Looking to upgrade from GTX460 (7970 or 670 or ?)

Ezrep

Honorable
Apr 27, 2013
3
0
10,510
Good morning,
As the title says it's finally that time where games are starting to make my GPU stutter on the higher settings. So I spent a day researching and mostly came away frustrated as I'm very out of touch with GPU's it seems.

So looking at NCIX and with a 500$ budget in mind I'm looking to get a new card , the reason I'm asking is because they vary between $350 to $ 500 on that site so picking one isn't as obvious and I don't just pick the most expensive unless it's the clear better choice.

All my gaming is done on a single monitor @ 1920x1200 (with no intention of upgrading monitors) I play things like Rift , Skyrim , Bioshock ,Borderlands 2 but no COD's or BF3's , I just want to run my games on ultra like any gamer and I don't even care if it's always 60fps I just don't want slide show like when I tried FC3 on ultra.

I'd be totally ok as well with if I was told that say a 660TI would do everything I need as I heard they are good cards too, I just don't know enough.

Any help is appreciated as I have read the forums and the hierarchy charts but even with all that I find that there is a large window of missing information that I don't know like what brands are actually good ect ect.
 
Solution
A couple games on the list jump out in favor of the GTX 670:

- Borderlands 2, a PhysX game requires a Nvidia card to enable those GPU-accelerated effects, also performs overall much better on the GTX 670.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWFkDrKvBRU

borderlands2_1920_1200.gif

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_Mini/10.html


- Skyrim, only the GTX 670 will allow you to enable Ambient Occlusion (and Transparency Supersampling) in Skyrim. Ambient Occlusion affects nearly everything in the game and gives much more depth to the textures and shadows. Skyrim on AMD cards looks like the "AO: OFF" image below...

shamsmu

Honorable
May 30, 2012
1,148
0
11,660
I smell a flame war because of the nature of this thread.

a msi PE gtx670 or evga gtx670 ftw would be your best bet here if you want to get nvidia and want to take advantage of physx.

the sapphire hd7950 boost would provide you better price/performance ratio but it won't outperform the gtx670 if both are overclocked.

what are the specs for the rest of your system?
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
GTX670 or 7950. Near the top, without the big price gouge. I went with the 7950 because I like those games more. If you are a more of a RPG guy then you might like the GTX670 more. If you are on a single monitor then no need for the 4GB model.
 
A couple games on the list jump out in favor of the GTX 670:

- Borderlands 2, a PhysX game requires a Nvidia card to enable those GPU-accelerated effects, also performs overall much better on the GTX 670.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWFkDrKvBRU

borderlands2_1920_1200.gif

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_Mini/10.html


- Skyrim, only the GTX 670 will allow you to enable Ambient Occlusion (and Transparency Supersampling) in Skyrim. Ambient Occlusion affects nearly everything in the game and gives much more depth to the textures and shadows. Skyrim on AMD cards looks like the "AO: OFF" image below:

Skyrim-AO-Comparison.gif

http://www.geforce.com/optimize/guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide#19
 
Solution