Which card is better?

[EarthDog]

Details aside, I am simply thinking big picture here. I see 1GB of Vram versus 2GB. I see 128bit bus versus 256bit. I see as times go on, games using more and more vram and 1GB just isn't enough for a lot of modern games, even at his meager resolution and that will only get worse with every new game release. For example Max Payne 3, and though this is at 1080p, you can see without an AA, it is damn close to its 1GB buffer. They are unable to enable to use MSAA (arguably better versus FXAA) period. The game didn't even let them enable it at that res. That said, AMD doesnt have FXAA (Nvidia feature) without using the AMD injector, so he would likely have to play without AA or maybe 2xAA, which at that low of a resolution would look hideous to me. I would imagine the OP would want(need) to crank up the AA at that low of a resolution which will pile on the vram used and max out that buffer. I can tell you BF3 @ 1400x900 with 1.5GB card at Ultra settings may get enough FPS, but it is a choppy experience. I do not play MP3, but imagine the behavior may be similar when you run out of vram as it pages out to slower system ram.

In Max Payne 3 we were not able to physically raise this game to 2X MSAA at 1080p because of VRAM limitations. Each video card only has 1GB of VRAM on board, and the game would not allow us to enable 2X MSAA, it said it was out of video RAM capacity. Therefore, the only option we could utilize for AA was FXAA, which doesn't take up any video RAM.

Note, the card the OP wants is 1GB, the TPU review is using a 2GB card so that can have a FPS effect in some titles and settings. I need to find TPUs review on a 1GB 7790...

EDIT: Found one... amazing how they, TPU, can get MP3 running at a higher resolution with AA versus [H] that cannot. I have run across a few reviews where they use FXAA instead of the MSAA...that may be the reason why as FXAA doesnt use any vram.

http://www.errau.com/review/652-amd-radeon-hd-7790/page4.html



No idea how The Witcher II works... but it seems that the OP wants to pour on the eye candy with which the 6950 is better suited for.

I think the benefits of the 6950 outweigh the single game performance of 7790 1GB.

 

[yamaharacer19]

I concur with ED and Knufire. They know what they are talking about. They also do reviews for this site.

Another point to add: There's a pretty good chance that the OP can unlock the 6950 to a 6970. And the OP may get a new monitor which supports 1920x1200. So the obvious choice between GPUs would be the 6950.

 

[Xeon_KI]

Then throw an 8% increase to the reference clock(like on the 7790) and the 6950 is money.
I think most of us agree

 

[Knufire]

They also do reviews for this site.

I don't, Ed does, but mostly motherboards I think (could be wrong on that).

 

[yamaharacer19]

Oh. I thought you did Knufire.