Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 And 660 Review: Kepler At $110 And $230

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]MisterD70[/nom]So where can we buy these cards at reduced prices?I checked Newegg and a bunch of other stores and they're listed at full price still.[/citation]

I just checked Newegg and it seems that not only have the price drops not been enacted yet (no surprise there), but the already cheaper 7870s are all gone despite there being several at or below $230 without a rebate (some at $200-215 after MIR) for several weeks and up to a few hours ago 🙁

 

[ojas]

What AnandTech writes:

Arkham City is another game that has favored memory bandwidth and ROP throughput over shader performance on Kepler parts, which means the GTX 660 does relatively well here.

Though i think this is a comparison b/w the 660 and the 660 Ti.

Their review is almost opposite in a way to the tom's review. Also, in BF3, while the radeons serve up almost identical performance on both sites, the geforce cards perform better in AnandTech's review.

Also, strangely the 7870 performs better than the 7950 in some of their games.

I'm as confused as ever about the cards. AnandTech's review generally favors the 660 but they haven't used 8x MSAA anywhere.

 

[TechnoD]

Are you playing the same exact maps in the same exact way with the same exact settings both of the card and the game and with the same drivers and game version? If not, then performance differences aren't surprising.

Hi Blazorthon. I can tell you that I have played a lot of BF3 with this setup and I have never dropped below 30 fps at any time. graphics are all on high with a few on ultra. AA is maxed out. The reason for my comment was that I was wondering why the card was not included in the 1920*1080 high/ultra benchmark. As far as I have seen, the card can run high/ultra fine.

 

[refillable]

MSRP isn't what you should judge prices by for AMD's cards. The 7870 has been around $200-210 with some models for several weeks. AMD cards have models considerably under local MSRP pretty much everywhere and with the MSRP dropping to $240, 7870s will probably be found around the $200 mark more often. Some 7850s are probably going to drop to the $170-180 range, maybe lower with discounts. It's not like how Nvidia cards are much more difficult to find under MSRP and even when they are, it's usually not far under at all.

I have to agree wt you, but thats not always the case. Just today I just checked today and the cheapest 7870 I could find was still at the old msrp price. So those price may only be there at a certain time. But even when the prices of the 7870 are the sale price, my comment would still be valid because I was saying that the 7870 prices are excellent even after the release of this 660 card .

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]refillable[/nom]I have to agree wt you, but thats not always the case. Just today I just checked today and the cheapest 7870 I could find was still at the old msrp price. So those price may only be there at a certain time. But even when the prices of the 7870 are the sale price, my comment would still be valid because I was saying that the 7870 prices are excellent even after the release of this 660 card .[/citation]

Yeah, I just noticed that for the first time in weeks, there are no discounted 7870s that I can find 🙁

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]What AnandTech writes:Though i think this is a comparison b/w the 660 and the 660 Ti.Their review is almost opposite in a way to the tom's review. Also, in BF3, while the radeons serve up almost identical performance on both sites, the geforce cards perform better in AnandTech's review.Also, strangely the 7870 performs better than the 7950 in some of their games.I'm as confused as ever about the cards. AnandTech's review generally favors the 660 but they haven't used 8x MSAA anywhere.[/citation]

Different settings can affect performance greatly on some card while not so much on others. For example, using heavy MSAA doesn't hurt AMD's Radeon 7000 performance much whereas Nvidia takes a nose-dive when it's used.

 

[heffeque]

Does the 660 come in AGP?

*Grabs pop corn*

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]heffeque[/nom]Does the 660 come in AGP?*Grabs pop corn*[/citation]

Very funny.

 

[Guest]

Everyone is selling the GTX 650 at $120 plus shipping. It's no cheaper than the 7770. What happened to the $110 MSRP?

 

[somebodyspecial]

I'm trying to figure out why you guys never benchmark cards as they come out of the box. I keep reading the line that says "All overclocked cards reduced to reference specification for testing". What for when you can't even buy one at reference in some cases (660 TI's almost ALL on newegg are overclocked in some way with most gaining what seems to be 10-15% from it, same can be said about a lot of radeon cards).

