660 ti vs 7950

[misfitkid86]

so i know there pretty similar cards, and that physx is supposed to be great, but because both types of cards are almost identical in price now what is the better choice? i'm debating between an msi 660ti with triple overvoltage, or an saphire radeon 7950 oc addition, is the ability to overclock that much better on the msi 660ti, or should i go with the card with the slight performance edge out of the package that does not have overvoltage? i just want to be able to play metro 2033, skyrim, and other graphically intense games on as high a settings as possible. my tv that i'll use as a monitor is 1920 - 1080 and it's a 40 inch lcd. thanks all!

 

[Ironslice]

Both cards will provide nearly identical performance. The FPS differences will vary between + and - 5, which is negligible. The 7950 is also a great overclocker. Pick whichever one you want.

 

[amuffin]

MSI 660ti.

 

[dudewitbow]

both will get + or minus in games. the 7950 will have better mins on average(because it takes different settings more readily then the other) while the 660ti will have better maxes on average.(when time calls for it, it can perform)

 

[mvitkun]

they're pretty much the same.
which card gets better fps goes down to what graphics card brand the game prefers.
take a look at this anandtech bench.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=647
the 660 ti gets higher fps in some games,the 7950 in others.
the 660 ti gets higher fps in more benchmarks than the 7950,although there is overclocking to consider.
whereas the 660 ti is voltage locked and difficult to overclock the 7950 has plenty of headroom,so if you prefer a more plug-in play experience the 660 ti will get better fps in general,if you're fine with fine tuning the 7950 can overclock a lot and end up beating the 660 ti in mostly everything.

 

[misfitkid86]

they're pretty much the same.
which card gets better fps goes down to what graphics card brand the game prefers.
take a look at this anandtech bench.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=647
the 660 ti gets higher fps in some games,the 7950 in others.
the 660 ti gets higher fps in more benchmarks than the 7950,although there is overclocking to consider.
whereas the 660 ti is voltage locked and difficult to overclock the 7950 has plenty of headroom,so if you prefer a more plug-in play experience the 660 ti will get better fps in general,if you're fine with fine tuning the 7950 can overclock a lot and end up beating the 660 ti in mostly everything.

hmmm, ok, that's kinda the conclusion i was thinking, although as far as overclocking is concerned do you think the ability to triple overvolt is important? does it make it that much better? or is it just another bit of marketing?

 

[mvitkun]

hmmm, ok, that's kinda the conclusion i was thinking, although as far as overclocking is concerned do you think the ability to triple overvolt is important? does it make it that much better? or is it just another bit of marketing?

the whole triple overvolt is beyond me ,but the fact that it can be overvolted to sustain higher overclocks means that it has the potential to be better.
the 660 ti has much less headroom to overclock.

 

[wanderer11]

If you play bf3 get 660ti. If crysis get 7950. Otherwise get whichever is cheaper.

 

[Kamen_BG]

one more thing to consider is that if you buy the GTX 660 Ti you should forget about ever enabling MSAA.So in my opinion the HD 7950 is the superior card.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-660-ti-memory-bandwidth-anti-aliasing,review-32522-11.html

 

[thexalchemist]

whereas the 660 ti is voltage locked and difficult to overclock

You can unlock the voltage, it's not a mystery.

 

[Guest]

I agree with kamen_bg. People just compare 7950 with 660ti becos of similar price. 7950 is a high end card which use to trade blows with 670. even the 660ti trade blows with 670. Difference is clearly visible at high or very high setting at 1080p or above it. At a higher res/setting even a 7870 out- performs a 660ti. It is unfair to compare a 660ti with 7950 in term a performance.
Both r different cards. one is mid-range while the other is high end. Only similarity between them is price An over-clocked 7950 even moves ahead of a 7970 ghz edition or 680.

 

[mvitkun]

Nope. Not really. Kepler cards are voltage locked as mandated by Nvidia. There's only a tiny level of voltage increases allowed on any GTX 6xx based card, and many allow none.

Also, why are there soooooooooooooo many topics on this? Use the search function, people...

This has been debated to death the past two weeks. Look at what games you want to play, figure out what card does better, and get that, bearing in mind that in some scenarios the 660ti is going to have crap minimum framerates.

as I said the 660 ti is better in some games,the 7950 in others.
but the key advantage the 7950 has is it can overclock as high as 400 mhz above stock clocks.

 

[misfitkid86]

To be fair, 1200 MHz+ is a sort of "golden chip" overclock... nobody should buy a 7950 expecting anywhere near that. A clock in the 1100 MHz range is far more likely. Hwbot has the avg. of where the 7950 tops out at as 1155 MHz or so.

Obviously the 7950 is the better card in general, but if all your games favor Nvidia or you play a bunch of PhysX games or something, the 660ti will be better.

i will play a variety of games some with or without physx, but i am told that you can use physx on amd cards by downloading it from the nvidia website. is this true? do i lose anything over something built around it?

