If your play say, Guildwars 2 on a nvida gtx 470 on max settings. Then you put a gtx 670 in your system with guild wars on max settings. Will the game look better with the 670 or the same as the 470?
If there's a visibly higher frame rate, that will make it look better. But if you were to take a screenshot of each, you wouldn't be able to tell which was which. They probably won't look exactly the same (the specification on some API features only says that it has to meet certain criteria, not necessary produce exactly some particular result), but it's not likely that you'd think either screenshot looks substantially better than the other, and even if it did, it's not guaranteed that the newer card would be the one that looks better.
Still, moving from a GeForce GTX 470 to a GeForce GTX 670 would roughly double your graphical performance, which is enough to justify an upgrade. And it would also mean you have a card that doesn't run dangerously hot, unlike the reference GTX 470s. So there's that.
Games look the same no matter the card you use, the difference between them is how well they can run (framerate) at the various settings. A game looks exactly the same at maxed, medium or low on either a 470 or 670 but the 670 will be able to run it more smoothly at higher settings.
Games look the same no matter the card you use, the difference between them is how well they can run (framerate) at the various settings. A game looks exactly the same at maxed, medium or low on either a 470 or 670 but the 670 will be able to run it more smoothly at higher settings.
But running the games smoother makes it look better, right?
if i wanted to save some money and not incur the 350-400 dollar bill, when does the 600 series card get better than the 470?
is a 660 or 660 ti better? or even a 650?
A 470 graphics quality would be better than a 660 or 650.
The 'quality' would be the same, but a 660 would have a bit higher FPS than the 470.
If i were in the OP's shoes i'd be looking at a 670, 7950 or if he can get his hands on one a 7870LE (only slightly slower than 7950 but cheaper enough to be worth it). 7850 and 660's are great cards but wouldnt be a significant step up. 660ti and 680 are over priced and the 7970 is beyond what he'd need.
if i wanted to save some money and not incur the 350-400 dollar bill, when does the 600 series card get better than the 470?
is a 660 or 660 ti better? or even a 650?
It depends on why you're looking to upgrade. If you just want to get away from the hot and loud GTX 470, then just about any modern card would be quieter and cooler.
If you want better graphical performance, then I wouldn't recommend upgrading to anything less than a GeForce GTX 470. A GeForce GTX 650 Ti is perhaps a bit slower then a GTX 470, and a Radeon HD 7850, GeForce GTX 660, and Radeon HD 7870 are a little faster, but not really by enough of a margin to justify an upgrade. Upgrading your card to something 20% faster every year is a massive waste of money; you're better off going with fewer, larger upgrades than that.
Ok if your getting like 50+ fps on max settings on a 470, a 670 running at 80+ fps will look no diff becouse above 50 FPS there is no noticable diff you eyes can detect,
so to just play GW2 it wouldent really be worth upgrading unless your planning on more system hungry games.
When looking ath the % given for FPR improvement, then I'd say, OC the GTX470 by that amount. Would save you the money and you'll get the same result as well. Not to mention, most MMOs don't even use the GTX6xx features (TxAA) - afaik only TSW does at the moment to some extend.
If OP is a real hardcore gamer and also plays a lot of single/multi-player games that do use TxAA, then I could recommend the upgrade only for the TxAA support. Personally, I'd not do it since I'm quite happy with my setup (running GTX460 in SLI)
When looking ath the % given for FPR improvement, then I'd say, OC the GTX470 by that amount. Would save you the money and you'll get the same result as well. Not to mention, most MMOs don't even use the GTX6xx features (TxAA) - afaik only TSW does at the moment to some extend.
Overclocking a reference GTX 470 is a bad idea. Even at stock speeds, the cooler can't really handle the card.
TXAA is proprietary to Nvidia, so it will probably end up like GPU PhysX unless it's awfully easy to implement: a bullet point for Nvidia marketing and a talking point for Nvidia fanboys, but never used in actual games unless Nvidia pays for it.
Originally posted by cichy1012 If your play say, Guildwars 2 on a nvida gtx 470 on max settings. Then you put a gtx 670 in your system with guild wars on max settings. Will the game look better with the 670 or the same as the 470?Just curious before i buy...
So, if your playing on Max Settings already, and don't have any problems with framerate, a graphics upgrade won't net you anything. Going from 75 fps to 125fps isn't an upgrade, because your monitor is stuck at 60FPS (it's refresh rate) anyway.