They send you a card and you automatically neuter them so I can't use your site as a guide regarding the reviewed cards. I have no idea how any of them run, accept at some speed I'd like to completely avoid (unless just dumb enough to buy the same price for lower speed, as OC cards run the same price anyway). I'm wondering why I clicked the review in the first place That may sound harsh, but I'm seriously wondering why you do this. I used to come here for every product review (back in Tom Pabst days). That's pretty much over now. Why do you keep forcing me to read other sites for REAL performance numbers based on what I'll actually try to purchase? Seems silly, or maybe I'm just missing the point here. Please explain why should I care about reference when only a fool would buy one at that speed? I'm confused.

 

[army_ant7]

@somebodyspecial
As I see it, your main concern is why they don't keep factory overclocked cards the way they are. Well, if they did, that would skew the test results of articles like this. It would also be unfair for cards that aren't factory overclocked. These kinds of reviews just show the performance and other characteristics of these new cards in general. Testing cards for each manufacturer may be out of the question. For that, you may want to refer to articles like this. I hope I helped.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-ti-memory-bandwidth-anti-aliasing,3283.html (They don't have one for the GTX 650 or 660 yet as it seems, but they might be in the works for it.)

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]somebodyspecial[/nom]I'm trying to figure out why you guys never benchmark cards as they come out of the box. I keep reading the line that says "All overclocked cards reduced to reference specification for testing". What for when you can't even buy one at reference in some cases (660 TI's almost ALL on newegg are overclocked in some way with most gaining what seems to be 10-15% from it, same can be said about a lot of radeon cards). They send you a card and you automatically neuter them so I can't use your site as a guide regarding the reviewed cards. I have no idea how any of them run, accept at some speed I'd like to completely avoid (unless just dumb enough to buy the same price for lower speed, as OC cards run the same price anyway). I'm wondering why I clicked the review in the first place That may sound harsh, but I'm seriously wondering why you do this. I used to come here for every product review (back in Tom Pabst days). That's pretty much over now. Why do you keep forcing me to read other sites for REAL performance numbers based on what I'll actually try to purchase? Seems silly, or maybe I'm just missing the point here. Please explain why should I care about reference when only a fool would buy one at that speed? I'm confused.[/citation]

The point of this is to compare the reference specifications to other reference specifications. Factor-overclocked 660s and 650s, at best, won't perform better than reference by percentage greater than the percentage of their overclocks, so even in a worst case scenario here, you have an idea of how the non-reference cards perform.

 

[somebodyspecial]

The point of this is to compare the reference specifications to other reference specifications. Factor-overclocked 660s and 650s, at best, won't perform better than reference by percentage greater than the percentage of their overclocks, so even in a worst case scenario here, you have an idea of how the non-reference cards perform.

As mentioned it would only be 10-15%. But I'd like to know how they run at what I'll buy. Does X card drive up the wattage? is the fan noisy as bought? Does X card run hot compared to the others? I guess I just don't understand why I'd want to know things that are pretty useless to a buyer. Ref clocks are not NEARLY what you'd buy from either company. There are a dozen of either side's cards at newegg that are not ref clocked and do it at the same price as ref clocked cards. So who's interested in a ref card (and on NV's side this time, they pretty much can't be bought). So I think readers are more interested in what we can expect from whatever it is being reviewed. Without running them as bought you're telling me nothing useful about x product. This is akin to testing a psu but not finding out where each one starts to kick in the fan. If you run a bunch of 1000w psu's at a reference of 500watt I don't know where they'll likely start driving me crazy. Push them until we see each kick into high gear and now I have some data I can make a purchase decision on. I can see putting the ref card clock in the benchmarks too, but not wasting the whole review on it. I get scores that are not real, temps I won't see, noise can't be decided on etc. It's also useful to see what games are affected on a particular card if memory or gpu is more overclocked (in some cases both) making a cheaper card capable in some games it normally wouldn't be playable. Some people might even miss that sentence in the test info and not realize these cards will not perform as shown at all. Some may in fact do quite a bit better as sold. Users may get the impression X card can't cut it, but 10-15% could change quite a bit. You can go from under 30fps to playable in a few games with that which may definitely change a few buyers minds. Showing cards as their weakest just seems pointless and not usable for anyone basing their buying decision on these types of benchmarks. I read the line and had to immediately head elsewhere to find out the real info. I'll refrain from mentioning site names here, as I'm not trying to advertise for them, I'm just hoping the practice ends. I'm not sure why anyone would send you a card if they don't get their product represented as it's sold. What's the point in a company differentiating it's products if sites like this just reduce them all to the least common denominator for testing? It seems to me you'll end up fostering the idea they just shouldn't bother as nobody will see the results anyway.

