MSi Geforce 760 vs. Sapphire Radeon 7970

Solution
Today, NVIDIA releases their GeForce GTX 760. It uses the same GK104 graphics processor as the GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, GTX 680, and GTX 770. MSI has overclocked their GTX 760 out of the box, but with only a relatively small overclock that provides a 3% performance improvement over the reference design. The new card delivers an impressive 22% performance improvement over the GTX 660 but is also priced $60 higher. In the product stack, the GTX 760 will replace the GTX 660 Ti, with the GTX 760 GAMING providing a performance that is 8% higher at $20 less. Compared to AMD's lineup, we see the card 11% faster than the Radeon HD 7950; the HD 7950 Boost variants should roughly match its performance but is more expensive.
While all other companies...
Today, NVIDIA releases their GeForce GTX 760. It uses the same GK104 graphics processor as the GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, GTX 680, and GTX 770. MSI has overclocked their GTX 760 out of the box, but with only a relatively small overclock that provides a 3% performance improvement over the reference design. The new card delivers an impressive 22% performance improvement over the GTX 660 but is also priced $60 higher. In the product stack, the GTX 760 will replace the GTX 660 Ti, with the GTX 760 GAMING providing a performance that is 8% higher at $20 less. Compared to AMD's lineup, we see the card 11% faster than the Radeon HD 7950; the HD 7950 Boost variants should roughly match its performance but is more expensive.
While all other companies cheapen out by using more affordable coolers, MSI goes all-in, using the same TwinFrozr cooler as on the GTX 770 GAMING. This more powerful cooler provides fantastic cooling performance, resulting in low temperatures and low noise levels. Other cards are quiet in idle too, but MSI's card is by far the quietest during gaming. With just 27 dBA, it is quieter than most other cards on the market in idle while still packing a serious gaming punch. Any gamer who's looking for the lowest possible noise at 1080p full HD will certainly enjoy the GTX 760 GAMING.
While AMD's HD 7950 comes with 3 GB of VRAM, the GTX 760 "only" uses 2 GB, which is plenty considering both cards are just too slow to play any game at resolutions that require more than 2 GB of VRAM. Overclocking works well and provides an easily accessible performance boost of around 18%, making the card faster than the GTX 680 and HD 7970 GHz Edition. Pretty nice for a $260 card.
MSI's card also reduces power consumption slightly over the NVIDIA reference design, which helps with its Performance per watt score. Other GTX 760 cards we tested are at the end of the GK104 spectrum. MSI's card sits right in the middle, which certainly benefits temperatures and noise levels as there is less heat that needs to be cooled.
According to MSI, they expect their card to retail at $260, which is a very reasonable price premium of $10 over the reference design. When looking at cards for serious gaming, this is the card offering the most bang for the buck. The cheapest AMD HD 7950 retails at $10 more, is 11% slower, but comes with three games. So if you absolutely must keep cost down, the HD 7950 would be a cheaper option after selling off the game coupons. Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_760_TF_Gaming/32.html
 
Solution

Carnificem

Honorable
Sep 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


Thanks for the quick response, just to clarify, you are saying the MSi would be the better graphics card to get over the other?
 
Their both great choices i would go with the MSI GTX 760 because it's newer,quieter,consumes less power and runs cooler

 

bad_eyes83

Distinguished
Jan 13, 2011
397
0
18,860
if you max everything out and the video card doesn't have enough ram it has to go to the system ram which is a lot slower than graphics ram and you get hiccups while gaming, the more goodies activated, the more ram gets used, Some games use lots of ram, I heard some guy who plays skyrim with all his mods use actually 3.5gb of vram... nuts
 

Carnificem

Honorable
Sep 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


Thanks! That's what I was looking for in a graphics cards, thanks for responding so quickly
 

Carnificem

Honorable
Sep 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


Thanks for responding so quickly, but I think I'm going to go for the MSi, I was leaning towards that from the start, and it matches my case and my motherboard almost perfectly. Still thanks for the information.
 
No problem.You're welcome!Glad to help bud enjoy!

 

fudoka711

Distinguished
Just wondering, do you have a specific need for 4gb of vram? What resolution is your monitor and what and games will you be playing? You don't need more than 2gb vram unless you are playing skyrim or max payne 3 on a 1600p monitor.

If you had to choose between the two cards I would go with the 7970 because it offers 3gb vram and I know you won't use that much. It also offers 3 free games. And its more powerful than the gtx 760. The power/heat efficiency of the gtx 760 isn't worth the loss in performance when compared to the 7970.
 

Carnificem

Honorable
Sep 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


My monitor is 1920x1080, I was planning on playing Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, and Fallout 3 and NV, would it be better to go with a more powerful card and lose the overall effectiveness of the MSi?
 
Apparently the performance difference is a negligible 4%, which amounts to just a few insignificant FPS. There are plenty of games that favor the GTX 760 over the 7970, including Skyrim. The VRAM amount makes no difference in this case, either 3Gb or 4GB is overkill at normal resolutions.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_760_TF_Gaming/22.html
skyrim_1920_1080.gif


Here are a couple other reasons to choose the GTX 760:
1) PhysX, there are actually some really cool games on the way that feature full GPU-accelerated APEX PhysX. The list of upcoming games includes: Call of Duty: Ghosts, Batman: Arkham Origins, and the Witcher 3, in addition to the great games like Borderlands 2 and Metro Last Light that are already out. Batman: Arkham Origins comes free with the GTX 760.

2) The GTX 760, as mentioned before, is going to be much, much quieter than that 7970. According to TechPowerUp, the MSI Gaming card comes in at 27 dBA, while the 7950 version of the Sapphire card (quieter than the 7970) comes in at 34 dBA. According to TPU: " it is generally accepted that a 10 dBA increase doubles the perceived sound level."
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_760_TF_Gaming/26.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7950_Vapor-X/27.html

3) Your games list, like me, you like Bethesda games, all of which are run on a similar game engine. Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV all run better on Nvidia cards. As a bonus only Nvidia cards allow you to enable Ambient Occlusion in those games, which significantly affects how nearly everything in the game looks. In the graphic below, Skyrim on AMD cards looks like the "AO: Off" picture.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1#19
Skyrim-AO-Comparison.gif
 

I honestly do not think so.I'd go the GTX 760 route.