Are the addtional shaders worth it?

[KleeziE]

So I am in the market for a new video card and my budget is 250-300. I currently have a gtx260 and I have been looking about jumping over to the red team with a 6950 because the amount of ram makes more sense to me.

The cards I am looking at are:
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II and MSI's vanilla 6950

I have been reading about the unlocks for the reference cards for the vanilla card but from this review of the Twin Frozr edition, it overclocks past a 6970 but just isnt able to unlock those addtional shaders because the bios flash doesnt work with that card since its not a standard reference card.

So long story short, do you think unlocking those extra shaders makes that much difference to pass on the highly overclockable Twin Frozr card?

 

[blackhawk777]

I think what you mean is: "Is the ability to possibly overclock higher better than having more shaders". The standard 6950s aren't too difficult to overclock to 6970 levels and beyond with their stock coolers. The benefit of the MSI cooler IMO is that it is more efficient and therefor quieter. If you want the quieter setup, go MSI. If you want the best performance, I would go with an unlockable card.

 

[KleeziE]

I guess that is what I am struggling with that and the heat issue that the stock coolers dont seem to do that great of a job comparable to the job the frozr does. I guess i was also thinking that since the frozr keeps it cooler that would allow me to overclock it more.

 

[J Macker]

I've read that the OC gives the best benefit; that is, leaving 6950 at stock bios and simply OCing will give most of the performance boost. unlocking the additional shaders only gives a few percent more.

That said, I just ordered the vanilla msi 6950 because it's too hard to pass up the $245 after MIR and comes with a $10 egg GC.

 

[KleeziE]

Ya that is the deal I am struggling to decide over

 

[Raap]

I'd say don't think too much about the whole unlock thing. Most testing showed that, when running on the same clocks, the unlocked card would have something like 0-8% performance advantage, with the average being 2% or so. In other words, give your card a decent overclock and you'll never even know the difference.

 

[KleeziE]

I do like the look, quietness and length of the frozr so i think just getting some feedback has helped, so thanks all.

 

[Evil Scooter]

The extra shaders are a freebie. Only cost being a few minutes to learn how to flash properly and then actually do it. The shaders being locled/unlocked does not impact overclocking at all AFAICT. Better cooling does.

My2c.

 

[SIRTIM3]

I unlocked shaders, and over clocked. Definitely feel a difference when gaming when not on overclock profile. Not sure if shaders made a difference or not.