Upgrade time for my kid brother 7950 vs 7970

C

Charliew87

New member
Why hello there,

So as the title says Im looking for an upgrade for my kid brother, and I have a few questions.

Basically, Im an avid Nvidia fanboy. But things being as they are, 7950s going for €250 and 7970s going for €300 (Including €100 worth of games with bioshock infinite and crysis 3) I cant really motivate a €300 Nvidia GPU when youre paying about half of that for a 7950. (And believe me, nobodys sadder about that than I am).

The question is this, is the extra €50 worth a 7970? Do they really perform that much differently?


Also, hes using a 965BE Phenom 2 cpu. I got it to 3,9ghz and were using an oldschool AM3 board, so its not ready for the 8350. Will it bottleneck his 7950/7970 in 1080p gaming?


EDIT: Corrected myself before you did.
 
MK MSI 770-C45 Socket AM3, 770, ATX

I think only AM3+ can be flashed to support the newer CPUs, could be wrong tho, Intel fanboy here.

Still incredible worth for still hanging in there after 3 years of punishment on a €50 board :).
 
don't ever let your decision be led by prejudices. facts are what matters. the 8350 is a decent cpu, i don't know what your limit is but the cpu you have in there right now will bottleneck a 7950.
 
Yes yes I was planning on going GPU-first then CPU-second. Shouldnt the phenom be okay for just gaming untill at least Christmast? Or will it bottleneck the 7950 horribly?

Kid brother just fell in love with the 7970 Vapor-X so hes getting that, mind you I DID warn him it'll bottleneck.

But to the question "well will it give me more fps in games?" its kind of hard to say no when hes rocking a GTX 560 TI atm : /.
 
in most games he will have the same fps as with the gtx 560 Ti. huge bottleneck.sell the cpu+mobo and get an i3 at least.for now
 
Getting an I3 with a decent mobo is the same cost as getting the 8350 with a decent mobo.

Im sorry to be THAT guy but the FX 4170 seems to be slightly below that I3 in pure gaming performance, but then again the Phenom 975 (965 wasnt in the test) seems to perform 15% better than the FX 4170.

Does anyone have any comparison between this I3 and the AMD 965? Im not going to bring the CPU-frequency into the discussion as the I3 is lower but obviously has a bit higher performance clock for clock, the AMD has twice the ammount of cores tho. The 3220 is locked tho and the 965 can obviously be overclocked a good 20%.


EDIT: Found this, which proves I3 is a lot better singlecore wize. More than the 20% overclock would assist with, but not much more. And everything 3 cores or above is a clear win for the 965:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=677
 
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the i3 2100 performs better than the phenom 2 965 so the i3 3220... 965 will not catch up no matter what oc you bring,its an old arhitecture.i don`t know if i`m allowed to post this but recently this guy benchmarked some games with the 7950 with i3 and the new vishera fx 4300.i3 outperforms them.anyway you need to upgrade the cpu no matter what so for ~230e buy an i5 3470 and a good b75/h77 board and the gtx 560 Ti will perform better. i have a friend who upgrated from 560 Ti to gtx 660 ,it has the phenom 2 955,he regrets it now couse he has same fps in most games.far cry 3,ac3 etc...so buy new cpu and mobo thats the best advice i can give couse the cpu will/is a bottleneck.if you do not OC there is no need for an i5K+z77 couse the i5 3470 has no problems running any game for a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_hps7TV4d0
 
s3ns3 said:
the i3 2100 performs better than the phenom 2 965 so the i3 3220... 965 will not catch up no matter what oc you bring,its an old arhitecture.i don`t know if i`m allowed to post this but recently this guy benchmarked some games with the 7950 with i3 and the new vishera fx 4300.i3 outperforms them.anyway you need to upgrade the cpu no matter what so for ~230e buy an i5 3470 and a good b75/h77 board and the gtx 560 Ti will perform better. i have a friend who upgrated from 560 Ti to gtx 660 ,it has the phenom 2 955,he regrets it now couse he has same fps in most games.far cry 3,ac3 etc...so buy new cpu and mobo thats the best advice i can give couse the cpu will/is a bottleneck.if you do not OC there is no need for an i5K+z77 couse the i5 3470 has no problems running any game for a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_hps7TV4d0
Click to expand...

Thank you for a very well motivated response :).

If I was to buy a CPU now Id obviously go with I3 (or most like an I5 3570K) but right now the upgrade cost for an I3 is within 50 dollars of an 8350.

The benchmarks actually compare a card thats somewhat like the 560ti to the 7950 which is exactly what I wanted. It shows that the I3 does scale better (mostly so in the consoleported Farcry3 with bad CPU multicore optimization).

But the performanceincrease from 6850 -> 7950 is upwards to 100% in some cases even for the FX-4300, so the bottleneck cant be THAT obvious to someone who never ran the I3 side-by-side to AMD counterparts.



