GTX 660 vs AMD 7870

[tviceman]

It's not misleading. MSI TF3 has binned 7950 chips in the 7970 PCB, 6+8 pin version. This would have been common knowledge if you visited the MSI TF3 owner's thread. It's not at all like recommending a random GTX470 card. The ASIC on 7950 MSI TF3 6+8 pin version is > 80%. Don't believe me, go buy one and test it for yourself.

Russian I think the only binning MSI and many (not saying all) other companies do is making sure the GPU will hit shipping clock speeds and be stable. I don't think their binning process is such that they are literally sorting the GPU's they receive and are placing them into categories (good, better, best) based on their testing performance.

I say this because I had a MSI hawk gtx560ti Hawk, supposedly the best gtx560ti MSI card you could buy. The card was overclocked quite heavily out of the box, but the voltage was so jacked up that there was no room left for additional overclocking. In other words, they took an average GK114 chip and over volted the crap out of it, and sold it to me. I tried reducing the voltage, but without luck. They "binned" that chip for it's operating speed, but they certainly did not differentiate it from a more component GF114 chip.

 

[RussianSensation]

tviceman, the MSI TF3 7950 hits 1050mhz on stock voltage of 1.175V. That's just how it is and not a single person on our forum who bought this card and put this voltage into it didn't get this level of performance. Most of them are hitting those clocks at 0.97-1.08V actually. 1050mhz = GTX680.

This card has a consistent ASIC > 80% for the 6+8 pin version. HD7950 has full 32 ROP / 384-bit setup of the flagship Tahiti XT vs. a neutered GK104 chip in the form of a crippled 24 / 192-bit arrangement. Since GTX660Ti already boosts very high from the factory in after-market versions, it barely scales with overclocking (the same for 660). This is pure mathematics. GTX660Ti OC won't beat the MSI TF3 7950 OC on air.

Some 7950 are consistently great overclockers = MSI TF3 and Sapphire Dual-X 950mhz are 2 such cards.

660Ti has no chance whatsoever against the MSI TF3 7950 by virtue of being slower out of the gate to begin with. HD7950 is 1 full class above the 660Ti, especially if you use mods, MSAA and even take 5 min to overclock it.

This has already been beaten to death during 660Ti launch. HD7950 OC is simply superior to 660Ti OC. The main competitor to an overclocked 7950 is actually a GTX670 OC.

This is again widely known and has been shown to be true just about everywhere. And like I said already when you get the 880mhz HD7950, you are at least as fast as after-market 660Ti cards. So really you have nothing to lose. This makes $274 CDN 7950 TF3 simply unbeatable against the 660Ti. We also know 660Ti gets hammered by MSAA and mods.

I am telling you that MSI TF3 7950 is an insane overclocker. You can ignore it, or believe it:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33909920&postcount=98

1050mhz on 1.175V is bare minimum. The "golden sample" HD7950 MSI TF3 gets 1050-1075mhz on 1.01V. You guys continue to ignore this. 1050mhz on a TF3 7950 is nothing, that's noob territory. These cards hit 1250-1300mhz on good cooling. They come factory undervolted. This is like buying a 2500K. Even the worst 2500K is still a good overclocker.

I seriously don't know where you guys have been when many of us have discussed how awesome the overclocking is on the MSI TF3 7950 6+8 pin version. It's not just the MSI TF3 7950 but other after-market 7950 cards. It's pretty funny how NV ships cherry-picked 660Ti that hit 1240mhz in reviews but 1050mhz on TF3 7950 is now a "Golden Sample" overclock.

660Ti to begin with is slower than HD7950 V2 at stock speeds.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-amd-radeon-hd-7950-mit-925-mhz/3/

At $274, this is a no brainer for the 7950 TF3 from a performance perspective.

If I wanted to be biased, I'd tell you that HD7950 would hit 1200mhz guaranteed and I know it's not true. All it takes is just 1050mhz to get you $500 GTX680.

 

[KompuKare]

tviceman, the MSI TF3 7950 hits 1050mhz on stock voltage of 1.175V. That's just how it is and not a single person hasn't gotten this who bought this card. Most of them are hitting those clocks at 0.97-1.08V actually.