I'd hate to see a bunch of companies quit differentiating their products because sites just ignore it anyway. Living in AZ I base card purchases on the temps and the noise at those temps.
You say "you have an idea of how the non-reference cards perform"
Why not have the actual performance rather than an "idea"? Isn't the point of benchmarking by definition to PROVE what is really going to happen? Why would I want to avoid reality? Witness all the overclocked cards at newegg for $229 ref price. Kind of makes the article's benchmarks moot doesn't it? It would be different if we were talking a difference of say $20-30 or something but we're talking launch priced cards overclocked for free. The more interesting story there then, becomes how hot/noisy and do you get screwed in the watts. Is the fan adequate or useless? With a side benefit of 'hey check out the free performance'

Whatever, I'm not interested in this card anyway (I'll pony up for the 660 TI unless AMD changes my mind by black friday ). I just wanted the practice of pointless benchmarking to stop. It doesn't reflect reality. I don't read their reviews for an "idea" of how things perform. I read for the actual real performance of how they perform Thanks to both for responses guys.

 

[blazorthon]

The problem is that you're asking Tom's for reviews of individual models and that's usually not what Tom's does. They might come out with a review on a few models every now and then, but that's not the point of this review. If you want specifics on individual models like that, then you should look for a review about the specific model that you're interested in. Sites such as Tech Power Up often have such reviews on many different models.

 

[somebodyspecial]

@somebodyspecial
As I see it, your main concern is why they don't keep factory overclocked cards the way they are. Well, if they did, that would skew the test results of articles like this. It would also be unfair for cards that aren't factory overclocked. These kinds of reviews just show the performance and other characteristics of these new cards in general. Testing cards for each manufacturer may be out of the question. For that, you may want to refer to articles like this. I hope I helped.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-ti-memory-bandwidth-anti-aliasing,3283.html (They don't have one for the GTX 650 or 660 yet as it seems, but they might be in the works for it.)

That is what I'm after Didn't realize they released it a month later after debut. I'd rather see these at launch day than ref's.

Thanks for pointing it out (see, the ref stuff got me ignoring them for a time 😉). I didn't notice that until I'd posted my other msg...LOL. I've actually been a little busy and just missed it I guess, but I wouldn't have went away so quickly if I had that data at launch

Thanks again for the replies guys. Have a good one (as I see the sun is now up...rofl).

 

[youssef 2010]

So, The GTX 660 offers the 660TI's performance for less money when overclocked...Now why does this sound awfully familiar?

 

[somebodyspecial]

@youssef Because AMD does it too? Because you could say that about any overclocked card for the most part?

@blazorthon funny you mention them. I read that, hardocp, techreport, anandtech, guru3d etc etc. If I'm about to lay out $300 I read everything I can find usually My comment was really about users who don't do this, and toms kind of feeding the idea there is no point in differentiating their products. But I would like the article the OP pointed to, to come first rather than a month later. Like I said, ref is ok, but at least show the card you have in hand benched as out of the box also. They send it to them to get it reviewed as built, not neutered by a reviewer.

 

[army_ant7]

I read that, hardocp, techreport, anandtech, guru3d etc etc. If I'm about to lay out $300 I read everything I can find usually My comment was really about users who don't do this, and toms kind of feeding the idea there is no point in differentiating their products. But I would like the article the OP pointed to, to come first rather than a month later. Like I said, ref is ok, but at least show the card you have in hand benched as out of the box also. They send it to them to get it reviewed as built, not neutered by a reviewer.

I live in AZ too! Peoria to be more precise. Hehehe...
Got the thermostat set to 80 Fahrenheit, and this CF HD 7850 system seems to work fine here. Just giving a reference...

