7950 or 670?

[SheHateMe]

Hey guys,

I am still bouncing around trying to figure out which card I should get. I am graduating from a GTX 285 (also a Twin frozr) that I used in my build about 3 years ago.

So here is what im trying to choose between.

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-R7950-TWIN...win+frozr+7950 +using $60 in Amazon gift card credits.

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Dual-Link...ywords=GTX+670 +Using $60 in Amazon gift card credits.


Obviously the 7950 would be cheaper with the gift cards, but I was wondering which one would give me more millage before its outdated?

Btw, how is a FTW edition different from a regular 670?

Im not a huge gamer. Im just a girl that like to play CS, COD, BF3, The Sims 3, Fallout, GTA (So looking forward to GTAV) and whatever else tickles my fancy.


Tell me what you think!

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The gtx670 is a better card, but at that price the 7950 is hard to pass up. Really hard.

 

[thilanliyan]

For that much of a price difference, I would go with a 7950.

However, check for reviews with the games you play and decide which one you like and whether you are willing to pay extra for a certain level of performance.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you are going to be overclocking, HD7950. At 1.1ghz, it will be as fast as a GTX670 FTW and cost you $70 less.

If you are not going to be overclocking, GTX670. The main differences between the FTW and the "regular" 670 edition are:

1) 670 FTW is factory preoverclocked to hit 1084MHz vs. 980mhz of the stock 670
2) It's built on a GTX680 PCB (so has better build quality and a quieter fan)
3) Has a high-flow exhaust bracket (that's mostly marketing).

The main problem I have with buying a GTX670 at $400 right now is that cards such as Gigabyte WindForce 3x HD7970 are dipping to $440. 3GB of VRAM may be better for GTA V mods and cards like these are much quieter than the GTX670 FTW. Also, with overclocking the 7970 will beat an OCed 670.

Also, you can run bit-coin mining on the side to make some $ for Amazon / Newegg Gift cards for example with your 7900 series card. The current rate is > $8 and an overclocked 7950/7970 will make 8.5-11 BTC a month.

Even if you don't bitcoin mine, since you keep your cards for 3 years, by that point both the 670 and an overclocked 7950 @ 1.0ghz+ will be "equally slow". But you'll have $70 saved stashed in a savings account (GIC, etc.) towards your next GPU upgrade down the line.

I say HD7950 MSI TwinFrozr + OC is the best value here but if most of the time you play BF3 and don't fancy overclocking, then GTX670 is the clear winner.

 

[Silverforce11]

Think about this: Buying the radeons this generation and not overclocking is like buying a fancy sports car and only driving at the road speed limit, ever.

It's just not wise and i dont recommend ppl who don't OC to even bother, because these cards are shipped with such huge headroom (AMD were too conservative, hence the GE ed coming soon).

If you do OC, 7950s is unmatched in perf/$, by far.

 

[SheHateMe]

How easy/hard is it to overclock the 7950? I've always been interested in Overclocking but I could never find any good tutorials/advice. Do you guys have any tips?


Also, how exactly do you mine for bit coins?

 

[Silverforce11]

It's too easy to overclock now with all the software out there, ie. https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/TriXX.aspx

All u need is that, and if u do buy a 7950 come back and we'll explain what the few options do.

As for bitcoins, i'll let Russian explain that. I never bothered with it since i've always paid >0.25 US per kWh and its never been worth it.

 

[Phishy714]

How easy/hard is it to overclock the 7950? I've always been interested in Overclocking but I could never find any good tutorials/advice. Do you guys have any tips?


Also, how exactly do you mine for bit coins?

pretty simple. get MSI afterburner. Increase the gpu clock. Run a few benchmarks - the unwritten rule is that if the card can run Heaven Benchmark maxed out for 30min to 60 min without problems, it is stable. Once you get a stable overclock, increase and test it and rinse and repeat until the overclock is no longer stable. Then clock it down slightly until it is stable again.

If you want to overvolt, find out what the MAX safe voltage is from a forum somewhere and instead of lowering the clock with its unstable, you instead increase the voltage ever so slightly until it is stable.

 

[RussianSensation]

How easy/hard is it to overclock the 7950? I've always been interested in Overclocking but I could never find any good tutorials/advice. Do you guys have any tips?

All you'd need is to download MSI Afterburner or Sapphire Trixx, set Power Limit to +20% and move the slider for GPU speed from 880mhz to 1050-1100mhz. Press Apple and save this as say Profile 1. After, you'd want to run MSI Kombuster or some other stress testing application (Crysis 1 loops, Unigine Heaven with 8AA/Extreme Tessellation). If the card is stable, you are done. Additional speed may require a voltage increase, which again is simply moving the slider. The program has the option to boot your computer with these overclocked settings in place, which means these settings will be retained ("Apple overclocking at system startup").

Here is what MSI Afterburner looks like. It's very easy to use.

Also, how exactly do you mine for bit coins?

There is a huge thread here. But recently I did a quick summary of how to set up it in this post.

