Geforce 660 ti FTW OR Geforce 670 FTW???

[horrorbuff]

I need some help making a decision. I recently bought a EVGA Geforce 650 2Gb and I hade to return the piece of crap because the ATI Radeon HD 4870 (1Gb) I bought 3 or 4 years ago still outpreformed it

So although I've NEVER had a problem with my Radeon 4870 I've decided to try out Nvidia to see how they preform. I am having a hard time deciding between 2 models:

The Geforce 660 ti FTW signature 2

and

The Geforce 670 FTW
(both 2Gb)

The 660 ti ftw is $100 cheaper but the 670 ftw has a higher memory bandwidth. The 660 ti ftw is 192 bit, 144Gb/s and the 670 ftw is 256 bit, 198Gb/s.

So is the extra 64 bits and 54Gb/s worth an extra $100??? I don't know???
Please help me.

EDIT: By the way both cards above are EVGA cards. If anyone knows of a better faster one, let me know. My budget could go as high as $400 before tax.

 

[samuelohagan]

non don't get evga, instead get an msi gtx 670 card for $350

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

 

[horrorbuff]

non don't get evga, instead get an msi gtx 670 card for $350

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

That card has a slower core, boost and memory clock. Also I live in Canada so that card is the same price as the EVGA 670 FTW at $410.
Why would you suggest a slower card for the same price? I don't know much about this stuff so there might be a reason and I'd like to learn.
Thanks

 

[jgonzo]

For starters I would go 670 over the 660ti as the performance shows a difference between the two. I personally would say no for the FTW 670 and go with a gigabyte 670. Better cooling, cheaper, quieter. The FTW 670 has better numbers on a sheet, but it comes down to what kind of setup you want. I have quiet fans and such b/c my computer is right next to my bed so I wanted to go for a quieter card and I couldn't be happier with the gigabyte in that regard.

 

[luciferano]

The 660 Ti is a waste of money. The 660 (non-Ti) is about as fast, but much cheaper and uses less power. The 670 is somewhat more expensive, but the price is worth the performance hike. However, it's not worth it over the 660 IMO. I'd get a 7950 instead of a 670. The performance is too close to spend the extra money on the 670 and with overclocking, some 7950s can somewhat surpass the best overclocked 670s.

 

[horrorbuff]

For starters I would go 670 over the 660ti as the performance shows a difference between the two. I personally would say no for the FTW 670 and go with a gigabyte 670. Better cooling, cheaper, quieter. The FTW 670 has better numbers on a sheet, but it comes down to what kind of setup you want. I have quiet fans and such b/c my computer is right next to my bed so I wanted to go for a quieter card and I couldn't be happier with the gigabyte in that regard.

I'm in Canada and on the .ca websites the gigabyte 670 is the same price or more than the EVGA FTW edition and it's slower. I can put up with a noisy fan for the extra speed. But what your saying is the extra $100 is worth the slight performance increase??

 

[DarkSable]

The 660ti does in fact get bottlenecked by the memory bandwith. Just saying. Go with the 660, or the 670. Personally, I'd go with the 670.

 

[luciferano]

I'm in Canada and on the .ca websites the gigabyte 670 is the same price or more than the EVGA FTW edition and it's slower. I can put up with a noisy fan for the extra speed. But what your saying is the extra $100 is worth the slight performance increase??

It's not so slight, especially the minimum frame rates. The 660 Ti is a waste of money. If you must buy Nvidia, the 660 or the 670 are the choices to make. The 660 Ti and 680 are wastes of money.

 

[votriminh]

non don't get evga, instead get an msi gtx 670 card for $350

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

MSi 670s were recently caught overvolting their PCBs causing many to burn out faster or not work at all. Juust saying.

 

[luciferano]

EVGA isn't as good at overclocking as other brands, but they have the best warranty service both on paper and in practice.

 

[horrorbuff]

The 660 Ti is a waste of money. The 660 (non-Ti) is about as fast, but much cheaper and uses less power. The 670 is somewhat more expensive, but the price is worth the performance hike. However, it's not worth it over the 660 IMO. I'd get a 7950 instead of a 670. The performance is too close to spend the extra money on the 670 and with overclocking, some 7950s can somewhat surpass the best overclocked 670s.

I just checked out the 7950 and yes they are cheaper even in Canada but still much slower especially the memory clock 7950 = 1250Mhz and the 670 ftw = 6280Mhz.

 

[JJ1217]

I just checked out the 7950 and yes they are cheaper even in Canada but still much slower especially the memory clock 7950 = 1250Mhz and the 670 ftw = 6280Mhz.

May God have mercy on your soul. What the 670 has, the 6280, isn't its actual clock, its the effective memory clock. Divide that by four, and you have the correct clock to be compared to the 7950. Besides, different cards have different architectures, I really just sighed loudly when you thought higher clocks means a better card. 7950 when overclocked mildly > Best 670 in some scenarios.

