not the drivers, he downgraded drivers a lot many times and tested, that much gain is impossible without any overclocking. So i guess its a rare case but it happened. Permanent OC.