tweaktown review GTX660Ti

[BenSkywalker]

Even if the 660Ti didn't launch, I think AT's video reviews would strongly benefit from follow-ups of SKUs.

If you started a thread saying that AT should do a 7950 roundup given the current crop of cards that would be reasonable. Blasting everyone's 660Ti review because they didn't focus on a 7950 roundup instead is profoundly biased.

If you can't see the difference, I can't help you out.

 

[zaydq]

The reviews say otherwise.

Well theres a handful of reviews that say so... Theres almost two camps of reviews as there are in this very thread. Some review sites favored the results where as others summed up results that reflected lower performance.

Clearly some of the reviewers neglected to show or find weaknesses of the 660ti and some found them, and they were quite drastic.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The thing is all the people who are touting the 7950 as the better card by far at $300-330 are the same people who would be saying that the 660ti is the better card if it was $250-275.

If a 10% shift takes a GPU from being far worse to far better in your perspective, you need to gain a better perspective.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/970/18

That is an example of far better, 10% wouldn't have made a dent in that statement.

 

[Jaydip]

7950 is the second fastest card in amd's sku so naturally it should be compared against 670 not 660ti.People keep forgetting that BL2 is included with every 660ti making the price looks attractive.Going forward there can be great deals on 660ti as well.Another thing,if some 7950 owner fails to achieve the so called great clocks and burns his card in the process what should he do?rma the card?that would be fraudulent in my book.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you started a thread saying that AT should do a 7950 roundup given the current crop of cards that would be reasonable. Blasting everyone's 660Ti review because they didn't focus on a 7950 roundup instead is profoundly biased.

If you can't see the difference, I can't help you out.

I didn't blast everyone's review of 660Ti. Where are you getting this from? I only built upon Attic's comments and we specifically focused on AT's inclusion of after-market 660Tis and lack of revisiting 7950s that have appeared in the marketplace at $320-330 price levels that are missing in the review discussion as if they don't even exist for a consumer to consider.

3dCenter already compiled results from 12 Reviews and GTX660Ti lost to a 7950 anyway. The next step is someone is willing to spend $30-50 more for a 7950, and they want to know which 7950 is the best? Where is the 7950 Round-Up to help those readers after the fact? Nowhere to be found.

That's not to say that a 660Ti Round-Up wouldn't be helpful either. You are trying to start an argument of AMD vs. NV or point fingers at me for all other reasons but not admit to the fact that the landscape for 7950s has changed and that's just 1 example of where a review such as that of the 660Ti should have at least mentioned it in the conclusion (which it was not); or at least then have a follow-up article with 7950s to measure the changing landscape of the competing offerings (this also wasn't done).

That's the whole point: 660Ti doesn't just exist in a vacuum and neither does a 670 or a 7950. You may not even be looking to buy a 660Ti or a 7950 but if you were, AT doesn't have a comparison of latest 7950s on the eve of 660Ti launch. So how is that representative of what you can actually go out and buy at the $300-350 level? Instead you may search for that 7950 Jan 31, 2012 article and use old drivers for OCed 7950 cards. Or you may infer that HD7950 is hot and loud from GTX660Ti review because only 1 SKU of a reference 7950 was tested against 4 660Tis. That's a fair representation of the market's available choices? So now you may conclude that all 7950s are hot and loud and that all of them need 1.25V to reach 925mhz, etc.

 

[Hypertag]

I'm confused by all the negative attention being directed at Russian Sensation. He's not demanding that you buy a 7950. He's basically just noting that the review sites could do a much better job of informing their readers.

I honestly don't think they care about their readers as long as the advertising dollars are coming in.

He has been blatantly biased to AMD for months, and has been on a mission to sell 7950s. He insists that the only legitimate clock speed to bench a 7950/7970 at is the clockspeed it needs to be at to beat Nvidia's card. If he wants to prove the 7950 better than the GTX 660 TI, he uses a 950MHz card. If he wants it to be "clearly better" than the GTX 680, then he insists it should be at 1.15GHz. If he loses an argument, then AMD cards are free because "bitcoins".

The 7970 Gz edition was received poorly because of this

The BIOS tricks intended to spoil the GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti launches are "dirty tricks". They are frankly more dirty than the GTX 460 FTW cards, since those cards were actually in stock during the time of the review, and were available for sale for months. AMD could have properly created "7950+" and "7970+" cards. Instead, their answer was "let's release a BIOS that increases voltage to 1.25 for cards with a cooler barely adequate for 1.1 volts".


That doesn't mean the [H] was fair. It was an overclocked GTX 660 Ti 3GB model versus 800Mhz 7950s. That cannot be determined to be fair. However, there was nothing wrong with the andandtech review. It showed AMD's new 7950 B, and the 7950 B is AMD's response to the GTX 660 Ti. Why couldn't AMD do what Nvidia did with EVGA during the 6870 launch? Who knows. They could have easily had a 7950 FTW edition with actual cooling, and voltage settings with an actual connection to reality.

 

[BenSkywalker]

3dCenter already compiled results from 12 Reviews and GTX660Ti lost to a 7950 anyway.

Taking your example as the gospel truth, the 7950 lost in perf/$ in 75% of the settings used(based on the overall analysis). Your numbers.

