Should I buy a 7970 GPU?

[PatrThom]

Some of you may be wondering. If you already have a GTX 570/580/590 or Radeon 6990/6970, then probably not. The 7970 is only about 5-15% faster at gaming than the GTX 580, on average.

If you are getting it to run OpenCL apps, though, then the answer is yes. The 7970 is about 50-80% faster than the 6xxx series and 30-60% faster than the GTX 5xx series in OpenCL tasks. You will need a board which supports PCIe 3.0 for full benefit.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

MMMMmmmm, OpenCL....

NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Terrible for many things, but can't be beat for a certain set of tasks one might have.

 

[PatrThom]

can't be beat for a certain set of tasks one might have.

Yes, it should help the Folding@Home project work toward the cure for cancer almost twice as fast as before.

--Patrick

 

[strawman]

would this be an increase in performance for FEM?

Finite element analysis? If so, yes - as long as the software you're using makes use of the GPU.

 

[PatrThom]

would this be an increase in performance for FEM?

This is a CUDA demo, not an OpenCL demo, but it should be somewhat representative.
(I make this assumption since CUDA is NVIDIA's proprietary equivalent of OpenCL)


--Patrick