GPU for ~200$: GTX660 or another?

[irontrooper]

Purchase date: 3 to 60 days.
Budget: 150$-230$
Usage from most to least important: Photoshop CS6, SecondLife (OpenGL game), ZBrush (3d modelling), League of Legends, Streaming to Twitch, Blender, Matching HD movies and series, Trying out latest games for next few years (just enough to try on decent settings). Perhaps 3ds max and Maya. Need to decide which GPU would fit the best!

Current GPU: GTX 460 dead, warranty expired. Need a new one that's cheap enough.
Current PSU: XFX PRO 650
Other Parts: i5-3570K 3.40GHz, 4x4GB of RAM, Z77 Extreme4 Motherboard

Preferred website: Any site that doesn't have the product on discount. I will be buying locally in a different currency. (EU:Croatia)

Overclocking: Maybe.
Monitor resolution: 1920x1080

Comments: Thank you guys for being so helpful always

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

EVGA Superclocked, Gigabyte Windforce, or MSI Twin Frozr GTX 660 are good options.

 

[irontrooper]

If I get GTX 660 I'll surely get MSI or Gigabyte. There is no other gpu that can compare to GTX 660 in this budget then?

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

An R9-270 has similar performance, but costs a little more. Better stick with the GTX 660.

 

[subhadeep082012-1331288]

If I get GTX 660 I'll surely get MSI or Gigabyte. There is no other gpu that can compare to GTX 660 in this budget then?[/quotems

If you could just extend your budget to 10$ more you can get a much much better card,The R9 270X.Here's the link:http://

 

[subhadeep082012-1331288]

And sapphire is a gr8 choice for cooling as there dual-x coolers are very efficient

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

Or a GTX 760 if you could afford $250.

 

[irontrooper]

R9 270X I might afford, it's just on the edge of the budget. 760 is far too much though. Thanks for the answers so far! Gonna do some comparison of the two.

 

[subhadeep082012-1331288]

R9 270X I might afford, it's just on the edge of the budget. 760 is far too much though. Thanks for the answers so far! Gonna do some comparison of the two.

Sure you can but in every aspect the 270X wins and if you like my answer plz hit the "pick this as a solution"button and it has a far better compute performance so it will do photoshop very smoothly

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

The R9-270X does outperform the GTX 660 in gaming. If you don't care for features like PhysX and 3D Vision, then you should get that one. Nvidia uses CUDA for rendering tasks whilst AMD uses OpenCL.

 

[irontrooper]

I dont care about 3D Vision, but since I am more interested in 3D Modelling and Graphical softwares than games so I do ponder now if PhysX and CUDA would be useful in Blender, ZBrush, and if I try to get back into Autodesk software. Though just a beginner-mediocre level of it.

 

[xxthunder256xx]

This would be the best 660, but I would go for one of these as it is cheaper and allows MUCH more overclocking headroom, and will give almost the same performance when gaming. But for your purposes, this difference is little to none, so I would go with the 750 Ti FTW.

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

GTX 750 Ti is more power efficient, but still not quite as fast as a GTX 660. You can get an overclocked GTX 660 for a good balance of productivity and gaming.

 

[xxthunder256xx]

GTX 750 Ti is more power efficient, but still not quite as fast as a GTX 660. You can get an overclocked GTX 660 for a good balance of productivity and gaming.

He said he won't be gaming except for League of Legends, in which any discrete card is more than capable of running ultra settings. Forget the gaming aspect of this build.

The difference between the 660 and 750 Ti in these 3D editing scenarios is little to none, so the cheaper choice is the better. Go with the 750 Ti FTW that I linked earlier. It's the best option for the least $ that we have mentioned so far, and will be fine for what his needs are.

 

[irontrooper]

Thank you all, ordered MSI GTX 660 today!

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

Sure, no problem!