Upgrade time for my kid brother 7950 vs 7970

[Charliew87]

I agree with everyone else here. I'd also upgrade the CPU+MoBo. I'd rather get a 3570k than a 8350 though.

Not everyone else here is recommending a mobo+cpu upgrade. Weve been discussing the potential bottleneck from the CPU. Yes in some cases it will bottleneck. A 7970 upgrade will net an average of 50-100% more fps tho, while a CPU upgrade will give a LOT less.

Mobo upgrade is coming either for his birthday or for christmas.

 

[Rich_]

http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited/11

The card hes using is a 660 NON-ti. And a top of the line 7870. 314 drivers are out for nvidia cards, giving them abouts 10% more performance in farcry 3 also.


7950 vs 660ti. 12.11 beta drivers, 99th percentile AND fps comparison AND bang/buck in the conclusion. Vapor-X being a very good 7950 and Zotac AMP being a rediculous 660ti that should be a fair comparison.

Benchmarks only done in Starcraft 2 (A cpu oriented game) and Farcry 3 (worst console-port of this century) should be taken with a gain of salt.

Also, watch TTL not Linus :|.

That review you sourced is infamous, and the only one of it's kind to have the scores flopped like that. You can find discussions on that review in every major tech forum, it was a faulty card. Period. The one i cited, yes, it compared the 7870 to the 660 non ti, but in the same benchmark in the same video, the 7870 got BETTER scores than the 660ti that was compared to the 7950. In both of those reviews i cited. And all the cards were overclocked.

also- the same 7950 and 660ti in that review u cited, were used in diff benches by the same guy. The 660ti got lower scores, and the 7950 got higher scores, than that particular bench. If the 7950 got lower scores pre-12.11 catalyst, than it did supposedly post 12.11 catalyst, something was very wrong with that card.

 

[Charliew87]

That review you sourced is infamous, and the only one of it's kind to have the scores flopped like that. You can find discussions on that review in every major tech forum, it was a faulty card. Period. The one i cited, yes, it compared the 7870 to the 660 non ti, but in the same benchmark in the same video, the 7870 got BETTER scores than the 660ti that was compared to the 7950. In both of those reviews i cited. And all the cards were overclocked.

also- the same 7950 and 660ti in that review u cited, were used in diff benches by the same guy. The 660ti got lower scores, and the 7950 got higher scores, than that particular bench. If the 7950 got lower scores pre-12.11 catalyst, than it did supposedly post 12.11 catalyst, something was very wrong with that card.

Valid points, all of em.

And yes, I think that the review I showed was nvidia-angled but I think Linus's was very AMD-angled.

Anywhos I am going with AMD. Not only because of the much higher performance of the cards what with the 12.11 drivers out, but because their bundle is such an awesome deal you can basically sell the games and get Xfire 7950s for the same cost as my 670, which will roflstomp around my 670 any day of the week.


This thread has gone a bit side to side what with both intel vs amd and AMD vs nvidia. Phew . Ive still sided with AMD both times, which means Ive lost my fanboy-status I guess.



Great source of information this thread tho. I especially liked the 3220 comparison to A10 and FX-4300. It showed the FX-4300 gaining 50-100% framerate increases going from 6850. So the performance increase is there, even in Farcry 3.

 

[Rich_]

good choice you made on your build with the 670, it's the nvidia sweet spot

 

[AverageNinja]

Not everyone else here is recommending a mobo+cpu upgrade. Weve been discussing the potential bottleneck from the CPU. Yes in some cases it will bottleneck. A 7970 upgrade will net an average of 50-100% more fps tho, while a CPU upgrade will give a LOT less.

Mobo upgrade is coming either for his birthday or for christmas.

With everyone I meant most of the forum members It was a bit of a perspective. I agree, the CPU is less prior, but at a later stage, I would still do it

 

[Charliew87]

good choice you made on your build with the 670, it's the nvidia sweet spot

Only real issue I have is that the VRAM of my 2gb card might not be enough for tripple monitor.

