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Move to Nvidia now or wait?

Tazzfalcon

Tazzfalcon

Tazzfalcon

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Joined
8 Mar 2011
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812
Location
London
I'm having some trouble getting my radeon 6950 to run at 6970 speeds on my new signature rig - I've got it unlocked and working but there is a lot of screen flicker due to a CCC/afterburner driver issue or some nonsense.

I'm very much over CCC and AMD drivers to be honest. So naturally I'm now looking around for what I could get on the green team.

So would this be a worthy upgrade over a stock HD 6970?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-209-EA

EVGA GeForce GTX 660Ti FTW Signature 2 2048MB PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-3664-KR) with FREE Assassin's Creed III & FTP Currency


Or this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...14&subcat=2294

MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Assassin's Creed III & FTP Currency

Is the 670 actually faster than the 660ti given that it has a lower clock speed?

What sort of FPS gains would I be looking at for each over my current setup? Cheers all.
 
I think the 670 would be a better investment over the 660Ti, if you decide to SLI, the scaling would be better.

The bench for 660 vs 670 is here

There are a fair few games out there which outperform on nVidia card when compared to ATI, BF3 being one of them.
 
OK, well if I jump I'll definitively for 670 then.

I guess the question is, should I?

I game at 1080p - will I see a decent bump and be able to play everything at ultra again? Far Cry 3 for example? BF3, and the next 12-18months or so?

When are the GTX 700 series making an appearance and are other people waiting for them?
 
Far Cry 3 can't be maxed on crossfire 7950s (which is a touch faster than 670 SLI) so you won't be able to max FC3 but you'll be able to run nicely on 2x MSAA. You'll be able to max BF3.

For the future: who knows! I doubt a 670 will be maxing games in 12 months time. Indeed it isn't really now in all cases (neither is a 7970/680 though so...).

670 is the better purchase on the nVidia side over the 660Ti which is awful value for money and has a narrow memory bus which will be bad when you apply MSAA.
 
Tazzfalcon said:
I'm having some trouble getting my radeon 6950 to run at 6970 speeds on my new signature rig - I've got it unlocked and working but there is a lot of screen flicker due to a CCC/afterburner driver issue or some nonsense.
Click to expand...

Regarding the issues you describe...

That is because you're using an un-supported third party application to unlock voltage control and overclocking using an API which AMD does not support. I know you're switching cards now but i will explain why this occurred. If you had followed this guide ( http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18431335 ) then you would have been able to overclock using AMD's official power play tables and hence you wouldn't have any 'flickering' or 'weird issues' as you describe them. :)
 
Rusty0611 said:
Far Cry 3 can't be maxed on crossfire 7950s (which is a touch faster than 670 SLI) so you won't be able to max FC3 but you'll be able to run nicely on 2x MSAA. You'll be able to max BF3.
Click to expand...

Stange, I maxed out FC3 on 7950s crossfire, and on a single one...@2650x1440p
 
LtMatt said:
Regarding the issues you describe...

That is because you're using an un-supported third party application to unlock voltage control and overclocking using an API which AMD does not support. I know you're switching cards now but i will explain why this occurred. If you had followed this guide ( http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18431335 ) then you would have been able to overclock using AMD's official power play tables and hence you wouldn't have any 'flickering' or 'weird issues' as you describe them. :)
Click to expand...

I'll give this a go tonight.

I won't be SLI'ing GTX 670's anytime soon!
 
Fair play Rusty, thanks for the info.

LtMatt: Cheers for that I will do. The only issues that I can think of looking it over is that doesn't windows automatically DL driver software on reboot after you've uninstalled them? How do you stop that from happening?

Also, for some reason I always seem to have a problem with overscan (or rather lack of it), can that be fixed without CCC, or can you put CCC back on once you've followed the other steps in your guide?

I can put this on the other thread if you'd prefer.

Cheers all.
 
Tazzfalcon said:
I'm having some trouble getting my radeon 6950 to run at 6970 speeds on my new signature rig - I've got it unlocked and working but there is a lot of screen flicker due to a CCC/afterburner driver issue or some nonsense.

