2 660's SC or a 670 FTW?

[zaxxon]

Hello There! I am currently researching Graphics cards, trying to figure out what I could do to build the longest lasting/best performance gaming rig with the graphics alone costing less than $500. Honestly, I would prefer to pay less, but for the sake of this question that would be the price range. I don't plan on actually buying the parts for this for about 6 months, but I figured any info I can get now will help for the future.

So based on what I have found, one of the best, "bang for your buck" cards right now is the 660 ti. The 660 itself is a good card, and the 670 is better, but as far as cost vs performance goes the 660ti seems like the way to go. Normally I would just go for something like this, a single card with the best specs I can find, however I believe that getting two cards and spending a bit more might make the computer last much longer. I only plan on using one monitor, not two, but I wouldn't want to limit that option I guess.

So here is what I have found. For ~ $460 I can get two 660's superclocked with 2GB ram e/a. (or one for $230) For $450 I can get a single 670 FTW edition with 4 GB ram. And lastly, a single 660ti FTW with 3GB ram for $360.

My questions are: In todays market, would it be better to go with the two 660's or a single better card? Is the 670 that much better than a 660ti?(worth the price difference) Is SLI/crossfire really beneficial if using a single monitor?(I got mixed information) Are there any radeon cards that would be better than the nvidia's I have mentioned(I haven't found any so far), and finally, if I did use SLI, how big would my psu have to be compared to a single better card?

It seems to me that, if I want to spend that much, two 660's would be better than a single other card, but for any game I play there has to be a SLI profile, I would probably have to get a much bigger psu, and I'm not even planing on using multiple monitors.

I also assume the prices will decline a little within the next 6 months, hopefully allowing me to get two 660ti's for the current price of two 660's if that is what I decide.

Thanks in advance!

 

[williamjuly2003]

Having a more powerful single GPU is always better than having 2 weaker GPUs. Your always going to run into issues of microstuttering and weak scaling with SLI

 

[blazorthon]

The 670 is a good deal better than almost all 660 Ti cards (a few with substantial memory overclocks are fairly close in performance to the 670s). Usually, it's simpler to have a single GPU setup, but there is no single GPU card that can match the performance of two GTX 660 Ti cards in most games, so you'd be compromising either way.

Two 660 Ti cards are usually beaten by similarly priced 7950s with decent factory overclocks or the boost BIOS, so I wouldn't really recommend any of them except for those such as this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500269

 

[ohyouknow]

Too much change will happen in 6 months. New cards from both sides and this current discussion about prices and performance will be so different. I'd suggest you re-visit the gpu market come Feb or so.

But to answer your question and post. I would go for a single 7970 GHZ edition or regular as my card at that price range. SLI/Xfire is not always worth the hassle it can give and newly released games might take time to get optimized on those configurations. Also extra VRAM on the Nvidia cards is not worth it IMO, since bandwidth is a very important factor that is not increased on those cards. If your single monitor is 1080p then a single high end card will keep you gaming comfortably. Cheers.

 

[rene13cross]

Basically, you're much more driver dependent with dual-GPU configs, so a single GPU config would be more desirable at that price point.

Also, since you're waiting for about another 6 months, you should probably wait and see what the next generation of graphics card looks like. AFAIK AMD are bringing out some of their next cards in the near future.

 

[ittimjones]

2 660's would definitely be better than 1 670. just to give you some sort of reference. a 660 is about on par with a 570. with my 2 570's in SLI, i get a little better performance than a 590 and 680. it's not up to 690 speeds, but i think these are great speeds none the less. lol.

prices will drop. to monitor prices, check out camelegg.com it trends newegg prices, from there u can visit the amazon version as well (camelcamelcamel.com) Also, i'm thinking black friday prices should be lower.

the ypical rule for SLI is get the best card u can get at the time, then SLI later, but if you wana start out good, 2 660's or 660ti's would be a great idea.

SLI increases single monitor performance up to 80%, and this is true, I can vouch for it. lol. now running BF3 at ALL Ultra settings @ 1920x1080 with no problem. actually temps are cooler than pre-sli and mostly Ultra settings. lol. (less system strain i guess? and GPU is not at 100% constantly while playing BF3 anymore either)

my recommendation would be to wait and see if you can get 2 660ti's for SLI, they do not need to be FTW editions.

otherwise, i'd say get 1 670 and wait for a year or so to SLI, cause you'll be basically maxing out any game w/ that anyway...

 

[blazorthon]

Having a more powerful single GPU is always better than having 2 weaker GPUs. Your always going to run into issues of microstuttering and weak scaling.

Micro-stutter is almost non-existent with high end GTX 6xx and Radeon 79xx cards and scaling is almost always excellent. No offense, but you seem to be very out of touch with the times.

 

[williamjuly2003]

Micro-stutter is almost non-existent with high end GTX 6xx and Radeon 79xx cards and scaling is almost always excellent. No offense, but you seem to be very out of touch with the times.

