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3GB or 2GB at 1080p?

post #1 of 71
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I sold my GTX 560ti for $190 and am currently looking for a new GPU in the $300-$350 (CND) range. I game exclusive at 1080p on a single monitor and will probably never upgrade beyond that. I'm really tempted by the new 660ti's as I've had nothing but good experiences with nvidia cards and they're right in my price range. However, I'm torn between this 3GB Galaxy and this 2GB MSI.

According to the review of the Galaxy on Hardocp it performs at almost the same speed as a stock 670 but I'm unsure if I would notice/use the extra VRAM at 1080p? I really don't want to spend more than $350 which precludes a GTX 670. I play a lot of Skyrim with A LOT of mods which is why I was thinking 3GB might be the best idea even at 1080p.

Or should I wait for the new revision of the 7950 to drop? SO MANY CHOICES! Help! thumb.gif
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post #2 of 71
Well, the 660 ti 3 gb is only $20 more, so I say go for it, but if money is really tight, 2 GB is deffinatly enogh.
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post #3 of 71
I would pick up a used 580 1.5GB from the OCN forums with that price range. I had this card @1080p and it destroyed everything.
 
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post #4 of 71
I would get a 7950, a 660ti chokes below a 580 when heavy AA and AF is on.
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post #5 of 71
I would just get the most powerful gpu you can find for your price range. You say your range is $300-350 and I see a bunch of 7950's on newegg.ca for $349.99 so I would definitely go with one of those.

Picking a gpu by vram is NOT a very good way to buy a gpu btw. Vram is very overhyped for some reason. You want the most powerful gpu. The only people that need to worry about vram are those that are spending $1k+ on monitorS and $1k+ on gpu's.
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post #6 of 71
Thread Starter 
I guess the 7950s are also 3GB with more memory bandwidth as well. I'm going to wait a week and see what the general consensus of 660 vs. 7950 debate turns out to be. Seems like there's a big grey area with the reviews right now. Thanks for your help!
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post #7 of 71
It's 1080p, you should be fine with either. I would say wait for 7950s to fall in price. (Heck in the UK some 7950s are as much as 7870s...)
post #8 of 71
Truth of the matter is that at a single 1920x1080 resolution monitor, VRAM isn't much of an issue past maybe a few games. A 1.5GB, 2GB, or 3GB card will all work fine on 1080. Again you will just have that game or two that wants more VRAM, like modded Skyrim, but the overwealming majority of them will run just fine.
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post #9 of 71
Grab a HD7950, it's a massive card for the price.

OC it @ 1000/1375MHz , almost every HD7950 can do it on stock voltage and its even faster than stock HD7970..

Here's a HD7950 @ 1000/1500MHz vs a stock HD7970 @ 925/1375MHz in 3DMark 11:

HD7950 has higher GPU score 8325 vs 8172:

HD7950 @ 1000/1500MHz 3DMark 11

HD7970 @ 925/1375MHz 3DMark 11


A GTX660 Ti cannot match with it as HD7950 overclocks like a beast and has assive memory bandwidth trough 384bit interface (and 3GB of frame buffer)


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post #10 of 71
theres been plenty of benchmarks released today of the 660ti beating the 7970 oc'd too. hmm.
 
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