AMD HD7950 vs MSI N660ti/OC?(Can't decide :s)

[FGK]

Hello everyone

I recently gave myself the heroic task of building my own PC! 😀 I've chosen which components I want. But I'm not quite sure what really makes a good quality gaming graphics card.

The 2 cards that caught my eyes were:

-XFX Radeon HD7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation
or;
-MSI N660Ti PE 2GD5/OC

When looking at the information the things I noticed were that the MSI has "only" 2 GB memory, while having a faster clock speed, and the HD7950 has 3 GB memory with a slower clock speed.

Are there any other GPU specifications I should be looking at, in order to determine which is better or not? And which of the 2 do you recommend?


Maybe the HD7950 could get overclocked to match the N660TI?

Thanks alot in advance!

Frederik

 

[chromic]

the memory affects AA only

2 gb is enough for everything that in on the game market

the clock speeds are different, a 1000 mhz Nvidia card can run more poorly than a 900 mhz ati card

i say get the 660 TI

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=647

because its pre OC its even better than the one benchmarked here ( 7950 vs 660 ti )

 

[alvine]

dont compare clock speeds because the cards use different architectures...you can look up reviews online on either one of them showing you performance graphs...660ti is a little bit faster

 

[EzioAs]

When looking at the information the things I noticed were that the MSI has "only" 2 GB memory, while having a faster clock speed, and the HD7950 has 3 GB memory with a slower clock speed.

Looking at specs such as core clock speed or memory clock speed doesn't help much when comparing different GPUs. 2GB is still more than enough for 1080p although getting a 3GB at similar price is quite tempting but it's more useful to triple 1080p gaming or so.

Maybe the HD7950 could get overclocked to match the N660TI?

This is a bit wrong. An overclocked HD7950 (highly) can easily rival or even outperform a GTX680. GTX660ti overclocking is more limited.



Anyway, I always suggest an HD7950 over a GTX660ti if the price is similar or close enough. The reason is that the 7950 is in most games, slightly faster, it has more VRAM, higher memory bus (less impact after applying AA) and more overclocking headroom.

 

[groundrat]

Those cards are actually well matched... which is why you can't choose, I am guessing. ;>

The 660 operates at a higher frequency and cuda cores are more efficient.

Unless you are really pushing the ultra performance envelope you will not notice a difference between 2gb and 3gb. Both are DDR5.

Yes, AMD cards overclock very well. If you plan on that then the difference in 192 bit and 384 bit will really come to the for. If overclocking, go with the radeon.

 

[9a3iqa]

I would suggest the 7950 because it's simply the more powerful card when both are fully overclocked. It also has double the bus bandwidth (384 bit as opposed to 192 bit) which means it takes much less of a performance hit when you apply AA (anti-aliasing).