AthlonX2judging by the reviews, AMD is in trouble when the 660 kills the 7950,and the 7970 in some cases

According to Linus Tech Tips, it does kill a 7950

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTujzlj11I8

too dear...........

AlienIsGODselling reference cards @ $299 right now

I think we all know that and all the W1zzard has tested are pricier custom/OC'd, well other than the MSI Power Edition which is $300 -AR$10 at Egg... a good deal for sure. :rockout:

However given a reference 7870 is shown to trail by approximately 10% at 1920x from that MSI card everyone is right in the hunt. Any OC AMD 7870 for around $270 maintains on that same price/performance line. Right today there’s several nice 7870 like the Gigabyte GV-R787OC-2GD (1100Mhz) for $280 –AR$20. Considering AMD has of yet never officially cut its price I'd figure we'll see $250-260 right quick.

I’d hope this could to be a fiercely price point. Given these GK104 are the geldings on a smurf board, one would imagine Nvidia can be very aggressive, but will they? I also suppose AMD won't go much lower with the 7950, they'll transition to the Boost version and maintain a $300+ price even after rebates. That means this GTX660Ti has to be able to roll as 7870 reduce? Something tells me AMD won't go south of $250, given the fact Nvidia still needs a GTX650 and GTX660 "Non Ti" to show. So we wait...

BenetanegiaYeah that's BS. The gap between 7870 and 7970 is 33%. I'll believe it when I see it.

So the 7870 Sapphire Flex OC at 1215 MHz is 22% behind on BF3 with Catalyst 12.4 (now 12.8). And that’s the one game where Nvidia has the drivers down-pat, so we’ll can bestow that to Nvidia. Now, how many other titles would be that far apart? How about Metro?

CasecutterSo the 7870 Sapphire Flex OC at 1215 MHz is 22% behind on BF3 with Catalyst 12.4 (now 12.8). And that’s the one game where Nvidia has the drivers down-pat, so we’ll can bestow that to Nvidia. Now, how many other titles would be that far apart? How about Metro?

On Metro and pretty much any other game, the difference between 7870 and 7970 is the same. Games that favour AMD like Metro will favour the 7970 too. On other games it will be different. On average it balances out but the difference remains.

I'm talking about AMD vs AMD, Nvidia vs Nvidia. 660 Ti OCed bests 670 (and in the process 7970 too because they are mostly equal), but 7870 does not best 7970, it remains at least 10% behind and at the end of the day as the charts show 660Ti is some 10-15% faster than 7870 overcloked or not.

And I don't know why people say that Nvidia has an advantage in Battlefield 3. Its results and W1zzard's average of all games are nearly identical.



Couple of % difference and I suspect that's why W1zzard uses it for OC performance, apart from being one the most advanced engines. It's Metro and very few other games which typically deviate from the norm.

Here is an interesting summary of the 660 Tis from all the reviews

On a side note:
Did Nvidia not send out referance cards for reviewers ? Some sites have the numbers but they dont point out if its a % differance to the OC card in review or that of a base clock referance card, not downclocked from OC being reviewed. Curious to know or get a better clarification.
I would have settled for a EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB review. :ohwell:

CasecutterI think we all know that and all the W1zzard has tested are pricier custom/OC'd, well other than the MSI Power Edition which is $300 -AR$10 at Egg... a good deal for sure. :rockout:

However given a reference 7870 is shown to trail by approximately 10% at 1920x from that MSI card everyone is right in the hunt. Any OC AMD 7870 for around $270 maintains on that same price/performance line. Right today there’s several nice 7870 like the Gigabyte GV-R787OC-2GD (1100Mhz) for $280 –AR$20. Considering AMD has of yet never officially cut its price I'd figure we'll see $250-260 right quick.

I’d hope this could to be a fiercely price point. Given these GK104 are the geldings on a smurf board, one would imagine Nvidia can be very aggressive, but will they? I also suppose AMD won't go much lower with the 7950, they'll transition to the Boost version and maintain a $300+ price even after rebates. That means this GTX660Ti has to be able to roll as 7870 reduce? Something tells me AMD won't go south of $250, given the fact Nvidia still needs a GTX650 and GTX660 "Non Ti" to show. So we wait...

So the 7870 Sapphire Flex OC at 1215 MHz is 22% behind on BF3 with Catalyst 12.4 (now 12.8). And that’s the one game where Nvidia has the drivers down-pat, so we’ll can bestow that to Nvidia. Now, how many other titles would be that far apart? How about Metro?

yet you disagreed with someone who posted before asking if a $300 was a realized price.