 

[computernoob29]

some games the 7950 would be better and some games the 660ti would be better, i would go with the 7950 unless you play alot of battlefield 3 or borderlands 2

 

[mvitkun]

To be fair, 1200 MHz+ is a sort of "golden chip" overclock... nobody should buy a 7950 expecting anywhere near that. A clock in the 1100 MHz range is far more likely. Hwbot has the avg. of where the 7950 tops out at as 1155 MHz or so.

Obviously the 7950 is the better card in general, but if all your games favor Nvidia or you play a bunch of PhysX games or something, the 660ti will be better.

I realize that,although you must realize that I said "as high as" indicating that that is around the max it can overclock,nobody should wholeheartedly expect to be able to get to the max overclock ever achieved,hoping is fine,but expecting is a bit much.
I'm just trying to point out how much of a difference there is between their overclocking potentials.

 

[misfitkid86]

so is a game that uses physx so much like borderlands 2 worth playing on an amd card? i was reading that the framerate can really suffer when using physx medium or high settings on amd cards, i don't want to be suffering with 30fps because i can't fully utilize physx.

 

[dudewitbow]

so is a game that uses physx so much like borderlands 2 worth playing on an amd card? i was reading that the framerate can really suffer when using physx medium or high settings on amd cards, i don't want to be suffering with 30fps because i can't fully utilize physx.

its dependant on your physx card I think. I heard its only a problem when your amd card is ridiculously more powerful than the physx card.

 

[mvitkun]

its dependant on your physx card I think. I heard its only a problem when your amd card is ridiculously more powerful than the physx card.

I think he still means using the cpu to run the physX.
hes saying is it worth it to go amd and then have the physX lower his fps down due to the lack of a physX capable graphics card.

 

[misfitkid86]

I think he still means using the cpu to run the physX.
hes saying is it worth it to go amd and then have the physX lower his fps down due to the lack of a physX capable graphics card.

yes, i just am curious how bad physx will run on an amd card as compared an nvidia card. at this time the only game i'm looking to play with physx is borderlands 2.

 

[sarinaide]

I have a stock 7950 at 880mhz, it can push 1150mhz easy so it overclocks like all GCN chips exceptionally, then you go over to Nvidia and Kepler needs MSI overvolting just to sort of get a overclock.

If you paid attention to toms 650ti review almost similar to the 660ti with a 192bit bus, at higher res and multi monitor support a 660ti likes is similar parts bretheren will start to fall off the cliff, the 7950 doesn't share that fate. I say go with a 7950 because it is a legitimate high end part, not a psuedo pixel pusher posing as high end part.

 

[determinologyz]

one more thing to consider is that if you buy the GTX 660 Ti you should forget about ever enabling MSAA.So in my opinion the HD 7950 is the superior card.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-660-ti-memory-bandwidth-anti-aliasing,review-32522-11.html

I dont have a problem with msaa but then again dont crank it all the way up to x8 the most i use is around x4 and sometimes none at all..As long as i can get 50-60 FPS im good Also both cards is good just matter of choice and you cant go wrong with either or.

 

[misfitkid86]

I get dips to 30-35fps on my rig in worst-case scenarios running PhysX on high in Borderlands 2 so it's playable but not smooth.

Average FPS is probably around 50-60, I dunno - haven't benchmarked it at all.

ok this is what i was hoping for, while 30fps is not ideal it isn't a deal breaker for one game and i plan on doing some overclocking. it's really sounding like the 7950 is the way to go, unless the 670 goes on a really really good sale.......

 

[mvitkun]

ok this is what i was hoping for, while 30fps is not ideal it isn't a deal breaker for one game and i plan on doing some overclocking. it's really sounding like the 7950 is the way to go, unless the 670 goes on a really really good sale.......

note he has 2x MSI 7970 Lightning in CF-X @ 1205/1800 MHz,as opposed to your 7950,which if overclocked can beat a single 7970,but not a crossfire of 7970's.

 

[misfitkid86]

note he has 2x MSI 7970 Lightning in CF-X @ 1205/1800 MHz,as opposed to your 7950,which if overclocked can beat a single 7970,but not a crossfire of 7970's.

totally, but i'm thinking it won't affect physx much since it runs on the cpu for amd cards, i'm also going to be running core i5 3570k and likely will overclock that so my hope is that i'll see slightly better fps than he mentioned, obviously it wouldn't change a great deal but anything helps i suppose.

 

[misfitkid86]

If you run an OC'd 3570k you'll most likely get comparable performance. CPU is the limiting factor in Borderlands 2 for an AMD setup.

ok, well i guess i'll just have to see. but other than physx i'm drawing the conclusion that the 7950 is the way to go, or at least until i change my mind.....