• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

660x2 or a 670?

Dannyboy84

Dannyboy84

Dannyboy84

Associate
Joined
28 Dec 2011
Posts
193
so im gona be upgrading my grphx card just after christmas currently got a GTS250 after looking over a lot of threads on here im undecided. I do not want an ati card the ones iv had in past have given me nothing but trouble with drivers etc.
The GTX680 is slightly out of my budget so im looking at either 2 660's

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-174-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2379

or a 670 probably the msi one but not 100% sure yet

what do you think? is this a bad choice or not?:rolleyes:

i know a lot of people say the the 7950's are great for the price right now and maybe il be tempted but im almost sure il got for the nvidia option.

oh yeah i only game on a single monitor at 1920x1080p

Thanks in advance
 
I wouldnt discount a 7950 all together, with the latest drivers theyre great performing cards. But if you do go the nvidia route, id suggest a single 670 now. It will be more than enough to handle current games at 1080p. Plus, you also then have the option for adding a second for sli at a later date when newer games start to struggle.
 
If its Nvidia you want go for the GTX 670, the GTX 660's only have a 192Bit memory bus.

There is no point in SLI / xFire @ 1080P anyway.
 
I havnt totally ruled out the 7950 but its looking like the 670, i had heard that at 1080p its usually no point having sli/xfire but also seen a video comparing 2 660's vs a 680 and its extremely close on performance levels :) so im basically just seeing what you guys think before i part with my hard earnd cash :D
 
The 7950 has more vRAM and a faster bus width (3GB 384Bit vs 2GB 256Bit)

The 7950 is also the same performance as the GTX 670, faster at very high res and sometimes at 1080P with AA maxed out because of that faster bus.

And its cheaper, there is every reason to go for the 7950, that is, unless you specifically want Nvidia.
 
Uncle Petey said:
Just out of curiosity, at what clock speed does a 7950 get on level terms with a 670?
Not saying it doesn't match it or anything.
Click to expand...

I don't think its as simple as that

Depends on the game, they all vary greatly. :) your text also suggests it always needs to be clocked up, it doesn't, sometimes its faster at stock, other games its not.....
 
So it's not the same performance then? :p

I didn't suggest it had to be clocked, I merely asked at what clocks :) Every card has a different stock speed these days...
 
Last edited:
i heard nvidia were better for bf3 and far cry3 due to the physx engine is this correct? these are the games i wana play also if it is would it be that noticable or is it just benmark numbers? :S
 
Gigabyte 7950 WF3 @ 1150/1250 taken at the weekend on 12.11 beta 11 driver, on the right Gigabyte GTX 670 WF3 @ 1340/1850, back in June this year.

7950105mhz.jpg
gtx6701.jpg
 
Last edited:
Dannyboy84 said:
i heard nvidia were better for bf3 and far cry3 due to the physx engine is this correct? these are the games i wana play also if it is would it be that noticable or is it just benmark numbers? :S
Click to expand...

No thats rubbish :) Cry3 and BF3 don't have Physx.

Here are some benching on BF3.. http://hardocp.com/article/2012/11/12/fall_2012_gpu_driver_comparison_roundup/3

Nelly said:
Gigabyte 7950 WF3 @ 1150/1250 taken at the weekend on 12.11 beta 11 driver, on the right Gigabyte GTX 670 WF3 @ 1340/1850, back in June this year.

7950105mhz.jpg
gtx6701.jpg
Click to expand...

Hmmm...

7950 WF3 @ 1150/1250
GTX 670 WF3 @ 1340/1850

Yeah the GTX 670 is a lot higher overclocked from stock than the 7950.

Thats why.

The score on my 7870 is a lot lower @ 1150 / 1250 than it is @ 1240 / 1500. :p

But besides that, 'Synthetic' benching applications mean absolutely nothing. Heaven is not a game
 
Last edited:
humbug said:
Hmmm...

7950 WF3 @ 1150/1250
GTX 670 WF3 @ 1340/1850

Yeah the GTX 670 is a lot higher overclocked from stock than the 7950.

Thats why.

The score on my 7870 is a lot lower @ 1150 / 1250 than it is @ 1240 / 1500. :p

But besides that, 'Synthetic' benching applications mean absolutely nothing. Heaven is not a game
Click to expand...
Yeah, have to take into account - average boost for GTX 670 would be say 1280MHz (faster than a stock GTX 680), I guess most 7950 will do 1150 on the core, the 7950 didn't have the memory clocked.

Just guessing but the typical average cards, the 7950 will most likely have the lead slightly, I haven't really looked into it - was just dabbling around with getting the 7950 stable on the core.
 
Last edited:
Nelly said:
Yeah, have to take into account - average boost for GTX 670 would be say 1280MHz (faster than a stock GTX 680), I guess most 7950 will do 1150 on the core, the 7950 didn't have the memory clocked.

Just guessing but the typical average cards, the 7950 will most likely have the lead slightly, I haven't really looked into it.
Click to expand...

Lets put it this way, i can get 66 FPS on a 7870 @ 1240 / 1500 with those settings.

It have 40% less cores and much slower memory than the 7950. :)
The 78##'s memory is Binned for 1250Mhz, the 79## are Binned for 1500Mhz

The 7950's memory will easily get to 1700, perhaps 1800. And most of them will core 1200 when properly pushed.
 
Last edited:
Dannyboy84 said:
if farcry 3 and bf3 dont use physx then i may go and ati will see what nice deals are about when i have the money :D just seen there is a nice 680 deal on the forums at the minute

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-189-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2255

still £60 over budget but maybe worth the extra if i can afford it :D

Cheers for the help peeps!
Click to expand...

They don't use PhysX. The only newish games which use PhysX are Borderlands 2, Metro 2033, Planetside 2, Batman and Mirror's Edge. Personally, the effects in Borderlands 2 are really good but the others are less noteworthy.

680 isn't really 'worth' anything over a 670 although if you aren't overclocking then it's a pretty decent deal at £360. The best value for money card is the 7950 by a long stretch at the top end of the hierarchy but it must be stated that it isn't a particularly fast card out the box. Its speed comes from overclocking it. Don't let that put you off, it's extremely easy and you can get HUGE performance increases from doing it as the 7950 has a gigantic headroom for overclocking. Overclocks in excess of 50% are not unheard of.

Plus, me and others are always willing to help :).

I had two 680s previously and one was an awesome clocker. It reached in excess of 1300 MHz which is almost unheard of for a non-Lightning 680. If we say it averaged 90 FPS in BF3 for arguments sake... my 7950 averaged 82-83 FPS which for just over half the cash is really decent. If you consider that my 680 was pretty beastly then you can surmise that the 'real' terms difference between the cards is 5% or less. I think this is crux when people are saying that the 7950 is the card to get at the moment it's just unfortunate not everyone takes the time to explain why. It's understandable I guess as it does take some time to explain :).
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom