Upgrade to a GTX 660/670

Hello, I am looking to upgrade my EVGA GeForce GTX 285 to one of these, but I'm still debating on which exactly. Right now I'm looking at EVGA GTX 660 Ti SC+ 3GB w/Backplate, EVGA Geforce GTX 670 FTW or the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW SIG2. Are the differences between these cards all -that- significant? Should I be looking for something similar other than these (though I am sticking with EVGA, regardless)? The 680/690 series are out of my budget right now.

I'm very satisfied with my GTX 285 at the moment (surprisingly so, looking at it's age right now), but the games I play are slowly getting more and more demanding and I feel like it's about time to get something new. Thanks in advance.

 

The main difference between the 660Ti and the 670 is the memory bus width. (660Ti = 192 bit and 670/680 = 256 bit)

This has a weird effect on performance, in games that don't have heavy memory bandwidth requirements - the 660Ti and 670 will perform pretty similarly.
But games like Metro 2033 etc that need that bandwidth will show a bigger difference in fps.

This is partly why AMD and Nvidia completing cards are better/worse from game to game.

But in general performance scales pretty linearly with price, so its up to you how much cash you want to spend.

 

I'd probably spend something between €300/€400. I play a lot of different kinds of games, ranging from the more simple indie titles to things like Natural Selection 2, Primal Carnage and PlanetSide 2 (at the moment). Sadly I don't have much luck with the 'usual' benchmark tests, as they are usually done on the more popular shooters like CoD/BF which I don't play. I'm not sure if the games I mentioned need the 192- or 256 bus width. My current card has 512, but of course it's difficult to compare my older one's specs with the ones from the 660/670 series.

 

GTX660 Ti is a great card and to be fair enough for 1080p.

Great performance, quite cheaper...cant go wrong here.

 

Depending on your desire to overclock or not, there are various options. As there isn't much between a 660Ti OCed vs 670 OCed. (espiecally with a nice memory OC on the Ti)

I would say an AMD card offers best bang-for-buck in any price segment when overclocking is considered. However since you are only considering EVGA you are limited to the following in that price range:

GTX660
GTX660Ti
GTX670
GTX660 SLI

(I put them in descending order of increasing perforamnce.)

I'm a sucker for dual GPU setups as you can see from my sig rig. And the 660 SLI will definately annihilate pretty much anything.

I consider the 670 to be over priced in general when comparing it to the 660Ti and AMDs offers.

You havn't mentioned your resolution or AA preferences, both of which prefer a faster memory interface.

 

If your going Nvidia, I would say get the 670. Yes there is not much between the 660Ti and the 670 but if UK prices are to go by, neither is the difference in price. A 660Ti can be towards £270, and a 670 can be had as low as £280. Pretty bad position at the moment

 

Here its otherwise, GTX660 ti is around 220€ and GTX670 is around 290€.

 

I am not planning to overclock- or use SLI. I've been using my GTX 285 as it is, and have been satisfied with it so far. I don't really play around much with the settings (kinda dull, I know, maybe I should change that ) so my res./AA prefs are kind of nonexistent. I'm most interested in the very core features of these cards- untouched/modified in any way. I'm not sure the performance differences are as big as the price differences- such as, how does the memory bus bandwidth of the GTX 660 Ti SC (192-bit) measure up against GTX 670 FTW's 256-bit? Isn't it too low? And is the FTW SIG2 that much better than the regular FTW?


Thanks for the replies so far guys, appreciate the help.

 

the 670 isnt overpriced compared to the 660ti. in many cases the difference is only 20-40euro and the 670 delivers alot more performance. one of the cheapest 670 is one of the best > gigabyte 670 oc with the windforce cooler

 

If you're going with nvidia, then yeah I would say go with the Gigabyte 670 WF3 (the 3x one), because it has a 680 PCB.

Can't go wrong in that one. I went from GTX 260 and I also felt it was kinda time for an upgrade, so I went for the HD7950 WF3.

 

I went from a GTX470SOC to a EVGA GTX660ti I game at 1080p and its awesome

 

If you're going with nvidia then only go with 670.. no point to go in the 660Ti direction.

If you want nvidia: 670
If you want AMD: 7970 (should cost the same as 670 already)
If you want the best card for the price: HD7950 (Vapor-X, WF3 or TF3) and give it a mild oc.

Taken from another overclock.net, should give you a hint:

Simply yeah.. that's how it is. It's the reason why I got one of these 7950s as well.

 

I would 100% say look into the 7950, mine should be coming today! I was originally going to get a 660 Ti since i normally get nvidia but the 7950 is just too good for its price.

 

Hey guys, don't mean to hijack but don't see the point in making another thread on the same subject. I'm coming from an radeon 6850, looking towards a 670 as well. Any suggestions?

 

All the suggestions are above.

 

What do you mean? My suggestion is, go for it

 

I would leave the 192-bit interface alone and get the 670

 

I would say get the 7950 but if you HAVE to get NVIDIA get the 670...

 

What this guy said, esp. if you can oc. AMd has NVidia beat this time, and for the past few since 4k series.

 

Wouldn't bother with the 660Ti if you can afford the 670, the bandwidth is a bottleneck at high res games.