Ive had to talk this over with my epeen and we settled on a 21x9 29" screen. But atm it serves me well on a 120hz monitor Never regretted it. Put a Gigabyte 670 WF in my girlfriends "htpc" and an EVGA GTX670 FTW in my own rigg, can wholeheartedly recommend the FTW to any nvidia fanboys, or people who dont care about the bundle of the 7970.

Bragging pics (upper left corner):

Cigarette-pack for size-comparison.

 

[Christoi]

I know the CPU discussion here is mostly resolved, but I thought it'll be worth throwing in a couple of points to consider, especially if you plan on upgrading it sometime soon:

There's seemingly a lot of controversy about this topic really and I've seen arguments for all three architectures. From what I've seen however, this seems to be reasonably accurate in terms of results:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-9.html

Trouble is, CPU performance tends to differ from game to game, depending on the optimizations and how intensive it is. With the original topic of bottlenecking, you'll be perfectly fine with most singleplayer games, in which case you tend to be heavily CPU-bottlenecked. With such applications, you'll find that a HD7950 may not be bottlenecked at all, because of how the game is designed.

With more CPU-intensive games and multiplier situations however, there's a lot more stress on the CPU, so you'll probably run into a bottleneck. This is also where some of the disagreements start, some games can utilize multiple cores (seemingly in multiplayer especially), however others do not at all. With more lightly-threaded games the i3 pulls ahead, but the Phenoms and Vishera counterparts tend to perform better with better threaded titles - which is why I said the article above is only reasonably accurate.

Personally, I'd go with a HD7870/7950, depending on what titles he plays. Phenoms are still pretty fast, clock to clock they are very similar to Vishera, so your current 965 is already pretty similar to a stock 4300/6300 in terms of performance.

On the note of your own rig, it may be worth considering getting a 7950 for yourself and then give your brother the 670. Might not be ideal for you to have an AMD card in your system, but both perform similarly anyways so it's a pretty fair trade. With mutli-monitor setups however, it'll give the option to add in a second card without running into VRAM bottlenecks.

 

[Charliew87]

I know the CPU discussion here is mostly resolved, but I thought it'll be worth throwing in a couple of points to consider, especially if you plan on upgrading it sometime soon:

There's seemingly a lot of controversy about this topic really and I've seen arguments for all three architectures. From what I've seen however, this seems to be reasonably accurate in terms of results:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-9.html

Trouble is, CPU performance tends to differ from game to game, depending on the optimizations and how intensive it is. With the original topic of bottlenecking, you'll be perfectly fine with most singleplayer games, in which case you tend to be heavily CPU-bottlenecked. With such applications, you'll find that a HD7950 may not be bottlenecked at all, because of how the game is designed.

With more CPU-intensive games and multiplier situations however, there's a lot more stress on the CPU, so you'll probably run into a bottleneck. This is also where some of the disagreements start, some games can utilize multiple cores (seemingly in multiplayer especially), however others do not at all. With more lightly-threaded games the i3 pulls ahead, but the Phenoms and Vishera counterparts tend to perform better with better threaded titles - which is why I said the article above is only reasonably accurate.

Personally, I'd go with a HD7870/7950, depending on what titles he plays. Phenoms are still pretty fast, clock to clock they are very similar to Vishera, so your current 965 is already pretty similar to a stock 4300/6300 in terms of performance.

On the note of your own rig, it may be worth considering getting a 7950 for yourself and then give your brother the 670. Might not be ideal for you to have an AMD card in your system, but both perform similarly anyways so it's a pretty fair trade. With mutli-monitor setups however, it'll give the option to add in a second card without running into VRAM bottlenecks.

TRADE MY FTW CARD FOR A VAPOR-X?

For shame, sir. For shame. Im going nvidia and thats that :|.

