Buying a GTX 670 vs 7950

[RAJOD]

I already bought the card many days ago, thanks for your useful input.

Nice job! Glad to be of service.

Is this the card you ended up buying?

SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100352VXSR Radeon HD 7950 3GB for 330.00 (sold out)

Looks like a nice one.

 

[SirPauly]

Really. Man read my piece again. This is not about marketing tricks - its your words not mine. You are putting up a strawman. Its about marketing and pricing policy and positioning on introductioin. Not a bad word in my book.

The point is AMD should lower price beforehand not after they are forced, because then they have to lower prices further to gain the same effect.

As this forum demonstrates over and over again, people continue to compare the 7950 to the 670 even though they are not in the same price class. How do you explain that?

Marketing tricks -- very, very clever marketing - semantics.

 

[SirPauly]

You should be looking at price & performance, not only price because you are paying a certain price for a certain level of performance. Right now NV's cards cost more for a similar level of performance, which is why looking at price only is actually not great advice.

There is no confusion. HD7950 OC competes with GTX670 OC on performance. HD7970 OC beats an overclocked 670 OC and actually beats a 1300mhz GTX680 OC, unless you include the 1360-1390mhz GTX680 Lightning voltmod. So no you shouldn't be comparing an HD7970 to GTX670 at current prices anymore if you are willing to overclock. Something like the Gigabyte 1Ghz HD7970 will beat factory preoverclocked 670s and beat OCed 670s when it's overclocked to 1.15-1.2ghz. That's why we didn't discuss 670 vs. 7970. It takes a 1290-1300mhz 680 to go against an overclocked 7970.

Also, if you read the entire thread carefully, the OP is buying 2 cards, which means $63 savings per card = $126 savings. Since he is indifferent to Sleeping Dogs vs. BL2 and is willing to overclock, there is not much reason to spend more $ on the 670 OC in this case when it can't outperform a 7950 OC. He is better off putting that $ away for the next time he upgrades since he won't be able to differentiate between real world performance when looking at 7950 OC vs. 670 OC.



I agree with everything you are saying, and the last part But how many times did you read that "AMD was desperate, they had to lower prices." The NV camp didn't scream that GTX260/280 ripped them off but when AMD had the market all to themselves for 3 months, they are now viewed as desperate after they lowered prices? It was pretty obvious AMD wanted to rush their products to the market to reap larger profit margins from early adopters. Most of us pretty much knew it too.

GTX660 came out 7 months after 7950. All AMD did is take full advantage of no competition until then with 7750/7770/7850/7870/7950 prices. It was not great for us consumers but NV would have done exactly the same and in fact they did in the past every time they had a hug elead. It's probably going to be the same when HD8000 series launches - 8950 for $450 and 8970 for $550; and people will once again ignore that AMD is first to market and not consider NV as being late. Apparently this round NV being late wasn't really criticized. That was surprising to me, but when AMD was forced to lower prices, they were called desperate. I thought that's what supposed to happen in the world of technology - a competitor launches a better product later and forces the company which launches first to lower prices to stay competitive (unless it is FX5800 U or 2900XT/3870).

Just desire strong competition that may improve value and innovation. Without competition all that is left is vocal gamers strongly defending premium prices. It's great to see stronger 28nm price/performance with more competition and choice.

Some people criticize a lot and some are sensitive and need to defend; it's all good. What matters to me is choice for gamers that have different subjective tastes, tolerances and wallet concerns. Between the both companies gamers can decide what is best for them from reviews, official information and even forums that posters share their first hand views or subjective tastes and tolerances, again; it's all good.

Always debates on which card is best --- back-and-forth - when they both have different strengths and weaknesses -- so when they have different strengths and weaknesses -- personally allow the market to decide what is best and buy based on my personal subjective tastes, tolerances - which are more gaming experienced based.

I think it is absolutely wonderful to see the aggressive pricing from AMD, bringing very strong 28nm price/performance choice, which may hopefully take sales away from nVidia and force nVidia to rethink their pricing; it's all good.

Rather have the two companies banging heads, trying to out-work each other through hardware, software and innovation instead of posters banging heads, which doesn't make much sense considering many of us are PC Gamers and share similar passions.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Without competition all that is left is vocal gamers strongly defending premium prices..

