HD 7950 vs. GTX 570 - Worth an upgrade? Benchmarks inside

[Face2Face]

Here are some benchmarks for Crysis 3, BioShock Infinite and Tomb Raider. On paper its really not a fair fight, but its good information if you enjoy playing these games. A couple members have requested the comparison, so here you go.


Test system:

Intel 3570K @ 4.8GHz
Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H
16GB Samsung DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
Corsair Force 3 240GB SSD
PC Power & Cooling MKIII 600 watt PSU
Acer H243H 1080P Monitor
AMD 13.6 Beta drivers
Nvidia 320.49 drivers



Crysis 3


You can see my benchmark run through HERE and the settings used in the screenshots below.








Comparing reference clocks we are only seeing a 19% increase in performance with the 7950 over the GTX 570. As you raise the clock to 900/2200 the GTX 570 equals the 7950 at reference speeds. Pretty impressive, I was surprised at how well the GTX 570 plays Crysis 3 at these settings. The average overclock for a GTX 570 is around 900Mhz on the core, comparing that to the average overclock on a 7950 of 1150Mhz puts the 7950 ahead 33%.

Tomb Raider


I used the in-game benchmark with Ultimate settings. See the settings screenshots below.







Comparing reference clocks we are seeing a 32% increase in performance with the 7950. The Overclocked GTX 570 at 950/2200 comes within 3% of the stock 7950. Comparing average overclocks the GTX 570 falls behind by about 50%.


BioShock Infinite

For this benchmark I used the in-game benchmark. Its option number 2 (DX11 w/DDOF) then I run it in 1080P.



Stock for stock the 7950 pulls ahead by 35%. Comparing average overclocks the 7950 maintains its lead with over 50% more FPS.

I would say going with a 7950 or a similar performing GTX 760 you should expect to see a 30%-40% increase of performance when playing BioShock and Tomb Raider without overclocking. Crysis 3 was another story. Still one of the toughest games to currently run, Femi does flex pretty hard in this game. I am very impressed with its performance. Especially for a card thats two generations old, numerically speaking.

 

[Carfax83]

Crysis 3 was another story. Still one of the toughest games to currently run, Femi does flex pretty hard in this game. I am very impressed with its performance. Especially for a card that’s two generations old now.

Indeed. I was extremely surprised at how my previous overclocked GTX 580 SLI handled Crysis 3. I was able to get very playable frame rates, (about 35 FPS on average) at 2560x1440 very high SMAA 1x and V-sync turned off..

The 500 series were some strong GPUs...

Bioshock Infinite was another matter though. My 580s lagged in certain parts of the game that used lots of HDAO and contact hardening shadows. For the most part, these areas weren't that common, but being close to them would drop frame rates significantly..

 

[toyota]

500 series is really only one generation behind not two. what I like about my 660ti is that it can match the 580 while using a crap ton less power plus has more vram. I did like my 570 though but even just a modest 50 mhz oc required voltage bump which is not something I like to do.

 

[Mr Expert]

500 series is really only one generation behind not two. what I like about my 660ti is that it can match the 580 while using a crap ton less power plus has more vram. I did like my 570 though but even just a modest 50 mhz oc required voltage bump which is not something I like to do.

Unfortuantly the memory sub system is not up to par and hence when the going gets rough the full fat cards like the 7950 and up take over and leave the 660ti in the dust along with the rest of the mid range.

 

[Mr Expert]

Here are some benchmarks for Crysis 3, BioShock Infinite and Tomb Raider. On paper it’s really not a fair fight, but its good information if you enjoy playing these games. A couple members have requested the comparison, so here you go.


Test system:

• Intel 3570K @ 4.8GHz
• Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H
• 16GB Samsung DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
• Corsair Force 3 240GB SSD
• PC Power & Cooling MKIII 600 watt PSU
• Acer H243H 1080P Monitor
• AMD 13.6 Beta drivers
• Nvidia 320.49 drivers



Crysis 3


You can see my benchmark run through HERE and the settings used in the screenshots below.

Comparing reference clocks we are only seeing a 19% increase in performance with the 7950 over the GTX 570. As you raise the clock to 900/2200 the GTX 570 equals the 7950 at reference speeds. Pretty impressive, I was surprised at how well the GTX 570 plays Crysis 3 at these settings. The average overclock for a GTX 570 is around 900Mhz on the core, comparing that to the average overclock on a 7950 of 1150Mhz puts the 7950 ahead 33%.

Tomb Raider


I used the in-game benchmark with Extreme settings. See the settings screenshots below.

Comparing reference clocks we are seeing a 32% increase in performance with the 7950. The Overclocked GTX 570 at 950/2200 comes within 3% of the stock 7950. Comparing average overclocks the GTX 570 falls behind by about 50%.