This card is binned since the ASIC comes > 80% not the 6+8 pin.

Some 7950 cards have been shown from owner's thread to consistenly get insanely overclocking 7950 chips = MSI TF3 and Sapphire Dual-X 950mhz are 2 such cards.

The only 7950 I got to try was this Asus DirectTU II and while very quiet it was a silicon lottery loser: ASIC was 60% and it was set to 1.07V for 900MHz. Only had a quick play but I was able to undervolt to 0.95V at the same 900MHz (saving between 20W-30W at Kompustor load). Also tried going the other way but it wasn't stable at 1050MHz at 1.07V. What I didn't try is going to past 1050MHz while giving it more juice.

Anyway for me the most interesting bit was huge power difference going down to 0.95V made. (Caveat: yes I only have a cheap domestic 'kill-a-watt type device for measureing).

AMD should take a few pages from Nvidia's book and introduce a few more binned parts: like all chips under 75% ASIC should into 7930 cards. Pity ASIC reading doesn't work for Kepler since I would be interested to see what sort of chip quality and leakage 660TI's have.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

tviceman, the MSI TF3 7950 hits 1050mhz on stock voltage of 1.175V. That's just how it is and not a single person on our forum who bought this card and put this voltage into it didn't get this level of performance. Most of them are hitting those clocks at 0.97-1.08V actually. 1050mhz = GTX680.

This card has a consistent ASIC > 80% for the 6+8 pin version. HD7950 has full 32 ROP / 384-bit setup of the flagship Tahiti XT vs. a neutered GK104 chip in the form of a crippled 24 / 192-bit arrangement. Since GTX660Ti already boosts very high from the factory in after-market versions, it barely scales with overclocking (the same for 660). This is pure mathematics. GTX660Ti OC won't beat the MSI TF3 7950 OC on air.

Some 7950 cards have been shown from owner's thread to consistenly get insanely overclocking 7950 chips = MSI TF3 and Sapphire Dual-X 950mhz are 2 such cards.

660Ti has no chance whatsoever against the MSI TF3 7950 by virtue of being slower out of the gate to begin with. HD7950 is 1 full class above the 660Ti, especially if you use mods, MSAA and even take 5 min to overclock it.

This has already been beaten to death during 660Ti launch. HD7950 OC is simply superior to 660Ti OC. The main competitor to an overclocked 7950 is actually a GTX670 OC.

This is again widely known and has been shown to be true just about everywhere. And like I said already when you get the 880mhz HD7950, you are at least as fast as after-market 660Ti cards. So really you have nothing to lose. This makes $274 CDN 7950 TF3 simply unbeatable against the 660Ti. We also know 660Ti gets hammered by MSAA and mods.

I am telling you that MSI TF3 7950 is an insane overclocker. You can ignore it, or believe it:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33909920&postcount=98

1050mhz on 1.175V is bare minimum. The "golden sample" HD7950 MSI TF3 gets 1050-1075mhz on 1.01V. You guys continue to ignore this. 1050mhz on a TF3 7950 is nothing, that's noob territory. These cards hit 1250-1300mhz on good cooling. They come factory undervolted. This is like buying a 2500K. Even the worst 2500K is still a good overclocker.

I seriously don't know where you guys have been when many of us have discussed how awesome the overclocking is on the MSI TF3 7950 6+8 pin version. It's not just the MSI TF3 7950 but other after-market 7950 cards. It's pretty funny how NV ships cherry-picked 660Ti that hit 1240mhz in reviews but 1050mhz on TF3 7950 is now a "Golden Sample" overclock.

660Ti to begin with is slower than HD7950 V2 at stock speeds.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-amd-radeon-hd-7950-mit-925-mhz/3/

At $274, this is a no brainer for the 7950 TF3 from a performance perspective.

You keep repeating yourself, perhaps because you aren't convinced yourself?

Or is your tactic to dismay people with huge posts with nothing new?

Do you have a link for the $274 TF3?

 

[3DVagabond]

I see no reason for not recommending the GTX 660 Ti as Balla did since the bundle does factor-in per the OP.

