GTX 660 vs 7850 vs 7870

Loosecannon · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:24

Ok I am torn and don't know what to do. I am going to get a new Graphics card, but am a little out of touch as I currently have a 4850.

I have a limit of £200, so really have a choice of 4 types of card at the top of my budget.

MSI 7850 Power Edition at £174

MSI GTX 660 OC twin Frozr at £180

MSI 7870 Twin Frozr at £200

MSI 7870 Hawk at £204

Which one to buy? Help!

Spenty · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:26

7870 is the best performing of the 3 and they overclock well too with more shaders than the 7850. Whether its worth the £30 on top I don't know.

ttreaders · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:27

MSI GTX 660 OC twin Frozr at £180

Rivals 7870, similar price. I have a 7850 that I am sending back to ocuk for the 660 due to the unbelievably bad ati drivers. Trust me, ati aren't worth the hassle!

weeroo · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:31

im in the same situation. so confused on that to get, i have around £200.

i wanted to push for an even better card but tbh i duno. i think the wise decison is to stick to my budget.

this card seems to get good reviews.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-162-MS

the1gooner · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:39

ttreaders said:
MSI GTX 660 OC twin Frozr at £180

Rivals 7870, similar price. I have a 7850 that I am sending back to ocuk for the 660 due to the unbelievably bad ati drivers. Trust me, ati aren't worth the hassle!

I have been running ati cards since the 9700 Pro 10 years ago and never had a problem with their drivers.

What problem are you having with your setup that makes you believe its a driver issue?

As to the original question i would go with one of the 7870's that are available for the £200 budget.

ttreaders · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:43

have been running ati cards since the 9700 Pro 10 years ago and never had a problem with their drivers.

What problem are you having with your setup that makes you believe its a driver issue?

As to the original question i would go with one of the 7870's that are available for the £200 budget.

I knew someone would say this and i'm glad you don't have any problems, it's true not everyone suffers. You haven't heard of the driver crashing in 2d mode with the ati cards? Google grey screen of death. There also a lot of threads on these forums about the issue.

TheRealDeal · 19 Sep 2012 at 19:52

ttreaders said:
I knew someone would say this and i'm glad you don't have any problems, it's true not everyone suffers. You haven't heard of the driver crashing in 2d mode with the ati cards? Google grey screen of death. There also a lot of threads on these forums about the issue.

Type it in but change it from amd to nvidia. You will get red, purple, black and grey all on the first page. You are assuming drivers but it could be a faulty card. Just stating its a driver problem and amd drivers are not worth the hassle is not the way forward.

Spenty · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:04

Never had driver issues with my 6950 either. Had more problems when I used a gtx 460. People who still use drivers as an excuse not to buy AMD cards need to look into it a little more. Nvidia has problems as well, nobody remember all the 4 series cards setting on fire?

Nuclear Fusion · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:17

My last 3 cards have all been AMD and all have been problem free. It could well have simply been a faulty card, people have problems with all components from CPUs to hard drivers so a single bad experience shouldn't make you dismiss a whole brand of GPUs.

bru · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:25

Yet another one of the which card threads and the guys answering don't ask the obvious question.

Do you intend to overclock the new graphics card?

If you do go for a 7850
If you don't my advice would be a 660 or 7870 depending on whether you prefer AMD or Nvidia.

my personal preference would be to go with the EVGA 660 superclocked as it has the best stock speeds of all the 660's but the MSI 660 twin frozr would run it a close second, it might also run a little cooler due to the twin fan cooler but remember it won't expel the air out of the case.

psychodil · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:30

bru said:
Yet another one of the which card threads and the guys answering don't ask the obvious question.

Do you intend to overclock the new graphics card?

If you do go for a 7850
If you don't my advice would be a 660 or 7870 depending on whether you prefer AMD or Nvidia.
.

Great advice this

mranderson · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:32

660 for me although I believe the 7850 is a better card in the long run as performance increases more with subsequent drivers.

Marine-RX179 · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:38

Spenty said:
7870 is the best performing of the 3 and they overclock well too with more shaders than the 7850. Whether its worth the £30 on top I don't know.

Actually 7870 is "on par" with 660...they can both be faster than each other depending on which games you are looking at:
www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548?vs=660

Spenty · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:56

Marine-RX179 said:
Actually 7870 is "on par" with 660...they can both be faster than each other depending on which games you are looking at:
www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548?vs=660

Each card on the anandtech benchmark is done when it's first released. Therfore the 7870 would perform a lot better now with the driver releases since those benchmarks were done.

Rusty0611 · 19 Sep 2012 at 20:59

Spenty said:
Each card on the anandtech benchmark is done when it's first released. Therfore the 7870 would perform a lot better now with the driver releases since those benchmarks were done.

Blame AMD for their comparatively poor release day drivers then

. The only problem with your statement above is that due to this comparatively poor driver performance back then, comparisons are few and far between on the latest drivers and as there is such variety between reviews you have to treat any single reviews on latest drivers with caution.

Marine-RX179 · 19 Sep 2012 at 21:05

Rusty0611 said:
Blame AMD for their comparatively poor release day drivers then . The only problem with your statement above is that due to this comparatively poor driver performance back then, comparisons are few and far between on the latest drivers and as there is such variety between reviews you have to treat any single reviews on latest drivers with caution.

lol I've forgotten how many people that updated to newer driver release ran home to mommy (12.4) until the more recent versions

Spenty · 19 Sep 2012 at 21:14

Marine-RX179 said:
lol I've forgotten how many people that updated to newer driver release ran home to mommy (12.4) until the more recent versions

If you don't believe me go find some benchmarks that show how much the newer drivers improve the 7 series cards. For 6 series and below I agree there isn't much difference.

foxrocks · 20 Sep 2012 at 10:03

7870 is a bit more powerful in general than the GTX 660; however I'm not convinced the 7870 is worth £20 more.

If overclocking you might as well save a bit of money and get the 7850, which overclocks like a beast.

humbug · 20 Sep 2012 at 10:13

weeroo said:
im in the same situation. so confused on that to get, i have around £200.

i wanted to push for an even better card but tbh i duno. i think the wise decison is to stick to my budget.

this card seems to get good reviews.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-162-MS

That is a beast of a card http://www.overclockers.com/msi-r7870-hawk-review

They got 1350Mhz / 1380Mhz out of that, that's not guaranteed obviously but it shows what it can do, and your still likely to get over the average.

And there is nothing wrong with ATI drivers, at all.

Rusty0611 said:
Blame AMD for their comparatively poor release day drivers then . The only problem with your statement above is that due to this comparatively poor driver performance back then, comparisons are few and far between on the latest drivers and as there is such variety between reviews you have to treat any single reviews on latest drivers with caution.

Yes, but at the same time you can't blame people for pointing out the flaws in the benches, i would do the same as they are not relevant today.

Martini1991 · 20 Sep 2012 at 10:16

humbug said:
That is a beast of a card http://www.overclockers.com/msi-r7870-hawk-review

They got 1350Mhz / 1380Mhz out of that, that's not guaranteed obviously but it shows what it can do, and your still likely to get over the average.

And there is nothing wrong with ATI drivers, at all.

No ATI driver will work with new cards.

Although, I've found AMD drivers to be fine, although CCC's really messed up on me, keeps acting like it's having settings changed constantly with "apply" flashing green every second.