HD 7950 or GTX 660

[grich96]

I cannot decide whether I should just get the GTX 660 or go up to the HD 7950. The 7950 is $100 more- no small sum. I don't play games a ton. I probably play strategy games the most. The 7950 does come with a couple games which is nice, but how much better is it than the 660? I would be most likely getting the i5 3570k as my CPU.

 

[circularpromise53]

7950 is a great card. i would definitely recommend it over the 660. The performance increase is well worth the money, and it will rock with an i5 3570k

 

[completelyrandomname]

The 7950 is quite a significant step up from the GTX 660. However there is the Sapphire 7870 XT which performs like a 7950 but it's only $250. Make sure you have a decent 500 or 600W PSU though because this does use more power than a 7950 at times. 'Decent' as in a PSU from XFX, Seasonic, Antec, Corsair, and some others.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

660 or 660 Ti ? I assume you mean the 660 Ti as they are in the same pirce range.

MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr 3GB = $310
MSI GTX 660 Ti Twin Frozr 3GB = $310

Id take the 660 Ti....as you can see at the link below, it has a slight lead over the 7950 in fps but a huge difference in frame latency....click the buttons under the graph to switch back and forth.

http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited/11

More numbers (1920 x 1080 hi / AA)

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3129/10/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-review-incl-sli-kepler-for-p179-battlefield-3

AvP - 7950 > 660 Ti > 660
Batman AC - 660Ti > 660 > 7950
BF3 - 660Ti > 660 > 7950
Crysis 2 - 660Ti > 660 > 7950
Dirt 3 - 660Ti > 660 > 7950
Hard Reset - 660Ti > 7950 > 660
Metro 2033 - 7950 > 660 Ti > 660
Skyrim - 7950 > 660 Ti > 660
Shogun 2 - 660Ti > 7950 > 660
Unreal 3 - - 660Ti > 660 > 7950

660 Ti beats 7950 - 7 /10
7950 beats 660Ti - 3/10

660 beats 7950 - 5/10
7950 beats 660 - 5/10

The 660 is $125 cheaper tho and makes a strong case for consideration.