 

[Red Hawk]

Ryan Smith's explanation of why AT doesn't cross-compare overclocked SKUs for different cards seemed pretty clear to me. Essentially, it comes down to this: the overclocked SKUs for the 660 Ti are not meant to be compared to the 7950. They're meant to be compared to the reference 660 Ti so the consumer can figure out if the price difference between the reference and the OCed versions are worth it. The 7950 is there to weigh the pros and cons of the 7950 and its architecture in individual games, power consumption, noise, etc., in comparison to the reference 660 Ti. There's no need to include 7950 OCed SKUs because this is not a review for the 7950.

And on the note of overclocking: No, being a good overclocker most of the time is not enough to make a reference card "better" than other reference cards which beat it at reference speeds. Overclocking is never guaranteed; if those speeds were guaranteed, AMD or Nvidia would simply sell the card at those speeds.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Hi guys;

Then why would you include factory pre-overclocked 660Ti in a 660Ti review

For a major launch where there are reference cards available our primary focus is on the reference card since most (if not all) of the cards at launch will be similar to if not identical to the reference card. But in a virtual SKU launch, we're only dealing with partner cards. Consequently our normal procedure in these situations is to solicit several different cards (including something we can use as a model family baseline) to try to cover a wide spectrum of the market since you technically can't buy a "reference" card. And of course we can only get what partners sample us with.

For past virtual launches we've done both separate and combined articles, and it's pretty easy for us to do it in either manner. But what we've found is that when we're not looking at a new GPU the combined articles are far more popular. It doesn't change our analysis at all, but it is more convenient for the readers (and Googlers).

In that case could you please do a follow-up article for 7950 family of after-market cards:

1) Gigabyte Windforce 3x 7950
2) MSI TwinFrozr 3 7950
3) Sapphire Dual-X 7950

It's unlikely we'll revisit the 7950 unless we're looking at the new 7950B cards. Partners do not like sampling cards that have been on the market for very long since they aren't sure they'll be selling them for much longer (the short-life problem).

I remember in the past you'd test reference cards in 1 article and then have after-market cards for that family in another article.

For example, 7800GT mini-roundup, Retail 6600GT Exploration where you looked at 11 SKUs. Many of us found these types of articles extremely useful for choosing the best SKU within a family. I wonder why you guys don't go back to this style since I am sure many people would love to find out what the best 660Ti is or what the best 7950 is, or the best 670 is, etc.

In a nutshell, times have changed. Board and cooling design are far more complex (notice how all of the cards were practically identical), and that in turn requires much more analysis on our part. An article with that little testing and analysis would not be up to our modern standards. Ultimately we would rather deliver meaningful reviews about 3 cards than to be a benchmark mill for 11.

You ever done vid card reviews before? Get the boards to him and get him the time in his schedule to get it done. It isn't a couple hour process, it is many days running benches and doing clean installs on machines over and over again.

That is so painfully true. Last week was especially bad since we had both the 7950B and the GTX 660 Ti.

I want to read that at AT's, which is why I come here and not to Tom's Forums. Do you know how many people on our board STILL ask what the best 670 to buy is? Maybe because they have no idea since we don't have a Mini-GTX670 Round-Up Review.

We'll have a GTX 670 roundup within a couple of weeks. I have cards from MSI, Zotac, and Asus sitting in the queue. Along with our first retail 7970GE (from HIS) and some GTX 680 cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

He has been blatantly biased to AMD for months, and has been on a mission to sell 7950s. He insists that the only legitimate clock speed to bench a 7950/7970 at is the clockspeed it needs to be at to beat Nvidia's card. .

So much wrong with your post I don't even know where to start. HD7970 GE is already faster than a stock 680. Shown by at least 8-10 professional reviewers. Tom's Hardware, TechReport, TechPowerUp, Xbitlabs, Computerbase, Sweclockers, H4T.net, KitGuru have all shown both 7970 1050mhz beating a 680 and 7970 OCed beating an OCed 680. It's not my words, but the words of professional reviews. I don't need to make up magical overclocking speeds for 7970 when 1050mhz after-market versions such as the $460 HD7970 Vapor-X are faster than a $500 GTX680, quieter and cooler. I don't make it up. It was tested and proven with data. I try to re-assess market prices and availability of new SKUs and see how it stacks up at various price levels. I also don't sit there "selling 7950s", but I try to recommend what I think is the best value for the $ card is for enthusiasts on our board.

I have recommended NV cards for months, many times, despite what you think. Here, and here and here I mentioned many times that 670/670 SLI is a good alternative. I even have a hot thread for Gigabyte Windforce 3x 670 for $374. I also criticized HD7970's and 7950's high prices during their launches. Maybe you forgot?

Your way of putting down my opinion is to call me AMD-biased and labelling me as an AMD salesman. I see. The only thing I do is reassess market conditions and pricing and make my opinions based on that. If new products become available or prices change, my opinions change. I don't stick to old reviews and old prices.

The BIOS tricks intended to spoil the GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti launches are "dirty tricks". They are frankly more dirty than the GTX 460 FTW cards, since those cards were actually in stock during the time of the review, and were available for sale for months. AMD could have properly created "7950+" and "7970+" cards. Instead, their answer was "let's release a BIOS that increases voltage to 1.25 for cards with a cooler barely adequate for 1.1 volts". .