While the math was a little off for the comparative due to good BL2 sales, it doesn't disqualify the GTX 660 Ti for being a good option for the OP and within reasonable money of his first two original options (GTX 660/HD 7870.)

I'd buy a GTX 660 Ti today if I wanted to buy BL2. What's so wrong with that?

I've never seen the retail price of a game just simply be subtracted from the price paid before. Typically it's ~$20 for a single game. Then when the same is done with the game that AMD includes, well then that game just sucks, so it doesn't even count. Was anyone using or allowing the full retail price of the 4 game bundle that AMD had? I think people were adjusting by ~$30. Again, what was said was , "Those games suck." The math was more than a little off. It was purposely twisted, IMO. LOL

I too would buy the 660ti if it didn't have less bandwidth, less RAM, slower performance, but still cost as much. The only reason anyone is going to pay as much for a 660ti over a 7950 is if they simply prefer nVidia. Or are misinformed. If someone has a brand preference, that's fine. Being misinformed, not good. Someone here is going to object to that. It's not going to matter whether you are touting AMD or nVidia either. Someone's going to call you on it.

 

[Rvenger]

If I wanted to be biased, I'd tell you that HD7950 would hit 1200mhz guaranteed and I know it's not true. All it takes is just 1050mhz to get you $500 GTX680.

It takes 1050mhz to get to a GTX 670. 1100mhz+ to get a a 680. 7970 and 680 are identical clock for clock. 7950 is about 50mhz behind.

My 7950 wouldn't even hit 1150mhz without artifacting no matter what voltage. It was an MSI TF3 7950 on 7970 PCB with ASIC score of 87.9. I would say that I had one of the worst TF3 7950 but the thing did run very cool compared to others. 1125 @ 1.17v and never peaked past 75c.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I've never seen the retail price of a game just simply be subtracted from the price paid before. Typically it's ~$20 for a single game. Then when the same is done with the game that AMD includes, well then that game just sucks, so it doesn't even count. Was anyone using or allowing the full retail price of the 4 game bundle that AMD had? I think people were adjusting by ~$30. Again, what was said was , "Those games suck." The math was more than a little off. It was purposely twisted, IMO. LOL

I too would buy the 660ti if it didn't have less bandwidth, less RAM, slower performance, but still cost as much. The only reason anyone is going to pay as much for a 660ti over a 7950 is if they simply prefer nVidia. Or are misinformed. If someone has a brand preference, that's fine. Being misinformed, not good. Someone here is going to object to that. It's not going to matter whether you are touting AMD or nVidia either. Someone's going to call you on it.

We used Sleeping Dogs to subtract from the cost of the 7950, the going rate was about $20 which we took off the cost. Since the OP never stated an interest in the game we didn't make up interest for him but decided he'd go through the trouble of selling it anyways.


The idea was the game was desired, and the card was wanted to play the game.


You seem to have been unable to track what happened. Maybe I can walk you through it, what part didn't you understand? I'll use GMG prices for the game this time, my apologies with the last.

OP asked about $220-$230 price range cards, I said the 660Ti at the time was going for $290, with the game, while the 660 did not have the game, the prices were really close, the 660 Ti seemed like a better option than the latter.

The 7950 came in at $280, considering where the thread had gone it was argued that the $280 is a good choice, against in this case the 660 Ti (based on the idea that you didn't have to pay for the game you wanted to get the card to play). I'll turn the numbers around maybe that will help you. To play Sleeping Dogs it costs you about $270 for the GTX 660, $285 with a GTX 660 Ti, to play Sleeping Dogs with a 7870, less the $20 from the other game it would cost you about $260. To play it with the 7950 it would cost you about $300.

I hope that helps, there is no bias here.

 

[Rvenger]

We used Sleeping Dogs to subtract from the cost of the 7950, the going rate was about $20 which we took off the cost. Since the OP never stated an interest in the game we didn't make up interest for him but decided he'd go through the trouble of selling it anyways.


The idea was the game was desired, and the card was wanted to play the game.


You seem to have been unable to track what happened. Maybe I can walk you through it, what part didn't you understand? I'll use GMG prices for the game this time, my apologies with the last.

OP asked about $220-$230 price range cards, I said the 660Ti at the time was going for $290, with the game, while the 660 did not have the game, the prices were really close, the 660 Ti seemed like a better option than the latter.