No one defended high prices, they only pointed out that without competition, companies take advantage, and rightfully so. There is a vast difference.

BTW what's a "vocal gamer" exactly?

 

[SirPauly]

Yeah, okay!

 

[AnandThenMan]

Yeah, okay!

I'll ask again, what do you mean by the term "vocal gamer".

 

[SirPauly]

If you can't figure it out there is not much I can do for you. I consider myself vocal BTW!

 

[AnandThenMan]

I asked a simple question, looks like a simple, straight forward answer is too much to ask. :\

 

[RussianSensation]

Rather have the two companies banging heads, trying to out-work each other through hardware, software and innovation instead of posters banging heads, which doesn't make much sense considering many of us are PC Gamers and share similar passions.

I think most of us here would. You probably agree that if GTX650/660/660Ti launched around March 5, 2012, we would have seen lower prices all around. Instead gamers had to wait 6-7 months for NV to get it together and then all they did is just match what AMD has. In other words, when 660 drops next week for $250, we wouldn't have gained anything at all since 7870 is already going for $200-240 and 7850 was available for 7 months @ $250. That's not progress.

 

[AnandThenMan]

High prices before Kepler hit is largely Nvidia's fault, not AMD's. The reverse has been true many times, but for some reason there is outrage and confusion when lack of competition leads to high prices. Baffling.

People became spoiled when AMD was low balling with Evergreen (and even previously) to claw back marketshare, but that is not a sustainable model for any company. And don't forget the elephant in the room, higher costs on 28 nm. Nvidia has made this very clear, and the supply constraints only make it worse. Considering all of this, costs this generation are not that too bad we've seen worse.

 

[SirPauly]

I think most of us here would. You probably agree that if GTX650/660/660Ti launched around March 5, 2012, we would have seen lower prices all around. Instead gamers had to wait 6-7 months for NV to get it together and then all they did is just match what AMD has. In other words, when 660 drops next week for $250, we wouldn't have gained anything at all since 7870 is already going for $200-240 and 7850 was available for 7 months @ $250. That's not progress.

Imho,

I don't disagree that nVidia not executing as quickly as AMD had a premium effect over-all. I don't like to place blame but the infamous finger pointing blame for AMD's premium pricing early wasn't on AMD but nVidia not executing to me, which left the 28nm market to AMD. Great for AMD and their execution prowess and probably enjoyed the fruits of their hard work with improved revenue, profits and margins.

My beef back then wasn't the price point but more so considering these are substantial and significant node and arch changes, one may of hoped more from 28nm, instead of evolutionary and incremental price performance when compared to 40nm. How competition and more choice changes the arena though as 28nm price/performance starts to get really compelling based on AMD's aggressive pricing.

It is progress though because nVidia's Kepler strengths are now available for cheaper price-points for gamers, too, instead of 40nm product sku's that were there. There is more choice for gamers and that is always a good thing. More choice and competition is always welcomed even for AMD users based on more affordable options where 349 may of been out-of-reach for some prospective gamers and now can receive a very nice HD 7870 for 249 or the HD 7950, that offers fantastic price/performance with very impressive OC scaling and flexibility, too, for a little over 300 dollars over-all.

Pick the sku that is important to an individual's subjective tastes, tolerance and wallet and have fun.

 

[RussianSensation]

Sarasvati,

When you get the 7950 cards, can you please post your experience with the card regarding idle and load noise levels and the overall performance improvement that you received? At the end of the day we want to make sure you are happy with your purchase and that the card(s) met your quiet noise level criteria.

 

[Sarasvati]

Sarasvati,

When you get the 7950 cards, can you please post your experience with the card regarding idle and load noise levels and the overall performance improvement that you received? At the end of the day we want to make sure you are happy with your purchase and that the card(s) met your quiet noise level criteria.

Yes, will do.

 

[poohbear]

If i was buying now i'd def go with a 7950! Saw one with aftermarkt cooling (MSI) for $276 on sale last week!! @ that price u'd hafta be crazy to get a GTX 670. i love my 670, but i paid $388+tax for mine, u'd be a fool to pay that for one now!