EVGA Nvidia GTX 660 SC vs XFX ATI Radeon 7870 GHz?

[Coops_THC]

EVGA Nvidia GTX 660 SC vs XFX ATI Radeon 7870 GHz?

Hi, i am building my first PC and have pretty much bought all the parts apart from the GPU.

I now have a dilemma as i have a budget of around £170-£180 (I have already gone over budget so would prefer not to spend any more) which both of these GPU's fit in but cant decide which is more value for money in terms of performance and reliability.

I have read numerous reviews and just have been getting a mixture of opinions from Nvidia fans and AMD/ATi fans. I have always stuck with Nvidia as from what i have read in the past ATi had temperamental drivers which were prone to encounter glitches/faults but have they solved this now and are they generally similar to Nvidia in terms of reliability?

I have also read that the 7870 has more room for overclocking (I do not know how to overclock but am wanting to learn in the future and experiment very carefully) Is this true?

Another thing that i have read is that Nvidia is generally better for gaming as it has the PhysX feature which many games support and improves performance.

The games i will be playing are:

Crysis 1/2
Battle Field 3
Age of Empires 3 (I know this wont challenge either GPU)
FarCry 3
and various other FPS games.

Specifications:

7870: http://xfxforce.com/en-gb/Products/...-HD-7000/AMD-Radeon-HD-7870/FX-787A-CNFC.aspx
GTX 660: http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2662-KR

What GPU do you have and if you had the chance would you buy it again or choose something else?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[lostgamer_03]

EVGA Nvidia GTX 660 SC vs XFX ATI Radeon 7870 GHz?

Hi, i am building my first PC and have pretty much bought all the parts apart from the GPU.

I now have a dilemma as i have a budget of around £170-£180 (I have already gone over budget so would prefer not to spend any more) which both of these GPU's fit in but cant decide which is more value for money in terms of performance and reliability.

I have read numerous reviews and just have been getting a mixture of opinions from Nvidia fans and AMD/ATi fans. I have always stuck with Nvidia as from what i have read in the past ATi had temperamental drivers which were prone to encounter glitches/faults but have they solved this now and are they generally similar to Nvidia in terms of reliability?

I have also read that the 7870 has more room for overclocking (I do not know how to overclock but am wanting to learn in the future and experiment very carefully) Is this true?

Another thing that i have read is that Nvidia is generally better for gaming as it has the PhysX feature which many games support and improves performance.

The games i will be playing are:

Crysis 1/2
Battle Field 3
Age of Empires 3 (I know this wont challenge either GPU)
FarCry 3
and various other FPS games.

Specifications:

7870: http://xfxforce.com/en-gb/Products/...-HD-7000/AMD-Radeon-HD-7870/FX-787A-CNFC.aspx
GTX 660: http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2662-KR

What GPU do you have and if you had the chance would you buy it again or choose something else?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Performance goes to Radeon 7870 with about 5-10% overall, though GTX 660 might be better in some games.

Gaming experience is a different thing. The gaming experience comes in GTX 660's favor. It offers boost, PhysX, adaptive v-sync, TXAA and FXAA. Which offers a smoother gameplay with better Visuals.

Both GPUs can't max out Far Cry 3 at 1080p with MSAA enabled, but it's damn close! The other games should be easy enough.

Here is an example of what PhysX does featuring my GTX 660

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STi6rNeYZrY

Here is some gameplay from Far Cry 3 featuring my GTX 660 aswell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRnKfQaVVwM

 

[hytecgowthaman]

http://www.hwcompare.com/13302/geforce-gtx-660-vs-radeon-hd-7870/
For more displays and hd high resolution moniters I'm recamend 7870

 

[Coops_THC]

Thanks man, i asked around at work to and they all recommended the GTX 660 for the reasons you mentioned. It seems that nVidia have a better partnership with game developers and therefore allows their GPU's to perform better.

 

[techguy1001]

I would reccommend the GTX 660. Personally, I would purchase the MSI Twin Frozr GTX 660 O/C edition. I am a huge fan of MSI's features and cooling. Unfortunately I am unable to know if that is within your price range (though I think it should be), because I am in the United States.