BioShock Infinite


For this benchmark I used the in-game benchmark. Its option number 2 (DX11 w/DDOF) then I run it in 1080P.

Stock for stock the 7950 pulls ahead by 35%. Comparing average overclocks the 7950 maintains its lead with over 50% more FPS.




I would say going with a 7950 or a similar performing GTX 760 you should expect to see a 30%-40% increase of performance when playing BioShock and Tomb Raider without overclocking. Crysis 3 was another story. Still one of the toughest games to currently run, Femi does flex pretty hard in this game. I am very impressed with its performance. Especially for a card that’s two generations old now.

Can you please cite the links to your graphs ? They seem off quite a bit. The 7950 is tangibly faster than the GTX 580 let alone the 570.

 

[toyota]

Unfortuantly the memory sub system is not up to par and hence when the going gets rough the full fat cards like the 7950 and up take over and leave the 660ti in the dust along with the rest of the mid range.

um I was not comparing my card to the 7950. out of the box though a stock 660ti runs right with a 7950 though.

 

[Mr Expert]

um I was not comparing my card to the 7950. out of the box though a stock 660ti runs right with a 7950 though.

When the going gets rough the meory sub system shxxx the bed and the HD 7950 pulls ahead along with the rest of the high end cards. The 660ti is not a high end card like the 7950 but the 660ti can act like a high end card in some nvidia optimized games so I have seen. It's a shame really that the 660ti was never priced right as it was more exspensive then the 7950 then and now when it's slightly cheaper it get's outclassed by the 760 which is faster and the same price. If the 660ti launched @ $250 it would have been good but it failed because it was more pricy than it's closest priced competitior HD 7950 which is/was faster.

 

[toyota]

When the going gets rough the meory sub system shxxx the bed and the HD 7950 pulls ahead along with the rest of the high end cards. The 660ti is not a high end card like the 7950 but the 660ti can act like a high end card in some nvidia optimized games so I have seen. It's a shame really that the 660ti was never priced right as it was more exspensive then the 7950 then and now when it's slightly cheaper it get's outclassed by the 760 which is faster and the same price. If the 660ti launched @ $250 it would have been good but it failed because it was more pricy than it's closest priced competitior HD 7950 which is/was faster.

lol the 660ti and other nvidia cards do great in most amd games too. I paid way under 250 bucks for mine not long after it came out or I would not even have bothered with it. and btw I am not some noob here and I am well aware how all video cards perform.

 

[Mr Expert]

lol the 660ti and other nvidia cards do great in most amd games too. I paid way under 250 bucks for mine not long after it came out or I would not even have bothered with it. and btw I am not some noob here and I am well aware how all video cards perform.

Well I am no noob myself LOL. Just saying that 660ti was marketed and priced all wrong not that it was a terrible card it's just not high end like people try and claim heck even nvidia tryied to claim it was high end LOL. For around $280 or less on launch day it would have been a worthy buy for people with that much to spend. The fact is it got outclassed/priced back then and it's outclassed and out priced now by it's own team roflmao. Not much of an nvidia fanboy here anymore but I mean at leased team green released the GTX 760 at a resonable price point unlike the rest of their lineup.

 

[Elfear]

Can you please cite the links to your graphs ? They seem off quite a bit. The 7950 is tangibly faster than the GTX 580 let alone the 570.

The OP performed the tests and made the graphs himself. He also stated the stock 7950 is ~20-40% faster in his benchmarks than a stock 570.

 

[toyota]

Well I am no noob myself LOL. Just saying that 660ti was marketed and priced all wrong not that it was a terrible card it's just not high end like people try and claim heck even nvidia tryied to claim it was high end LOL. For around $280 or less on launch day it would have been a worthy buy for people with that much to spend. The fact is it got outclassed/priced back then and it's outclassed and out priced now by it's own team roflmao. Not much of an nvidia fanboy here anymore but I mean at leased team green released the GTX 760 at a resonable price point unlike the rest of their lineup.

well it matched the 7950 which was more expensive so they priced it fairly at launch based on that.

 

[Mr Expert]

The OP performed the tests and made the graphs himself. He also stated the stock 7950 is ~20-40% faster in his benchmarks than a stock 570.

Something seems off from the pros numbers. I think these numbers are scewed or botched in some way or another.

 

[Face2Face]

Something seems off from the pros numbers. I think these numbers are scewed or botched in some way or another.

Not sure why you think this? I have both cards sitting in front of me now.. It's not like benchmarks are so complex only pros can run them...? Everything laid out for you, settings and all.

500 series is really only one generation behind not two.

Fixed!

