7950 vs 660 ti

[davidparry1000]

I have been looking for a while now and really cant seem to decide which one to get. The prices are practically the same at the moment but so now its even harder to choose?
Games to play:
Battlefield 3 (ultra)
Skyrim
civilisation v

Thanks for the help!

 

[tommybhoy]

Max clocks the 670 is probably a touch faster, but not that you'd notice it unless your Clark Kent tbph.

It's that close, the only way the 7950 wins outright though is if you highly mod Skyrim and burst the 2Gb vram limit@1080p.

The price difference and bundles are deal breakers for the performance difference, namely this one:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-065-HS

So it goes down to what you want in regards to vendor specific features and how much you value bundles.

 

[LtMatt]

7950 all day long.

 

[Monkeyspaz5000]

7950 all day long.

Easily!!

 

[Gregster]

Have a look at this thread, it may help

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18437927

 

[humbug]

7950. It has similar performance to the GTX 670 and is a lot cheaper, never-mind the GTX 660ti... nvidia cards are overpriced IMHO

 

[Rusty0611]

7950. Cheaper and faster .

 

[a66as]

Very pleased with my 7950 so far, i can crank every setting on skyrim to max and it never dips below 50fps (averages 60) and thats only overclocked to 1100

 

[AndyPandyPie]

The 7950 is on par with the 670, with the latest drivers in games like BF3 (where the 7***'s used to be way behind) the performance is roughly on par with the 7950 like 2-5 fps behind, although not if you have a good clocker, and other games like Sleeping dogs and the usual Metro/AvP (although that doesnt mean anything because no one plays them anymore) they are outright better.

There isnt really any games anymore with the latest drivers from both parties that make the 670/680 outright better than the 7950/7970 performance wise, most people look up reviews of the 7970's when they first came out and compare. You get a more accurate gage of how they are to eachother if you compare the 7970GHZ ed because its running on the later drivers and isnt down clocked.


Although if your planning on keeping the card a long time, Nvidia support their drivers for old cards better than AMD, but then again.. if your keeping for a long time you would want 3gb/4gb of Vram.

 

[Rusty0611]

if your keeping for a long time you would want 3gb/4gb of Vram.

Not sure you will.

You'll never have enough GPU grunt to run settings which utilise 3/4 GB of VRAM.

 

[imginy]

7950 is better price/performance so the only reason to get the nvidia would be phishx or nvidia3d or sli.

Saying that a decent 660ti is enough to max out them games at 1080p 60fps.

I can get nearly 10k on 3dmark11 with my msi 660ti overclocked.

 

[SFFNoob]

I'd personally go with a HD7950 given prices for each and performance, then as the poster above quoted, there are some decent games bundles with the HD7950 here at OcUK too.

 

[AndyPandyPie]

Not sure you will.

You'll never have enough GPU grunt to run settings which utilise 3/4 GB of VRAM.

People always throw around the term 'the GPU bottlenecks the Vram limitation anyway'

When this simply isnt the case.

Games with hi res textures and big maps take up allot of Vram (most importantly future games will) without power hogging things like MSAA.

For example, my 570 played BF3 very very well, but the Vram was to little and allot of the textures rendered black, performance wasn't hit at all because I didnt use any form of AA, no stutter or fps issues, the textures just didn't render properly and some parts ofthe floor for example were completely black, and other things like trees didnt render, same things happened in skyrim

In future games when the textures will be more detailed, they will require more Vram. now hi res textures really dont hog the GPU core much at all, but they do hog the Vram, MSAA and other types of AA is what hogs the GPU core AND the Vram, but you can choose not to use it and still have a smooth gaming experience as long as you have enough Vram.


In short..... lots of hi res textures which future games will have don't impact on the actual GPU performance much compared to poor textures, they just take up more Vram, so as long as you dont use hi levels of AA (which does impact the gpu performance aswell as take up Vram) you will have a smooth gaming experience.

 

[Final8y]

People always throw around the term 'the GPU bottlenecks the Vram limitation anyway'

When this simply isnt the case.

Games with hi res textures and big maps take up allot of Vram (most importantly future games will) without power hogging things like MSAA.

For example, my 570 played BF3 very very well, but the Vram was to little and allot of the textures rendered black, performance wasn't hit at all because I didnt use any form of AA, no stutter or fps issues, the textures just didn't render properly and some parts ofthe floor for example were completely black, and other things like trees didnt render, same things happened in skyrim

In future games when the textures will be more detailed, they will require more Vram. now hi res textures really dont hog the GPU core much at all, but they do hog the Vram, MSAA and other types of AA is what hogs the GPU core AND the Vram, but you can choose not to use it and still have a smooth gaming experience as long as you have enough Vram.


