GTX 660Ti Reviews

[antef]

Notice the GTX570 at the bottom of the chart? A mid range card from last generation is using more power than everything from this generation. The other thing this chart lets you know is that the 7950B numbers are around the power consumption you can expect when OC'ed to around 1100-1200 on the GPU core. The 7950B bios sets the vcore to 1.25v which is just absurd because the stock bios will allow most 7950's to reach at least 1000mhz on the GPU core. Power consumption this generation isn't really an issue.

Yes, that's a good point. I guess at the end of the day though I like to see it driven down as low as it can be, and NVIDIA is doing that a fair bit more than AMD right now. But let me ask you this - would that difference of 61W make a difference in PSU choice anyway? I currently have a 650W but am shopping for a new quieter one. I'm thinking I can drop to 500W maybe. I don't know if GPU choice between these three cards (660/670/7950) will affect that decision or not. I would also want to be very focused on noise output from the particular vendors' coolers.

What you say about the 7950B BIOS makes me want it even less though. They intentionally set vcore to a value higher than it needs to be, increasing power consumption and heat. I would feel compelled to lower it somehow through a utility, but I really don't feel like bothering with that stuff.

 

[RussianSensation]

What you say about the 7950B BIOS makes me want it even less though. They intentionally set vcore to a value higher than it needs to be, increasing power consumption and heat. I would feel compelled to lower it somehow through a utility, but I really don't feel like bothering with that stuff.

There is 0 reason to even consider an HD7950B card. MSI TF3 7950 has binned 7950 chips. That's what you want if you intend to extract maximum value from a 7950 chip, not a B Bios card. $318 on Newegg now. This card makes GTX660Ti a tough sell for overclockers.

HD7870 Ghz Edition can now be had for $230 on Newegg with lifetime warranty. That makes a GTX660Ti a super tough sell for non-overclockers since you are paying $70 more for just 9-10% more performance.

 

[hyrule4927]

Yes, that's a good point. I guess at the end of the day though I like to see it driven down as low as it can be, and NVIDIA is doing that a fair bit more than AMD right now. But let me ask you this - would that difference of 61W make a difference in PSU choice anyway? I currently have a 650W but am shopping for a new quieter one. I'm thinking I can drop to 500W maybe. I don't know if GPU choice between these three cards (660/670/7950) will affect that decision or not. I would also want to be very focused on noise output from the particular vendors' coolers.

What you say about the 7950B BIOS makes me want it even less though. They intentionally set vcore to a value higher than it needs to be, increasing power consumption and heat. I would feel compelled to lower it somehow through a utility, but I really don't feel like bothering with that stuff.

This really depends what PSU you are looking at, but a lower wattage model is likely to be louder since it will be running at a higher percent load.

 

[antef]

There is 0 reason to even consider an HD7950B card. MSI TF3 7950 has binned 7950 chips. That's what you want if you intend to extract maximum value from a 7950 chip, not a B Bios card. $318 on Newegg now. This card makes GTX660Ti a tough sell for overclockers.

HD7870 Ghz Edition can now be had for $230 on Newegg with lifetime warranty. That makes a GTX660Ti a super tough sell for non-overclockers since you are paying $70 more for just 9-10% more performance.

Thanks RS. I haven't read all of your posts word for word but I thought I got the impression you liked the 7950 as a long-term card, I guess just not the B card. The problem is I want the $250-300 price spot which I think the 7950 will be in by Black Friday, but by then they will all be B cards for sure.

The 7870 is very appealing as it has the 256-bit memory interface, better compute perf, and close to 660 Ti performance, but as I mentioned earlier I'm afraid that ~10% is just enough to make me not want it. I want 60 fps in BF3 at 1920x1200 with max settings. I'm really not sure about this whole FXAA vs. MSAA thing (I'm not a regular on the video card boards) and that seems to make a big diff in fps. I almost pulled the trigger on a 560 Ti at this time last year but held out for a 28nm card. Here I am a year later without having purchased still, and I just don't think the 7870 gets me enough added perf for the wait. So getting the 660 Ti for possibly around $260 if I could sell the Borderlands coupon is appealing. Then again, maybe the added perf of the 670 is worth waiting for the price to come down. Hence my difficult spot Your detailed analysis has helped though.

This really depends what PSU you are looking at, but a lower wattage model is likely to be louder since it will be running at a higher percent load.

Thanks, that's something I didn't consider. I don't care what actual wattage the PSU is rated at, I just want silent or near silent operation and low draw. My system isn't extremely demanding (Sandy Bridge, whatever GPU I end up getting, 1 SSD/1 HDD).

 

[antihelten]

There is 0 reason to even consider an HD7950B card. MSI TF3 7950 has binned 7950 chips. That's what you want if you intend to extract maximum value from a 7950 chip, not a B Bios card.

Actually the 7950B might not be such a bad idea, as some reviews have indicated.

looking at the 660ti review roundup on 3d-center (http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/lau...nch-analyse-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-seite-2), there are 4 reviews that tested the 7950B, 3 of them had improvements over the regular 7950 of about 5-6% (i.e. their cards doesn't boost at all but merely stays at the new base clock of 850 MHz, a 6.25% increase in clock over the old bios), whilst the last review (x-bit labs) sees an improvement of about 13% (i.e. it boosts most of the time to 925 MHz a 15.6% increase in clock over the old bios).
So why this disparity?. Well reading the actual reviews it quite quickly becomes clear what might be the reason for the difference, the 3 first review all use a reference 7950, whereas x-bit labs uses an non-reference sapphire 7950. Apparently the better cooler allows the 7950 to boost to 925MHz.
Assuming that no one is really interested in buying 7950 cards with reference coolers, the boost bios might actually provide a sizable performs increase (in the X-bit labs review the performance is equal to a GTX 670), although it would of course still be nice to see some more sites testing the boost bios on cards with non-reference coolers, to get a clearer picture.

Now obviously one of the main critiques of the boost bios has been the large power consumption due to the excessive voltage level, and since a 7950 apparently already uses more power than a GTX 670 the difference will only become even larger. Hopefully the various manufacturers will tune the voltage a bit, but more importantly the 7950 doesn't necessarily use more power than a GTX 670.
In anandtechs review the stock 7950 uses 36 watt more than the GTX 670, however this is very different from what is found in other reviews. In fact if one looks at the reviews listed in 3D-centers roundup, the vast majority actually shows the stock 7950 using less power that the GTX 670 (about 5-10 watts less on average). Why anandtechs results differ so much (40+ watts from the average) is hard to say but it would seem they either have a bad 7950 or a really good GTX 670 card.
So while a 7950B will probably still use more power than a GTX 670 it probably won't be as bad as many thinks.


Off course if one intends to overclock, the new bios is quite irrelevant.