Anyway, I don't think you can blame Tom's here. I'm not sure how other sites get multiple manufacturer card so quickly, and I'm not sure how they test all of them (specifics and criteria), but maybe Tom's doesn't get that many samples from different manufacturers, doesn't have the ability to acquire (buy) them immediately, and/or can't test them to the extent they'd want to, immediately, due to many possible reasons.

This article though interests me and probably others. That may be because I'm not using it as a buying guide for now (though it could be) but as a new reference and a leisure read.
Knowing the reference model's:
MSRP,
architecture/chip design (e.g. GK106) and how it works,
performance (and I want to point out blaz's point about how overclocking doesn't necessarily scale up performance linearly),
general overclocking capabilities (though I'm not sure they put that in this review),
its different operating temperatures, power draws, and acoustic levels (though this varies a lot as a lot of us know, with manufacturer specific coolers (not to mention aftermarket coolers), chip binning (possibly), etc.),
and any other details
makes me a happy reader.
It sounds really difficult to test all different manufacturer takes on this reference model, even more so when you consider that some manufacturers may have more than one model of their own based on this reference model. Also, not to mention aftermarket coolers.

Again, Tom's may come up with an article comparing common (?) models based on one reference model, but that itself may not be perfect, and, again, that may take some time on their part because of multiple possible reasons.
The reader of the article should be aware that this is just a reference model-based article, and should use other sources (other articles from here and other websites), data (product reviews, and manufacturer support and reputation as examples). and plainly their own discretion.

I want to thank you for being nice. It is great to see more people like you and not unsavory people who have to be so offensive and sometimes personal.

 

[blazorthon]

@youssef Because AMD does it too? Because you could say that about any overclocked card for the most part?

@blazorthon funny you mention them. I read that, hardocp, techreport, anandtech, guru3d etc etc. If I'm about to lay out $300 I read everything I can find usually My comment was really about users who don't do this, and toms kind of feeding the idea there is no point in differentiating their products. But I would like the article the OP pointed to, to come first rather than a month later. Like I said, ref is ok, but at least show the card you have in hand benched as out of the box also. They send it to them to get it reviewed as built, not neutered by a reviewer.

Actually, I think that youssef's point was the GTX 670 versus the GTX 680. Also, when did AMD release a card that performs like a higher end model? Even the Radeon 7870 and the Radeon 7950, the closest performing cards of the Radeon 7000 series, have a good performance gap between them and they have different performance characteristics that can let them distinguish themselves with different settings.

I really can't argue with your last two sentences there. That would have been nice to see.

 

[somebodyspecial]

I live in AZ too! Peoria to be more precise. Hehehe...
Got the thermostat set to 80 Fahrenheit, and this CF HD 7850 system seems to work fine here. Just giving a reference...

Anyway, I don't think you can blame Tom's here. I'm not sure how other sites get multiple manufacturer card so quickly, and I'm not sure how they test all of them (specifics and criteria), but maybe Tom's doesn't get that many samples from different manufacturers, doesn't have the ability to acquire (buy) them immediately, and/or can't test them to the extent they'd want to, immediately, due to many possible reasons.

This article though interests me and probably others. That may be because I'm not using it as a buying guide for now (though it could be) but as a new reference and a leisure read.
Knowing the reference model's:
MSRP,
architecture/chip design (e.g. GK106) and how it works,
performance (and I want to point out blaz's point about how overclocking doesn't necessarily scale up performance linearly),
general overclocking capabilities (though I'm not sure they put that in this review),
its different operating temperatures, power draws, and acoustic levels (though this varies a lot as a lot of us know, with manufacturer specific coolers (not to mention aftermarket coolers), chip binning (possibly), etc.),
and any other details
makes me a happy reader.
It sounds really difficult to test all different manufacturer takes on this reference model, even more so when you consider that some manufacturers may have more than one model of their own based on this reference model. Also, not to mention aftermarket coolers.

Again, Tom's may come up with an article comparing common (?) models based on one reference model, but that itself may not be perfect, and, again, that may take some time on their part because of multiple possible reasons.
The reader of the article should be aware that this is just a reference model-based article, and should use other sources (other articles from here and other websites), data (product reviews, and manufacturer support and reputation as examples). and plainly their own discretion.

I want to thank you for being nice. It is great to see more people like you and not unsavory people who have to be so offensive and sometimes personal.

