HD 7950 or MSI GTX 760 Hawk, which one should i get ?

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D_A

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Jan 6, 2013
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Hi everyone, im looking to buy new graphics in next 2 or 3 months and i need help deciding which one to get, HD 7950 or GTX 760 Hawk.

In my country MSI GTX 760 Hawk is 307 USD (same as MSI GTX 760 gaming) which is 20 USD cheaper then cheapest 7950 ( Sapphire Vapor-x) and 10 USD cheaper then next GTX 760 ( Gigabyte OC ).
My budget is around 330 USD.

Rest of my specs are:
FX-6300 @4.00 GHz
Coolermaster Hyper 212evo
MSI 970a-g46
Patriot Viper3 black mamba 2x4Gb 1866 MHz
Hitachi 500GB sata 2 HDD (old one from previous build)
Samsung 840pro 128gb SSD
Thermaltake SPS-630M 630w PSU
Thermaltake versa II case with 3x120 exhaust fans(2xtop, 1xback), 4 intake fans(1x120 side panel lower and 1x80 side panel higher, 1x120 bottom and 1x92 front)(fans are reused from previous build)

I need GPU for gaming on single 1080p monitor

tnx in advance
 
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Zero Cool

Zero Cool

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If the hawk is $20 cheaper than the cheapest 7950 then I would definitely go with the GTX 760. It is the faster, newer, better card.

perfrel_1920.gif


 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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Both will perform so much the same that you would be hard pressed to detect the difference without a synthetic benchmark.
At decision time buy the best card for you. I would not expect the 9xxx series to change the current price performance equation.

As to other selection criteria:

1. AMD tends to have slightly better FPS benchmarks at the expense of stuttering or inconsistent response times.
Here is an early report on that: http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited
AMD is working on the issue.
2. The fan type coolers of the hawk are very good in getting heat off of the gpu chip. But, the heat is then dumped into the case where both the cpu and graphics card get added heat. I prefer the direct exhaust blower type coolers. They get the heat directly out the back of the case. Here is an example of a GTX760 with a blower cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130934
Here is an example of a 7950 with a blower cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161420
Some comments on your other parts:
1. Thermaltake can be iffy quality. Do you have availability of quality brands like seasonic?
Look fo a tier 2 or better unit from this list. 600w is appropriate.
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx
2. The new Samsung evo has much to recommend it. It is cheaper, and has software that can use ram for added cacheing.
Performance is equivalent to the pro in a desktop environment. The added longevity of the pro is a non issue since both will be long obsolete before you run out of updates, even in a heavy desktop environment.
 
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Kamen_BG

Kamen_BG

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Certainly wait....new cards may be on scene and AMD frame latency issue may be fixed by then.

It was fixed a long time ago for single GPU's and recently it was also fixed for dual GPU's.


As for the graphics card,the HD 7950 Vapor-X can be found on newegg for 260$.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202003

Which is a very reasonable price.

Note that the graph shown above shows a HD 7950 without clocked at 800 mhz.
The HD 7950 Vapor-X run at 950 mhz boost.

The Vapor-X card would sit right next to the stock GTX 760 in that graph if it was there.

Still, out of the box, the GTX 760 will have the advantage.

The GTX 760 is also a small card compared to the HD 7950.
If you're planning to reuse the card in a future m-itx build in the future, you'll have to keep that in mind.

The HD 7950 however has one big advantage.
It comes with three free games.

It's also on par or faster than the GTX 760 when they are both pushed to their limits.

Still though, if you don't care about the free games and are looking for a pre overclocked card, you can't go wrong with the GTX 760
 
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D

D_A

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Jan 6, 2013
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HIS and EVGA are not available in my country ( MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, Sapphire and recently Palit and PowerColor). Only Palit and PowerColor have those types of exhaust here.

There are only few PSU brands here : Chieftec, Coolermaster, Thermaltake, LC Power and Raidmax + bunch of cheap Chinese PSUs. I have been told that LC Power and Raidmax are crap and to avoid them even tho they cost as much as Thermaltake and lite Coolermaster. Chieftec was above my price range and at the time of purchase there were no Coolermaster PSU in 80$ price range. Thermaltake is semi modular and i think its 80+bronze so its a nice bonus.

Samsubg 840evo was not available when i was buying SSD so i went with 840pro which works like a charm



HAWK is longer then reference GTX 760, almost as long as 7950 as far as i can see. When the time comes to reuse GPU ill probably leave it in this case and buy new one :)

7950 comes with only 1 game in my country, but its not an issue since i already played all

also i do like to overclock GPU but i do not want to push it to the limits. i doubt i would overclock either of them in the beginning.
 
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