NVidia or AMD Cards

[timerwin63]

I'd just like to start this off by saying I'm not here to start a fanboy war.

That said, my friend told me the other day that at any given price point for an NVidia card, you can buy an AMD card that has a lot more power. I'm looking at upgrading my GTX 560 SC to a GTX 660 Ti in a month or so, and I want to know whether I'm not wasting my money. So, my questions are as follows.

1: Is this true?
2: If 1 is yes, are there exceptions?
3: If this is true, what's the point of getting an NVidia card other than 3DVision?

Thanks in advance.

 

[t53186]

Try reading this on Tom's site, plenty of benchmarks to show how cards perform based on what you plan on using it for.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/19-Tom-s-Hardware-Index-B-Performance,2976.html

 

[Rockdpm]

NVIDIA has technologies like PhysX and Tesselation. Also Architecture technologies such as Adaptive Vsync and GPU boost and ability to run 3+1 monitors on a single card. The GTX 660 Ti is a nice card but I highly recommend you jump to a 670 just because its only 40$-100$ more and is more powerful. If you don't see your self a NVIDIA guy then a Radeon 7870 or a 7950 will be around the performance range of the card you listed

 

[wanderer11]

Give us a budget and a list of games you like and we will pick the best card. Some games do better with AMD some with Nvidia. There's a card for every use/price point.

 

[pit_1209]

Physx is nothing to be proud about (without speaking of the perfomance drop to active it)
and tesselation is a dx 11 feature not nvidia and you didn´t mention that amd has eyefinity sin hd 5000 that is 4 and 6 monitors on one card.

hd 7950 more powerful than gtx 660 ti at bigger res.
hd 7970 ghz edition on par with a gtx 680
gtx 670 and hd 7870 best on their league at price/perfomance just specify your budget.

 

[Rockdpm]

Physx is nothing to be proud about (without speaking of the perfomance drop to active it)
and tesselation is a dx 11 feature not nvidia and you didn´t mention that amd has eyefinity sin hd 5000 that is 4 and 6 monitors on one card.

hd 7950 more powerful than gtx 660 ti at bigger res.
hd 7970 ghz edition on par with a gtx 680
gtx 670 and hd 7870 best on their league at price/perfomance just specify your budget.

I know Tesselation is a DX11 feature but...

 

[pit_1209]

i know you didn´t mean it XD

 

[Rockdpm]

i know you didn´t mean it XD

Right we'll just forget it never happened

 

[CaptainTom]

I'd just like to start this off by saying I'm not here to start a fanboy war.

That said, my friend told me the other day that at any given price point for an NVidia card, you can buy an AMD card that has a lot more power. I'm looking at upgrading my GTX 560 SC to a GTX 660 Ti in a month or so, and I want to know whether I'm not wasting my money. So, my questions are as follows.

1: Is this true?
2: If 1 is yes, are there exceptions?
3: If this is true, what's the point of getting an NVidia card other than 3DVision?

Thanks in advance.

Never buy a card soley based on who makes it. Having said that, your friend is right in this instance. For ~$220 you can get a 7870 that will trade blows with the 660ti. Also for the same price as the 660ti you can get a 7950 wich IS stronger and will last longer...

 

[JackNaylorPE]

If you look at sales figure, historically ( and by that I mean last few years..... nVidia has ruled the roost at the upper price ranges and AMD has ruled the lower price ranges.

Personally I agree w/ THG's article that once you have played w/ PhysX, that is once you have seen the eye candy, you don't wanna go without it.

The 560 Ti outsold AMD's 6870, 6950 and 6970 combined sales .... by almost a factor of two. In SLI it outperformed the 580 by 40%.

This time around it's harder to compare as there are so many different versions of the same cards. With reference designs, I have to often award a tie or give a slight edge to AMD. Bit the non-reference designs based upon nVidia GPU's tend to get most reviewers recommendations.

Here's some comparisons:

Hardware.Info uses AvP High 4AA, Batman AC Very High 4AA, BF3 Ultra High 4AA, Crysis 2 Ultra High Edge AA, Dirt 3 Ultra 4AA, Hard Reset Ultra 4AA, Metro 2033 Very High, Skyrim High 4AA and Shogun 2 Ultra 4AA in their Game Suite

GTX 660 Ti gets 566.0 fps at cost of $0.49 per frame
GTX 670 gets 650.2 fps at cost of $0.55 per frame
GTX 680 gets 711.2 fps at cost of $0.63 per frame

HD 7950 gets 557.4 fps at cost of $0.55 per frame
HD 7970 gets 659.8 fps at cost of $0.61 per frame

 

[Rockdpm]

If you look at sales figure, historically ( and by that I mean last few years..... nVidia has ruled the roost at the upper price ranges and AMD has ruled the lower price ranges.

Personally I agree w/ THG's article that once you have played w/ PhysX, that is once you have seen the eye candy, you don't wanna go without it.

The 560 Ti outsold AMD's 6870, 6950 and 6970 combined sales .... by almost a factor of two. In SLI it outperformed the 580 by 40%.

This time around it's harder to compare as there are so many different versions of the same cards. With reference designs, I have to often award a tie or give a slight edge to AMD. Bit the non-reference designs based upon nVidia GPU's tend to get most reviewers recommendations.