In short..... lots of hi res textures which future games will have don't impact on the actual GPU performance much compared to poor textures, they just take up more Vram, so as long as you dont use hi levels of AA (which does impact the gpu performance aswell as take up Vram) you will have a smooth gaming experience.

I have to agree and i have said the same in the past myself.

I put in that even if someone didn't have the Res and AA to make use of the Vram, textures could, and mods could and it would not need 2560x1600 or Eyefinity for the Vram to become the issue even at 1080p.

Even Quake 4 had a ultra high texture setting that you needed a card with 512MB Vram, no matter what the Resolution even though there was no noticeable performance hit difference with the ultra high texture setting, if you did not have 512MB Vram then you got a performance hit at any RES.

There was settings MODs for GRID that could bring cards with less Vram to single digits which played fine on cards with more Vram even at 1080p, in fact i got negative 8 fps.

People are to hung up with More Vram being used = more heavy strain on the GPU which is not always the Case, its what type of stuff that's in the Vram that counts to more strain and not how much is in it.
Yes AA also uses up Vram, yes Resolution uses up Vram, both of them put lots of strain on the GPU, but Vram can be used up with many things that don't put strain on the GPU also.

1GB of Physics data to be processed is a bigger strain than 1GB of textures to be processed, but yet both took up the same space.

hypothetically Does that 25GB Blue Ray file on my PC put more strain on my CPU and GPU than a 8GB game, no it does not, its the content being processed that counts.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20815757&postcount=16

But most people don't reach that situations we are talking about so mostly dismiss it.

 

[Rusty0611]

*snip*

So basically you are relying on games suddenly using proportionally tremendous amount of VRAM over GPU power for a single GPU to be able to utilise 3GB/4GB of VRAM.

While your point in principle is correct the margins are too wide for it to realistically apply.

 

[AndyPandyPie]

I have to agree and i have said the same in the past myself.

Yup, well its completely true... I dont know why but the people have just thrown the term around that "the GPU will bottleneck the Vram anyway" when thats just.... dumb.

It simply doesnt work like that, but people jump on the bandwagon and for some reason believe it because to them it sounds logical.


As I said, The only thing that takes up allot of Vram AND hogs the GPU performance is AA. Just hi res textures on there own (which is future games will have more of) dont make much difference to fps, they just take up allot more Vram.

So again, aslong as you dont use high levels of AA aswell as High textures settings you will be fine in the future as long as you have enough Vram to play the game on relatively high settings (with high texture settings as this makes a big difference to the game) without or with little AA you will be fine.

Obviously you may have to turn other settings down like Terrain/draw distance ect because new games and engines will be more complex, but as long as you can play with high textures at or above 60fps then you will be fine.

Im not talking 5+ years... 3 years before the GPU's may be considered too poor to play latest games nicely.


If you dont have enough Vram though... you will have to turn down the games texture settings and it will look like crap, and the performance wont really change much from high > low texture settings as long as your not using high levels of AA or demanding types of AA.



For example... on BF3 the fps difference when you change from medium to ultra textures is within 3-5 fps yet the game looks ALLOT better, it just takes up allot more Vram.

 

[Rusty0611]

Yup, well its completely true... I dont know why but the people have just thrown the term around that "the GPU will bottleneck the Vram anyway" when thats just.... dumb.

It's not dumb. It's what has been proven. If people want to use a mish-mash of settings to get the game to play well on their card then fine. But you can't draw a general rule from this.

It simply doesnt work like that, but people jump on the bandwagon and for some reason believe it because to them it sounds logical.

You're talking in if's, but's and maybe's. Got any examples?

As I said, The only thing that takes up allot of Vram AND hogs the GPU performance is AA. Just hi res textures on there own (which is future games will have more of)

Link of where all future games are going to have high res textures which is going to push VRAM usage sky high and out of proportion with the current curve?

Obviously you may have to turn other settings down like Terrain/draw distance ect, but as long as you can play with high textures at or above 60fps then you will be fine.

Right... more settings being turned down. So it isn't just AA then in your eyes?

If you dont have enough Vram though... you will have to turn down the games texture settings and it will look like crap, and the performance wont really change much from high > low texture settings as long as your not using high levels of AA or demanding types of AA.

The tone of your post suggests you haven't really tested this... at all.

 

[AndyPandyPie]

Im a long time lurker of these forums and for some reason Rusty despite you clearly being a good guy you seem to get in allot of random pointless arguments with people, whether they are right or wrong or you agree or disagree, the way in which you post is always trying to start some sort of text war.

What I have described is the case it is... the GPU doesn't bottle neck the Vram limitation unless you use high levels, or demanding types of AA.