That has nothing to do with after-market 7970 GE or various after-market SKUs of 7950s. 7970 GE is an official card and is available for LESS than promised $499 MSRP. It also comes with 3 free games not promised originally. We would all like for products to be available but sometimes it doesn't happen like NV didn't deliver on 680's available and AMD was late with 7970. What's that have ANYTHING to do with 680/7970's availability now? Nothing. If you want to discuss AMD's credibility, sure. I am talking about which card is better. I recommend someone get a 680 now since it's not out of stock. I can recommend a real 7970 GE SKU. A 1050mhz+ HD7970 can be purchased today for less than a reference 680. Would would I not recommend a cheaper and faster card? You call me biased for doing that because I am an "AMD-biased for months". I'll recommend a faster and cheaper card all day every day whether from AMD and NV. When NV lowers the price of GTX680 to $450, then I'll revisit my recommendations.

 

[RussianSensation]

Taking your example as the gospel truth, the 7950 lost in perf/$ in 75% of the settings used(based on the overall analysis). Your numbers.

Yes, what's your point? I said on many occasions on our boards that for non-overclockers, 660Ti is a good value compared to the 7950. I also wouldn't recommend a 7950 for someone whose hard budget is below $300, someone who wants specific NV features or cares a lot about power consumption. Since you are rarely helping gamers with card selections, you probably wouldn't even know I make 660Ti recommendations, or that I recommend NV cards. Somehow you only notice me recommending HD7950s?

Or Post #45 in this thread this week:

"If you value lower power consumption, do not intend to overclock and don't mind using FXAA/TXAA anti-aliasing and care for PhysX, 660Ti is a strong card. Also, if you play Crysis 2, BF3, Wow, Guild Wars 2, it'll be fast. MSI 660Ti PE is great."

But of course whenever I recommend NV cards or of all things the 660Ti, you ignore it or don't bring it up since it undermines your argument that I am selling 7950s or being AMD-biased or pushing my 'preferred' vendor of choice. And when I ask for a more thorough overview of new SKUs that may help new readers make GPU selections, you call me AMD-biased again, and again. And yet here I am giving forum members interested in GTX660/650 when they are expected to launch next month. :sneaky:

 

[RussianSensation]

Hi guys;
We'll have a GTX 670 roundup within a couple of weeks. I have cards from MSI, Zotac, and Asus sitting in the queue. Along with our first retail 7970GE (from HIS) and some GTX 680 cards.

Thanks for the clarification Ryan. Looking forward to your tests of those after-market 670/7970/680 SKUs. :thumbsup:

 

[Hypertag]

So much wrong with your post I don't even know where to start. HD7970 GE is already faster than a stock 680. Shown by at least 8-10 professional reviewers. Tom's Hardware, TechReport, TechPowerUp, Xbitlabs, Computerbase, Sweclockers, H4T.net, KitGuru have all shown both 7970 1050mhz beating a 680 and 7970 OCed beating an OCed 680. It's not my words, but the words of professional reviews. I don't need to make up magical overclocking speeds for 7970 when 1050mhz after-market versions such as the $460 HD7970 Vapor-X are faster than a $500 GTX680, quieter and cooler. I don't make it up. It was tested and proven with data. I try to re-assess market prices and availability of new SKUs and see how it stacks up at various price levels. I also don't sit there "selling 7950s", but I try to recommend what I think is the best value for the $ card is for enthusiasts on our board.

I have recommended NV cards for months, many times, despite what you think. Here, and here and here I mentioned many times that 670/670 SLI is a good alternative. I even have a hot thread for Gigabyte Windforce 3x 670 for $374. I also criticized HD7970's and 7950's high prices during their launches. Maybe you forgot?

Your way of putting down my opinion is to call me AMD-biased and labelling me as an AMD salesman. I see. The only thing I do is reassess market conditions and pricing and make my opinions based on that. If new products become available or prices change, my opinions change. I don't stick to old reviews and old prices.



That has nothing to do with after-market 7970 GE or various after-market SKUs of 7950s. 7970 GE is an official card and is available for LESS than promised $499 MSRP. It also comes with 3 free games not promised originally. We would all like for products to be available but sometimes it doesn't happen like NV didn't deliver on 680's available and AMD was late with 7970. What's that have ANYTHING to do with 680/7970's availability now? Nothing. If you want to discuss AMD's credibility, sure. I am talking about which card is better. I recommend someone get a 680 now since it's not out of stock. I can recommend a real 7970 GE SKU. A 1050mhz+ HD7970 can be purchased today for less than a reference 680. Would would I not recommend a cheaper and faster card? You call me biased for doing that because I am an "AMD-biased for months". I'll recommend a faster and cheaper card all day every day whether from AMD and NV. When NV lowers the price of GTX680 to $450, then I'll revisit my recommendations.

You are capable of writing gigantic paragraphs that are persuasive. That is what apparently works here. You wrote them well during the blind worship the fanboys gave the 7970 during its $550 launch. However, just because you can identify that a 7970 barely 15% faster than the GTX 580 is a bad deal doesn't mean you aren't biased. As you noted, anyone that could attempt to give any type of analysis could have determined the GTX 580 was one of the worst performance per dollar cards ever released. However, those fully drinking the Kool-Aid didn't care. If I recommended 5850s over 285s, but recommended 470s over 5870s, would I be "non-biased"?

Apparently, you really, really didn't like that demand for the GTX 680 was so high. After multiple price cuts, you realized that 1GHz 7950s might be competitive with stock GTX 670s, and 1GHz 7970s might be competitive with stock GTX 680s. So, you did everything to sell these cards over the competition for whatever reason. I still agree with the initial assessment. A card barely 15% faster than an extremely overpriced card from the last generation isn't that impressive. It really doesn't change for me if its priced at $400 instead of $550. What we really need this generation is GTX 580 performance at $200. $200 is the price point that actually sells cards in high volume.

