# 7970 or 660ti sli



## rock2702 (Apr 13, 2013)

I have a 7970.I game on 1440p monitor.I have an option of trading my card with a 660ti and some cash.Also I can add another 660ti within a month.So should I sell of my 7970 and go for 660ti sli config? Will I get better performamce? Or is it not worth the trouble?


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## harshilsharma63 (Apr 13, 2013)

660ti SLI is way better than single HD7970. Also, Nvidia has removed most of the SLI related troubles. So, if that "some cash" is enough, I would recommend the exchange.


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## Myth (Apr 13, 2013)

660ti sli setup is great if you set it up now. 

But keeping the below points in mind, consider a 7970 CF setup also.
* 7970 price may/will fall within a _few months _(before being sort of replaced by better cards)
* In that _few months, _amd may/will remove the stuttering from the 7970 CF setups by overcoming the hardware shortcoming by better drivers.
* Radeon pro already smoothens a CF setup game-play at the moment.

7970CF is just another possibility, but its more like a gamble since certain things may not work out as expected. 
An sli setup is always safe.


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## rock2702 (Apr 13, 2013)

Wish I could afford a 670 sli. 
I am a little sceptical about crossfire, the driver issues and all that.Otherwise I might have thought about a 7950 xfire.I have seen in some reviews that a 660ti sli outperforms even a gtx titan in few games  and is ahead of a single 7970 or 680.The crippled memory bus on the 660ti worries me a bit.I guess I wont be able to apply any sort of AA in games because of the memory bus?


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## Cilus (Apr 13, 2013)

If you use Shader based Anti Aliasing techniques like SMAA or MSAA then at 2560X1440 resolution, then applying higher than 2X might cause a good performance drop in games as the 192 bit bus is can't keep up with the increased memory bandwidth requirement. But you can use Post Processing methods like FXAA without any performance hit.
Regarding CF, if you can use a tool called RadeonPro for creating individual game profiles, the issues with CF setup can be easily overcome. Currently it is providing features like Dynamic Frame Rate Control (DFC) and Dynamic VSync Control (DVC) which can easily remove most of the Screen Tearing and Micro Stuttering issues associated with CF setup. In future they are going to provide Adaptive Vsync Control with AMD cards which is currently an nVidia only technology.


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## harshilsharma63 (Apr 14, 2013)

@OP; how much extra cash will you be receiving in the exchange?


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## The Incinerator (Apr 14, 2013)

For a 1440x900 (edit) @60Hz you need nothing. You are more than good as you are at the moment. Even your HD7970 is an overkill.


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## ShankJ (Apr 14, 2013)

660ti sli all the away..


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## Myth (Apr 14, 2013)

rock2702 said:


> I have a 7970.I game on *1440p *monitor.I have an option of trading my card with a 660ti and some cash.Also I can add another 660ti within a month.So should I sell of my 7970 and go for 660ti sli config? Will I get better performamce? Or is it not worth the trouble?





The Incinerator said:


> For a *1440 @60Hz* you need nothing. You are more than good as you are at the moment. Even your HD7970 is an overkill.



@OP: 1440x900 is different from 1440p. Your monitor is the former. If you dont plan on changing monitors, the 7970 will last for quite some time. 
It is a better choice at the moment considering the future games.


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## ico (Apr 14, 2013)

rock2702 said:


> I have a 7970.*I game on 1440p monitor.*I have an option of trading my card with a 660ti and some cash.Also I can add another 660ti within a month.So should I sell of my 7970 and go for 660ti sli config? Will I get better performamce? Or is it not worth the trouble?


1440p means 2560x1440.

The monitor in your signature is  Samsung SyncMaster 940NW which has a resolution of 1440x900. It could be called 900p.

In all fairness, you don't need anything more than a HD 7850 to max out settings for a 1440x900 monitor. I'd say keep your HD 7970. GTX 660 Ti SLI is not worth the trouble as HD 7970 is well more than fast enough for your resolution and the extra performance of GTX 660 Ti SLI won't matter. Waste of money I'd say.

If you want, what you can do is trade your HD 7970 with GTX 660 Ti + cash. Don't buy a second GTX 660 Ti. That would be fine unless you don't plan on buying 1080p monitor for a long future.


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## rock2702 (Apr 14, 2013)

Myth said:


> @OP: 1440x900 is different from 1440p. Your monitor is the former. If you dont plan on changing monitors, the 7970 will last for quite some time.
> It is a better choice at the moment considering the future games.



My monitor is a 27 inch 2560x1440 res. one.I forgot to update my siggy.So 7970 or 660ti sli?

@Harshil I m trading my 5 months old 7970 with a 5 months old MSI 660ti PE and 7k cash.So I have to arrange around 10-12k for another 660ti to sli them.


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## ico (Apr 14, 2013)

rock2702 said:


> My monitor is a 27 inch 2560x1440 res. one.I forgot to update my siggy.So 7970 or 660ti sli?