The 7950 came in at $280, considering where the thread had gone it was argued that the $280 is a good choice, against in this case the 660 Ti (based on the idea that you didn't have to pay for the game you wanted to get the card to play). I'll turn the numbers around maybe that will help you. To play Sleeping Dogs it costs you about $270 for the GTX 660, $275 with a GTX 660 Ti, to play Sleeping Dogs with a 7870, less the $20 from the other game it would cost you about $260. To play it with the 7950 it would cost you about $300.

I hope that helps, there is no bias here.

I wouldn't buy a bandwidth constained card to begin with. 192bit bus will more than likely hit a wall and if that doesn't, the 1.5gb of 'useful' RAM will.

7870/7950 would be better off in the long run IMO.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I wouldn't buy a bandwidth constained card to begin with. 192bit bus will more than likely hit a wall and if that doesn't, the 1.5gb of 'useful' RAM will.

7870/7950 would be better off in the long run IMO.

But you found a way to justify the 670?

Balla has been sacked, beaten, and thrown in Olds' basement. He won't be returning for some time.
-ViRGE

 

[Lepton87]

192bit bus vs 384bit bus, what are you guys even arguing about? Those cards are in different tiers when pushed to the limits. You can almost match a superior design with an inferior one by leaving almost no untapped performance left if the more robust design has more than 40% untapped performance. For me it's not brainier which card is a better buy.

 

[Rvenger]

But you found a way to justify the 670?

Im sorry but the 6970 had a 256bit bus width too and was a good performing card. 192bit is just neutered, especially for high resolutions and multimonitor setups. I knew you would jab at me about the 670. You need to come up with something better.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Im sorry but the 6970 had a 256bit bus width too and was a good performing card. 192bit is just neutered, especially for high resolutions and multimonitor setups. I knew you would jab at me about the 670. You need to come up with something better.

So did the 460 & 560 Ti


256 vs 192 with a pretty large price separation, seems legit.

I have a 320 bit bus :thumbsup:

 

[tviceman]

tviceman, the MSI TF3 7950 hits 1050mhz on stock voltage of 1.175V. SNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

You haven't tested every single card so you can't possibly claim that as fact. I know the cooler on those cards works EXTREMELY well, but I'm telling you from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE they do not grade their chips when binning for different models. Everything else you said had absolutely nothing to do with what I said, at all.

 

[zaydq]

You haven't tested every single card so you can't possibly claim that as fact. I know the cooler on those cards works EXTREMELY well, but I'm telling you from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE they do not grade their chips when binning for different models. Everything else you said had absolutely nothing to do with what I said, at all.

I can't see him being wrong though. 1.175v is the stock for 7970s. Current 7950s are being shipped built onto a 7970 pcb and shipping with voltages well below 1.175v. So, yeah, they all should hit 1050mhz by 1.175v, i hit 1200 at 1.168v. If a 7950 doesn't hit 1050mhz by 1.175v then honestly theres something RMA worthy about that card.

 

[RussianSensation]

It takes 1050mhz to get to a GTX 670.

This is 7950 at 1025mhz.

We know that at 925mhz, HD7950 trails HD7970 by just 5-6%. So at 1050mhz, it's faster than a 670.

1100mhz+ to get a a 680.

Here is a 7950 @ 1135mhz, easily faster than a 680 in one of the best games for Kepler architecture.

7970 and 680 are identical clock for clock.

7970 is actually faster clock for clock than a 680. It takes a 1Ghz 7970 = GTX680 since 1.05ghz HD7970 is 5-6% faster on average at 1080P and 12% faster at 1600P than a 680:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660/5/

^ This is why it takes a 1290mhz GPU Boosted GTX680 to compete against an 1165mhz HD7970.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/gr...eforce-gtx-680-msi-radeon-hd7970_6.html#sect0

My 7950 wouldn't even hit 1150mhz without artifacting no matter what voltage. It was an MSI TF3 7950 on 7970 PCB with ASIC score of 87.9. I would say that I had one of the worst TF3 7950 but the thing did run very cool compared to others. 1125 @ 1.17v and never peaked past 75c.