A fellow AZ guy Mine is set at 78-79 (day/night). I'd have it cooler but someone else complains...LOL and I might complain if I saw the electric bill after doing it...ROFL. I really wasn't after perf, I'm more interested in the heat/noise as designed so I can judge if they put an adequate fan on the model I"m seeking that won't drive me out of the room or cause me to have to buy a REAL fan I already know OC won't get me more than about 10-15 depending on the game. That wasn't really my point, just that I want to know the facts you mentioned as "making you happy" out of the box. For ref, if I game on my Radeon 5850 I'll have to leave the room in about 3hrs of hardcore gaming. It just gets too hot with that and the cpu cooking near max. I've put off buying a quad until Ivy (waiting for Black Friday now) so I could get 22nm and hopefully as cool of a chip as possible. I'm hoping coupling that with a 660TI (or low temp radeon deal) will allow me to end the heat issues even if I have to down-clock the cpu. I see nothing I do that causes me to need much more than the dual core I have now at 3ghz. Xeon 3110...Basically E8400 but lower volts & cherry picked . Of course I've cut most of the gaming out in AZ since I moved here. I haven't quite got used to the weather (but better than TX humidity for the few years I was there), as I spent 30+yrs in Oregon with nary a sunny day even in summer...LOL. We would go hunting in -17 windchill at times. It will quickly get to 80+ in this room which isn't enjoyable when playing an intense action game If you shut the door to the room while playing the party's over fairly quickly. Mind you, my card was bought for the temps, and the cpu cherry picked xeon for the same. I'll probably down-clock the cpu I buy anyway and it looks like the card will be about break even for a lot more perf either way I go. I think the cpu is the only hope of really dropping the temps in the room while playing. A 3.x ghz quad (down-clocked I7 3770 is the plan) will be a massive perf gain over my current 3ghz. It's a few revs later tech even at the same speed, so I'm pretty sure I'll be grinning and I'm guessing a few degrees cooler while running there even with the two extra cores based on my homework, they're free temp wise. The room stays fine already while browsing etc. It only gets really hot in here gaming. I didn't have as many issues last year. I think it's a little hotter here this summer.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Actually, I think that youssef's point was the GTX 670 versus the GTX 680. Also, when did AMD release a card that performs like a higher end model? Even the Radeon 7870 and the Radeon 7950, the closest performing cards of the Radeon 7000 series, have a good performance gap between them and they have different performance characteristics that can let them distinguish themselves with different settings.

I really can't argue with your last two sentences there. That would have been nice to see.

The 7950's can run fairly easily at 1150core out of the box on any of them. While this is not so true with the 7950B cards as they are not from Cherry picked chips now (as anandtech noted in their review), the first rev was a really excellent bargain that could easily encroach on 7970's territory for much cheaper and beat it quite handily in many things. This is pretty much true of either side at $300 vs. the higher cards (cheaper now that prices keep dropping of course). There really isn't a point in spending over $300. You can run anything at that price at or near their higher end bigger brothers. You're rarely memory constrained on these cards when running 24in or below (all at newegg are 1080P or 1920x1200 just like my two) so when you can clock the gpu at or near the same speed as the bigger brothers they get real close (7950 vs 7970 and 660TI vs 670, or even 670 vs 680 etc). It's a rare occasion where you'll see much of a difference and the top cards are already close to max, hence you're just wasting money. Might as well save $100-200 and just clock your card up to them HardOCP had their 660TI running 1300+ core and memory real close to the just shy of the 670's bandwidth. It was pretty much a wash @1920x1200. They really only separated at 2560x1600 and only in mem constrained games. They did it with a 3GB card too, so it should have been tougher to OC with more memory. I was kind of surprised they hit such high speeds on the mem, the gpu pretty much does that everywhere. Out of the box the mem was 1502, but it OC'd to 1902! WOW.
http://hardocp.com/article/2012/08/21/galaxy_geforce_gtx_660_ti_gc_3gb_overclocking_review/4
"n BF3 the overclocked GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB video card is now faster than the GeForce GTX 670 stock video card. In fact, it is faster by almost 10% when it is overclocked! The overclocked GALAXY GTX 660 Ti is a whopping 28% faster than the stock clock Radeon HD 7950."
It took the 670 out in Max Payne3, Batman, Witcher2 & BF3 even at 2560x1600...LOL. So while we're only talking 10-15% usually it's quite different on the 660TI with much more to play with. The same can be said of the old 7950's with OC. They get a VERY healthy boost (unlike the new Boost ...heh). Best to get an old card, but I'm sure they'll be gone by Black Friday hence I lean toward the 660TI currently.

