580 or 660 for BF3?

sugosugita

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 12, 2010
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So I'm looking for an NVidia card [personal decision, sorry AMD boys] for modern gaming, specifically BF3. I game at 1920x1080 and plan to have an ivy-bridge i5.

Other factors being equal, should I spring for the current-gen GTX660 or the last-gen GTX580? Noise and power consumption are important factors to me, but not deal-breakers. I am open to buying used.

The benches I've seen put the two cards somewhat at the same level of performance in BF3 @ 1920x1200 in both MSAA and FXAA situations.

Since the 660 uses less power, should be a clear choice for the 660 right? Or am I missing something here?
 
The GTX 660 Ti would be the way to go given your restrictions.
 
I upgraded from a 580 to a 670 and saw a very nice increase in performance. If the 660 is anything like the 670, get it! Not to mention that the 600 series cards support 4 monitors.
 
The 660 is pretty close to the 580 in performance, plus its cheaper, and more power efficient.

The 580 no longer makes sense.

You can probably find a 660Ti for the same price as the 580, maybe even lower.
 
660 without a doubt.

-Lower power consumption
-Less heat
-Less noise
-Longer driver support
 
thanks for the response guys! Just thought it went against reason that a card two steps down from a comparable previous-gen card would match (and beat, for efficiency) a 580.
 
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