 

[Elfear]

Not sure why you think this? I have both cards sitting in front of me now.. It's not like benchmarks are so complex only pros can run them...? Everything laid out for you, settings and all.

Looks right to me. Thanks for putting in the time to benchmark both cards.

 

[Mr Expert]

well it matched the 7950 which was more expensive so they priced it fairly at launch based on that.

It seems that after a certain driver the HD 7950 supased the GTX 670. Though at the start of life for HD 7950 I know the drivers were not getting the most out of it so it was most likly closer to 660ti performance this is true. The latest drivers are really magic for AMD. All GPUs are to dam over priced imho.

 

[Mr Expert]

Not sure why you think this? I have both cards sitting in front of me now.. It's not like benchmarks are so complex only pros can run them...? Everything laid out for you, settings and all.



Fixed!

Perhaps we need to see the minum framerates for all cards tested. This will be telling of how far apart the 570 and 7950 really are.

 

[toyota]

for comparison my gtx660ti at basically stock got 44.7 fps in Tomb Raider.

oced by 85mhz for a max boost of 1163 and memory at 7000mhz gave me 50.6.

 

[toyota]

Perhaps we need to see the minum framerates for all cards tested. This will be telling of how far apart the 570 and 7950 really are.

a graph maybe but a single minimum framerate number is useless. and I dont why you are making big deal of this.

 

[Mr Expert]

a graph maybe but a single minimum framerate number is useless. and I dont why you are making big deal of this.

Well I just think the numbers here are not telling of the actual performance delta between the two video cards. Min framerate is all that really matter as it is what makes the game smooth. As long as the minimum framerate stays above the monitors refreshrate and locked on Vsync there is no stuttering. A GPU that has a really high max framerate and really low min framerate will be percevable as big stutter spikes in game.

 

[Face2Face]

Looks right to me. Thanks for putting in the time to benchmark both cards.

No problem, thanks :thumbsup:

Perhaps we need to see the minimum frame-rates for all cards tested. This will be telling of how far apart the 570 and 7950 really are.

NVM

 

[raghu78]

When the going gets rough the meory sub system shxxx the bed and the HD 7950 pulls ahead along with the rest of the high end cards. The 660ti is not a high end card like the 7950 but the 660ti can act like a high end card in some nvidia optimized games so I have seen. It's a shame really that the 660ti was never priced right as it was more exspensive then the 7950 then and now when it's slightly cheaper it get's outclassed by the 760 which is faster and the same price. If the 660ti launched @ $250 it would have been good but it failed because it was more pricy than it's closest priced competitior HD 7950 which is/was faster.

yeah when the ROPs and memory system is really pushed at high levels of AA, GTX 660 Ti falls flat.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/02/msi_n760_tf_2gd5oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/5

Crysis 3 1920 x 1080 High settings SMAA 4x

GTX 660 Ti(1346 mhz / 6.4 Ghz memory) -52.7 fps
GTX 760(1280 mhz / 6.4 Ghz memory) - 56.6 fps
HD 7950(1150 Mhz / 6.8 Ghz memory) - 60.4 fps

HD 7950(1150 mhz) is close to 15% faster than a GTX 660 Ti(1346 mhz). GTX 760(1280 mhz) is around 8% faster. a golden HD 7950 at 1.25 - 1.3 ghz is on par or slightly faster than GTX 770(1.3 ghz). HD 7950 is a beast and the best value this gen.

congrats to the OP on winning the silicon lottery. also how hot do your VRMs get as the accelero does not have good VRM cooling.

 

[Mr Expert]

for comparison my gtx660ti at basically stock got 44.7 fps in Tomb Raider.

oced by 85mhz for a max boost of 1163 and memory at 7000mhz gave me 50.6.

Pff HD 7850 does better in that game than the far more exspensive 660ti. http://www.techspot.com/review/645-tomb-raider-performance/page4.html

 

[toyota]

Pff HD 7850 does better in that game than the far more exspensive 660ti. http://www.techspot.com/review/645-tomb-raider-performance/page4.html

lol nice try. Nvidia did horrible when that game was released mainly with tressfx and that was well known. they had some massive increases from newer drivers. see this is why you dont need to try and argue with people that know whats going on.

 

[skipsneeky2]

7850 i doubt can even touch a gtx660 ti in any game,even a overclocked 7850 isn't touching one....think a highly overclocked 7870 can and most def a 7950 but not a 7850.

Heck i had a 7850,went to 1050/1400 max oc and barely touched a 7870....

 

[Mr Expert]

lol nice try. Nvidia did horrible when that game was released mainly with tressfx and that was well known. thay had some massive increases from newer drivers. QUOTE]
So did AMD. I get 58fps min with HD 7850 in Tomb Raider 2013 on Ultra 1080 sans TressFX