Here's some comparisons:

Hardware.Info uses AvP High 4AA, Batman AC Very High 4AA, BF3 Ultra High 4AA, Crysis 2 Ultra High Edge AA, Dirt 3 Ultra 4AA, Hard Reset Ultra 4AA, Metro 2033 Very High, Skyrim High 4AA and Shogun 2 Ultra 4AA in their Game Suite

GTX 660 Ti gets 566.0 at cost of $0.49 per frame
GTX 670 gets 650.2 at cost of $0.55 per frame
GTX 680 gets 711.2 at cost of $0.63 per frame

HD 7950 gets 557.4 at cost of $0.55 per frame
HD 7970 gets 659.8 at cost of $0.61 per frame

hey jack, I'm not downing your frame per $ theory by any means. but would you send me a Pm explaining how it works.. i never understood it when people use it

 

[maestro0428]

Like others have said, they trade blows depending on the games you play. Check some benchmarks for your games and choose the best card for the money you want to spend. I use both cards because each architecture is good at certain things. I game on a 7850, have a v4900 in my workstation and use a 460gtx for folding. It all depends on what you want to do with your pc.

 

[jessterman21]

I'd suggest ponying up for the GTX 670, just so you aren't stuck with that 192-bit memory bus. It's perfect for a weaker card like the GTX 660, but I bet next year's games will expose that bottleneck, and you'll be wishing you spent the extra $75.

If you don't mind AMD, then your choice is easy - HD 7950 and overclock it.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

hey jack, I'm not downing your frame per $ theory by any means. but would you send me a Pm explaining how it works.. i never understood it when people use it

Just in case anyone else interested ....

It's not a theory, just a calculation.....like miles per gallon

If you drive 360 miles on 20 gallons of gas, your miles per gallon = 360/20 or 18 mpg


When someone says that the "GTX 670 gets 650.2 fps at cost of $0.55 per frame"

The GTX 670 goes for $360 ($380 w/ $20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130782

You take the fps it gets in testing for each of the referenced games and add em up. The 670's total is 650.2

So each frame or, better said, each frame per second is costing you 55 cents.

$360 divided by 650.2 frames per second = $0.5537 dollars per frame

 

[Rockdpm]

I'd suggest ponying up for the GTX 670, just so you aren't stuck with that 192-bit memory bus. It's perfect for a weaker card like the GTX 660, but I bet next year's games will expose that bottleneck, and you'll be wishing you spent the extra $75.

If you don't mind AMD, then your choice is easy - HD 7950 and overclock it.

I support the 670 idea

 

[kitsunestarwind]

Personally I agree w/ THG's article that once you have played w/ PhysX, that is once you have seen the eye candy, you don't wanna go without it.

The bit extra eye candy it offers I didn't miss at all (and lets be honest it only offers a tiny bit of eye candy as all the normal physics are still done in the game regardless of hardware/software physX), I preferred the extra performance of not having it, and you don't even notice it when your fully engrossed in a good game

 

[CaptainTom]

The bit extra eye candy it offers I didn't miss at all (and lets be honest it only offers a tiny bit of eye candy as all the normal physics are still done in the game regardless of hardware/software physX), I preferred the extra performance of not having it, and you don't even notice it when your fully engrossed in a good game

Exactly! When it comes to graphical features that enhance gameplay, physx isn't worth the performance hit IMO. For example:

-higher resolutions allow you to distinguish between objects better (especially far away ones)

-Higher res textures again allow you to distinguish things better and more smoothly.

-Higher AA and AF makes things easier to see far away too, and makes facial expressions far easier to read.

-Better lighting makes difference in areas stand out.

Then Physx does what? It adds more stuff that pops out. In no way that I can think of, does this help with anything except "Wow that looks... **gets killed**"

 

[Rockdpm]

Exactly! When it comes to graphical features that enhance gameplay, physx isn't worth the performance hit IMO. For example:

-higher resolutions allow you to distinguish between objects better (especially far away ones)

-Higher res textures again allow you to distinguish things better and more smoothly.

-Higher AA and AF makes things easier to see far away too, and makes facial expressions far easier to read.

-Better lighting makes difference in areas stand out.

Then Physx does what? It adds more stuff that pops out. In no way that I can think of, does this help with anything except "Wow that looks... **gets killed**"

Depends on the game

 

[Rockdpm]

Original poster please find your answer soon. Because though you can say and try all you want you didn't want to start a Fanboy war....well its gonna get bigger than what this...this already is. So Pick a Answer and if you have any more questions well just send someone a PM. me personally i'm tired of people making a thread and calling it NVIDIA vs AMD or Intel VS AMD and scecretly saying "and...Go" because it just starts this HUGE debate that never gets entirely answered because all sides have their own + and - and there IS NOTHING you can say or do to change what that company rolls out.

 

[CaptainTom]

Depends on the game

I have used Physx in:

-Metro: 2033 : I didn't notice anything until I looked hard. Not at all worth it imo.

-Mirror's Edge: The glass breaking looked pretty awesome. But again I would only notice it if I knew to look for it.

-Borderlands 2: The extra particle effect were obvious. But I found the excessive snow clumps annoying, though the bood and holes in flags was cool.


Is there an awesome use of physx I don't know of (not being an asshole, just curious)? All of these games it is just the useless eye candy I was talking about...

 

[bystander]

I have used Physx in:

-Metro: 2033 : I didn't notice anything until I looked hard. Not at all worth it imo.

-Mirror's Edge: The glass breaking looked pretty awesome. But again I would only notice it if I knew to look for it.

-Borderlands 2: The extra particle effect were obvious. But I found the excessive snow clumps annoying, though the bood and holes in flags was cool.


Is there an awesome use of physx I don't know of (not being an asshole, just curious)? All of these games it is just the useless eye candy I was talking about...

Metro 2033 uses it so little, I can't tell a difference, and the performance hit on it is about the same whether it's on the cpu or gpu. I wouldn't hardly consider this a physx game.

I haven't played Mirror's edge or borderlands 2.

Batman AA is probably the best example of PhysX. I also found Sacred 2 had some nice effects too, though the game isn't all that great.

PhysX can be very nice to see, but there aren't many games that use it, and even more these days that barely use it.

 

[timerwin63]

Best answer selected by timerwin63.