Essentially, you can run a Bitcoin mining application such as GUIMiner when you are not gaming and it will accumulate these bitcoins, which you can later spend on gift cards or transfer them to Paypal. Because the electricity cost in places such as Michigan is so cheap, this should be a no brainer for you. However, if you are not comfortable with doing overclocking or running bitcoin mining which would obviously heat up your room, you can't go wrong with the GTX670 either.

 

[SheHateMe]

Interesting. I will have to check this out. It sounds a bit shady, however lol

I mean...they are giving away this money for free? What is the purpose of mining?

 

[RussianSensation]

What is the purpose of mining?

- To have virtual currency that allows you to buy things online while being anonymous unlike our credit cards/banks that force us to disclose our personal information such as our address, telephone numbers, etc.

- To create an alternative currency to world's currently acceptable currencies

There are a few good articles on this that explain it a lot better than I can:

Bitcoin Currency and GPU Mining Performance Comparison
Bitcoin Mining Update: Power Usage Costs Across the United States

Or you can follow the news at Bitcoin charts

 

[SheHateMe]

- To have virtual currency that allows you to buy things online while being anonymous unlike our credit cards/banks that force us to disclose our personal information such as our address, telephone numbers, etc.

- To create an alternative currency to world's currently acceptable currencies

There are a few good articles on this that explain it a lot better than I can:

Bitcoin Currency and GPU Mining Performance Comparison
Bitcoin Mining Update: Power Usage Costs Across the United States

Or you can follow the news at Bitcoin charts

I don't think I was phrasing my question correctly..I actually meant more of where is this "free" money coming from? You linked me to a site where you convert BT to Gift Cards (monetary value) so I was wondering who is paying for all this.

From first glance this seems like one of those "too good to be true" things. But I am actually intrigued now.

Hardware wise, what are the requirements one would need for a computer. Someone said earlier that you have to leave your computer running and I read in another thread that it makes your GPU work..so I don't suppose I could mine and play a game at the same time without negative consequences somewhere down the line due to overheating.

How long have you been bit coin mining and how lucrative has it been for you. Also, how long did it take before you made a significant amount of coins that had a lot of monetary value?


Sorry Im asking so many question. You've got me excited!

 

[f1sherman]

What is the purpose of mining?

Mining iteslf - i.e. solving math problems that even mathematicians are not interested in.
The very nature of Bitcoin and the need to secure Bitcoin network, makes mining useless for anything else.

I don't think I was phrasing my question correctly..I actually meant more of where is this "free" money coming from?

"Free" money comes out of the fact that bunch of ppl got together,
and decided they'll use this Bitcoin currency for trading, so it had to have some value prescribed to it.

The exact value comes out of the basic free market law of supply and demand.

 

[SheHateMe]

Oh okay. Awesome! I shall try this. I wonder if this bit coin thing is why a lot of people on this forum have killer rigs lol

 

[thilanliyan]

Oh okay. Awesome! I shall try this. I wonder if this bit coin thing is why a lot of people on this forum have killer rigs lol

Bitcoin mining is only worth it on AMD/ATI cards as nVidia cards just don't have the required "calculation rate" for the mining. Remember though, you have to take into account your electricity cost as well.

I have paid off almost both my 6950 cards with mining. I couldn't believe it at first either but I have been converting my bitcoins to paypal (although they charge ridiculous fees to receive money) using Spendbitcoins.com and have never had any problems. I then use the paypal balance to buy whatever I want.

 

[RussianSensation]

I don't think I was phrasing my question correctly..I actually meant more of where is this "free" money coming from?

No different than paper money we use today. The paper money is printed, the coins are mined. The actual $100 US bill is not actually worth much (especially since you consider because of the reserve ratios, banks make 'fake' paper money out of thin air), other than what the market thinks it's worth for transactions. It's not backed by Gold or anything of value. If you can convince the world some new currency has value, then it becomes a new currency, such as Bitcoin.

Hardware wise, what are the requirements one would need for a computer. Someone said earlier that you have to leave your computer running and I read in another thread that it makes your GPU work..so I don't suppose I could mine and play a game at the same time without negative consequences somewhere down the line due to overheating.

Ya, you won't be mining and gaming at the same time unless you are playing Braid or Limbo style 2d platformers. It depends on how much you game. If you game 4-5 hours a day, you can run the GPU mining application for the remainder of the time. It's still worth it.

How long have you been bit coin mining and how lucrative has it been for you. Also, how long did it take before you made a significant amount of coins that had a lot of monetary value?

"A lot" is subjective. It doesn't make $5,000 a month or anything, but it's enough for free GPU upgrades on the AMD side after reselling the old AMD card. It's not really a money maker to substitute a real job (unless you get 300 GPUs), but if it can save $300-500 a year in not spending on a new GPU, it's $ that can be spent on steam games, other hardware parts, etc. To me it's not even about the $ that it makes worth it but a matter of principle - why would I spend $500 on a GTX680 when I can get a free HD7970 and help support a struggling AMD firm that actually needs the $ badly (I won't touch a Bulldozer CPU). And next year HD8970, etc. Think about it, even if it mines 12 hours a day, that's $30 x 12 months = $360. Sell your 7900 card and you got yourself a free 8900 card. Rinse and repeat.

