ErroneousRex Posted September 20, 2012 Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) Hello All, Forgive me if this has been visited previously, as I went searching around the forums a bit and have found a thread or two about the 7950, 660ti, and similar cards, but maybe not these specific cards in comparison, so I figured I'd start my own. Although, if I've overlooked it, I'll gladly take a link to the face and read up. Here's the skinny. I'm currently working on my first performance build, which I sort of fell into, and am looking for a video card solution to compliment what I currently have. ASUS P8P67 Deluxe i5 2500K with a Xigmatek Dark Knight cooler 4 x 4GB Corsair Vengeance 1TB WD Caviar Black 680W Apevia Lightning (Upgrading to XFX 850w XXX next week) NZXT Phantom Will be running on a 42" plasma and a 23" LCD. I mostly game with RPGs and MMOs, with the occasional FPS, but what I'm looking to get out of this build, aside from gaming of course, is that I work a lot with the media arts(i.e. nearly any part of CS6 Master) to edit and render film, edit photography work, etc. I wasn't planning on starting my build for another six or so months, but a friend of a friend was trying to get rid of some barely, if at all, used parts he had for a rebuild before deploying, selling the mobo, cpu, ram, cooler, and psu you see above for a measly 200 clams. So, I snatched it up and figured it'd be a good kickstart to my build. The Mobo, cpu, ram and cooler were all quite literally brand new. Now, I've been searching around and looking for something decently high end around the $300-350 price range that I can, maybe, eventually SLI or XFire. Mind you, I have no real loyalty to a specific name, and am more about bang for the buck. I first found the EVGA GTX 670 FTW pretty appealing performance wise, but wasn't too fond of the price tag, and then came across the XFX 7950 Black Edition Double D, which, with a decent OC, can match or surpass the 670 for nearly $100 less, from what I've read. However, upon reading a few performance comparisons and reviews, I've noticed the new ASUS GTX 660Ti Direct CUII is a pretty comparable combatant in price for performance. On paper, it seems the 7950 would eat up the 660ti, but I suppose the Nvidia optimization and such in most games these days would help that along. So, I'd like to hear from you guys, especially those who have direct experience with one or both of these cards, which of these two (or another similar contender) you think I should look into, and why? Thanks! Rex tl;dr - XFX 7950 Black Ed vs ASUS GTX 660Ti vs Whatever else. Go. Edited September 20, 2012 by ErroneousRex Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vandreadstriker Posted September 20, 2012 Posted September 20, 2012 What softwares are you using? Some rendering softwares have specific use of Nvidia's Cuda cores which can help tremendously in encoding and rendering films. Aside from that, I have no knowledge of Nvidia vs AMD in terms of rendering films.. Out of curiosity, does memory and bus speed affect performance of such softwares? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErroneousRex Posted September 20, 2012 Posted September 20, 2012 From what I understand, the clock speeds on the card are some of the most important things to rendering when it comes to gpus. Most rendering and encoding has a lot to do with the CPU it's self, but a quality gpu will help. Any of these cards should help bolster rendering, so I'm really looking for comparison on more general terms To get an idea of the overall performance value of the cards themselves, rather than specifically with rendering video. I'm usually running cs6 master versions of after effects and premiere. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted September 22, 2012 Posted September 22, 2012 (edited) Look for Asus GTX 660Ti DC2 T edition. Edited September 22, 2012 by d6bmg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted September 22, 2012 Posted September 22, 2012 (edited) The GTX 660Ti is at best, slightly worse and slightly better than a GTX 580. The memory bus limitation is it's downfall. When AA is involved, you'll see some performance hits. Even the cheaper HD 7870 is an overall slightly better performer. Still, I don't think either of the choices are really an issue, the end all is basically how good of a deal you get a card for. As far as video rendering, not a lot of horsepower is needed for video rendering. For encoding, Lucidlogix Virtu is by far the fastest (http://computerhardwareupgrades.blogspot.com/search/label/Video%20Encoding), but Nvidia cards are much faster cards for encoding than AMD. Also note, my 2nd rig crashes upon loading Adobe CS6 Premiere, which has two overclocked HD 7970's in Xfire. It's fine with my memory overclock toned down a little, though. Edited September 22, 2012 by El_Capitan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 Also note, my 2nd rig crashes upon loading Adobe CS6 Premiere, which has two overclocked HD 7970's in Xfire. It's fine with my memory overclock toned down a little, though. So you think it is due to the overclocked cards or some other reason? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 So you think it is due to the overclocked cards or some other reason? I just toned down my memory overclock from 1725MHz (in MSI Afterburner) to 1720MHz. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 I just toned down my memory overclock from 1725MHz (in MSI Afterburner) to 1720MHz. Oh ok.. Got it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 7950 any second over a 660Ti, 660Ti are too much for what they are Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
l90 Posted September 25, 2012 Posted September 25, 2012 7950 sems the better card to me , has 50% more vram more oc headroom and this ads to its very lifetime. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErroneousRex Posted September 25, 2012 Posted September 25, 2012 Thanks for all the replies and info guys. So, if I'm understanding correctly, and from the specs I've seen on both cards, the 660ti is the better card for rendering, where as the 7950 would be the better card for gaming? What I'm looking for overall is a strong all arounder for a good price. The 7950 black is about the same price as the 660ti DirectCU2, if maybe a 20-40 dollar difference. Personally that's not a difference I think is worth sacrificing performance over. So, it really comes down to which is the better card for everything I need. If I have to sacrifice a little bit of rendering time to get a better game performance, personally, I'm okay with that. But, it seems everyone with personal experiences to these cards or similar are pointing towards the AMD card. Anyone else have some feedback/opinions? As I'll be getting this card in the two weeks to a month. Thanks, guys! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErroneousRex Posted September 25, 2012 Posted September 25, 2012 Oh, one more thing, which of these cards are best/most stably run on SLI/Crossfire. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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