Try to READ an article.

It's pretty clear from that review that a 925mhz HD7950 holds its own, especially with MSAA on. It is also not a secret that 7950 has overclocking headroom to 1.1-1.2ghz. For enthusiasts/overclockers, the 7950 will continue to be the superior choice, especially for those who like MSAA over FXAA/MLAA or like to add mods (Skyrim) for example.

The fact that 660Ti is barely 5% faster than a 7870 but is 6 months late also doesn't inspire much praise, especially since 7870's have dipped to $250ish with rebates.

Regardless, it's great to see more competition. Afterall, it is 660Ti's launch that prompted price drops on 7870 and 7950. However, when all is said and done 7950 is a slighly cut down 7970 while 660Ti is a 25% cut down ROP/memory bus 670. Overclock both, and it's simple mathematics that 7950 will beat it in much the same way an overclocked 7970 beats an overclocked 680.

The Borderlands 2 game bundle though makes the 660Ti deal a lot sweeter. That's an AAA title. Good job on NV's part to include that as a freebie.

Did you mean OpenCL?
http://www.tomshardware.c...hmark-review,3279-12.html

It's very difficult to find many OpenGL benchmarks since not many games use OpenGL anymore. The last major OpenGL game I am ware off is Wolfenstein. AMD has notoriously had poor OpenGL performance up to X1900XT series. However, this has all changes now. AMD cards have a huge lead over Fermi and Kepler:

HD6970 is far faster than 580 in OpenGL:
http://alienbabeltech.com.../uploads/2011/09/wolf.jpg

HD7970 is nearly 2x faster than GTX680 in OpenGL Wolfenstein:
http://alienbabeltech.com...loads/2012/03/DX9-ogl.jpg

I don't know where you are at but CompUSA is having a special on a 7970 for $360 with 4 free games. Not a bad deal for someone on the fence between a 660Ti and 7950. That deals runs until August 21:

http://www.compusa.com/ap...No=3499047&CatId=7387

Actually, GTX 660 Ti is cheaper than HD7950

GTX 660 Ti cost $299.99 and it comes with free borderland 2
http://www.newegg.com/Pro...aspx?Item=N82E16814130809


Borderland 2 support PhysX (thats another reason to buy an nvidia card)
http://www.youtube.com/wa...vBRU&feature=youtu.be

Borderlands 2 is a good game no doubt. The reason 660Ti costs $300 is because it's only a 1.5GB card and can't handle MSAA. For $20 extra, I'd rather get an after-market 7950 or spend $60-70 more for HD7970 or 670 that also comes with borderlands 2. Newegg has MSI 670 for $370. Way better deal than the 660Ti that's crippled for future games. On the AMD side, the cards make $ every month bitcoin mining. So if you spend 10 min setting it up, you get free GPU upgrades.

660Ti is the worst option between 7950/670/7970. It's least ready for next gen games, and it can't make $ when not gaming. Should be $250-275.

Except Bitcoin mining costs as much in electricity as it would if you just saved up the money by using less power when you're not gaming. Unless you made a good deal and pay only a fixed price per month, but even then you're probably bound to fair use which means the power company might start asking questions if you start drawing huge amounts of energy.

Either way, I think there are far better ways to make money for a new card than bitcoin mining.

It depends where in the world you are. A single 7950 @ 1100-1200mhz would make you about 9 Bitcoins a month. The current rate is $9.25, or $81 a month. It uses about 200W of power.

The electricity cost would need to be $81 a month to make it not worthwhile. However, in North America the cost is often $0.10-$0.20 per KwH = $15-30 a month max. So it's profitable in North America, maybe outside of Hawaii.

Huge amounts of energy? You know a hair dryer uses 5000W of power, a hair blow-dryer uses 1400W, a coffee maker 800W. A videocard uses 200W. You aren't making logical sense with the comment of the power company questioning power use unless you live in outside a developed country. Since plenty of people have made $ bitcoin mining, you can't say it doesn't work just because it doesn't work for you or you didn't do the math correctly or you choose to ignore this feature.

Check out this summary of 3DCenter that compiled a ton of reviews. A stock HD7950 is faster overall over 10+ reviews:
http://www.3dcenter.org/a...eforce-gtx-660-ti-seite-2

Get a good 7950 (MSI TwinFrozr 3, PowerColor PCS+, Sapphire Dual-X) and you are looking at 1100-1200mhz at 1.1-1.175V.

GTX660Ti can't touch that at all. Borderlands 2 will eventually fall to $10 on Steam. I intend to wait for the Year Edition with all the free DLC anyway

BTW I can hardly call these cards "for the masses". That would be sth like 77xx series or nVidia's counterpart, when (or if) it gets launched.

http://www.masonic-lodge-...mages/S_and_C_360x360.jpg

Maybe it's just a coincidence though?