Thinking of switching to nvidia...

[bonifah]

To start, here's my rig.

Intel i5-2500k
Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-B3
HIS IceQ X AMD Radeon HD 6790 / EVGA SC GeForce GTX 650 Ti
Corsair Vengeance 16GB
Xion 700w
Windows 7

I'm not exactly looking to run extremely graphics intensive games, but be able to record lower graphics intensive ones.
I recently bought an EVGA "Superclocked" GeForce GTX 650 Ti and it seems nearly matched with my 6790. I feel as though the 650 should be able to give some sort of edge over my card, but it's not.

...and seeing as my motherboard only has 1 3.0 pci slot, I'm not sure I'd be able go either SLI or CrossfireX.

650 Ti
Core Clock Speed: 1058 MHz
Memory Clock Speed: 5400 MHz
Memory Size: 2048 MB
128 bit

6790
Core Clock Speed: 840 MHz
Memory Clock Speed: 4200 MHz
Memory Size: 1024 MB
256 bit

I'm honestly not sure the difference in the bits. If anyone could fill me in, I'd be most grateful.

Also, I can return the 650 Ti as I got it today if someone has a better alternative.

 

[manofchalk]

It seems the 6970 is either way ahead or tied with a 650ti for performance.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/509?vs=680

Nope, cant run both a Nvidia and AMD card and expect them to work together. Closest thing to that is Hybrid PhysX, which requires the use of an unofficial hacked driver.

When your comparing two different cards, especially between AMD and Nvidia, it isnt as simple as comparing their clock speeds and specs. You have to look up benchmarks if you want to find which one is better.

The bits refers to its memory bus. Its kind of like the connection between the GPU and VRAM, and the more bits, the wider it is.

 

[bonifah]

It seems the 6970 is either way ahead or tied with a 650ti for performance.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/509?vs=680

Nope, cant run both a Nvidia and AMD card and expect them to work together. Closest thing to that is Hybrid PhysX, which requires the use of an unofficial hacked driver.

When your comparing two different cards, especially between AMD and Nvidia, it isnt as simple as comparing their clock speeds and specs. You have to look up benchmarks if you want to find which one is better.

The bits refers to its memory bus. Its kind of like the connection between the GPU and VRAM, and the more bits, the wider it is.

It's the 6790, not the 6970.

I meant more along the lines of using two different AMD cards, one using the pcie 2.0 and one on the 3.0.

 

[fil1p]

If you want you could run two gtx 650ti's in SLI, you don't need two PCIE x16 3.0 slots, your motherboard doesn't have PCIE 3.0 anyway, it has a mixture of X16 and X8 2.0 slots which will be fine. The difference between pcie 3.0 and 2.0 in real world terms is not very big, with two of those lower/mid range cards PCIE 2.0 will do just fine.

You could sell both cards and buy a better one, or you could do some slight overclocking to boost your performance a bit, but it wont be a big change.


Hope this helps!

 

[fil1p]

The same applies to running two AMD cards, you could run two cards, one using a PCIE X16 slot and the other using a X8 slot. The HD6000's still run on PCIE 2.0, and your motherboard is a Z68 so it does not have PCIE 3.0 either, but that wont be a problem. With AMD cards you could run two slightly different AMD cards together, as long as they are from the same family/sub family.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

return the 650ti, sell the 6790 for whatever you can get for it, and get a gtx660 or better. the 650ti should still be a fair bit faster than the 6790 though, but once you hit gtx660 and above, things will really be noticeably faster.

 

[renz496]

6970 definitely are faster than 650Ti. but OP was talking about 6790. 650 Ti should be faster.

 

[manofchalk]

It's the 6790, not the 6970.

Oops.
In that case I don't know why the 650Ti isn't performing way better. Latest drivers installed?

As long as there is at least PCI-2 8x bandwidth available to the cards, you wont encounter bottle necking due to bandwidth issues.

 

[bonifah]

The latest drivers are installed, and scans haven't found anything wrong with my computer, but my 3Dmark score is still low. :/

 

[wdmfiber]

If possible do what iam2thecrowe says.

You must have noticed when you hooked up the 650Ti you were left with an extra 6 pin power connector. The Radeon 6790 uses 151 watts vs. the 110 watts used by the 650Ti. Granted the 650 is built on the new 28nm fab process(like the Radeon 7000's), so you get more processing power per watt. But you picked a frugal replacement (saving 41 watts); you can't expect a big gain in graphical processing power, while burning 27% less electricity.

If you get a 660Ti your be back up to burning 150 watts. And for that 27%(40 watt) increase in electricity, you'll get 48% more graphical processing power vs. 650Ti. So it's not just a sledgehammer approach(more watts=better graphics), the 660Ti is also again more efficient.

 

[fil1p]

If possible do what iam2thecrowe says.

You must have noticed when you hooked up the 650Ti you were left with an extra 6 pin power connector. The Radeon 6790 uses 151 watts vs. the 110 watts used by the 650Ti. Granted the 650 is built on the new 28nm fab process(like the Radeon 7000's), so you get more processing power per watt. But you picked a frugal replacement (saving 41 watts); you can't expect a big gain in graphical processing power, while burning 27% less electricity.

If you get a 660Ti your be back up to burning 150 watts. And for that 27%(40 watt) increase in electricity, you'll get 48% more graphical processing power vs. 650Ti. So it's not just a sledgehammer approach(more watts=better graphics), the 660Ti is also again more efficient.

