AMD HD 7950 vs NVIDIA GTX 660 ti (September '12)

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arcticle

arcticle

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Which is better at their current prices? I was about to get the 660 ti, but quite recently AMD dropped the price on the 7950 by a substantial amount. The 7950 is around $320, and the 660 ti is about $300. I plan on OC which ever one I get to increase the performance in games such as BF3 and Skyrim, and to futureproof my graphics card for upcoming games such as Crysis 3. Also, I hope to get a second 7950 or 660 ti when they go on sale.
 
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tjcoops
At 1080p either card will be very good. You wouldn't be able to do much overclocking without tweaking the voltage a little bit, programs like MSI Afterburner and Sapphire Trixx make this easy, not fool-proof, but as near as it can be.

Saying that, if you're sure you only want to OC at stock voltage the HD7950 will still OC more than the 660ti but the difference won't be as noticeable.

Either card would be a good choice, you should even consider the GTX 660 (non ti) as it's quite a bit cheaper and still performs well at your 1080p res.
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tjcoops

tjcoops

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Depends on resolution and OC. You say you're wanting to OC which makes me think the 7950 is a better choice as they overclock very well whereas a lot of 660tis have the inability to change the voltage and so don't OC nearly as well. The 3GB of VRAM on the 7950 also makes it a better option if you're wanting to run at higher resolutions and/or lots of AA.

As for actual performance, it depends on the games. Skyrim usually runs better on AMD hardware according to Kitguru but the 660ti manages to run on par with the 7950 on most occasions.

According to Kitguru, Gigabyte's Overclocked 660ti gets "Around the same performance as the AMD HD7970" with BF3, however I'm sure you'd be able to surpass the 660ti's performance by quite a margin if you overclock, considering that result is with a card that's already overclocked.


 
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arcticle

arcticle

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I do not think I want to mess around with the voltage for which ever one I get, and I plan on playing in 1080 and a 24-28" monitor. Do you still suggest the 7950 over the 660 ti?
 
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tjcoops

tjcoops

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At 1080p either card will be very good. You wouldn't be able to do much overclocking without tweaking the voltage a little bit, programs like MSI Afterburner and Sapphire Trixx make this easy, not fool-proof, but as near as it can be.

Saying that, if you're sure you only want to OC at stock voltage the HD7950 will still OC more than the 660ti but the difference won't be as noticeable.

Either card would be a good choice, you should even consider the GTX 660 (non ti) as it's quite a bit cheaper and still performs well at your 1080p res.
 
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bigcyco1

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It's because to many on this forum sip red or green kool aid a bit to much the truth is here i finally found this out myself the other day and it's about as close to the truth you'll get imo 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. Coupled with the tight pricing 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.On the other hand due to the constant flip-flopping of the GTX 660 Ti and 7950 on our benchmarks there is no sure-fire recommendation to hand down there. If we had to pick something, on a pure performance-per-dollar basis the 7950 looks good both now and in the future; in particular we suspect it’s going to weather newer games better than the GTX 660 Ti and its relatively narrow memory bus. But the moment efficiency and power consumption start being important the GTX 660 Ti is unrivaled, and this is a position that is only going to improve in the future when 7950B cards start replacing 7950 cards. For reasons like that there are a couple of niches one card or another serves particularly well, such as overclocking with the 7950, but ultimately unless you have a specific need either card will serve you well enough." Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/21
 
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bigcyco1

bigcyco1

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Don't rush things the best way to help you is for you to tell us more info it's not a matter of which card is faster it's a matter of your needs There are a few issues: 1) People make claims without backing it up with proof, 2) People make blanket statements, when the reality is that certain games favor certain hardware, 3) People make a few FPS advantage seem like a "win", when it usually falls within the margin of error and makes no difference in terms of performance. Yeah if you don't mind not having Adaptive VSync.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/16/nvidia_adaptive_vsync_technology_review/ Adaptive VSync works with many games it makes gaming smooth however go for 7950 or 660 ti your not going wrong either way don't let fanboys fool you.
 
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ram1009

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I have tried many AMD/ATI boards over the years and have always found their drivers to be buggy as recently as a year ago. The bugs do not necessarily apply to games but are significant to me because I use my computer for more than games. Others will tell you (correctly so ) that everybody has bugs occasionally and I agree, however AMD/ATI bugs seem to go unresolved for prolonged periods. I simply gave up on them. There is always something competitive in an Nvidia card and adding a few FPS isn't really that important to me as long as the game plays smoothly. This speed contest everybody seems so preoccupied with is nothing but a urinating contest IMHO. If you're 15 years old and think your friends will admire you because you have the fastest computer then proceed to spend as much as you like on a few FPS.
 
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hodgempls

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I recently upgraded my 560ti to a Visontec reference 3gb 7970 - first ATI/AMD card I have purchased. I jumped on the TigerDirect sale last month for 369.99. Great card that overclocks well. I was also looking at the 660ti and 670 but given my monitor resolution of 2560x1440, decided to with the 7970 due to the reviews and PRICE. At 1080, either card will work well. If you plan on going to a higher resolution, you will get more bang for buck on the 7950 - especially if you get a chip that overclocks well.
 
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