Now the obvious response to that is "this whole generation sucks". That is quite obvious, but we still have recommendations to make to people that won't wait until 2013 for Sea Islands to launch and for GK110 to actually be produced. So, why is the GTX 670 more impressive? It automatically overclocks, you don't have to wait 6 months for working drivers, and it offers 30% more performance than the GTX 580 if you actually get the Windforce X3 model. That is at least good enough to recommend. Should it be priced lower? Yes. Should basically all of the cards in this generation be priced lower? Basically, yes. Just to give an example as to the price levesl of current cards, those discounted GTX 570s with factory overclocks would be very competitive with current cards if Nvidia had went with 2.5GB of RAM back in 2010. Too bad they didn't, because if they had, then they would be competeing with AMD's vehemently overpriced 7800 series lineup. I know there is no way you can defend a 7870 selling for $290, and I know you will claim that since "all" 7850s hit 1.2Ghz, that the 7850 is "awesome" at $235~. I see a card with identical performance as the 6950, slightly higher price and barely lower power usage.

Basically, all of the cards here are overpriced, but I can at least defend GTX 670 purchases. It is a card you can actually be excited about. The 7850 is just the same 6950. I guess that works since Nvidia still doesn't have a card in that price range, but that is my point. What is the point of beating Nvidia to the market by 9 months if you do nothing with it at all? AMD could have kept selling 6950s for $220~, and sold basically the same amount of units. Would anyone have been happy if the 5850 was priced identical to the GTX 285? Basically everyone would have waited. That is what they are doing now. They are either buying GTX 670s, settling for 6950s with a different sticker, settling for GTX 660 TIs, or waiting. Yes, the top single GPU Nvidia card is overpriced, but that is because the top single GPU Nvidia card always has an extremely low price elasticity of demand. Nvidia has a large enough fanboy base that it could sell GTX 680s at $1000 even if the 670 was still $400. Maybe the GTX 670 recommendations will look horrible as its price drops to $250~ when Nvidia releases GK110, but it isn't like that won't crush all of the current generation's prices severely.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Somehow you only notice me recommending HD7950s?

You link numbers saying the 7950 is a bad buy so clearly there needs to be a roundup to help people decide which one they want. You continue to imply the 660Ti is weak in MSAA performance when reality says otherwise because you wanted to believe it, you continue to champion aftermarket 7950s as being the only thing that reviewers should be paying attention to. You bash very solid reviews repeatedly because they aren't marketing the 7950 as much as you want. You say that doing *exactly* what AMD wants isn't enough to promote the 7950.

I don't debate with posters as a general rule, I debate the content of their posts. On this particular topic you are obscenely biased to a profound degree. I could care less if you were Rollo using the exact same line of discussion you are now, doesn't change your perspective on this topic. On a global basis the 7950 won't be 5% of GPU sales, yet you think the world needs to revolve around it.

 

[RussianSensation]

You wrote them well during the blind worship the fanboys gave the 7970 during its $550 launch.

I criticized HD7970's price during launch, and was pointing out the fact that from a technology price/performance curve, it was not a great improvement that we have seen in the past, especially since AMD raised prices from $370 to $550 all in 1 generation. I also stated that 7950's price was not great in relation to the 580 since the 580's prices hasn't fallen as normally would have happened with obsoleted products. In case you haven't noticed, after-market MSI TF3 7950 fell in price from $500 to $317.

I did notice though and that's why I recommend it now and you just criticize me for jumping around and "selling AMD cards", while all I am doing is re-adjusting my view of the marketplace based on current price/performance.

What do you still expect me to argue that HD7950 should be $150 or something? If someone wants a card for $300-330, should I tell them to wait for GTX900 series in 2014?

I was especially critical of initial 7900 pricing because:

1) I suspected NV was not far behind and that in a quarter or less we'd see NV cards and serious price drops on AMD cards. That's why I hesitated recommending AMD cards fully expecting good competing cards from NV;
2) It was a huge price jump from $250-300 6950 and $370 6970.

However, AMD's CEO already said AMD is using "Predator Pricing Strategy". So chances are HD8000 series will also be $500-550. Don't expect $250 HD8950 that will unlock into a $370 HD8970 and give a run for the $ against a $500 GTX780 (hypothetical pricing). AMD looks to be done giving away cards for "free". So let's just forget about that time.

However, just because you can identify that a 7970 barely 15% faster than the GTX 580 is a bad deal doesn't mean you aren't biased.

I am pretty sure I said that 7970 was 20% faster than a 580, not 15%, but that's not the point. What are you accusing me of being biased towards? I am biased towards price/performance. You can accuse me all you want of that. That's a joke and a half. Right now I can't make up GK110 for $500 or launch HD8000 series earlier. Based on the cards we have, I can only look at HD7000 vs. GTX600 series and make recommendations as follow. IF you had asked me a general question if I think this generation is delivering less performance than expected, I'd say YES at stock speeds, especially on the NV side since 580 was stronger than the 6970. But that doesn't change anything for people buying today and also you can throw that complaint towards NV mostly as many AMD users have used bitcoin mining to subsidize this generation's upgrades. So really, there was and still is a legitimate way to upgrade on the cheap this round. This is why I bring bitcoin mining and people still call me biased when all I am trying to do is get them a faster card for less $. Hilarious right. Yet, I am biased for trying to recommend them a possible way to save $ if they still want this generation's performance.

