HD 7950 vs GTX 660Ti

[Cybernetic]

Hello Community,

I was wondering about the quality of these cards in terms of future gaming. From Anandtech.com, I was able to gather that the HD7950 is better at games like Crysis, but the GTX is better at games like Battlefield 3.

I'd like to play more games like Battlefield 3 in the future, but if the way these cards are designed will affect gaming in the future, then I want to know. Specifically, if more games are going to be designed like Battlefield 3 (in terms of coding and communication with the graphics card) then I will move towards the GTX. If they are to be more like Crysis, then I will lean towards the HD7950.

Thank you for your help and other Video card suggestions would be appreciated if u have any in mind.

 

[gorz]

7950 all the way. More oc headroom, more compute performance, and more memory bandwidth.

 

[Guest]

as you noticed both cards trade blows depending on what game you are playing; making them basically equal in terms of performance.

if you look at the pricing differences then the 660ti is a bit better of a buy.

if you look at the memory bus difference then the 7950 will be able to handle more tessellation IF gaming uses more of it in the future. but that is a big if.

the bottom line is both cards are great and anything related to what the future holds is pure speculation.

now please just close this thread before it degenerates into another flame wars as the hundreds before it.

(btw, don't you google before asking a question?)

 

[nitrium]

7950 all the way. More oc headroom, more compute performance, and more memory bandwidth.

More memory period. A whole extra gigabyte. What if future gaming required 3GB of textures for Ultra Texture setting? Or if you want to crank up AA to 8x on older titles? That extra GB could come in very handy.

 

[koudou]

7950. More likely to be prepared for the future and the extra bandwith makes a difference in TODAY'S games.

 

[bigcyco1]

Well there is NO WAY anybody can say for sure there is NO such thing as FUTURE PROOF! GTX 660 Ti beating a 7950 at 1920 resolution keep in mind this is not reference vs reference .
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/56090-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review-23.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_660_Ti_Power_Edition/28.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/20
Adaptive VSync works great and makes gaming very smooth.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/16/nvidia_adaptive_vsync_technology_review/
Quote:
"As it stands, AMD’s position correctly reflects their performance; the GTX 660 Ti is a solid and relatively consistent 10-15% faster than the 7870, while the 7950 is anywhere between a bit faster to a bit slower depending on what benchmarks you favor. Of course when talking about the 7950 the “anything but equal” maxim still applies here, if not more so than with the GTX 670. The GTX 660 Ti is anywhere 50% ahead of the 7950 and 25% behind it, and everywhere in between.all of these cards, this makes it very hard to make any kind of meaningful recommendation here for potential buyers. Compared to the 7870 the GTX 660 Ti is a solid buy if you can spare the extra $20, though it’s not going to be a massive difference. The performance difference is going to be just enough that AMD is going to need to trim prices a bit more to secure the 7870’s position." Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/21 On a personal note my thoughts between the two cards if you are gaming on high res monitor and want to do anything else like use OpenCL applications, transcoding, WPA/WEP Cracking, RAR Cracking, Bitcoin Mining etc than it really better to get (7950). Otherwise get the 660 TI
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/21 An explanation of the memory bus, which is not an issue at 1080 resolution:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/2

A review exploring the impact of the bus width on actual gaming performance:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/08/27/nvidia_geforce_gtx_660_ti_at_high_aa_settings_review/ 7950 and 660ti comparing the REFERENCE CARDS Drivers: NVIDIA: 304.79 Beta ATI: Catalyst 12.7 Beta

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Uploaded with ImageShack.us OC reviews:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=967&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=14
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-660-ti-power-editon-oc-review/26

 

[bigcyco1]

I would say if you want to guess go for 7950 but there NOWAY POSSIBLE TO PROVE IT

 

[dudewitbow]

games can go either way, games that are similar to like crysis will be metro 2033(both having a sequel already planned). games like battlefield will be nvidia sponsored, games include the BF4, and most of Ea's shooters outside of Cryteks(part of EA). Basically, it can either go either way. some companies will push for tessalation and heavy anti aliasing(hence why metro and crysis are labeled) and others will go depend on shaders(which is relaly what the core is on an nvidia processor, a heavy overclocked shader core, hence where it gets a good portion of its performance). There is no "one" way the games are going. Get whichever is cheaper, or what you will do in the future. Future wise, you can use the 660ti as a physx card, for the 7950, its a prime card for crossfire builds since it does have that bus and vram to support crossfire, and eventually triple monitors. both have their advantages.

 

[bigcyco1]

games can go either way, games that are similar to like crysis will be metro 2033(both having a sequel already planned). games like battlefield will be nvidia sponsored, games include the BF4, and most of Ea's shooters outside of Cryteks(part of EA). Basically, it can either go either way. some companies will push for tessalation and heavy anti aliasing(hence why metro and crysis are labeled) and others will go depend on shaders(which is relaly what the core is on an nvidia processor, a heavy overclocked shader core, hence where it gets a good portion of its performance). There is no "one" way the games are going. Get whichever is cheaper, or what you will do in the future. Future wise, you can use the 660ti as a physx card, for the 7950, its a prime card for crossfire builds since it does have that bus and vram to support crossfire, and eventually triple monitors. both have their advantages.

