Nice, D-Day is arriving for me :)

I am looking for a new GPU for a while. I was thinking about 7770 or maybe 7850 if I find spare $. I hope that we will see some price drops after 650 and 660 release. Now I will have to choose between 7770, GTX650, 7850 and GTX660. Or I will just upgrade my CPU, mobo and RAM and wait until 2013 GPU price drops and HD8000 series comes out.

I’m getting a HD 7950 vapor-x, same pcb as the 7970 and great OC up to 1.1 Ghz on core clock.
In benchmarks it can perform better then the 7970 ghz ed, power hog though.

i want nvidia entry level gpu but pricing geforce 650 at $149 is a joke, unless by some miracle it can beat the cheaper 7770. 650 should replace the 640 at $99-120 and compete with 7750. while the 640 should drop down to $80 to compete with 6670ddr5. the upcoming 650ti is the one to compete with 7770 @ $120-149, 660 must drop down near 199 to battle 7850. they can even make 655/660se and price it at $150-169 hence no enemy = win

Even at $300 for MSI PE, $220-240 HD7870 still offer better price/performance and 7950 OC is still much faster vs. 660Ti OC:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/08/23/galaxy_gtx_660_ti_gc_oc_vs_670_hd_7950/3

I’d hard to say that NV drivers are actually better as of late. SLI scaling in Guild Wars 2 didn’t work out of the box, CF did even with 4x 7970 cards! In most of the recent games AMD cards are outpeforming NV cards: Diablo 3, Darksiders II, Guild Wars 2, Sniper Elite V2, Dirt Showdown, Sleeping Dogs. That’s 6 new games in a row that NV cards are slower in. GTX690 Quad-SLI is just 10% faster with multi-gaming monitor setup over 2x HD7970 GE in CF. Overall, not a great argument that NV’s drivers are better right now.

É a melhor opçao dentro desse preço, eu próprio estou a pensar comprar uma quando descer mais uns Euros.

Nvidia’s drivers are known to be better because of stability and more features, not because of performance.

I used NV and AMD/ATI cards for 10 years. I disagree. Tried CF and SLI from both companies. Go back and forth depending on who has the fastest cards each generation. I like the layout of NV’s driver control panel, native FXAA and AO and looking forward to trying their adaptive Vsync should GTX780 beat 8970 and I switch. Personally, I don’t care for PhysX but yes it is a cool feature. However up to Fermi generation AMD has by far the superior 2D image quality on the desktop. My 8800GTXs had terrible 2D image quality. :)

Oh wow, 309 € for the 7950 VaporX in your country (Portugal?) when GTX670 Windforce 3x is going for
429 € and Asus DirectCUII 670 is 479 €? That’s a no brainer in favor of the 7950 950mhz Vapor-X. Even at stock speeds, that’s an huge price premium for the NV card with barely 12% more performance. At 1250mhz overclock a GTX670 cannot outperform an HD7950 @ 1150mhz. Save 120€ towards your next GPU upgrade in 2014-2015. The difference in performance between an HD7950 OC and GTX670 OC is non-existent overall.

Wow, just checked more prices from the website you linked me. NV prices over there are terrible. You can get Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 or MSI HD7970 Lightning for 479 € and both of those cards are faster than any GTX670. That’s ridiculous. GTX670 has no chance against those cards. I see the cheapest after-market 660Ti is the MSI Power Edition for 329 €? Is this a general trend in Portugal for you guys that NV charges way more for cards?

Keep in mind the Vapor-X has upgraded VRM to 8 Black Diamond Chokes from the Sapphire TOXIC/7970 Vapor-X (that guarantees no coil whine), you also get an amazing vapor chamber cooler and very good overclocking headroom (1100mhz should be doable without much effort). At those clocks you are getting GTX680 level of performance all for 309€.

Think about it this way, next time you need to upgrade, you have 120€ stashed away from not wasting it on a 670 card and your future 300€ upgrade in 2014-2015 is really like a 180€ upgrade!! That’s a lot smarter strategy for upgrading :)

Personally I would take the Sapphire Vapor-X for €3 extra. The Vapor-X cooler can keep a 1050mhz HD7970 at full load at 65*C! That leaves a large headroom for overclocking on the Vapor-X 7950 card without overheating and loud noise levels. Peace of mind.

http://www.pureoverclock.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/sapphire_7970v_temps1.jpg

AMD should at some point add native FXAA and their version of Adaptive Vsync to their videocards:
http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/Blog/

Can’t afford to be too far behind NV. Always trying to outdo each other hehe.

Windforce 3x is awesome too, but Vapor-X has black diamond chokes. Windforce 3x can have coil whine on some cards. Look at the XFX cooler in the chart you linked. Yuck!