AlienIsGODcare to link some? and by some i mean RELIABLE sources such as TPU. Dont link some Toms garbage or Fudzilla either.

What's wrong with Tom's? That is the first tech site I ever visited and I still think it is good. Bad blood between the sites? I usually visit TPU, Guru3d, Tom's, Anand, and Harwareheaven. Reading comments at Tom's makes me want to punch the nearest baby though...

same worst shape like gtx 670

Nvm.

RecusNice try. Where did you been when Evergreen and Northern Islands was joke at GPGPU?



Start jihad, then.

You are kind of cherry picking there by taking a piece out of a larger sentence. I said MOST PEOPLE DONT CARE BUT.... In any case it should still be addressed since some do.

NihilusYou are kind of cherry picking there by taking a piece out of a larger sentence. I said MOST PEOPLE DONT CARE BUT.... In any case it should still be addressed since some do.

You are right. How did I missed it yesterday? :o :toast:

BenetanegiaYeah that's BS. The gap between 7870 and 7970 is 33%. I'll believe it when I see it.

On Wizzard's reviews it doesn't even come close from what I remember. The GTX 660 Ti does surpass 670 and 7970 when OCed:

tpucdn.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7870_Flex/images/perf_oc.giftpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_660_Ti_Power_Edition/images/perf_oc.gif

Battlefield 3 is not really a fair assesment as it's always gonna run nicer on the Nivida it's specially tuned for it and Nvidia's Tessallation handling is better and better in that game as well. Same could be said for Skyrim results because that game is tuned for AMD; however, If I'm correct the Zotac amped 660 TI matched the 7870. www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/14 That's not bad for Nvidia on a AMD tailored game. That's actually a more surprising result IMO.

All in all I've heard the GTX 660 TI is 8% faster than the GTX 580 with about 100Watt less TPD. Honestly it gets an Eh "so close" rating as I was expecting a 15-18% increase of the GTX 580... Hopefully they will come out with a 32ROP and 256bit version soon or by x-mas. That would be the one worth jumping on IMO.

RigRebelBattlefield 3 is not really a fair assesment as it's always gonna run nicer on the Nivida it's specially tuned for it and Nvidia's Tessallation handling is better and better in that game as well.

Like I said in a previous post that's not true at all, at least as far as W1zzard's benches go, the relative performance in BF3 and the average of all games is pretty similar in most cards.

And regarding Tesselation and Nvidia's superiority, that's something that nowadays reviewers shouldn't be afraid to expose, IMO. It's been long since DX11 launched, 3 generations and tesselation is a core function of it, it's a mostly fixed function, so optimizations et al don't play a part. If AMD is behind on the high end, is because they still use a dual engine for geometry, placed on the front end, whereas Nvidia uses 4 engines and many more tesselation units, scattered through all it's clusters.

Reviewers and fans alike don't seem to care about exposing other architectural defficiencies. For example even though the 1440p/1600p market is still tiny, reviewers don't hesitate to test those resolutions even though they will invariably turn the results in favor of cards with more bandwidth. But of course it's ok for them to do so, because that superiority does exist for those cards, no matter how niche the market can be. So IMO it's stupid that when this tesselation superiority is exposed in any form, "everyone" jumps on the benchmark or onto the reviewr that dared using it. If at all it shows how fast a card is in DX11.

BenetanegiaLike I said in a previous post that's not true at all, at least as far as W1zzard's benches go, the relative performance in BF3 and the average of all games is pretty similar in most cards.

And regarding Tesselation and Nvidia's superiority, that's something that nowadays reviewers shouldn't be afraid to expose, IMO. It's been long since DX11 launched, 3 generations and tesselation is a core function of it, it's a mostly fixed function, so optimizations et al don't play a part. If AMD is behind on the high end, is because they still use a dual engine for geometry, placed on the front end, whereas Nvidia uses 4 engines and many more tesselation units, scattered through all it's clusters.

Reviewers and fans alike don't seem to care about exposing other architectural defficiencies. For example even though the 1440p/1600p market is still tiny, reviewers don't hesitate to test those resolutions even though they will invariably turn the results in favor of cards with more bandwidth. But of course it's ok for them to do so, because that superiority does exist for those cards, no matter how niche the market can be. So IMO it's stupid that when this tesselation superiority is exposed in any form, "everyone" jumps on the benchmark or onto the reviewr that dared using it. If at all it shows how fast a card is in DX11.

Perhaps you got me all wrong, I know Nivida tesselation handling is better and has been since the 460... that's why I made the point to mention that is better and that it is better in BF3... it's also one of the reasons why I prefer the Nvidia cards over ATI/AMD. I said just ONE, there are many more.