The mining application starts making $ right away. How much $ it makes you a month depends on how often you run it. As thilanliyan mentioned, NV GPUs are worthless for mining.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Oh okay. Awesome! I shall try this. I wonder if this bit coin thing is why a lot of people on this forum have killer rigs lol

Lol...no.

And remember to factor in all costs. Might be a loss.

 

[Jacky60]

Edit

 

[Shmee]

I think she was talking about bitcoin mining being shady, not OCing.

 

[SheHateMe]

Bitcoin mining is only worth it on AMD/ATI cards as nVidia cards just don't have the required "calculation rate" for the mining. Remember though, you have to take into account your electricity cost as well.

I live with 3 other girls and we all split utilities. The bill is in my name so I am sure that I could probably just pitch in $20 more than everyone else for utilities. By myself, I probably wouldnt be mining anything but with other people paying utilities, I can manage it more.

I will probably PM russian when I actually get my system going (my whole computer pooped out) about how to get started. I will try it for a month or so.

 

[guskline]

Thrilled with my EVGA GTX670 FTWs in SLI

 

[3DVagabond]

Here's the latest 7950 review I can find (It's Italian so need to suffer through Google translate). Picked it because they are using recent drivers (Cat. 12.6). Recent AMD drivers have made big improvements.

In 7950 the 1250/5200MHz FleX is faster than the GeForce GTX 680 in both synthetic benchmark 3dmark 11 (weakness of the Radeon HD 7000-series) is in the game Battlefield 3, where it reaches details at 2048x1536 Ultra (MSAA 4X and FXAA to High) 60 fps on average.

Unusual resolution but more demanding than the typical 1920*1080. Note settings are Ultra w/4xMSAA and FXAA. Pretty extreme settings. Once O/C'd the 7950 is a monster card for the money.

 

[Shmee]

absolutely, seems most 7950s or 7970's will beat the 680 once they are OCed. For the OCer, the choice is obviously AMD.

 

[notty22]

Hocp just printed a review of the Gigabyte gtx 670 o/c model and it was awarded the silver award.

The Competition


The GIGABYTE GTX 670 is available for $399.99, which places it in a tie for the lowest GTX 670 price currently available. Compared to the reference GTX 670 designs at the same price, the GIGABYTE GTX 670 represents a superior value.

During the course of the review, AMD announced a significant price drop on their Radeon HD 7000 series cards that changed the comparison playing field. This announcement dropped the HD 7950 card’s MSRP from $399 down to $349. A quick glance at NewEgg shows that thes are available for as little as $319.99 (less a $30 mail in rebate) with many set at the $349.99 mark.. Given the overall lower performance level provided by the Radeon HD 7950, pricing is finally starting to make sense to us.

AMD’s price drop realigned the Radeon HD 7970 as the closer match to the NVIDIA GTX 670 from a pricing perspective, as the 7970 starts at $429.99 (less a $30 mail in rebate). The Radeon HD 7970 reduces the GIGABYTE GTX 670’s performance lead over the Radeon HD 7950 at that price point, but it is still outgunned.





The Bottom Line


The GIGABYTE GTX 670 has a significant leg up on the competition with its factory overclock, custom cooling solution, and pricing parity with reference model GTX 670 video cards. It was able to provide enough performance to deliver at 2560x1600 resolution across our entire test suite of games while wiping the floor with AMD’s "equivalent offerings." If you have a healthy $400 budget to upgrade your video card, you will be hard pressed to find a better value than the GIGABYTE GTX 670. We certainly would like to see this price point fall back a little considering no "GTX 660Ti" is yet to make it to market.

 

[RussianSensation]

Hocp just printed a review of the Gigabyte gtx 670 o/c model and it was awarded the silver award.

It makes sense why the Gigabyte GTX670 Windforce OC beat the 7970 in that review. Factory preoverclocked 670 cards ~ GTX680 and we know that the 680 is about 10% faster than a 925mhz 7970. Let's put a factory preoverclocked 1100mhz HD7970 against that GTX670 card and see it dance. Without overclocking, GTX670 OC is the clear winner. With overclocking, the 7970 would have no trouble beating the 670. In just half a month of mining it would make up that $40 price difference + 3 free games that can be resold.

The days of $550 reference HD7970s and $580 for after-market versions are past us now. Then a $500 GTX680 looked great! With places such as Microcenter now selling HD7970 for $370, a $500 GTX680 looks overpriced, while after-market HD7970s going for just $40 extra vs. the 670 are well worth the extra price premium imo. At 2560x1440/1600, a 1050mhz 7970 is ~18% faster than the 670. Between HD7950's falling to low $300s and 1100mhz HD7970 after market versions closing in to low $440s, GTX670 is slowly moving into no-man's land.