A graphics card is only so powerful, of course you wont be able to play the latest games in 2 years time at max settings, but as long as you have enough Vram you will be able to play them with decent settings without poor textures.

A prime example of this is the 570 and BF3. The 570 can play BF3 very well at 60+ fps and decent settings, but if you use high/ultra textures and terrain decoration (which makes a very large difference to the appearance of the game),despite being able to play the game at a decent fps with these settings, the Vram runs out the the textures dont render properly and the experience is poor.

If the 570 had more Vram it would be a different story (for example, I had a 480 after my 570, and although the 2 cards are similar in performance, the extra Vram on the 480 meant I was able to play at better settings.)

It also means going SLI/CF may not be an option if you don't have enough Vram and the game you play requires it, leaving you having to spend allot of money and buy the latest card (this is one of the reasons Nvidia don't use more Vram than they need to, because in a few years time when you could just get another second hand and have the same performance, you wont have enough Vram and will have to buy the latest one from them)

 

[Rusty0611]

Im a long time lurker of these forums and for some reason Rusty despite you clearly being a good guy you seem to get in allot of random pointless arguments with people, whether they are right or wrong or you agree or disagree, the way in which you post is always trying to start some sort of text war.

What I have described is the case it is... the GPU doesn't bottle neck the Vram limitation unless you use high levels, or demanding types of AA.

A graphics card is only so powerful, of course you wont be able to play the latest games in 2 years time at max settings, but as long as you have enough Vram you will be able to play them with decent settings without poor textures.

A prime example of this is the 570 and BF3. The 570 can play BF3 very well at 60+ fps and decent settings, but if you use high/ultra textures and terrain decoration, despite being able to play the game at a decent fps, the Vram runs out the the textures dont render properly and the experience is poor.

If the 570 had more Vram it would be a different story (for example, I had a 480 after my 570, and although the 2 cards are similar in performance, the extra Vram on the 480 meant I was able to play at better settings.)

I only argue with people who are wrong and refuse to see it.

While your point regarding MSAA is correct about it being a resource hog I have tested BF3 using Ultra, High, Medium and Low texture settings.

The difference from top to bottom was 150MB of VRAM at 5760*1080. Low settings was around 1300MB. Ultra was about 1450MB. All ran in Caspian 64 with no MSAA. What this shows is that VRAM increases aren't that much when you take MSAA out of the equation which does kind of undermine your point.

I'm not disputing your 570 so I'm not sure why you keep using it. All I have said is that a single card ain't gonna drive a 3GB/4GB card. It will run out of GPU power way, way before it can get close to using the settings which use that amount of VRAM. Even in Surround, I have around 500MB spare (at settings which provide acceptable FPS) so I don't see VRAM becoming an issue before I upgrade again.

The exception is the heavily modded version of Skyrim of course but at the moment that is the only exception that I know of.

 

[AndyPandyPie]

I only argue with people who are wrong and refuse to see it.

While your point regarding MSAA is correct about it being a resource hog I have tested BF3 using Ultra, High, Medium and Low texture settings.

The difference from top to bottom was 150MB of VRAM at 5760*1080. Low settings was around 1300MB. Ultra was about 1450MB. All ran in Caspian 64 with no MSAA. What this shows is that VRAM increases aren't that much when you take MSAA out of the equation which does kind of undermine your point.

I'm not disputing your 570 so I'm not sure why you keep using it. All I have said is that a single card ain't gonna drive a 3GB/4GB card. It will run out of GPU power way, way before it can get close to using the settings which use that amount of VRAM. Even in Surround, I have around 500MB spare (at settings which provide acceptable FPS) so I don't see VRAM becoming an issue before I upgrade again.

The exception is the heavily modded version of Skyrim of course but at the moment that is the only exception that I know of.

The percentage of people who use 3 screens for gaming is incredibly low. And with those amount of pixels those few people will have to have the latest GPU's all the time if they want ot play the latest games, Vram doesnt play a part there unless they have the GPU power, Single screen gaming on the other hand is a completely different matter.

For gaming on one screen like 95% of the PC gaming population, yes, the GPU will be able to 'drive' the 3/4gb of Vram it has on the card in the future if its using it for hi res textures/decoration games will most likely have as these dont hog the performance of the GPU much, while MSAA or other types of AA will, but if you have an old card you simply wont be using these types of AA anyway or it will throttle your performance.

The reason I bring up the 570 and BF3 is because this is a prime example of what Im saying and proof to my valid point, You asked me for an example, I gave you a very good one.

Have you ever thought you could be wrong and wont accept it? Im not saying you are in the slightest, but you seem to think that everyone else is when your arguing with them, we wont know for years to come, but Rusty my friend, that day may be the day you may have to admit you were wrong