 

[blazorthon]

The 7950's can run fairly easily at 1150core out of the box on any of them. While this is not so true with the 7950B cards as they are not from Cherry picked chips now (as anandtech noted in their review), the first rev was a really excellent bargain that could easily encroach on 7970's territory for much cheaper and beat it quite handily in many things. This is pretty much true of either side at $300 vs. the higher cards (cheaper now that prices keep dropping of course). There really isn't a point in spending over $300. You can run anything at that price at or near their higher end bigger brothers. You're rarely memory constrained on these cards when running 24in or below (all at newegg are 1080P or 1920x1200 just like my two) so when you can clock the gpu at or near the same speed as the bigger brothers they get real close (7950 vs 7970 and 660TI vs 670, or even 670 vs 680 etc). It's a rare occasion where you'll see much of a difference and the top cards are already close to max, hence you're just wasting money. Might as well save $100-200 and just clock your card up to them HardOCP had their 660TI running 1300+ core and memory real close to the just shy of the 670's bandwidth. It was pretty much a wash @1920x1200. They really only separated at 2560x1600 and only in mem constrained games. They did it with a 3GB card too, so it should have been tougher to OC with more memory. I was kind of surprised they hit such high speeds on the mem, the gpu pretty much does that everywhere. Out of the box the mem was 1502, but it OC'd to 1902! WOW.
http://hardocp.com/article/2012/08/21/galaxy_geforce_gtx_660_ti_gc_3gb_overclocking_review/4
"n BF3 the overclocked GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB video card is now faster than the GeForce GTX 670 stock video card. In fact, it is faster by almost 10% when it is overclocked! The overclocked GALAXY GTX 660 Ti is a whopping 28% faster than the stock clock Radeon HD 7950."
It took the 670 out in Max Payne3, Batman, Witcher2 & BF3 even at 2560x1600...LOL. So while we're only talking 10-15% usually it's quite different on the 660TI with much more to play with. The same can be said of the old 7950's with OC. They get a VERY healthy boost (unlike the new Boost ...heh). Best to get an old card, but I'm sure they'll be gone by Black Friday hence I lean toward the 660TI currently.

I think that youssef's point was similar performance at stock, not similar performance when overclocked, but alright.

28% is nothing for a 7950. 40-50% is easy on most models and going beyond 50% is very common for some models. The 3GiB 660 Tis have fewer memory chips than the 2GiB models, so going beyond them is to be expected, although 1.9GHz still seems far-fetched for most units even of the same model if you ask me. Yes, the 7950s usually can go as far as the 7970s with the same cooler, but the 7970 GHz Editions seem to be able to stay ahead of them.

Value often has a drop-off point as you go further into the high end. This really isn't a new concept. I'd also still be worried about the 660 Ti when you play with some good AA such as 4x MSAA and 8x MSAA. Even the 670 shows weakness in this, so I have no doubt that the 660 Ti would still do poorly in it. Even 1080p can show the 670 and especially the 660 Ti waning significantly in heavy AA while the Radeons with GCN GPUs just keep chugging along at about 85%-95% of the frame rates that they had without AA.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-ti-memory-bandwidth-anti-aliasing,3283-13.html

That's in BatMan: AC, a game that favors Nvidia probably more than almost any other game. I really like how the 7950 turns out in this and would not want anything from the Geforce GTX 600 series for a higher end gaming system, especially at 1080p. I really don't like playing at 1080p without some serious AA and Nvidia simply doesn't deliver in that.

 

[somebodyspecial]

After reading 10 comments I realized this discussion was nothing more than a bunch of neckbeards blindly fighing for their respective hard-ons. 660 appears to be a solid performer and the 650 is what it is in the price point. You really gonna complain that much at $130? Pick which company you prefer, performance is gonna be what it is. You guys need to find an outlet for your fanboy rage.