I didn't realize 660 non ti were high end cards oh wait there not

 

[blazorthon]

Agreed with ohyouknow except partially for the memory. On the GTX 660 Ti, the 3GB cards have a slight advantage over the 2GB models because of the more balanced memory system (2GB on a 192 bit bus doesn't work out perfectly). Otherwise, the memory is definitely less important for Nvidia because they run out of memory bandwidth before memory capacity.

 

[blazorthon]

I didn't realize 660 non ti were high end cards oh wait there not

Yes, they are high end... The 660 Ti is a $300 card.

 

[blazorthon]

2 660's would definitely be better than 1 670. just to give you some sort of reference. a 660 is about on par with a 570. with my 2 570's in SLI, i get a little better performance than a 590 and 680. it's not up to 690 speeds, but i think these are great speeds none the less. lol.

prices will drop. to monitor prices, check out camelegg.com it trends newegg prices, from there u can visit the amazon version as well (camelcamelcamel.com) Also, i'm thinking black friday prices should be lower.

the ypical rule for SLI is get the best card u can get at the time, then SLI later, but if you wana start out good, 2 660's or 660ti's would be a great idea.

SLI increases single monitor performance up to 80%, and this is true, I can vouch for it. lol. now running BF3 at ALL Ultra settings @ 1920x1080 with no problem. actually temps are cooler than pre-sli and mostly Ultra settings. lol. (less system strain i guess? and GPU is not at 100% constantly while playing BF3 anymore either)

my recommendation would be to wait and see if you can get 2 660ti's for SLI, they do not need to be FTW editions.

otherwise, i'd say get 1 670 and wait for a year or so to SLI, cause you'll be basically maxing out any game w/ that anyway...

The 660 is faster than the 570 and is more like right with or slightly behind the 580. The 660 Ti is a little ahead of the 660, right above the 580, at least on average.

Also, your GPU-under utilization might be more related to your CPU becoming a bottle-neck than it is to SLI, just a thought. SLI has a slight CPU overhead (a little less than that of Crossfire, but it's still there) and BF3 MP is already an extremely CPU-bottle-necked game when you load it up with players (not that it's not also already very graphically intense).

 

[rene13cross]

I didn't realize 660 non ti were high end cards oh wait there not

Eh, troll much? 300 dollar card is not high-end?! haha

 

[williamjuly2003]

Nvida 660 NON TI are 230$ they are mid end cards not high cards. The OP talked about SLI two 660 NON TI

Heres a link to a 660 non ti card if you don't believe me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130826

 

[ittimjones]

Yes, they are high end... The 660 Ti is a $300 card.

I believe that 650 and above is the "high-end" line, and everything below is low end.

650 might be mid grade or something, but everything below it is low end for sure and everything above is high end for sure (including 660)

 

[rene13cross]

Nvida 660 NON TI are 230$ they are mid end cards not high cards. The OP talked about SLI two 660 NON TI

Heres a link to a 660 non ti card if you don't believe me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130826

Apologies, I didn't read your comment properly.

But OP DID actually mean 660 Ti, read his post again. First time he mentions GTX 660 Ti but after that first mention he refers to that card as just a GTX 660 (but I'm sure he means the 660 Ti)

 

[blazorthon]

My bad, I missed the non-TI, but still, the 660 is almost exactly as fast as the 660 Ti 2GB and is arguably high-end because of that and OP was talking about the 660 Ti most of the time anyway.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I think you should let us know the machines specs and monitor and resolution before accepting advice.

 

[Guest]

Taken from here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-6.html

The Radeon HD 7970 delivers such impressive performance at $400 that we find it hard to recommend higher-performing (but sometimes-inconsistent) multi-card configurations for more money. We'll call out some of the most promising options, though, mostly for folks with one of these cards already installed: two Radeon HD 7850 2GB cards in CrossFire for $400, two Radeon HD 7870s in CrossFire for $500,

Si i would get a 7970 or 2 7870s in xfire. and yes micro stuttering and game optimization(scalability) are still around. Get with the times.

 

[williamjuly2003]

Really wish you would read the whole thing carefully

So here is what I have found. For ~ $460 I can get two 660's superclocked with 2GB ram e/a. (or one for $230) For $450 I can get a single 670 FTW edition with 4 GB ram. And lastly, a single 660ti FTW with 3GB ram for $360

Notice he mentions a SINGLE 660ti for $360

 

[blazorthon]

Taken from here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-6.html

The Radeon HD 7970 delivers such impressive performance at $400 that we find it hard to recommend higher-performing (but sometimes-inconsistent) multi-card configurations for more money. We'll call out some of the most promising options, though, mostly for folks with one of these cards already installed: two Radeon HD 7850 2GB cards in CrossFire for $400, two Radeon HD 7870s in CrossFire for $500,

Si i would get a 7970 or 2 7870s in xfire. and yes micro stuttering and game optimization(scalability) are still around. Get with the times.

