Need help choosing graphic card

[dakrazeedude]

Hello everyone,
I am trying to choose a graphic card caplble of running ArmA 3 on high graphics.
I am deciding between two sets of graphic cards - between cheaper ones and more expensive ones.
on the cheaper side it's gtx 660 OC or Radeon 7870 OC
on the expensive side it's GTX 660 Ti OC or Raedon 7950 OC.

the prices are:
7950 is 405$
GTX 660 Ti is 392$
7870 is 323$
and the GTX 660 is 311$

my system specs:
Core i5 650 3.2 ghz
3gb RAM
Current GPU is GTX 650 1GB OC
Screen resolution is 1920x1080

Please help me choose.
Thank you.

update: I also recently found a radeon 7970 for the same price as GTX 660 Ti.

 

[rayy1212]

The 660ti is Nvidia's weapon of choice and has alot of good reviews.

 

[imomun]

Arma is CPU demanding game aswell a overclock will help that PC
Your best buy GFX card is a 2GB GTX 660 TI or HD7870 if you game on 1080p
Coming from a 650 you will notice significant difference
If you spend more you can always get faster cards but for that without a overclock you will notice frequent frame drops at certain areas in game as your GPU might keepup but CPU not.

Thanks

 

[jessterman21]

The GTX 660 is just as good, and sometimes better than the HD 7870 - less latency in most games. It will max out any game at 1080p, besides Crysis 3.

Also, unless you have a mobo that supports triple-channel memory, you want to get two matching sticks of RAM. Otherwise you're operating in single-channel. 3GB is also the bottom-end of acceptable for gaming.

 

[lostgamer_03]

http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-titan/performance

If we were to have faith in the benchmarks that Nvidia has made, then you will experience about 2 times the performance if you get yourself a GTX 660.

However, the Radeon 7870 is faster and has a lower price to match (in Denmark).
GTX 660 does have adaptive vsync though, TXAA and advanced PhysX and lower power consumption.

So I would actually say it's a tie.

Some people don't really need the technologies that Nvidia provide and some people really depend on them. I would hate gaming without adaptive vsync.

Whatever you choose of the 2, then it will serve you well. If you would like to step up upon the GPUs then I would prefer either getting the Radeon 7950 or the GTX 670. The GTX 660 TI will get crippled at any resolutions above 1920x1080, due to its low memory bandwidth.

 

[imaurer269]

Newegg has some decent prices on the 660, 660ti, 7870 and 7950 atm. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600315498%20600311818&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=48|14-150-590^14-150-590-TS%2C14-150-588^14-150-588-TS%2C14-202-025^14-202-025-TS%2C14-127-699^14-127-699-TS%2C14-125-441^14-125-441-TS

Here is a 3dmark 11 benchmark of my Sapphire 7870 OC(i overclocked it even further) vs my cousins 660ti OC(his has the factory OC only) http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6117412/3dm11/6125889

my 7870 at stock: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6116401

He has a i5 and im using a fx-4100 so his cpu eats mine alive but my 7870 performs almost as well as his 660ti when i put on a decent OC

Any of the cards your looking at are good just depends on what you prefer imo

 

[dakrazeedude]

Hello everyone,
the answers helped me alot.
Im not sure though beacuse I also found a radeon 7970 for 393$.
Is it better then the 660 Ti or are they similar?

 

[imomun]

Hello everyone,
the answers helped me alot.
Im not sure though beacuse I also found a radeon 7970 for 393$.
Is it better then the 660 Ti or are they similar?

HD7970 is much more better

but hey you need more CPU power to feed data to that card

Also if your on 64bit Windows adding more ram 2GB/4GB will make your gaming much more smooth

Just be sure to match the ram, best to buy what you already have, same brand and speed.

HD7970 is kind of overkill for you present setup. I mean your plannig on a 3GB GFX card with 3GB system ram and a LGA1156 @stock 3.2GHz

Doesnt look fair to the 7970 does it?

Good luck

 

[dakrazeedude]

Ok.
So, assuming I'm trying to get one of the higher options...
If I add more RAM, will the GPU be an overkill for the CPU?

 

[imomun]

Ok.
So, assuming I'm trying to get one of the higher options...
If I add more RAM, will the GPU be an overkill for the CPU?

YES

more explained :

@3.2GHz depending on games you will notice occassionaly your system is holding you back and GPU is not @ its full potential speacialy if your on low resolution, but crank up the AA or and you could narrow that gap. Also you can overclock the CPU to make the gap even more narrow.

Modern games do reqire both CPU & GPU speed. Crysis 3 is now showing the limitation of my 1155. Though 80-90% of the time the stock clock of the ivy is fine.

If you game on 1080p or multi monitor or play moded games like skyrim with extreme texture the 3GB 7970 will be more useful so is the 7950 or 670 or 660ti with 2GB or better GFX memory.

In simple terms most of your gaming times you will be ok with any of those cards and more eqquiped with the 7970 3GB rather than a 660TI 2GB But I would say save the dosh and show love to mother nature go green but that just me, So it comes down to your personal choice.

If you can buy and like to have some GFX power reserved/spare do not mind occassional frame drops in certain CPU intensive games you can get the 7970 its OK

Hope this explains

 

[imomun]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/384637-33-will-7970-bottleneck

7970 is better than 660ti by 15%

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_Performance/23.html

7970 is better agreed

Thanks

 

[dakrazeedude]

Ok everyone, this helped me a lot
But I have just 1 more question.
With the budget I have I can buy the 7970 alone and keep the 3gn RAM or I can buy the 660 Ti and round up the RAM to 8gb.
Which of these options do you think will be more effective?
Overall cost of them is the same.
Thanks