However, those fully drinking the Kool-Aid didn't care. If I recommended 5850s over 285s, but recommended 470s over 5870s, would I be "non-biased"?

I never accused you personally of being biased. What's your point with that line? You seem to be accusing me of being biased though. Let's see you get out of this one. Apparently I am AMD-biased because I bought 3 GTX470s during that time.

The only thing I am biased towards is price/performance. Period. I got 470s for $190-210 each when 5870 was going for $350 and 5850 was $250-260.

Apparently, you really, really didn't like that demand for the GTX 680 was so high. After multiple price cuts, you realized that 1GHz 7950s might be competitive with stock GTX 670s, and 1GHz 7970s might be competitive with stock GTX 680s. So, you did everything to sell these cards over the competition for whatever reason. I still agree with the initial assessment.

You and your theories that I got "mad" or "sold cards" don't make any sense. I recommended 670/680 cards for months, months. I recommend on price/performance and until 7970s fell in price, I didn't recommend them. It's obvious why I started recommending 7900 series recently:

1) Drivers improved the performance in many games where 680 won, but now it loses in Dirt 3, Skyrim, Batman AC, the very games 7970 lost in.
2) Countless professional reviews now show HD7970 > GTX670 and HD7970 GE > 680 at stock speeds and HD7970 OCed > GTX680 OCed, with AMD especially leading at 2560x1440/1600 and triple monitors;
3) Prices fell on 7970 cards where 1000mhz 7970 was a better value than a 670. Why? Because 7970 is now shown to be faster than a 670 and a 1000mhz 7970 would be faster than most 670s.

Also, you probably were too busy slowly painting some AMD-biased picture of me and not paying attention to the context/threads. The situations where I recommended 1Ghz 7970 such as Gigabyte Windforce 3x 7970 often revolved around 2560x1440/1600 resolutions, since that was asked by the person looking to buy the card. In those resolutions, 1Ghz 7970 was the faster card than a 670, which is why I recommended it. Even right now I recommend the 670, but you probably aren't paying attention to those threads.

It really doesn't change for me if its priced at $400 instead of $550.

So HD7970 at $550 vs. $500 GTX680 is the same as a Vapor-X 7970 GE at $450 against a $500 reference 680? That's exactly why I am different from you. I re-assess the market all the time based on new SKUs and price changes. I don't read Feb 2012 Kepler reviews and never revisit. That's why I recommended 670/680 cards and when AMD lowered prices and delivered updated drivers, suddenly 7950/7970 cards look better to me. That's why I recommend those cards right now. If NV lowered prices on 670/680, I'd re-evaluate again. That's what you don't understand. I could care less who makes the card. If one card is faster for less $ or overclocks better and thus gives faster performance for less $ effectively, that's the card I'll recommend.

What we really need this generation is GTX 580 performance at $200. $200 is the price point that actually sells cards in high volume. Now the obvious response to that is "this whole generation sucks".

Ya, and I want a GTX780 GK110 for $250. That changes nothing about $300 660Ti vs. $320-330 7950, $400 GTX670 or $450 HD7970 GE or $500-600 GTX680s. We have those prices and that's what we have to work from.

If you want to use BallaTheFeared's and toyota's point of view and even mine actually that this generation offers less value than last, I wouldn't disagree. However for new consumers or people gaming at 2560x1440/1600, they want new generation of cards. I am not going to tell them to wait until 2014 to buy Maxwell and HD9000 series. So using current prices what I am going to use:

1) Ask the person what games he/she plays or he states that;
2) Look if the person plays at high resolution where AMD cards do better;
3) See if the person wants specific NV features that AMD doesn't have;
4) Otherwise --> Price/performance + Overclocking, where right now AMD imo leads in almost all price segments. That's why I keep recommending AMD right now and recommend 670/680 for months when 7950 was $480-500 and 7970 was $550-580. But you probably thought those months I was "faking it" or pretending to not be "AMD biased", because well it works for your theory that you stringed together based on 0 facts.

Should basically all of the cards in this generation be priced lower? Basically, yes.

Already addressed by many many veteran members on our forum:

1) NV and AMD passed on the high 28nm wafer costs to us the consumers;
2) NV seems to have delivered a more efficient GPU, which means they have have held back GK110 to professional markets and sold GK104 to consumers;
3) AMD can't afford price wars that lost them a lot of $ in 3800/4800/5800/6900 days. So AMD is back to higher pricing and trying to beat NV to market to make profits. I don't like but I can't change it.

Thus, we are forced to make recommendations on current pricing, which is what I do, but apparently you don't care if HD7970 is now $400 and it was $550 since to you it's probably worth only $250. So you are gaming on what a GT430 right now?

I know there is no way you can defend a 7870 selling for $290, and I know you will claim that since "all" 7850s hit 1.2Ghz, that the 7850 is "awesome" at $235~. I see a card with identical performance as the 6950, slightly higher price and barely lower power usage.

Source? It makes your post look even less informed since just days ago I posted nothing of the sort. In the hot deals thread I said HD7850 hits 1100-1150mhz. Never once did I say "all 7850's hit 1200mhz." You are again putting words into my mouth with something I never stated.

Basically, all of the cards here are overpriced, but I can at least defend GTX 670 purchases. It is a card you can actually be excited about.

