660, 660ti or 760?

[Theroachman]

Hello all. I am looking to upgrade and was sorta overwhelmed by all the choices of gpu's out there. I do appologize for making a new thread as I am sure that there are probobly tons like this which I have read but I would like to discuss these three cards based on my specs and needs and have all the info in one spot. I basically would like to be able to max out all settings if possible but would like to stay in the 250 to 300 dollar range. The games I currently play are Skyrim (heavily modded), Tomb Raider 2013, and soon will be getting BF3 and the new Rome total war when it comes out. So here are the cards I am looking at.

GTX-660 2Gb 192bit Cuda: 960 Core: 1020 MHz (1085 boost) 209$
GTX-660 ti 2Gb 192bit Cuda: 1344 Core: 967 MHz (1058 boost) 254$
GTX-760 2Gb 256bit Cuda: 1152 Core: 1085 MHz (1150 boost) 259$

Will a 660 be a good improvement allowing max settings on these games or should I shell out the extra cash for the 660ti. Another option would be to get the 660 with 3 gb ram for about 264 but not as many cudas as the 660 ti. Also, the 760 I have shown is a cheaper version of the 760s with more ram and bandwidth than the 660ti but less cuda cores. Is this better than the 660? I am guessing that games like Skyrim or even some of the Flight sims I play with the long view distances are going to need more ram and games like tomb raider are going to benefit from the cuda cores and core clock. Do I understand this correctly? I guess the question is this.. Is more ram better or more cuda cores and clock speeds according to my needs. Thanks for the advice guys!

Here are my specs.
Monitor: 22" 1680X1050
Ram: 8GB DDR3 1600
CPU: i5-2500 @ 3.3GHz sandy bridge
Windows 7 64bit
GPU: GTX 470
PSU: 620W

 

[JackNaylorPE]

This shud make your choices easy .... hint; Its the 760

BF3 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_760/8.html
Skyrim http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_760/22.html
Tombraider http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_760/23.html

 

[mjmacka]

The GTX-760 is your best choice.
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-760-vs--9223372036849443853

GPUboss is a good site to compare cards with.

Here is a good explanation of cuda cores v.s. clock speed: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/373512-33-what-amount-cuda-cores-shader-clock-speed-performance-wise

Thank cl-scott for this:
If you think of your video card like a freeway, then CUDA cores would be analogous to the number of lanes in the road, clock speed would be the speed limit, and memory interface would be the number of lanes for exit/entry ramps. More lanes means more cars can be moving on the freeway at any given time, the higher the speed limit the faster any given car is moving, and then if there's say 2 exit lanes instead of 1, you can have more cars getting off the freeway, same as you can have more cars coming onto the freeway if there are say 2 entry lanes instead of 1.

 

[envy14tpe]

760.