Also, Being an Nvidia fan I still think it's unfair for those that look at BF3 as the do all say all when trying to compare Nvidia Vs Amd on scores. I think that is a gross biased being as that game is tailored for NVidia. Likewise, I would say the same for anyone using AVP or Skyrim to comopare Nvidia vs AMD.... Also, on the older game or res scores in testing I agree. Another example would be Starcraft 2... a lot of people say "who the heck cares about starcraft 2 and DX9 scores" What they don't realize is STarcraft 2 is one of THE MOST taxing game on GPU Core speed/graphics when done in 4vs4 online at max settings.

Also, asfar as I know AMD just went to Dual engine very recently as they were on that weird acryonmy (sorry can't remember at top of my head Trvlm or somthing like that) single read architecture. Didn't they just go to the Dual engine after coping fermi for the 7900 series ? AMD has always been behind the 8 ball on that account since the 460 if I remember correctly.

I'm just saying in my opinion when comparing AMD vs Nvidia picking games that are tailored one way or another is not exactly level ground imo. Now if you want to say ..."look how well Nvidia GTX 660 Ti rocks at BF3 for the price!" by all means go ahead it's correct. But to say "Look how well Nvidia GTX 660ti rocks at BF3 for the price therefore it's the best card ever" that's not entirely true... imo I only say this because data is data and should be interpreted and sifted for what it is ... not misconstrued be it in AMD favor or Nvidia.

RigRebelPerhaps you got me all wrong, I know Nivida tesselation handling is better and has been since the 460... that's why I made the point to mention that is better and that it is better in BF3... it's also one of the reasons why I prefer the Nvidia cards over ATI/AMD. I said just ONE, there are many more.

Also, Being an Nvidia fan I still think it's unfair for those that look at BF3 as the do all say all when trying to compare Nvidia Vs Amd on scores. I think that is a gross biased being as that game is tailored for NVidia. Likewise, I would say the same for anyone using AVP or Skyrim to comopare Nvidia vs BF3.... also, on the older game or res scores in testing I agree. Another example would be Starcraft 2... a lot of people say "who the heck cares about starcraft 2 and DX9 scores" What they don't realize is STarcraft 2 is one of THE MOST taxing game on GPU Core speed/graphics when done in 4vs4 online at max settings.

I'm just saying in my opinion when comparing AMD vs Nvidia picking games that are tailored one way or another is not exactly level ground imo.

I didn't pick anything. I took the graphs that W1zz uses to show performance improvement from OCing and used them exclusively for comparing improvement from OCing, 7870 vs 7870 OC and 660 vs 660, not to compare AMD with Nvidia. If BF3 is good for W1zz for showing OC performance, it sure is good for me. PLUS like I said, the premise that BF3 runs better in Nvidia cards is completely false, at least according to W1zzard's benches, as I showed by posting the results in post #30. The stacking of cards and relative performance is very similar in both cases (BF3 and average of all games tested by W1zz).

BenetanegiaI didn't pick anything. I took the graphs that W1zz uses to show performance improvement from OCing and used them exclusively for comparing improvement from OCing, 7870 vs 7870 OC and 660 vs 660, not to compare AMD with Nvidia. If BF3 is good for W1zz for showing OC performance, it sure is good for me. PLUS like I said, the premise that BF3 runs better in Nvidia cards is completely false, at least according to W1zzard's benches, as I showed by posting the results in post #30. The stacking of cards and relative performance is very similar in both cases (BF3 and average of all games tested by W1zz).

If that one game is good for you than cool, I'm glad you like and can get what you want out of the card... but can you say the same when you look at Skyrium ? If you get the amped version yes. Alls I am saying (and not trying to pick on you or say your wrong) is to be aware that all games are not equal and sometimes using one game and one game only as a defining benchmark is a more narrow example of the market rather than a bigger picture. Now is that bad ? not really, not if the only game you care about is BF3 then more power too ya. At this mid card level you really won't find a card that dominates all games, unless perhaps Nvidia can get with the program and up the ROPS and Memory Bus widith for the card and see what the 660Ti really can do. If they did that though they'd kill the GTx 670 imo because really other than the 1 extra core the only other 2 things seperating a 670 vs 660 Ti is the Rops and the Memory bus width. Also, AMD has more OC headroom than Nvidia has and that's a good point about AMD, perhaps one of the strongest, thus, if you want to put on an aftermarket heatsink and bios flash yea the 7850's will hit 1300+Mhz from @980Mhz on core EASY, and I mean EASY! There are just too many factors to consider to say one benchmark on one game is the do all say all unless of course that game is all you care about. If so :) enjoy the card and happy hunting :) nothing wrong with that. For me, my love for the GTX 60 based cards is for the balls out performance/$ they can do in SLI. To me, the very worth of the 60 cards are the performance in SLI. That's also primarily what drove the 448 core 560 Ti to be in exsistance because it's a card that could handle the graphics like a 570 but also SLI like a 560. Again, the main selling point for the 60 series card IMO is that 2 are beastly in SLI for the same price as the 80 series, IMO.