I'm very much over CCC and AMD drivers to be honest. So naturally I'm now looking around for what I could get on the green team.

So would this be a worthy upgrade over a stock HD 6970?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-209-EA

EVGA GeForce GTX 660Ti FTW Signature 2 2048MB PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-3664-KR) with FREE Assassin's Creed III & FTP Currency


Or this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...14&subcat=2294

MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Assassin's Creed III & FTP Currency

Is the 670 actually faster than the 660ti given that it has a lower clock speed?

What sort of FPS gains would I be looking at for each over my current setup? Cheers all.
Click to expand...

One thing I love about people's perception is with whom the fault lays. It seems the default opinion of a lot of people on the forums I visit when they have problems with Afterburner is:

GTX card + MSi AfterBurner = MSi AfterBurner problem
Radeon card + MSi AfterBurner = AMD/Catalyst problem

Nevertheless, the problem stems from the fact that after Catalyst 12.3, AMD stopped distributing the atipdlxx.dll file in their drivers. For one version of AfterBurner, MSi included the file in its folder which meant the older way of overclocking still worked but after that they got rid of the file as well.

I could paraphrase how to resolve the problem but it's easier to direct you to this thread (post #1) which resolves the flickering problem. Long story short, the MSi unofficial overclocking causes conflicts with AMD CCC. MSi may have fixed this with their latest beta version of AfterBurner.

By using the /xcl command in Afterburner, its settings will override those of the Catalyst Control Centre, allowing the overclock limits to be extended and overvolting (if your card has it) to be unlocked.

---------------------------------------

As far as upgrading, with your original card being so good, you shouldn't be looking at anything less than 670/7950 levels.

The 7950 (especially those with Boost) compare very well to the 670s in terms of performance and price. Also, you would receive Bioshock and Crysis 3 for free.

This MSi 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost is IMO the best graphics card deal on OCUK for £260. And it has a stock core clock of 960MHz which means it has great performance even if you don't overclock it.

If you want the absolute quietest card, then the HIS IceQ 7950 fits the bill at £275.99.

You should check out some articles to see how far the Catalyst drivers have come in the past year. My 7850 has gained more than 10% performance in a lot of games going from CCC 12.3 to 13.1. Also, the Southern Island cards (7000 series) have almost linear scaling between core clock and frames per second. If you OC 20%, you should be looking at nearly 20% more performance.

Good luck with your decision!
If you are determined to switch over to nVidia, then without a doubt the 670 provides the best price/performance ratio.

Goo
 
Tazzfalcon said:
LtMatt: Cheers for that I will do. The only issues that I can think of looking it over is that doesn't windows automatically DL driver software on reboot after you've uninstalled them? How do you stop that from happening?

Also, for some reason I always seem to have a problem with overscan (or rather lack of it), can that be fixed without CCC, or can you put CCC back on once you've followed the other steps in your guide?

I can put this on the other thread if you'd prefer.
Click to expand...

You can disable windows from doing that Tazzfalcon. Which version of windows are you using?

Not sure about the overscan issue, but that's something we can figure out, if not there will be others here that will help. When you install the drivers use the express option so you install CCC as well. Make sure you download and install the latest 13.2 beta 7 version.
 
Tazzfalcon said:
Really appreciate the help LtMatt, I'm on Windows 7 64bit Ultimate
Click to expand...

Happy to help.

1. Start Menu search box : type change device installation settings
Once you click on that to start it up you will get the following dialog that gives you two choices:

2. The top option: Yes, do this automatically is the recommended setting.
When the second option is selected the options expand:

3. When it is expanded you see a default choice and this is basically the same as the automatic option above. The other two choices are the big difference here.
Install driver software from Windows Update if it is not found on my computer. This will search your computer first instead of Windows Update. If it is not found locally then it will go to Windows Update and look there for a driver.
Never install driver software from Windows Update. The system will always ask you to provide the device driver.
We want to enable "Never install driver software from Windows Update"
Then click on Save Changes

4. Now your Windows won't automatically download drivers.

Copied straight from google. :D
 
Google FTW LtMatt!

Will it be safe to turn on again after the rest of the process? It's a useful feature to have day-to-day.

Cheers!
 
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