However, GW2 in particular is very CPU-intensive (more to the point, it's CPU core intensive, and wants a quad-core CPU). It's a fairly unique game in this regard (at least for the moment), and throwing more GPU horsepower doesn't really net much in the way of performance, but if you don't have a quad core CPU you will suffer no matter what. ~Most~ games are more GPU intensive, however, few are intensive to the point where a 470 can't at least run with most every setting turned on, if not outright maxed.
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If there's a visibly higher frame rate, that will make it look better. But if you were to take a screenshot of each, you wouldn't be able to tell which was which. They probably won't look exactly the same (the specification on some API features only says that it has to meet certain criteria, not necessary produce exactly some particular result), but it's not likely that you'd think either screenshot looks substantially better than the other, and even if it did, it's not guaranteed that the newer card would be the one that looks better.
Still, moving from a GeForce GTX 470 to a GeForce GTX 670 would roughly double your graphical performance, which is enough to justify an upgrade. And it would also mean you have a card that doesn't run dangerously hot, unlike the reference GTX 470s. So there's that.
Assuming you use the same in game settings.. no.
Games look the same no matter the card you use, the difference between them is how well they can run (framerate) at the various settings. A game looks exactly the same at maxed, medium or low on either a 470 or 670 but the 670 will be able to run it more smoothly at higher settings.
But running the games smoother makes it look better, right?
if i wanted to save some money and not incur the 350-400 dollar bill, when does the 600 series card get better than the 470?
is a 660 or 660 ti better? or even a 650?
660 (non ti) is faster than a 470, not a massive amount maybe 15% ish.
A 470 graphics quality would be better than a 660 or 650.
The 'quality' would be the same, but a 660 would have a bit higher FPS than the 470.
If i were in the OP's shoes i'd be looking at a 670, 7950 or if he can get his hands on one a 7870LE (only slightly slower than 7950 but cheaper enough to be worth it). 7850 and 660's are great cards but wouldnt be a significant step up. 660ti and 680 are over priced and the 7970 is beyond what he'd need.
It depends on why you're looking to upgrade. If you just want to get away from the hot and loud GTX 470, then just about any modern card would be quieter and cooler.
If you want better graphical performance, then I wouldn't recommend upgrading to anything less than a GeForce GTX 470. A GeForce GTX 650 Ti is perhaps a bit slower then a GTX 470, and a Radeon HD 7850, GeForce GTX 660, and Radeon HD 7870 are a little faster, but not really by enough of a margin to justify an upgrade. Upgrading your card to something 20% faster every year is a massive waste of money; you're better off going with fewer, larger upgrades than that.
Ok if your getting like 50+ fps on max settings on a 470, a 670 running at 80+ fps will look no diff becouse above 50 FPS there is no noticable diff you eyes can detect,
so to just play GW2 it wouldent really be worth upgrading unless your planning on more system hungry games.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3845509852.png
When looking ath the % given for FPR improvement, then I'd say, OC the GTX470 by that amount. Would save you the money and you'll get the same result as well. Not to mention, most MMOs don't even use the GTX6xx features (TxAA) - afaik only TSW does at the moment to some extend.
If OP is a real hardcore gamer and also plays a lot of single/multi-player games that do use TxAA, then I could recommend the upgrade only for the TxAA support. Personally, I'd not do it since I'm quite happy with my setup (running GTX460 in SLI)
Overclocking a reference GTX 470 is a bad idea. Even at stock speeds, the cooler can't really handle the card.
TXAA is proprietary to Nvidia, so it will probably end up like GPU PhysX unless it's awfully easy to implement: a bullet point for Nvidia marketing and a talking point for Nvidia fanboys, but never used in actual games unless Nvidia pays for it.
So, if your playing on Max Settings already, and don't have any problems with framerate, a graphics upgrade won't net you anything. Going from 75 fps to 125fps isn't an upgrade, because your monitor is stuck at 60FPS (it's refresh rate) anyway.
However, GW2 in particular is very CPU-intensive (more to the point, it's CPU core intensive, and wants a quad-core CPU). It's a fairly unique game in this regard (at least for the moment), and throwing more GPU horsepower doesn't really net much in the way of performance, but if you don't have a quad core CPU you will suffer no matter what. ~Most~ games are more GPU intensive, however, few are intensive to the point where a 470 can't at least run with most every setting turned on, if not outright maxed.