Need help in choosing a graphics card: Gigabyte 7870 vs asus 660

[ASHISH65]

hd 7870xt- yes it is very good buy.get it.saphhire are full reliable and have good service support

 

[rajan1311]

I did some testing of a GTX 660 vs HD 7850...the HD 7850 overclocked well, and when both were OCed, they were pretty close...so yea, HD 7870 should be faster..

anyways, posted my results here... Zotac GeForce GTX 660 2GB Graphics card Review on Tech Verdict

btw, at office we have a GTX 660 on a system with CentOS(runs fine)...using a 7970 on a remote system with Ubuntu...no issues there too..

 

[topgear]

My problem is that I am unable to install the AMD catalyst closed source drivers on Ubuntu. I am fine with the performance aspect of the current default open source drivers, but my GPU fan runs at full speed when I'm on Ubuntu. Also, I am unsure whether the GPU clock is also running at max speed. I need the AMD catalyst drivers to monitor the core clocks, and control the fan speed of the GPU.

did you read the part where it says :

With the Radeon HD 4000 series GPUs and older not being supported by the mainline Catalyst driver and the legacy Catalyst driver not working well on the latest Ubuntu Linux release,

do you by any chance have HD4000 or older gpu chip ?

anyway, as ico has confirmed you won't face any issues with HD7870 ( Tahiti LE ) and latest offcial drivers.

 

[skeletor]

My problem is that I am unable to install the AMD catalyst closed source drivers on Ubuntu. I am fine with the performance aspect of the current default open source drivers, but my GPU fan runs at full speed when I'm on Ubuntu. Also, I am unsure whether the GPU clock is also running at max speed. I need the AMD catalyst drivers to monitor the core clocks, and control the fan speed of the GPU.

I believe I can perform all my coding on a virtual linux OS (Ubuntu running on VMWare or VirtualBox). Then I'll only need an Ubuntu OS for transferring data to virus-infected pen-drives (windows viruses are harmless on linux, so I can safely transfer data to it, or format it from there). If someone could help me with a workaround for that, it would be great.

Meanwhile, I'm asking all of you once again for your help; I'm down to the following 4 cards:

1) ASUS NVIDIA GTX660 : 15K
2) ASUS AMD 7870 : 15K
3) SAPPHIRE AMD 7870 : 15K
4) SAPPHIRE AMD 7870XT : 16.8K

Based on the performance, I am leaning towards the 7870XT, but I am unsure whether Sapphire provides good service, and whether or not their cards are reliable.
Also, the 7870XT seems a bit recent and a little rare (I've only seen a few reviews from smaller tech-sites), so is it a good buy?

If you're planning to use Ubuntu, then installing Catalyst isn't difficult at all. It installs and works fine if you do it via command line. I'm using Catalyst with HD 6950, HD 6550D and HD 6470M in Ubuntu.

Which GPU do you have currently and which Ubuntu version are you using? I'll post instructions.

 

[siddhanthgupta]

did you read the part where it says :



do you by any chance have HD4000 or older gpu chip ?

anyway, as ico has confirmed you won't face any issues with HD7870 ( Tahiti LE ) and latest offcial drivers.

I did. I am currently using a XFX AMD 6670 1GB DDR5.
And thanks. I was beginning to think that this was an issue with the particular card than the Catalyst drivers alltogether.

If you're planning to use Ubuntu, then installing Catalyst isn't difficult at all. It installs and works fine if you do it via command line. I'm using Catalyst with HD 6950, HD 6550D and HD 6470M in Ubuntu.

Which GPU do you have currently and which Ubuntu version are you using? I'll post instructions.

I'm using a XFX AMD 6670 1GB DDR5 and I have Ubuntu 12.10. I've only tried installing catalyst using command line. I removed the open-source drivers, installed the required packages and got the *.run file from the AMD catalyst linux driver to run, but the window that opens has no text.

If you could give me step by step instructions, that would be great.


Also, I am thinking about extending my budget a bit and going for a 7950 or a 660Ti, mainly because I'm not entirely sure how reliable 7870XT (which is basically a defective 7970/7950 chip) will be.
Both of those are available for around 20K. Can someone please tell me which one to go for?