7850 to 660Ti - Weird situation

humbug · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:58

SkodaMart said:
I am reading this with interest. I have just sent a HD 7950 back, because of minor artifacting and generally poor game play, stutters.
I have tested it on World of Tanks - which I know is a very bad example as the 0.8.0 update is very buggy.
The performance in The Witcher 2 though is poor, and not a patch on the 470 GTX SLI combination it replaces.
I have also had problems with ATi drivers corrupting the sound (Realtek) in the Heaven 3.0 Benchmark.
I have therefore purchased an nVidia card for the same budget and ended up with a GTX 660 TI.
I would have liked to have stretched my budget to the 670 GTX really.

All in all I wish I had kept 470 GTX SLi but it will be interesting to compare the two cards.
I get great frame rates with my HD 7950 but it just doesn't feel as smoioth as it was with 470 GTX SLI which is bizzare for a single card.

Pepole should really ask for help if they are having problems with a Graphics card instead of just blindly sending it back.
often it's simply user error that's causing problems.

I would be surprised if they didn't send it right back to you unless they can actually find fault with it, in which case it's a faulty card and nothing else.

Gregster · 12 Oct 2012 at 00:06

humbug said:
Pepole should really ask for help if they are having problems with a Graphics card instead of just blindly sending it back.
often it's simply user error that's causing problems.

I would be surprised if they didn't send it right back to you unless they can actually find fault with it, in which case it's a faulty card and nothing else.

I agree but maybe some people are not so daft with computers and try all the usual fixes to no avail, just to give up and find they have better luck with the other side?

~>Dg<~ · 12 Oct 2012 at 00:14

at end of day msaa x4 isnt worth it !

humbug · 12 Oct 2012 at 01:01

gregster said:
I agree but maybe some people are not so daft with computers and try all the usual fixes to no avail, just to give up and find they have better luck with the other side?

Sure, but if they are used to the other side they may not understand this side.

A simple thing like removing leftover Nvidia driver bits might have cured it.

Certainly it's not uncommon for people switching from Nvidia to AMD to suffer problems, only to later find Nvidia's leftover Drivers were the cause, Or Windows still being set for SLI in the registry, that would explain a lot of his problems

Even if your and IT expert it never hurts to ask, there is always someone who knows something you don't.

Richeh · 12 Oct 2012 at 02:20

~>Dg<~ said:
at end of day msaa x4 isnt worth it !

I hope you sit 5.5ft away from a 46" 1080p HDTV to make that call

Anyway putting the thread back on topic. For BF3 performance at 1080p Full Ultra with MSAA. Just to clarify:

660Ti Stock > 7850 Stock

7850 OC <> 660Ti Stock

660Ti OC > 7850 OC

7950 Stock <> 660Ti OC

7950 OC > 660Ti OC

7950 = £230

660Ti = £250

= 7950

Or did I miss something?

humbug · 12 Oct 2012 at 02:31

Richeh said:
I hope you sit 5.5ft away from a 46" 1080p HDTV to make that call

Anyway putting the thread back on topic. For BF3 performance at 1080p Full Ultra with MSAA. Just to clarify:

660Ti Stock > 7850 Stock

7850 OC <> 660Ti Stock

660Ti OC > 7850 OC

7950 Stock <> 660Ti OC

7950 OC > 660Ti OC

7950 = £230

660Ti = £250

= 7950

Or did I miss something?

Nope

Bacon? · 12 Oct 2012 at 06:44

I wonder if that AnandTech benchmark uses the latest drivers. The last I saw was the latest drivers put AMD and the same level as Nvidia.

Rusty0611 · 12 Oct 2012 at 09:58

Richeh said:
7950 Stock < 660Ti OC

Or did I miss something?

Minor correction. Otherwise spot on

.

SkodaMart · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:07

OK, update.

My new 660 Ti is here.
It is running great and all my problems are solved.
I returned the HD 7950 within the 14 day satitisfaction period as I was unhappy with it.

If you want ATi in your case go ahead, but to me nVidia is just a better product, games just run smoother even though the frame rate may be sligthly lower with this particular card.

I loved my GTX 470 SLi setup, and this new 660 Ti also looks very promising, I will be very surprised if there is anyone out there who is disappointed with the 660 Ti.
For the record, yes, I think it is overpriced but it works and i'm happy with it.
I wasn't happy with the HD7950 I wont miss it for a second! I am far from a noob, I have succesfully built half a dozen systems now.

arc@css · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:09

Glad you like your new card. Enjoy.

spixelspixel · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:11

SkodaMart said:
OK, update.

My new 660 Ti is here.
It is running great and all my problems are solved.
I returned the HD 7950 within the 14 day satitisfaction period as I was unhappy with it.

If you want ATi in your case go ahead, but to me nVidia is just a better product, games just run smoother even though the frame rate may be sligthly lower with this particular card.