PS. I don't know what W1zz is saying about that card on BF3 but i've been monitoring BF3 scores on almost all Nvidia 5 and 6 series since it came out and I've consistently seen a higher difference on that game on Nvidia cards vs. any other game in review/bench test. It's not a bad thing, Nvidia has tried the "tailor fit game market" since Doom3 (which was a fail btw on Drivers) and AMD has their tailored fit games also ... I'm just saying using those tailor fit games as the main referrence point is skewed unless those games are the only games that matter to you as an individual the most. Happy hunting :toast:

www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/14 amped version does a better offering in Skyrim and most other games than referrence as well as BF3. That would be the "current" card to boast about imo.

RigRebelIf that one game is good for you than cool, I'm glad you like and can get what you want out of the card... but can you say the same when you look at Skyrium ? If you get the amped version yes. Alls I am saying (and not trying to pick on you or say your wrong) is to be aware that all games are not equal and sometimes using one game and one game only as a defining benchmark is a more narrow example of the market rather than a bigger picture. Now is that bad ? not really, not if the only game you care about is BF3 then more power too ya. At this mid card level you really won't find a card that dominates all games, unless perhaps Nvidia can get with the program and up the ROPS and Memory Bus widith for the card and see what the 660Ti really can do. If they did that though they'd kill the GTx 670 imo because really other than the 1 extra core the only other 2 things seperating a 670 vs 660 Ti is the Rops and the Memory bus width. Also, AMD has more OC headroom than Nvidia has and that's a good point about AMD, perhaps one of the strongest, thus, if you want to put on an aftermarket heatsink and bios flash yea the 7850's will hit 1300+Mhz from @980Mhz on core EASY, and I mean EASY! There are just too many factors to consider to say one benchmark on one game is the do all say all unless of course that game is all you care about. If so :) enjoy the card and happy hunting :) nothing wrong with that. For me, my love for the GTX 60 based cards is for the balls out performance/$ they can do in SLI. To me, the very worth of the 60 cards are the performance in SLI. That's also primarily what drove the 448 core 560 Ti to be in exsistance because it's a card that could handle the graphics like a 570 but also SLI like a 560. Again, the main selling point for the 60 series card IMO is that 2 are beastly in SLI for the same price as the 80 series, IMO.

PS. I don't know what W1zz is saying about that card on BF3 but i've been monitoring BF3 scores on almost all Nvidia 5 and 6 series since it came out and I've consistently seen a higher difference on that game on Nvidia cards vs. any other game in review/bench test. It's not a bad thing, Nvidia has tried the "tailor fit game market" since Doom3 (which was a fail btw on Drivers) and AMD has their tailored fit games also ... I'm just saying using those tailor fit games as the main referrence point is skewed unless those games are the only games that matter to you as an individual the most. Happy hunting :toast:

www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/14 amped version does a better offering in Skyrim and most other games than referrence as well as BF3. That would be the "current" card to boast about imo.

You are not reading, so please read what I said first, before jumping to conclusions. If BF3 is faster with Nvidia cards is completely irrelevant. If it's comparatively faster for the 660 Ti, is faster for the 670 and 680 too. Likewise if BF3 is comparatively slower on the 7870, it's slower on the 7970 too. So again pay attention to W1zzard's graphs and you'll see that is in fact the case.

Some user said that the 7870 overclocks better than the 660 Ti which is false from what I've seen in various reviews.

He said that the 7870 could match a 7970 when overclocked. Which is false, except in extreme OC conditions, as can be seen in the review.

The same user said that the 660 Ti on the other hand can only barely match a stock 670 when overcloked, which is again false as the review shows the 660 Ti between the perf level of 670/7970 and 680.

And sure, higher OC are posible, which could arguably make the 7870 almost as fast as the 7970 (maybe), but that's true for both cards. The 660 Ti with a higher OC would definitely match a 680. Hence my point, OC vs OC or stock vs stock, the 660 Ti is always around 10% faster.