ASUS GTX 660 VS XFX Double D 7870 ghz Black Edition

[Cerb3rus]

Title says it all, which one for my gaming PC build?

ASUS GTX 660 (non TI)

or

XFX Double D 7870 ghz Black Edition

Tell me why, why not?

BF3, Borderlands 2, Dishonored, games like that.

 

[luciferano]

BF3 and Borderlands 2 and maybe the others support PhysX and those first two (especially Borderlands 2) support it very well, so there's a good argument for the 660 here. The 7870 would be able to work with much better MSAA and would probably be a little more future-resistant, so there's a good argument for it too, especially if you overclock.

You'll have to choose which aspects you place more value on. I'd go with the 7870 because I like heavy MSAA and overclocking, but you might prefer native PhysX acceleration and such more than I do. I find both cards to be recommendable unless one of them is significantly more expensive than the other.

 

[Cerb3rus]

Ive seen the videos for physx and it looks nice, but it isn't a selling point for me as much as performance. Its awesome that the water flows correctly when I throw a grenade in it, but when it explodes will my fps start going crazy or the 660 not be able to handle that?

 

[esrever]

The 2 cards are pretty even in BF3, no idea about dishonored, Borderlands 2 is a nvidia sponsored game so it has physx which works much better on the 660ti.

The 7870 should be generally slightly faster than the 660 when gaming at 1080p with good settings.

 

[luciferano]

I'd think that it would be fine. I've talked with some people with 660s and 660 Tis and they never had such complaints, at least not that they've told me.

For raw performance, it depends on what you do. The 660 would probably be slightly favored over the 7870 in some of your games at stock, but if you overclock and pump up the MSAA, the 660 would lose. It has inferior MSAA scaling (partially from its somewhat weak memory bus) and doesn't overclock very well whereas the 7870 excels in both.

 

[Cerb3rus]

I guess since they are so even, my question is:

Which one would you think would last longer (not by physical aspects, but by future game performance)?

 

[esrever]

I would put my money on the 7870 since its good for OC and the 256 bit memory bus give it more use as textures and such gets better.

The difference won't be too significant tho.

 

[luciferano]

I'd also say the 7870 for additional reasons. OpenCL and especially Direct Compute are becoming larger and larger parts of gaming, so Kepler in the GTX 6xx cards' severe limitations in here would probably hurt future-resistance compared to the 7870 a little.

 

[redeemer]

Dishonored and Borderlands 2 are not demanding games in the first place. In my opinion the 7870 is great value, it scales better and has more bandwdith. Lately I find Nvidia drivers lacking!

 

[Ironslice]

Both cards are within 5 FPS of each other and will remain so in future games. It's not like one card is going to all of the sudden be unplayable and the other will be playing fine. They'll both be playing fine together and when games are too demanding they'll both fail together. Pick whichever one is cheaper.

 

[luciferano]

Both cards are within 5 FPS of each other and will remain so in future games. It's not like one card is going to all of the sudden be unplayable and the other will be playing fine. They'll both be playing fine together and when games are too demanding they'll both fail together. Pick whichever one is cheaper.

In any game with settings that are reliant on compute performance, the 660 would be greatly inferior to the 7870 in this. The 7870 has slightly better future-*proofing*. It's not a huge advantage by far, but it's what OP asked for. I still agree with your conclusion, buy what's cheaper unless you really care about every few percent in situations where one beats the other.

 

[Cerb3rus]

Well the 7870 is around 250-260, I actually just found an EVGA gtx 660 ti for 280......should I get that instead of the 7870 for that small of a price jump?

 

[esrever]

Well I don't recommend the 660 ti over the 660 or the 7870. The card is just not balanced and not very good. The memory bus is too slow to give good performance for the power of that card and thus you get minimal frame rates no better than the 660 and the performance of the 2 in general use is pretty much the same.

 

[Cerb3rus]

Yeah I actually have heard that.

Well it looks like I will probably go with the xfx 7870

The only thing that could change my mind is the ASUS GTX 660 DIRECTCU II TOP edition card. I have seen it in benchmarks scoring above the 7870 for a couple sites reviews, but its like that card is either not released yet or never sold because I cant find it anywhere.

 

[esrever]

Generally, if you OC yourself, as long as the card has a good cooler, it won't matter which brand/model card you buy. Im pretty sure the 7870 has better OC than the 660 but I would be wrong.

 

[luciferano]

Several of the factory overclocked 7870s beat any 660 and 660 Ti too. Besides, many 7870s can reach for under $200, they're not all nearly so expensive as over $250. esrever is right that the 7870 has superior manual overclocking, but it can depend on the model. For example, some models consistently overclock better than some others.

 

[Cerb3rus]

Ive owned both companies cards, I have had driver issues with both companies, Ive had hardware issues with both companies. Im not a fan boy of either, I look for performance over name....

BUT I looked at benchmarks and pricing a little bit more and I can't justify the $30-40 difference for like 5 more fps on SOME games.

So it looks like the quest to save money has actually won this time haha.

This is my final question because I think I made my decision.....

EVGA, ASUS, or another brand for an NVidia GTX 660?

 

[Cerb3rus]

Several of the factory overclocked 7870s beat any 660 and 660 Ti too. Besides, many 7870s can reach for under $200, they're not all nearly so expensive as over $250. esrever is right that the 7870 has superior manual overclocking, but it can depend on the model. For example, some models consistently overclock better than some others.

A 7870 for under 200?? Where?

If there isn't a price difference than I would go for the 7870 but the only ones ive seen are 20-30 dollars more than the 660

 

[esrever]

A 7870 for under 200?? Where?

If there isn't a price difference than I would go for the 7870 but the only ones ive seen are 20-30 dollars more than the 660

They were going cheap a week ago for $200 but the price has gone back up. They seem to cost $250 with a $20MIR for a decent one. The 660s seem to be about the same price.

 

[luciferano]

A 7870 for under 200?? Where?

If there isn't a price difference than I would go for the 7870 but the only ones ive seen are 20-30 dollars more than the 660

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#c=82,110&sort=a5

One of the most highly factory overclocked 7870s reaches $195 regularly. A few others drop around there every other week too., especially one of HIS' 7870s.