The gtx650ti and gtx660ti use different chips. Yes they are both built on the 28nm process, but the gtx 650ti uses a Gk106 chip, while the gtx660ti uses a gk104 which is the same chip used on the gtx 680 and gtx670. So yes performance per watt is higher in the gtx650ti. The gtx660ti has some very good performance considering it has the same chip as nvidia's best offerings. However it is not only or mainly due to the 40watt increase in electricity that you get such performance gains, it is due to the different graphics chips used, among other things. So keep in mind these cards have different chips which is partly why the gtx 660ti is quite a large leap better than the gtx 650ti.

Here are some benchmarks showing the performance per watt of these cards:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Ti_Power_Edition/29.html

 

[bonifah]

If possible do what iam2thecrowe says.

You must have noticed when you hooked up the 650Ti you were left with an extra 6 pin power connector. The Radeon 6790 uses 151 watts vs. the 110 watts used by the 650Ti. Granted the 650 is built on the new 28nm fab process(like the Radeon 7000's), so you get more processing power per watt. But you picked a frugal replacement (saving 41 watts); you can't expect a big gain in graphical processing power, while burning 27% less electricity.

If you get a 660Ti your be back up to burning 150 watts. And for that 27%(40 watt) increase in electricity, you'll get 48% more graphical processing power vs. 650Ti. So it's not just a sledgehammer approach(more watts=better graphics), the 660Ti is also again more efficient.

Now that I got a second look at the motherboard, I'm almost certain it's the problem. The gigabyte website is misleading. It says it supports the gen 3 pcie, but then says hidden in the specifications that they're all 2.0. -.- I guess that explains why the 560 is running like crap since it's 3.0.

As for the rest, I'll keep it all in mind.

By the way, does anyone even buy second hand cards?

 

[fil1p]

Now that I got a second look at the motherboard, I'm almost certain it's the problem. The gigabyte website is misleading. It says it supports the gen 3 pcie, but then says hidden in the specifications that they're all 2.0. -.- I guess that explains why the 560 is running like crap since it's 3.0.

As for the rest, I'll keep it all in mind.

By the way, does anyone even buy second hand cards?

As I mentioned in a previous post, yes your motherboard is pcie 2.0, but I said that there should be no visible performance difference between pcie 3.0 and 2.0. The only time you will actually see any difference if you were to run a couple of high end cards in SLI, however the fact that your graphics card is pcie 3.0 and your motherboard is 2.0 is unlikely to be the issue.

 

[nukemaster]

I see lots of posts, but want to say some things.

The GTX 650 ti can not be used in SLI or not officially. Not sure why Nvidia did this, but it will not have the option for SLI.

The 3.0 vs 2.0 slot does not matter for cards in the mid end like a 650 ti anyway.

The 660 is way better if you have the money for it. Again, it will not max out a PCI-e 2.0 slot either.

 

[fil1p]

Download GPU-Z and then run 3dmark again with gpuz running. When the benchmark finishes to run, look in the monitoring section of GPU-z and check the clock speeds to make sure that the card is running at its proper clock speed in 3d mode. If the card for some strange reason is deciding not to engage its clock speeds for 3d graphics, then you could change a preference in the nvidia control panel to "prefer performance over power efficiency" or something like that, and see if that changes anything. Also as wdbmfiber said, make sure you have your six pin connector properly plugged into the card.

Hope this helps a bit!

 

[wdmfiber]

Ya, I'll 3rd the PCI 3.0 spec.

It's just way ahead of it's time. I think years ago the GPU "roadmap" projected that graphics cards would be more powerful at this point in time; then they turned out to be. PCI 3.0 will be good to have in ~2014 for next gen 20nanometre cards like the GTX880 and Radeon 9970 (provided the naming scheme stays the same).

I believe the AMD 8000's and nVidia 700's will just be a refresh, not much more powerful over curent offerings.

 

[bonifah]

I'm about 90% sure that I'll return the 650 in the morning then since it's not working like it should apparently.

 

[wdmfiber]

You mean 650, not 560

lol, or we'll have all replies wrong

 

[manofchalk]

I think PCI-3 was largely introduced to pave the way for PCI-Storage mediums akin to the OCZ Revodrive. In terms of graphics cards, PCI-2 8x is more than sufficient for even the strongest of cards.

Yep, the new graphics card gen will largely just be a die shrink and a power efficiency upgrade. Not much in terms of performance since both companies have very successful architectures in Kepler and GCN, so their not going to bin that so quickly.

 

[bonifah]

You mean 650, not 560

lol, or we'll have all replies wrong

Yeah, error on my part, sorry. xD

 

[wdmfiber]

. So yes performance per watt is higher in the gtx650ti.

I believe the 660Ti is higher? 12.9 vs. 16.4 Gigaflops per watt
However I prob should have just said vs. 40nm GPU. Comparing efficiencies between 28nm GKxxx families may confuse the OP.

I think PCI-3 was largely introduced to pave the way for PCI-Storage mediums akin to the OCZ Revodrive. In terms of graphics cards, PCI-2 8x is more than sufficient for even the strongest of cards.

Interesting, and I read the review of the extreme units Tom's tested.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p320h-ssd-pci-express,3344.html
So my forgetfulness indicates I don't have a RevoDrive. Sadly this is true. OCZ Vertex 3 via Sata III.