GTX 660 Ti SLI then.


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## harshilsharma63 (Apr 14, 2013)

ico said:


> GTX 660 Ti SLI then.


+1 to 660ti SLI.


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## rock2702 (Apr 14, 2013)

ico said:


> GTX 660 Ti SLI then.



How much increase in performance can I expect over my current 7970? Also won't 2gb vram be less for that resolution?


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## vickybat (Apr 14, 2013)

^^ Well buddy things are really going to change soon with the advent of next-gen consoles, especially the PS4. Just take a look at the launch trailer of battlefield 4.
The game looks next-gen and was running on a soon to be released amd 7990 malta gpu (dual 7970 based) and that too probably at 1080p. It gave 60fps ( ideal for fps games).

So you get the idea what i mean?

The only flaw of 660-ti is its 192 bit bus and it constrains an otherwise powerful gpu. You will face problems enabling smaa, msaa and mlaa in games like crysis 3 and the new games that are going to launch with next-gen consoles. I recommend you to get a *7950 crossfire* or if you want to stick with nvidia, then* 670 sli* is good. I would have recommended 660-ti sli for 1080p but it will certainly get bottle necked in newer titles especially in the huge resolution your monitor brings. 

Nvidia is also planning to refresh its 6 series line up this year with updated kepler cards with more bus width and minor added tweaks. This is also not confirmed but a speculation after seeing the 650-ti boost launch with 192 bit bus and more ROP's. Even a stripped down titan called *Titan LE* is on its way with two disabled gk110 smx (2306 sp's) , 5gb gddr5 on a 320bit bus.

Then in 2nd half of 2014, nvidia will launch maxwell gpu's with a completely different architecture having unified memory. That means the gpu now can also fetch data from main (x86) memory directly without any cpu intervention. The only thing now to do this is the APU in PS4. 

Not only that but maxwell gpu's will be nvidia's first APU that will integrate multiple ARMV8 based 64 bit denver processors for* GPU compute*. CUDA is the key here because nvidia has programmed and optimized cuda libraries for arm instructions. Its called CARMA ( CUDA on ARM Architecture). Something like this was previously unheard of and according to nvidia, maxwell will shatter the power efficiency of kepler by 3 times. How powerful these will  turn out to be, only time will tell. Amd's answer to maxwell will be GCN 2.0 (No details yet).

I know these info might not hold any relevance now but give you an idea how gpu's are evolving. Keeping these into account, make your purchase decision wisely.


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## The Incinerator (Apr 14, 2013)

rock2702 said:


> My monitor is a 27 inch 2560x1440 res. one.I forgot to update my siggy.So 7970 or 660ti sli?



660Ti SLi.....eyes wide shut.


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## vickybat (Apr 14, 2013)

*@ op* 

If you lock on 660-ti, then take a look at this:

Gainward NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card - Gainward: Flipkart.com

Its ideal for multigpu coz of a centrifugal cooler that spews hot air out of the cabinet through rear vents.
The pricing is especially good and should be cheaper locally.


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## rock2702 (Apr 14, 2013)

I m trading my used 7970 for a used msi gtx 660ti pe+cash.Can I purchase the gainward card and sli it with the msi one?


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## harshilsharma63 (Apr 14, 2013)

rock2702 said:


> I m trading my used 7970 for a used msi gtx 660ti pe+cash.Can I purchase the gainward card and sli it with the msi one?


Not recommended.


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## rock2702 (Apr 14, 2013)

harshilsharma63 said:


> Not recommended.



Why is it not recommended?


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## Cilus (Apr 14, 2013)

SLI of same cards from two different manufacturers is not an issue. It will work fine. But my suggestion will be a HD 7950 CF because of your resolution. Check my 1st post and Vicky's post where we've tried to explain the problems you will have with 2 GB VRam and 192 bit BUS while using high AA and AF in games.


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## The Incinerator (Apr 14, 2013)

MSi s future is a bit iffy unclear at the moment in India.So be careful.


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## rajan1311 (Apr 19, 2013)

rock...you config looks familiar...did you ever have a tri monitor setup and recently got a Crossover ?  

Are having issues with the 7970? I mean, you feel the performance is too less? If not, just stick to it man, single card gaming is generally more bug free (maybe today's drivers are mature enough that SLI has no real issues, but generally that has been the case in the past)


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## rock2702 (Apr 27, 2013)

Cilus said:


> SLI of same cards from two different manufacturers is not an issue. It will work fine. But my suggestion will be a HD 7950 CF because of your resolution. Check my 1st post and Vicky's post where we've tried to explain the problems you will have with 2 GB VRam and 192 bit BUS while using high AA and AF in games.



People say that on 2560x1440 res AA is not required, it is just a luxury, because it is smooth enough.Does AF require vram and higher memory bandwidth? What does AF do btw?


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