Not all 7950 cards will hit 1150mhz but anything above 1050mhz and GTX660Ti is behind since it can't reach GTX680 level of performance on air. If you get above 1050mhz on a 7950, you've just beaten all 660Tis. Then you have a large laundry list of games where 660Ti is completely uncompetitive.

Alan Wake
Batman AC
Dirt Showdown
Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition
Arma II
Metro 2033
Skyrim + ENB Mods

^ In which games does GTX660Ti lead HD7950 by 20-30%? It happens quite often for the 7950 vs. 660Ti actually. 660Ti has glaring performance issues in many titles that are not present on the 7950. When 7950 is slower, it's not much slower, but when 660Ti is behind, it's miles slower.

 

[zaydq]

To get back on track here, the OP should buy a 660ti considering he wants the game anyway. I see Balla's point, but I don't see his desire for Nvidia dominance.

 

[zaydq]

If you get above 1050mhz on a 7950, you've just beaten all 660Tis

To be realistic, at even 1Ghz you've beaten all 660tis.

 

[Lepton87]

To be realistic, at even 1Ghz you've beaten all 660tis.

To be awfully nitpicking, you can hard-mod 660Ti and pump a hell of a lot of voltage through that overpriced card and use exotic cooling, should be able to do 1.5GHz/1.7GHz at that frequencies it's gonna be faster than 7950. It all goes to show how much better 7950 is and that 660Ti is really a card a tier under it. Oced 7950 is competetive with oced GTX 680.

 

[Red Hawk]

Newegg has a pretty sweet deal on an Asus 7870 right now. $229.99, free shipping, and $209.99 after rebate. There are no rebates on any 660 GTXs right now and the least expensive are $229.99 plus shipping. Anyone buying a new card should go for the 7870.

 

[zaydq]

To be awfully nitpicking, you can hard-mod 660Ti and pump a hell of a lot of voltage through that overpriced card and use exotic cooling, should be able to do 1.5GHz/1.7GHz at that frequencies it's gonna be faster than 7950. It all goes to show how much better 7950 is and that 660Ti is really a card a tier under it. Oced 7950 is competetive with oced GTX 680.

What stops me from doing the same to a 7950? Let alone if you're going to drop the money on "exotic" cooling and spend the time and risk the hard modding, you may as well have bought a gtx 670 or 680.

 

[Red Hawk]

Lol, that sale went quick. Glad I grabbed one this time. Asus was probably clearing stock of its older 7870 SKU, so they're unlikely to restock it. HIS probably did the same with their older IceQ 7870 that went on sale for $209.99 a while back.

 

[Dark Shroud]

I find this to be a decent resource, here's the link for 7870s.

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#c=82,110

Sadly it hasn't caught up with that model being OOS yet.

 

[Lepton87]

What stops me from doing the same to a 7950? Let alone if you're going to drop the money on "exotic" cooling and spend the time and risk the hard modding, you may as well have bought a gtx 670 or 680.

You completely missed my point, I wasn't defending 660ti, actually quite the opposite. I merely pointed out that you can outperform a much stronger card with a weaker one by extreme overclocking, so technically saying that a 7950 at 1GHz is faster than any 660Ti is untrue. Of course, that's only a corner case. But I'm repeating myself, I already said all of that in my original post. So what's your point?

 

[zaydq]

You completely missed my point, I wasn't defending 660ti, actually quite the opposite. I merely pointed out that you can outperform a much stronger card with a weaker one by extreme overclocking, so technically saying that a 7950 at 1GHz is faster than any 660Ti is untrue. Of course, that's only a corner case. But I'm repeating myself, I already said all of that in my original post. So what's your point?

You're right, I re-read your post. My apologies.

 

[RussianSensation]

You completely missed my point, I wasn't defending 660ti, actually quite the opposite. I merely pointed out that you can outperform a much stronger card with a weaker one by extreme overclocking, so technically saying that a 7950 at 1GHz is faster than any 660Ti is untrue. Of course, that's only a corner case. But I'm repeating myself, I already said all of that in my original post. So what's your point?

Well I think we are talking about reasonable air cooled overclocking not 1.4-1.5Ghz on LN2.