I would pretty much agree with this the problem is it's a gamble you'll half to guess and hope all turns out well however if history repeats it's self like we already know it does a good guess would be a 7950

 

[Cybernetic]

Thank you everyone for your responses. To answer a question, I did google this, but didn't get any indication of which card would be better for the future ($300 is a lot of money for me). EDIT: And I can't keep spending more money every year just because the newer games have low FPS with the graphics card I have.

I'm going to keep this thread open just for more opinions, but I want to shout out to dudewithbow, bigcyco1, and looniam so far.

 

[sheepsnowadays]

660ti has a 192 bit bus get the 7950

 

[drinkingcola86]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102991

I run this 7950. Its a beast for the price. right at about mid range for the card but one of the highest preset clocks. only issue is that it is on a 7970 board and i wasn't ready for the 8pin and 6pin pcie vs 2 6pin which is usually on the 7950.

 

[Guest]

Thank you everyone for your responses. To answer a question, I did google this, but didn't get any indication of which card would be better for the future ($300 is a lot of money for me). EDIT: And I can't keep spending more money every year just because the newer games have low FPS with the graphics card I have.

I'm going to keep this thread open just for more opinions, but I want to shout out to dudewithbow, bigcyco1, and looniam so far.

did mean to be rude with the "didn't you google it" question; just been seeing this come up a bit lately and mostly ends up with an argument over conjecture.

i hope i can help with this link of reviews:
TechPowerUp Review Database

because not only can there be a difference between the 670 and 7950 but between non reference designs can make a difference between the two GPUs.

worse case scenario is a few months down the road a game comes out that the gpu you picked isn't optimized for. well i noticed your i5 is running 2 stock; overclocking it will compensate somewhat.

you can also do a little research when/if you have the time. in the latest binaries section on 3D Guru you can read in those forums what nVidia drivers are doing well in what games. just click on the link and you'll see the forum link on that page. but i do not see much discussion on the AMD side . .

 

[sarinaide]

I hate when you get a game to play and some Intel splash screen followed by the "nvidia" chick come up........thats basically uninstall immediately territory. That crap must stop immediately, I buy a game to play objectively regardles of my hardware configuration....basically the reason Crysis and Crysis 2 are like they never existed to me.

 

[Smeg45]

I couldn't care less about splash screens. Get the 7950. Its an exceptional card for the price. Look at Tom's benchmarks.

 

[bigcyco1]

Nobody sip your red or green kool aid hard it's getting to be a bit much on this forum as of late just get over it and help people the right way what's best for them not what you like better it's not about you this is just being written ahead of time not directed towards anyone i can only imagine what this thread going to turn into lol just childish anyway OP best of luck to you and your very welcome!

 

[sarinaide]

Well I think I/We/Us have all gone through the pros and cons of both cards. But just to prevent animosity.

GTX 660ti - If you are just gaming, it is probably just the better option, Physx and Adaptive Vsync may be appealing offers as well, needless to say the 3D is better on the Nvidia cards. As to power, relatively low compared to the card it intended to replace at the price point ie: GTX 570. Downside, if Direct compute becomes relevent Kepler becomes irrelevent.

HD 7950: GCN architecture is by far the more innovative of the two companies, more so is AMD's push to power control features, namely Zero core technology which basically drops the GPU's idle power consumption to a pultry 5w, so while they all consume marginally more power than Kepler in loads, the fact it barely tickles power consumption in idle state is a massive feature to those that don't always game. Benefits in Zero Core comes down to temps which in turn save component life.

Other benefits include AMD's vastly superior compute power, eyefinity multi monitor support and CFX scalability. GCN is also a better chip overclocking wise though that is for a specific class user.

The cons, lesser FPS and Tessellation performance than most keplers, but this is not a drastic margin, but it is safe to say that Nvidia holds the marginal gaming performance edge.

 

[gorz]

So this just came out last night and it should be helpful to you if you are interested in overclocking your card once you get it.
The video also shows what people are talking about with the whole pixel pushing power of kepler vs the memory bandwidth of gcn argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuXcStgYF8&feature=g-all-u

 

[Squayle]

So what is the outcome of this?
I'm very interested, I'd like to have the physx option in borderlands 2 but the 7950 seems like a better card imo.
I'm very torn between the two and considering the HD 7950 is cheaper..... I'm still torn after reading this...

 

[drinkingcola86]

With the card I listed above I'm running Battlefield 3 at 60 fps(vsinc) on a phenom II 965.

I have everything turned up on it and I only see drop in fps when there are a lot of explosions.

The 660Ti has been shown to have a sever memory bottle neck and can usually only handle a 4xMSAA on games.

And for only $10.00 more than most of the 660Ti's on Newegg with a factory OC at 950mhz, it would earn my full endorsement.

 

[sarinaide]

MSI HD7950 TwinFrozr III OC 3GB.........EPIC WIN. *paste captain Piccard meme here*