Lastly, the A10-5800K is similarly priced but it was never meant to beat Intels gaming CPUs head-to-head in an IPC battle, its the integrated gpu that does the magic. Its basically 100% better than intels best counterpart (HD4000), which being able to hybrid crossfire as a cheap upgrade-alternative AND its overclockable. A10-5800K has its value as the best HTPC CPU money can buy (for very light gaming, without dedicated GPU).
The FX-4300 tho... is just bad to be honest : /, the 965 actually beats the FX-4300 in a lot of benchmarks.
 
go lower.

Depends. I'm assuming he has a standard 1080p monitor, 60hz. In that case, 7870 is the highest reasonable choice, as that will put out more frames per second in games like BF3 than a standard 1080p monitor can even read.


If he's got a 6850 or lower, grab a 7850 or at most, a 7870.

If he's got a 120 or 144hz monitor, or multiple monitors, then go for a 7900.

If he's got a 6870 or higher, make sure you have a 120hz+ or multi monitor before you upgrade gpu, or it will be a waste of money.


To put this in perspective, since you are an ''nvidia guy''. A 660ti is basically a performer like the last-gen gtx 580. It's a very powerful card. Since the catalyst update in late 2012, the amd 7870's (not the 7970) are showing benchmarks beating out 660ti's in several cases. And the 7970 is a LOT closer to the 590 than it is to the 580. So use that money wisely, don't park a Porsche on the side of the road.

@sense in above post. The i3 can not beat a 965, thats a thuban arch. It's an entirely different ball game. Just from that benchmark in the youtube video, i now know how bad an i3 3220 is, because a 965 would have spanked the 4100 a LOT harder.
 
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As for the graphics card. Imo the 7950 from a total cost of €150 (excluding the games) is more than a reasonable choice. The 7950/7970 cards are the only way to be certain to "max" new titles for a year or two to come. Yes the VRAM is overkill for 1080p in most cases, but it opens up upgrade paths to tripple monitor play and 1440p.

And there really are no cases where a 7870 would beat a 660ti, with whatever drivers, that I know of. The 7850 is horribly close to 560ti performancewise. Within 10% I would think.

Ive used 260-560ti-670, hes gone from 6850-560ti and now 7970. I think the 7970 is overkill and that 7950 is a better choice. Exluding the games the 7970 is about 35% more expensive, and has a lot less than a 35% performance advantage.


About the 3220 beating the benchmark. The singlecore performance of the 3220 IS better than the singlecore performance of the 965. The FX-4300 which he used in the test and the 965 is almost on par with eachother. Add a 20% overclock like weve done and it beats the 3220 in every single 2+core scenario, and is about even on the singlecore performance. Turn it around and the 3220 will beat a 965 in singlecore performance at almost any speed.
 
Rich_ said:
i now know how bad an i3 3220 is, because a 965 would have spanked the 4100 a LOT harder.
Click to expand...
its not the fx 4100 lol .not bulldozer wich i know that its worst than phenom 2 ,its the new vishera fx 4300 that outperforms the 965 in any aspect.look up some benchmarks.the i3 competes with fx 6300.
 
I wouldn't ''upgrade'' from a Phenom ii x4 to an i3... The cost of the mobo/cpu wouldn't be worth it.
Do it properly and get an i5/z77 (3570k + MSI z77a-g45 could come to around £250), since this will probably be a better upgrade than a 7970... You can then wait until AMD 8k/ nVidia 700 and get a monster GPU :)
 
Charliew87 said:
As for the graphics card. Imo the 7950 from a total cost of €150 (excluding the games) is more than a reasonable choice. The 7950/7970 cards are the only way to be certain to "max" new titles for a year or two to come. Yes the VRAM is overkill for 1080p in most cases, but it opens up upgrade paths to tripple monitor play and 1440p.

And there really are no cases where a 7870 would beat a 660ti, with whatever drivers, that I know of. The 7850 is horribly close to 560ti performancewise. Within 10% I would think.

Ive used 260-560ti-670, hes gone from 6850-560ti and now 7970. I think the 7970 is overkill and that 7950 is a better choice. Exluding the games the 7970 is about 35% more expensive, and has a lot less than a 35% performance advantage.


About the 3220 beating the benchmark. The singlecore performance of the 3220 IS better than the singlecore performance of the 965. The FX-4300 which he used in the test and the 965 is almost on par with eachother. Add a 20% overclock like weve done and it beats the 3220 in every single 2+core scenario, and is about even on the singlecore performance. Turn it around and the 3220 will beat a 965 in singlecore performance at almost any speed.
Click to expand...


Make sure you look at benches done after the catalyst update. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6hjT0Ktoqw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9SfaKlWCoY

7870 beats the 660ti in both of those. That's just off a couple vids i remember seeing in the past couple weeks.
 
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 :|.
 
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