So 7950 and 7970 can't be justified enough though they cost less then the 670/680 and have more overclocking room and VRAM, handle 8xMSAA better and can make $ bitcoin on the side? I guess all those people who got 7900 series and made $ bitcoin mining wasted that $ that should have been spent on the 670. Go ahead and tell it to the guys with now 2-3 free 7900 series cards or fully paid off 7900 series. Or go ahead and tell that to guys who saved $50-80 over 670/680 and got similar or faster performance with MSI TF3 7950 or Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 or similar.

The 7850 is just the same 6950.

Maybe to the 6950 user. HD7850 has 30-40% overclocking headroom and handles DirectCompute and tessellation better than 6950 and uses way less power. As such, for new buyers it's the best card in the $210 range, way way better than a $190-200 HD6950 unless that person doesn't overclock at all. That's not bias, those are facts. At similar prices 99% of people on our forum would recommend a 7850 over the 6950. Since most 6950s are going for $190 and 7850 can be had for $207 or so, I haven't had the urge to recommend a 6950, but I've done it sometimes against the 560Ti 1GB since I thought 1GB isn't sufficient for a $180 card.

What is the point of beating Nvidia to the market by 9 months if you do nothing with it at all? Maybe the GTX 670 recommendations will look horrible as its price drops to $250~ when Nvidia releases GK110, but it isn't like that won't crush all of the current generation's prices severely.

Did it occur to you that Fermi was a stronger architecture than Cypress/Cayman and that when 7750/7770/7850/7950/7970 came out at elevated prices they didn't look so hot? Many of us noted that. However, besides the 7750/7770 cards, each of the 7850/7950/7970 undercut the competition or offered more performance/$. So even for 6 months, the 7850 went totally uncontested by 560Ti / 560Ti 448 / 570 and 7950 was better than GTX580. HD7970 was the fastest single GPU at $550 for almost 3 months. If you didn't care to buy the fastest single GPU in Q1 2012, this isn't concerning to you.

All I am getting out of you is that you think this entire generation is overpriced and that just because AMD launched first, it doesn't change anything at all. It does change things because if AMD didn't launch, NV could have launched GTX680 at $600-700 or still been selling GTX500 series for most of this year. NV was in serious trouble with 28nm wafers and rushed GTX680 launch because of HD7000 series. AMD launching first pushed NV to try to get the 600 series out faster to compete.

Also, frankly right now AMD has competitive cards in almost every price level from $80 to $450. I can't think of any NV card I'd easily recommend except 660Ti / 670 to those who don't overclock at all. That's about it. Not a single NV GPU I can recommend under $300 and above $420. So it looks like there was a benefit to AMD launching its 28nm generation of cards.

I think you are making things way too complicated. There is only 1 pattern: Price/Performance. If price, performance or price/performance changes, I change my recommendations for NV or AMD. The only main exceptions are specific user preferences, specific brand features, specific games that run faster on 1 brand and how long a person wants to keep the card and hard budget cut offs. Otherwise, I just resort back to price/performance. Also, while I don't like this generation's prices increases or smaller performance increase at the same price if you will, I can't change that either right now. At least with AMD cards, they make entry point into this generation affordable with bitcoin mining. On the NV side, you pretty much have to pay $300-400 for 660Ti/670 if you have a 560Ti/570 or otherwise there is nothing to buy for those users. Again, in the context, I have no problem telling a GTX570 user to skip this generation entirely, just like I have no problem HD5850 CF user to tell him to skip this generation as well.

If you want to call me biased, please call me biased towards price/performance. I'll agree to that one

 

[3DVagabond]

Hi guys;

*snip*

Ryan, We need the sites to cut through the marketing and give us the straight scoop. These corporations are playing all of us.

The GTX-460FTW has been mentioned. nVidia, through their favorite board partner, had a card released specifically to spoil the 6800 launch. They also sent out the HAWKS 2 demo for the same reason. Many of the sites played right along and fed us the info nVidia wanted them to.

We'd been hearing for a while about a Tahiti refresh. Therefore, I wasn't too concerned about the 7970GE, as far as shenanigans goes. It's pretty obvious though that the new bios was circulated for the same reason the 460 ftw and HAWKS 2 bench was. They needed to hold out until final clocks were set on the 660ti and then put out something to spoil it's launch. Since they couldn't get actual cards out in time, they released an updated bios for the press to use.

We've had overblown and ill placed tessellation in Crysis 2. We've got Direct Compute lighting effects in Dirt Showdown. I don't think these are used to particularly good effect either. These are, or definitely appear to be, shenanigans on AMD/nVidia's part to skew results in their favor.

We've got multiple 460 models and 560 models. Some so they can sell cheaper cards to the poorly informed as 460's. Some so they can make it look like the 460 is as fast as more expensive cards by their competitor. Or, an O/C'd 460 as a model higher than it really is. Or to be able to market a 560 as faster than the 6950 when it's really a further cut down GF110.

We have AMD's 6800's Which were supposedly released to get the price range of the *800 back to historic levels. In reality it was because Cayman wasn't ready yet and they wanted the 6800 series to be used. So they created the 6900 range and shifted the 6800 down a notch. Then the 7800 comes out at $350, which totally blows the "historical price point" away on the very next generation.

We have the release 680's boosting way over the spec that ends up being typical for that model. We have the 660ti with every model being an O/C'd card. I'm sure trying to throw off AMD's clock target for their response and allowing for bench wins for the 660ti.

