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This review is based on a wide range of cards from the budget sector (HD7770 & GTX650) to the higher end sector (HD7950 & GTX670). We are using the same system for the review today to ensure that no throttling will take place.
Obviously not many people buying a HD7770 would be using an overclocked 3960X Extreme Edition processor, but we need to maintain a stable testing platform so the results are all compatible when plotting performance graphics.
All AMD cards are using the latest 13.3 beta Catalyst driver and the Nvidia cards are using the latest 314.21 Forceware driver.
Test System:
Processor: Core i7 3960 X Extreme Edition @ 4.4ghz
Cooler: Antec 920 H20
Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung
Monitors: Dell U3011
Video Cards:
XFX HD7770 Core Edition (Catalyst 13.3 beta driver)
Sapphire HD7790 OC Edition (Catalyst 13.3 beta driver)
XFX HD7850 Core Edition (Catalyst 13.3 beta driver)
XFX HD7870 Core Edition (Catalyst 13.3 beta driver)
Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X Edition (Catalyst 13.3 beta driver)
Zotac GTX650 (Forceware 314.21 driver)
Gainward GTX660 (Forceware 314.21 driver)
Gainward GTX660 ti (Forceware 314.21 driver)
Zotac GTX670 (Forceware 314.21 driver)
Games:
Alien V Predator
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Shogun 2
Dirt Showdown
Max Payne 3
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.
Fantastic reading thanks GTX660ti all the way for me !
I have wanted the HD7950 now for quite a while, but cant afford it. ive decided to wait until the next gen, later this year. good article, shows the good GTX660ti performance well.
Im very happy with my HD7870, will do me for some time, and when it doesn’t ill pick one up cheap to CF them,
Now this will totally affect my decision on buying a vga
GTX670 is great, but GTX660 ti is the bargain right now. I like that Sapphire card though, im sick of fan noise 🙁
Good article, very helpful as im thinking of buying one for my new system soon.
Greg, you might want to look at the Asus Direct CUII version of the GTX660Ti – I got one recently to replace a Gainward GTX260GS and the reduction in fan noise is astonishing.
I agree with Andrew. Even though the Gainward GFX cards are very durable, but if you want high quality Nvidia cards that are also silent you should look at the ASUS cards with the Direct CUII cooling solution. It’s really no comparison.
Kitguru said: “Today’s article won’t be featuring the AMD HD7970, HD7990 or Nvidia GTX680 or GTX 690/Titan. Not because we don’t like them, but because very few people can afford to buy them.”
This seems very disingenuous. There’s hardly any difference between the avg. 670 and 7970 prices. Does put nVidia at the top of the charts with the O/C’d 670 though. :
Well its not meant to be disingenuous. the GTX680 is the flagship to battle against the HD7970. If we included the HD7970 then we would need to include the GTX680, sometimes seen for £350.
The point was to try and get a variety of cards and not focus on the flagship single GPU cards.
Bear in mind the GTX670 didn’t get a top award in this test, due to the pricing. The Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X did due to cost, cooling, noise etc.