 

[NeverBackDown]

As stated above.. You could get a 7950, sell the bundle make some off that and then buy another 7950 for the same as 1 670... Much more performance

 

[Charliew87]

As stated above.. You could get a 7950, sell the bundle make some off that and then buy another 7950 for the same as 1 670... Much more performance

Which is rediculous in my oppinion, but true. Thats why I couldnt recommend the 670 anymore, which Ive been doing.

But seriously nVidia. The cards are great yes, but if their "opponent" on the AMDside suddenly got a 10% boost, lost 15% of its price and got bundled with €100 worth of games, Im going to have to recommend AMD. No matter how fanboyish I am.

(AMD can never beat this)

 

[marco]

surely the am3 board can be upgraded to support a 8350 with a bios update

Its called "microcode updation" its in the bios settings for all/most boards.

 

[marco]

Valid points, all of em.

And yes, I think that the review I showed was nvidia-angled but I think Linus's was very AMD-angled.

LOL yes Linus is very AMD angled, Ive been watching his vids for years now and can safely say hes a AMD fanboy through & through.

 

[Charliew87]

LOL yes Linus is very AMD angled, Ive been watching his vids for years now and can safely say hes a AMD fanboy through & through.

Yes, but today 2x 7950s (selling the games for €50) costs less than another 670 ftw. Im hoping nVidia understands this soon and lowers their prices too.

I have been kind of bothered in his reviews when its too obvious tho. I really liked the guy when I only watched case-reviews but as soon as performance came into the picture all you heard was "intel this" and "amd that".

All in all I have the unique opportunity to compare intel+nvidia vs amd+amd since my brother and I build rigs of different brands.



And strangely,. even tho Im an Intel sorta guy, I have actually felt his computer has an overall better feel to it. I know its a shitty explanation, but if the FX-8350 works as well as his 965 has, Im probaby going to have to try their new releases .

 

[Rich_]

I'd take 120hz over triple any day tbh.

Never noticed linus as an amd fan, always kinda figured he was an nvidia guy especially considering when he did his personal build video series, it contained Intel CPU and gtx 480 sli, and he was kind enough to put them under water. That was a couple years back though.

that ''better feel'' on ur bro's pc, does he have an SSD and you use a regular hard drive? Cuz i went from 1055t phenom 6 core to i73770k early january, and man what a difference, and not in favor of the amd chip lol.

 

[Charliew87]

I'd take 120hz over triple any day tbh.

Never noticed linus as an amd fan, always kinda figured he was an nvidia guy especially considering when he did his personal build video series, it contained Intel CPU and gtx 480 sli, and he was kind enough to put them under water. That was a couple years back though.

that ''better feel'' on ur bro's pc, does he have an SSD and you use a regular hard drive? Cuz i went from 1055t phenom 6 core to i73770k early january, and man what a difference, and not in favor of the amd chip lol.

But the 3770k is twice the price So thats not very strange.

We use SSDs both of us ofcourse, same brand (intel 330). Same RAM at the same(ish) frequency, I use a 2500k@4.4ghz and he uses a phenom965@3.9ghz. I try to keep our rigs as much alike as possible to be able to make fair comparisons. Atm hes stuck at older cpu+mobo tech tho, but most like Ill be going Haswell and he'll be going steamroller on release, which will once again make benchmarking pretty interesting.


Im using a 120hz monitor atm, but thinking of going 21x9. In short because tripple monitor play at 2gb vram wont be great, but 21x9 shouldnt matter much. And when I do he'll be granted my 120hz, so we can have a nice comparison too .


He got one of his friends interested in building too, yesterday he linked the build he'd gone with... a 660ti that cost 10% more than a 7950ghz edition... an intel i5-2320 (about €10 less than 3570k), an ASRock FATALITY mobo (because overclocking is important on i5s -.-), 900W psu, 1333mhz RAM and no SSD... Some people need to learn to read forums.

 

[son of spanner]

i have to say amd is very good for the money i just got a hd 7950 for my new build got mine for 200 pounds the last card i got was a hd6970 and my new card is cheaper and blows 6970,s doors off dont get me worng i like nvidia cards but thay just cost too much money