We need for sites like AT to untangle this for us. Not allowing themselves to be a marketing arm for the manufacturers. They are using you guys to help them misinform us.

Give us a review that truly shows the strengths and weaknesses of the cards. If a card takes a dump with heavy tessellation compared to it's competition, show us. If a card's performance tanks with AA, show us. If heavy compute in games makes the performance drop off to a level that's lower than the competitor's card, show us. If one of the manufacturers sends you cards or a bios or benchmarks just so you can use them in their competitor's review, tell them you aren't going to play those games. If they aren't going to send you any proper reference designs, don't review them as such. Dropping clocks on an O/C'd 660ti is not the same as an actual reference card. It'll have different power characteristics and therefore, different boost characteristics. A 6850 or 7950 that is a crippled reference design rather than the design that is actually going to be marketed to the public isn't good enough to pass off as reference in a review. When a company charges more money for a card that is O/C'd 25MHz and any reference card could give the same performance, tell us. Why do I see prices listed for review cards the MSRP when that's not what the cards are actually selling for?

I could go on and on with the games that the manufacturers play and review sites go along with. Someone needs to stop doing it and tell us what we really need to know. The reviews are supposed to be written to inform us. Not to help the company who plays the game the best sell more cards.

So, what's the better value, 7950's, or 660ti's, or 670's? Is the 680 or the 7970 worth buying over their next closest siblings based on the same chip? Or is the main difference just clock speeds? Did the last driver release fix or break performance? Can someone break it down and do complete enough reviews that we can decide? Show us the real strengths and weaknesses of these cards in relationship to the rest of the field.

 

[MTDEW]

Ryan, We need the sites to cut through the marketing and give us the straight scoop. These corporations are playing all of us.

The GTX-460FTW has been mentioned. nVidia, through their favorite board partner, had a card released specifically to spoil the 6800 launch. They also sent out the HAWKS 2 demo for the same reason. Many of the sites played right along and fed us the info nVidia wanted them to.

We'd been hearing for a while about a Tahiti refresh. Therefore, I wasn't too concerned about the 7970GE, as far as shenanigans goes. It's pretty obvious though that the new bios was circulated for the same reason the 460 ftw and HAWKS 2 bench was. They needed to hold out until final clocks were set on the 660ti and then put out something to spoil it's launch. Since they couldn't get actual cards out in time, they released an updated bios for the press to use.

We've had overblown and ill placed tessellation in Crysis 2. We've got Direct Compute lighting effects in Dirt Showdown. I don't think these are used to particularly good effect either. These are, or definitely appear to be, shenanigans on AMD/nVidia's part to skew results in their favor.

We've got multiple 460 models and 560 models. Some so they can sell cheaper cards to the poorly informed as 460's. Some so they can make it look like the 460 is as fast as more expensive cards by their competitor. Or, an O/C'd 460 as a model higher than it really is. Or to be able to market a 560 as faster than the 6950 when it's really a further cut down GF110.

We have AMD's 6800's Which were supposedly released to get the price range of the *800 back to historic levels. In reality it was because Cayman wasn't ready yet and they wanted the 6800 series to be used. So they created the 6900 range and shifted the 6800 down a notch. Then the 7800 comes out at $350, which totally blows the "historical price point" away on the very next generation.

We have the release 680's boosting way over the spec that ends up being typical for that model. We have the 660ti with every model being an O/C'd card. I'm sure trying to throw off AMD's clock target for their response and allowing for bench wins for the 660ti.

We need for sites like AT to untangle this for us. Not allowing themselves to be a marketing arm for the manufacturers. They are using you guys to help them misinform us.

Give us a review that truly shows the strengths and weaknesses of the cards. If a card takes a dump with heavy tessellation compared to it's competition, show us. If a card's performance tanks with AA, show us. If heavy compute in games makes the performance drop off to a level that's lower than the competitor's card, show us. If one of the manufacturers sends you cards or a bios or benchmarks just so you can use them in their competitor's review, tell them you aren't going to play those games. If they aren't going to send you any proper reference designs, don't review them as such. Dropping clocks on an O/C'd 660ti is not the same as an actual reference card. It'll have different power characteristics and therefore, different boost characteristics. A 6850 or 7950 that is a crippled reference design rather than the design that is actually going to be marketed to the public isn't good enough to pass off as reference in a review. When a company charges more money for a card that is O/C'd 25MHz and any reference card could give the same performance, tell us. Why do I see prices listed for review cards the MSRP when that's not what the cards are actually selling for?

I could go on and on with the games that the manufacturers play and review sites go along with. Someone needs to stop doing it and tell us what we really need to know. The reviews are supposed to be written to inform us. Not to help the company who plays the game the best sell more cards.

So, what's the better value, 7950's, or 660ti's, or 670's? Is the 680 or the 7970 worth buying over their next closest siblings based on the same chip? Or is the main difference just clock speeds? Did the last driver release fix or break performance? Can someone break it down and do complete enough reviews that we can decide? Show us the real strengths and weaknesses of these cards in relationship to the rest of the field.

Unfortunately what you said is true.
Only the more informed gamers/customers who spend more than an average amount of time online reading and comparing many reviews than the average person does can truly make an informed decision anymore.

Without trying to get in the middle of this heated debate (which i guess i am anyway), I have to at acknowledge that RussianSensation is far from biased and the senior members here should know this to be true simply by the way he has presented himself on here throughout the years.