Also, if you look at the link Bruno provided, the Windforce 3x 7950 costs more than the Vapor-X, which is why I didn’t recommend it. I don’t think in that case the Gigabyte card is worth 20-30 Euro more over the VaporX. Not sure how it is where you guys are but over here in North America Gigabyte starts counting warranty from the day the card leaves the factory (“Manufacturing date”), not the day you bought it. That’s sneaky! Found that info in this write-up:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/56432-gtx-660-ti-roundup-asus-evga-gigabyte-galaxy-msi-5.html

Overall the Windforce 3x cooler is awesome though, in my top 3-4 probably with DCUII and VaporX/Dual-X. Cards equipped with Accelero coolers are awesome too (Palit, Point of View and Sparkle often have them).

This ASUS is the one with DC II v1 cooler, the new V2 version is better as you know.
Gigabyte is ok, but the 7950 Vapor-x that he mencioned has a great OC potential just like TPU review says, and he live in Portugal like me, so is better buy the product here and if he has problems with card can easily process the RMA.

the price isn’t lower where i live though, 30€+ higher for the 660ti.

The image quality between AMD and NV in 3D mode is nearly indistinguishable. Both support FXAA, MSAA, SSAA. Right now from 7950/660Ti reviews we see that 800mhz HD7950 ~ GTX660Ti in performance on average. We also know that HD7950 OC = GTX670 OC because the 7950 has 25-40% GPU headroom with overclocking, 660Ti does not. Both have 3GB (depending on 660Ti option). However, should you need more GPU power, you have no solution to imrove 660Ti’s performance due to the 24 ROPs / 192-bit bus setup and the fact that most after-market 660s are already GPU boosting at 1150-1200+mhz out of the box. If you overclock 7950 to 1100mhz+, it will suprass a GTX680. 660Ti cannot do this on air.

We also know how mods impact 660Ti in SKYRIM – very negatively:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-amd-radeon-hd-7950-mit-925-mhz/19/

Therefore, there is a large chance an overclocked 7950 will be much faster than even an overclocked 660Ti in GTAV with mods.

Nao, mas posso ir la de comboio.

I wouldn’t buy GTX670 at those prices. Wait until it drops to 350 Euro or so. At 410 Euro, that’s 100 Euro more than a 7950 Vapor-X. The Vapor-X at 1100mhz is already as fast as a GTX680. So what are you paying 100 Euro extra for? I’d also buy HD7970 over the GTX670 since HD7970 @ 1150mhz = GTX680 @ 1280mhz (and I don’t care about another 40-50W of power).

I think GTX670 is the best card for gamers this generation but not at 410 Euro in September 2012. If it was 325-340 Euro, sure. An HD7970 OC beats GTX670 OC, and HD7950 OC = GTX670 OC, so I’d never buy the 670 at 410 Euro when 7950 delivers the same performance for way less $ and 7970 OC is faster.

The reason I didn’t recommend the 7970 is because at 1150mhz, both the 7950 and 7970 will perform within 10% of each other. Is it worth spending that much more money for the 7970? 7970 launched Dec 22, 2011. If you are going to spend 420-480 Euro, might as well wait until HD8000 series in 3 months. Right now you’d already get good performance in the 7950 and save 100-150 Euro for a next GPU upgrade by not wasting it on a 7970/GTX670/680.

Also, your timing for dropping 450-480 Euro on a new GPU is not the best since this generation is almost over on the AMD side. Q1 2013 for HD8000 series from what I keep hearing.

what matters is how long you plan to keep it. And if you want any form of AA
so:

1. if you want to use any kind of AA choose “yes” otherwise “no”
2. if 1 is “yes”: that get 7950… if “no”: how long before you will replace it?
3. if you replace over 2 years, “yes” or “no”?
4. if 1 and 3 were BOTH “no” than you should get your preference. If 3 was yes i advise getting 7950 for keeping up with newer games!

Depends if you are overclocking or not. If not, and won’t use MSAA, not much difference overall but NV will do better in Crysis 2 and BF3 and WOW. Also, while lately AMD has been winning in performance in newest titles, there soon will be a wave of titles that will run well on NV: Medal of Honor, Borderlands 2, more BF3 expansions.

With overclocking, it’s another story. An 1100-1150mhz 7950 will win almost every game against an overclocked 660Ti. Since you’ve had a bad experience with AMD, if you won’t OC to reduce power consumption, grab the 660Ti. Doesn’t hurt to switch brands from one generation to another. Sometimes it’s fun to try out the competing brand’s features.

Also, if you use mods in Skyrim, 7950 will have an advantage. Maybe wait 9 more days to see how 660Ti performs vs. 7950 in Borderlands 2.