opinions on Nvidia EVGA GTX 660Ti FTW reference

[jamesriley94]

I use the KFA2 (Galaxy in your area). I've found it incredibly good, cool and quiet.

For racing games, a single card shouldn't have any problem on 3 screens.

 

[jimbo32]

For a three monitor setup you're better off with a 7950 or 7970 rather than a GTX660ti or 670. The AMD cards are both 3GB and have more memory bandwidth - 384 bit memory interface on both AMD's, 192 bit on the 660ti, and 256 bit on the 670. To put those numbers into perspective, the 660ti has somewhere around 140GB/sec in actual memory bandwidth. The 7950 is about 100GB/sec faster, and the 7970 is ~30GB/sec faster still. They'll also overclock better than the NVidia cards if that's a concern at all.

I think the only time you could justify buying an NVidia card is if you were gaming on a single high-res monitor, and even then it's somewhat dodgy since NVidia slapped down the vendors for overvolting. Even before that, I thought the 670 was the only NVidia card worth looking at, simply because you could o/c it to perform like a 680 - now you can't. AMD cards are (imo) a better value across the board.

 

[Mark3Max]

Thanks for the input jamesriley & jimbo32, I have been doing some reading on memory bandwidth and AMD vs Nvidia cards. jimbo32 , Thanks for the memory bandwidth comparisons between the AMD 7950 & 7970 and the Nvidia cards I was looking at. I'm still doing some research , but I will be looking at AMD cards as I think they will be better for a multi-monitor setup.

 

[Master&Puppet]

This is a tricky one because it is hard to tell exactly how much VRAM you will need. It's very game dependant with some crystal ball thrown in for good measure.

If you take a look at this review which directly compares 2GB and 4GB GTX670 cards with the intent of measuring the performance advantage of the extra memory; In most games even at high resolutions there isn't a noticeable difference however I get the impression that 2gb often doesn't give much headroom either. Having said that 4GB is way too much.

Even at the resolution you are playing at a I think a 2GB card will be fine in the medium term for you however I think a 7950 or 7970 with its 3GB has more life in it.

 

[Mark3Max]

An interesting review , Thanks Master&Puppet. One of the cards I was looking at was the 670 2gb , but by the sound of this review I don't think it would be enough for 3 monitors. I had a cheap 4000 series ATI card a few years ago and never liked it . I'm still reading up on 7000 series AMD cards , I'm still not sure what manufacturer to go with. Kinda looking at Gigabyte or MSI , but still reading articles and reviews.

 

[jamesriley94]

One thing to bear in mind is that AMD cars require display port monitors or an active display port adapter for eyefinity to work.
So that will increase the cost by about $100

Nvidia allows you to to connect through whichever ports you like without any need for adapters.

 

[Mark3Max]

I heard that to , I watched a youtube video on how to set up eyefinity.
The cost of a new display port monitor plus another $50 or so for a cable.
I keep going back and forth between AMD and Nvidia , I'm still not sure.
I might just go with an Nvidia GTX 670 2gb card for now and think about the AMD card later.

 

[jimbo32]

Not sure where you guys are looking for the adapter cables, but a quick look at NCIX shows a bunch in the $20-$30 range.

 

[jamesriley94]

Not sure where you guys are looking for the adapter cables, but a quick look at NCIX shows a bunch in the $20-$30 range.

Has to be an active display port adapter.

 

[J0s3e]

Start with a cheaper CPU (all you need for gaming is 3570k) and you'll have enough money for 670 SLi straight away.