 

[horrorbuff]

This thread is missing some extremely important information for all the bold advice going around...

OP, what games do you play/want to play, at what resolution, and what is your CPU? Without that information, recommendations are not possible.

Sorry your right, here are my specs:

Asus Pt6 Deluxe V2 motherboard
i7 920 overclocked to 3.9 Ghz with help of coolermaster V10
24 Gb of 1600hz ram
750 watt power supply
I don't know if there is anything else important.

I like to play diablo 3 (works flawlessly on my current AMD 4870 HD), and rpg's, shyrim ect...

 

[luciferano]

I just checked out the 7950 and yes they are cheaper even in Canada but still much slower especially the memory clock 7950 = 1250Mhz and the 670 ftw = 6280Mhz.

No offense, but I almost fell out of my seat laughing.

The 7950 has 1250MHz aka 5GHz effective at 384 bit and the 670 has 1552MHz aka 6208MHz effective at 256 bit. The 7950 has far more memory performance (only one factor in real-world performance, there are many others) and with overclocking involved, is the better card. Even at stock, it's extremely close and some factory-overclocked 7950s meet the 670 at stock.

 

[determinologyz]

From the 660 Ti to the 670 i dont honestly think its worth its price hike..

 

[Ironslice]

The 660 ti can easily be overclocked to match 670 performance.

 

[horrorbuff]

Well for one thing, you can't compare specs like that. Specs are only comparable for GPUs running the same chip.

Also, GDDR5 memory on all these cards is quad-data rate. So the number on the 670 is really 1552 and/or the number on the 7950 is really 5000, depending on how you want to look at it.

Are you playing games at 1080p resolution?

Sorry about the memory confusion, like I said earier I don't know much about this stuff that's why I rely on the experts like you guys or girls. Yes I play all my games in 1080P

 

[votriminh]

Only their Nvidia Power Edition cards.

that's more than a valid reason to avoid MSi. i mean, if they would do that to one of their brands, you don't think they'll let it happen to their many, different models?

 

[horrorbuff]

Kinda sounds like you're not really playing many demanding games... what games are you seeing unsatisfactory performance in such that you want to buy a new GPU?

Nothing yet. Everything works great on my Radeon 4870 HD, which is why I'm not against getting another Radeon. But from the current benchmarks I've seen on this site the 670 and even 660 ti are out preforming the 7950. I guess I don't need a new card yet I just think mine is out dated and would like to upgrade for the future. I plan on getting current games soon that might not work on mine.

 

[horrorbuff]

I guess you guys have made me consider a new card (if it's better) the Radeon 7950. So between the 660 TI FTW signature 2, the 670 FTW edition and the radeon 7950 which one would you guys choose??? Let's take overclocking out of the equasion, just stock because you can overclock any card.

 

[firedice]

I just checked out the 7950 and yes they are cheaper even in Canada but still much slower especially the memory clock 7950 = 1250Mhz and the 670 ftw = 6280Mhz.

Okay there's something you have to understand. It's not about clocks. Especially not when comparing two different brands. The HD 7000 series have a LOT more memory bandwidth than the GT(X) 600 series. 7950 is MUCH better than 660ti, even if 660ti can give some really good (sometimes better) frame rates in less demanding situations. But then both cards get 60+ FPS. But in demanding situations where you can dip below 60 FPS, the 7950 always wins. Then the 670 performs better most of the time, but is more expansive. If I were you, I would stay away from the 660ti because of bus-width (which has nothing to do with the clock), I would choose between 670 and 7950.

 

[horrorbuff]

Well at least on AMD's side of things, they won't do it because AMD doesn't have the draconian policy of not allowing their vendors to add voltage tweaking to their cards (their voltage circuitry on those PE cards was a way to try to get around Nvidia's controls) :lol:

Anyways...



Then you really shouldn't be upgrading right now. You'll almost certainly regret it. Something better will be out in a few months, and if you upgrade now without a real reason to, you'll just sit there wondering why you didn't wait for something better.

Unless you are someone who updates your hardware frequently just for the heck of it (which I'm betting isn't you since you're still on a 4xxx series card), the best policy is to wait on upgrading until there is a game which your current card cannot play at your desired resolution/settings/framerate.

Wait for that to be the case. By that time, the 670 and all these cards will probably just be old slow news.

You know what, that's the most sense that anyone has made to me so far, I guess your right. In diablo 3 and other games there is a slight glitch or sreen tare when I'm walking around. I just thought it was an AMD thing. I forgot to mention that my wife does a lot of video editing with sony vegas. But maybe I will just wait until I have something the 4870 can't handle, which might be soon.
Thanks for the help

 

[horrorbuff]

Best answer selected by horrorbuff.