I'm not quite sure who you're post is actually to. I'm not even interested in the card reviewed, I was discussing HOW Tom's has been doing their reviews. Making most of their data useless to a buyer wanting to know if something is noisy or hot out of the box. AMD or NV (or whoever else).

I own NV stock, and own a Radeon 5850 for my GPU...LOL. NV will currently make me more money, and at the time The radeon was a cooler card without the NV blower driving me batty. I favor nobody but my wallet at the time I purchase and care far more about being able to stay in the room when attempting to have fun. Hence my wanting to know why they don't give that info in their reviews (again, for any card...I wasn't even interesting in the reviewed cards here as noted above if you'd have read it before spouting off). I'm buying a $300 card. Not sure what you're even talking about, other than you bounced in to make useless statements. It seems you didn't even read the comments. We were discussing review tactics not who won anything. If I was interested in the card I would have been discussing the card, not review practices. I came in here a month ago during the 660TI review and read the same thing. I had to go elsewhere to find out which model was cool and not noisy as sold. I was hoping to change that practice in the future no matter what I'm reading about here. Changing reality from out of the box experience isn't what I'll be working with. So I wondered why it was even being told to me. I'd rather know OOBE so I have a good idea of what I'll actually see upon getting one home, no matter what it is. Granted Tom's ran the cards again later, and I missed that review as it was a month after I stopped reading on them (thanks again to OP for pointing it out, though I'd already pretty much gotten it via a dozen other reviews...heh).

I owned a PC business for 8 years and spent most of my time explaining (back then) why AMD was better than Intel. I've owned AMD/Intel and NV stock over the last 20 years multiple times. I'm not what comment I made about anything suggests fanboy rage. You just wasted 15 minutes of my life I can't get back...LOL. Thanks. I made no comment regarding any card performing better. Rather I said all are different than Tom's is showing, as such I can't tell what I'll get when I get home AMD or NV. If you are testing a Lamborghini, Ferrari etc and test them all at 55mph you've shown me nothing about any of them. They're not designed for 55mph...LOL. I would want to know what they do at 200mph+, if they handle well there, if the engine blows up etc. I already know they all do 55mph. You're the only one that looks like he has an issue. I digress...

 

[blazorthon]

I owned a PC business for 8 years and spent most of my time explaining (back then) why AMD was better than Intel. I've owned AMD/Intel and NV stock over the last 20 years multiple times. I'm not what comment I made about anything suggests fanboy rage. You just wasted 15 minutes of my life I can't get back...LOL. Thanks. I made no comment regarding any card performing better. Rather I said all are different than Tom's is showing, as such I can't tell what I'll get when I get home AMD or NV. If you are testing a Lamborghini, Ferrari etc and test them all at 55mph you've shown me nothing about any of them. They're not designed for 55mph...LOL. I would want to know what they do at 200mph+, if they handle well there, if the engine blows up etc. I already know they all do 55mph. You're the only one that looks like he has an issue. I digress...

To be fair, that's not a very accurate analogy. Running cars intended for 65MPH at 55MPH might be a better analogy.

 

[blazorthon]

It was in reference to the obvious fanboy opinions posted immediately after the review was live. I have no preference for either company, although I tend to lean towards Nvidia for no other reason than I have more experience with them (I owned an original geforce256 and my first ATI card was a x1650 - prior to that it was 3DFX all the way baby!).

Unfortunately my experience with AMD/ATI fanboys is similar to that of diehard Linux users. Blind loyalty. I understand how someone can have a preference to the company, but ignoring fact gets annoying. I build AMD machines for friends and family all the time - A FX4100+970 board (from microcenter with mobo bundle discount, I'm sure if some Intel fanboy reads this old thread we'll get some i3 trolling going...) and a 6850 is pretty hard to beat these days for price😛erformance.

The discussion appears to have gotten better as time passed. I was just referring to the first number of posts I read. I may have been a bit intoxicated when I made that post as well!

Nvidia and Intel don't fare any better in fanboy issues than AMD/Ati does 🙁 Still, you do make a good point with the first few posts (as well as some others) of this article's comments.