660 Ti vs. 7970

[farhankhan]

Hi guys, I'm upgrading from a GTX460 and I'm wondering which of these cards would be the wiser upgrade. I play a lot of recent games and would like to continue to do so at max settings for the next 2 years.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti 3GB OC: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1428&products_id=21727

Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 GHz Edition 3GB: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1309&products_id=20995

Considering that my max budget is $480, are there any better alternatives to the ones I have selected? Thanks in advanced guys.

EDIT: Forgot to include my specs:

i7 2600k at 4.0GHz
Asrock Extreme 4M Z77 MOBO
850W Silverstone PSU
16GB G.SKILL RAM

 

[daeder]

7970 is a much faster card but the 660 Ti is also very fast and a great card as well. If you want to save money, just pick up the 660 Ti but the 7970 would be much more equipped for future games.

 

[skelv]

7970 anyday

 

[farhankhan]

Thanks for the input guys, are there any alternative cards in the price range that would be better bang for my buck?

 

[revro]

well you could try to look up evga gtx 670 ftw 4gb. should consume much less power

best
revro

 

[unksol]

The 7970 is better than a 670.

Personally, because I am Cheap and like sapphire
www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1309&products_id=21322

Granted that card is 360 USD here and comes with 3 free games, and if you don't want to overclock the gigabyte is ~10% faster at stock

 

[may1]

Marginal differences between 7970 and 670 is negligible in 1080p.

Rather get aa AsUS Direct CU2 edition VGA, whether it's 670, 660ti, 7950 or 7970.

 

[i8myhippo]

The 7970 is really competing with the 670.

 

[farhankhan]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Marginal differences between 7970 and 670 is negligible in 1080p.

Rather get aa AsUS Direct CU2 edition VGA, whether it's 670, 660ti, 7950 or 7970.

The ASUS 670 is cheaper than the gigabyte 660ti in my original post, but it has a lower clock speed. Does this indicate that it is a slower card than the gigabyte 660ti?

What should I be looking at when judging GPU performance? All this time 've been looking at clock speeds alone but I'm not sure if that alone is the best indication of performance?

 

[simmons33]

"The ASUS 670 is cheaper than the gigabyte 660ti in my original post, but it has a lower clock speed. Does this indicate that it is a slower card than the gigabyte 660ti?"

Trust me, The GTX 670 will be better in general than a 660TI

Clock speeds matter, but only compare them between two (or more) different cards of the same model. ex. MSI 580 vs. ASUS 580

If you have a 480 budget, this is more of a GTX 670 vs. HD 7970.
Both are great cards with good features for each of them. Just depends
To say one is better than the other is debatable at best. =/