I loved my GTX 470 SLi setup, and this new 660 Ti also looks very promising, I will be very surprised if there is anyone out there who is disappointed with the 660 Ti.
For the record, yes, I think it is overpriced but it works and i'm happy with it.
I wasn't happy with the HD7950 I wont miss it for a second! I am far from a noob, I have succesfully built half a dozen systems now.

Better put your fire retardant suit on.

TheRealDeal · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:20

spixelspixel said:
Better put your fire retardant suit on.

Why as he obviously had a faulty card. Its pretty much common knowledge that the 7950 is superior to the 660ti but what matters most is that hes happy. There is no difference in smoothness between each brands single gpu cards and the majority will agree if you stuck a 7970ghz edition in a pc and gave somebody a shot of bf3 they would not know the difference if you told them they were playing on a gtx680.

SkodaMart · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:25

I don't deny that the HD7950 I had may have been faulty.
I don't play BF3 although I may do in the future.

The games I play currently are The Witcher 2 and World of Tanks and both of these games show a significant improvement with the nVidia card.

The MSI 660 TI is a demon overclocker, I have not tried much yet other than raise the memory by 250 MHz to help compensate for the low memory bandwith.
It has given me a significant improvement already.

Before anyone jumps in and says the HD 7950 is also a great overclocker, mine was artifacting at stock.

SkodaMart · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:27

SkodaMart said:
OK, update.

It is running great and all my problems are solved.

Computer related that is!!

SkodaMart · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:30

humbug said:
A simple thing like removing leftover Nvidia driver bits might have cured it.

Certainly it's not uncommon for people switching from Nvidia to AMD to suffer problems, only to later find Nvidia's leftover Drivers were the cause, Or Windows still being set for SLI in the registry, that would explain a lot of his problems

It was a fresh Windows 7 install on a new HDD

TheRealDeal · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:33

SkodaMart said:
I don't deny that the HD7950 I had may have been faulty.
I don't play BF3 although I may do in the future.

The games I play currently are The Witcher 2 and World of Tanks and both of these games show a significant improvement with the nVidia card.

The MSI 660 TI is a demon overclocker, I have not tried much yet other than raise the memory by 250 MHz to help compensate for the low memory bandwith.
It has given me a significant improvement already.

Before anyone jumps in and says the HD 7950 is also a great overclocker, mine was artifacting at stock.

Pretty surprised at the witcher 2 as that seems to be strong on amd cards as you can see from the graph in the image below. World of tanks i would not have a clue about. It really does sound like a faulty 7950 with the artifacts or maybe it came with the voltage set to low.

http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1345736700tJwmf64Bk6_2_5_l.gif

SkodaMart · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:37

TheRealDeal said:
Pretty surprised at the witcher 2 as that seems to be strong on amd cards as you can see from the graph in the image below. World of tanks i would not have a clue about. It really does sound like a faulty 7950 with the artifacts or maybe it came with the voltage set to low.

http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1345736700tJwmf64Bk6_2_5_l.gif

The Witcher 2 has lower frame rates with the nVidia card but things just move more fluidly.
I am not trying to say nVidia is better than ATi, just that I know which brand I will be sticking with.

I guess that now makes me a fan boy, but at least I tried the other side.

spixelspixel · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:39

TheRealDeal said:
Why as he obviously had a faulty card. Its pretty much common knowledge that the 7950 is superior to the 660ti but what matters most is that hes happy. There is no difference in smoothness between each brands single gpu cards and the majority will agree if you stuck a 7970ghz edition in a pc and gave somebody a shot of bf3 they would not know the difference if you told them they were playing on a gtx680.

He said nvidia is a better product, not going to agree or disagree with him but one thing I have noticed from browsing ocuk forums for a while is that there seems to be a lot more amd cards which artifact/are faulty out of the box than nvidia cards.

That graph is 2560, which the 660 ti see's a performance decrease at.

http://www.techspot.com/review/565-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/page8.html - I love conflicting reviews!

TheRealDeal · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:40

SkodaMart said:
The Witcher 2 has lower frame rates with the nVidia card but things just move more fluidly.
I am not trying to say nVidia is better than ATi, just that I know which brand I will be sticking with.

I guess that now makes me a fan boy, but at least I tried the other side.

Yea its sometimes best to stick with what you know. The thing is if what you were saying was true for the majority amd would have no customers as smoothness in games is a must.

tommybhoy · 12 Oct 2012 at 19:44

By your posts, it looks like your blaming rubbish gaming performance on AMD, shoddy performance rather than realising it was all down to a gubbed GPU.

It doesn't matter, whether you installed properly or not, a gubbed card is a gubbed card, obviously any working card is going to be better.

W2 has ran fine on various Amd cards I've used, WOT worked without issue on the 69's too.

At the end of the day, you are delighted with what you have, that's the main thing. :-)