That link provides no support for your claims. It's going off of information acquired from a two years old article on different graphics cards with different drivers. Micro-stuttering is known to get less problematic as you get faster and faster GPUs and current implementations of SLI and Crossfire are optimized to minimize it too.

 

[ittimjones]

The 660 is faster than the 570 and is more like right with or slightly behind the 580. The 660 Ti is a little ahead of the 660, right above the 580, at least on average.

Also, your GPU-under utilization might be more related to your CPU becoming a bottle-neck than it is to SLI, just a thought. SLI has a slight CPU overhead (a little less than that of Crossfire, but it's still there) and BF3 MP is already an extremely CPU-bottle-necked game when you load it up with players (not that it's not also already very graphically intense).

You sir are incorrect.

As this benchmark shows, 1 570 is slightly slower than 1 660ti, and 1 660 isn't even tested...
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/05-Aliens-vs.-Predator-DirectX-11-B-Performance,2944.html

This shows how SLI of 570's is much better than a 590.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/Gamer-Index,2673.html

from that benchmark, you can conclude that if you refer back to the original benchmark, that performance of 2 570's would be above a 590 and below 670's in sli. Since sli gives no more than 80% boost, one can determine that the score of a single 660ti would be at the mid-higher part of the range that 2 570's would be in and only slightly better than, if not the same as 570's, there for, faster than 660's.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/05-Aliens-vs.-Predator-DirectX-11-B-Performance,2944.html


bam


Also, BF3 runs almost exclusively on the GPU, not on CPU at all. as can be seen here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

I'm pretty sure I've maxed out the settings and now full utilization is not needed and usage is scaled back as physical demands are being met...

 

[Guest]

That link provides no support for your claims. It's going off of information acquired from a two years old article on different graphics cards with different drivers. Micro-stuttering is known to get less problematic as you get faster and faster GPUs and current implementations of SLI and Crossfire are optimized to minimize it too.

I didn't say its a rampant issue. Just that it exists. It may not be as bad as it once was (and exactly how bad i t was is in the eye of the beholder).

Drivers and better GPU architecture sure have helped, but its not 100% gone.

Regardless get a 7970. Or a 670 if you MUST have a Nvidia branded card.

 

[williamjuly2003]

I didn't say its a rampant issue. Just that it exists. It may not be as bad as it once was (and exactly how bad i t was is in the eye of the beholder).

Drivers and better GPU architecture sure have helped, but its not 100% gone.

Regardless get a 7970. Or a 670 if you MUST have a Nvidia branded card.

This ^+1

Also blazorthon try not to insult people its not pleasent to be told your behind the times.

 

[blazorthon]

You sir are incorrect.

As this benchmark shows, 1 570 is slightly slower than 1 660ti, and 1 660 isn't even tested...
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/05-Aliens-vs.-Predator-DirectX-11-B-Performance,2944.html

This shows how SLI of 570's is much better than a 590.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/Gamer-Index,2673.html

from that benchmark, you can conclude that if you refer back to the original benchmark, that performance of 2 570's would be above a 590 and below 670's in sli. Since sli gives no more than 80% boost, one can determine that the score of a single 660ti would be at the mid-higher part of the range that 2 570's would be in and only slightly better than, if not the same as 570's, there for, faster than 660's.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/05-Aliens-vs.-Predator-DirectX-11-B-Performance,2944.html


bam


Also, BF3 runs almost exclusively on the GPU, not on CPU at all. as can be seen here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

I'm pretty sure I've maxed out the settings and now full utilization is not needed and usage is scaled back as physical demands are being met...

That's only one game and it's not even a test run with new drivers.

I never said that two 570s aren't faster than a 590.

SLI can in fact give more than an 80% boost with the Kepler cards.

Furthermore, BF3 MP, NOT BF3 single player, is among the most CPU intensive games out right now, if not the most when loaded with many players, extrmely unlike its single player version.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-ti-benchmark-review,3279-10.html

660 Ti meets the 580. SLI, it generally goes well beyond the 7970 and 670 which are both only somewhat weaker than the 590. Keep in mind that this was with old drivers, it's a lot better and more consistent now, although I don't particularly like the reference 660 Ti. Any 660 Ti without a good memory overclock is wasted potential.

The GTX 660 is usually only a little slower than the 660 Ti because the only difference is the GPU which is already bottle-necked by the memory, minimizing the real-world performance difference that the inferior GPU would have made without the memory bottle-neck.

 

[blazorthon]

This ^+1

Also blazorthon try not to insult people its not pleasent to be told your behind the times.

I didn't insult, I made an observation. Claims made with outdated information aren't going to apply to newer, different situations in the same way and ignoring that fact is worse than addressing it.