I personally don't think it was/is too much to ask in a review with 3 Overclocked 660ti's and 1 reference 660ti that it include at least 1 reference card and one factory overclocked competitors card be used for comparison.
That way the 'average customer" reading the review can make an informed decision.

For that matter , if it is supposed to be a review of the 660ti launch,and i qoute ...."our primary focus is on the reference card since most (if not all) of the cards at launch will be similar to if not identical to the reference card." i think using 3 factory overclocked cards is a bit overkill, when 1 factory overclocked card and 1 reference card would do.



Soooo... whether we argue, or not, we're right back where we started...(as always)
If you want to make any informed decisions nowadays, you're stuck spending an abnormal amount of time reading and comparing every bit of info and reviews you can get your hands on because just browsing reviews doesn't work any more.

Which makes it kind of hard to disagree with those that claim that it kind of defeats the purpose of reviews to begin with, since they are correct.

 

[f1sherman]

so much controversy because 660 Ti didn't live up to many people's expectations - namely didn't fall from a 76 floor building with 16xAF / 4xMSAA D:

later...

 

[SirPauly]

However, AMD's CEO already said AMD is using "Predator Pricing Strategy".

You have a link for this quote?

 

[MTDEW]

Ok, i've got my flame suit on, so here goes. :biggrin:
Feel free to flip RED and GREEN if you want, if it makes you feel better.

REVIEW: "Hey, check out this shiny new GREEN card, it favors very well against its competitors RED card."
CUSTOMER: "I can see that, I want one!"
REVIEW: "Now wait, If you have a bit more $$$ in your budget, you can get an overclokced version of the GREEN card and get more bang for your buck."
CUSTOMER: "I can see that too, but what happens if you overclock that RED card you mentioned like you did the GREEN one?"
REVIEW: "Who cares? I'm not here to sell RED cards today, I'm trying to sell you one of these GREEN cards."
CUSTOMER: "Oh, i see, i thought you were just trying to help me make a decision on which one i should choose."
REVIEW: "Well, i'm sorry, i dont have time to waste helping you make up your mind, I'm trying to sell cards here!"

We're not stupid, we understand why there are 3 overclocked versions of the 660ti in the AT review, it is to help sell cards.
And there is nothing wrong with that, business is business and we all make a living somehow.

But somewhere along the line, reviews became more about just selling the latest hardware and less about helping consumers make informed choices.
That sucks.
It would be nice to see reviews help sell cards AND help the customer make a choice of what best fits his/her needs and budget.

 

[antef]

I'm still really torn on 660 Ti now vs. 670 or 7950 on Black Friday. My guesses for prices of those by Black Friday are $300 for 670, $270 for 7950. Definite improvements, but the 660 could be a $260 card today if I sold the Borderlands coupon, and has the 150W TDP. I can't determine how much I really care about 150W vs. 225W TDP of the 7950B. On one hand, the lower TDP is more impressive and sounds more reasonable. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't matter much at the end of the day. I also buy cards for 3-4 years and I don't know if the 660 Ti has legs for that amount of time.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I'm not sure why people keep talking about Borderlands 2 like it is a great discount on the card.

I guess this belongs in the PC gaming forum, but Borderlands was a horrible game. I look at the BL2 inclusion is Gearbox trying to move copies of their endless fetch quest garbage. After I played the same go here, get this, go back quest for the 60th time in the original Borderlands I uninstalled. That game was so horribly overrated. It was a steaming pile and the fact that anyone received it in a positive light is just further proof about how far game development has fallen.

 

[toyota]

I'm not sure why people keep talking about Borderlands 2 like it is a great discount on the card.

I guess this belongs in the PC gaming forum, but Borderlands was a horrible game. I look at the BL2 inclusion is Gearbox trying to move copies of their endless fetch quest garbage. After I played the same go here, get this, go back quest for the 60th time in the original Borderlands I uninstalled. That game was so horribly overrated. It was a steaming pile and the fact that anyone received it in a positive light is just further proof about how far game development has fallen.

um the people that think BL 2 adds value are probably people that actually enjoyed the first game. I enjoyed the crap out of it as did most people.

 

[railven]

I'm not sure why people keep talking about Borderlands 2 like it is a great discount on the card.

I guess this belongs in the PC gaming forum, but Borderlands was a horrible game. I look at the BL2 inclusion is Gearbox trying to move copies of their endless fetch quest garbage. After I played the same go here, get this, go back quest for the 60th time in the original Borderlands I uninstalled. That game was so horribly overrated. It was a steaming pile and the fact that anyone received it in a positive light is just further proof about how far game development has fallen.

um the people that think BL 2 adds value are probably people that actually enjoyed the first game. I enjoyed the crap out of it as did most people.

Pretty much what Toyota said.

Hell I'd buy 2x660ti's for $300 a piece, keep the two BL2 copies and then re-sell the cards at $275 a piece to someone who wasn't aware of the BL2 voucher. I get 2 copies of BL2 + $50.

 

[MrK6]

Pretty much what Toyota said.

Hell I'd buy 2x660ti's for $300 a piece, keep the two BL2 copies and then re-sell the cards at $275 a piece to someone who wasn't aware of the BL2 voucher. I get 2 copies of BL2 + $50.

You'd have two copies of BL2 and be out fifty dollars (-$50, or $25 a copy). Considering the game has been on sale for $37, that's a lot of work to save $12.