Looking for your thoughts on 6970/50 580/70

J

Jayham

Gawd
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
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Just looking for [H] user's non-judgmental thoughts and opinions on what you make of the current gen GPU's. Only looking to hear what you have to say without bias no flaming no bashing AMD/Nvidia.
 
580 isn't worth the cash, buy a 570 instead (and OC it)
6970 isn't worth the cash, buy a 570 instead, $20 cheaper.
6950 is fine as long as you plan to OC it.
 
I have a 5970 currently in the marketplace, a GTX480 on step-up to GTX580 just looking for more opinions. I'm a bit confused by the 69xx series I think that I may have expected a bit more out of this series... not sure if the 58xx series set the bar too high for ATi or is it because the 68xx series showed plenty of promise for the high segment considering the 68xx was a replacement for the mid range level.
 
UtopiA said:
580 isn't worth the cash, buy a 570 instead (and OC it)
6970 isn't worth the cash, buy a 570 instead, $20 cheaper.
6950 is fine as long as you plan to OC it.
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This^^ with a bit of a difference, 580 is worth it if you like playing at very high IQ settings @ 25x16 or if you simply want to do surround or high res 3d vision gaming like 3d vision surround or 25x16 3d. Every other sentiment I share with UtopiA
 
UtopiA said:
580 isn't worth the cash, buy a 570 instead (and OC it)
6970 isn't worth the cash, buy a 570 instead, $20 cheaper.
6950 is fine as long as you plan to OC it.
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Totally depends on the resolution. The 6970 is a great buy at 2560x1440 compared with the the 580 and 570. At 1920x1080 you may as well get a cheaper card.
 
Heebs said:
Totally depends on the resolution. The 6970 is a great buy at 2560x1440 compared with the the 580 and 570. At 1920x1080 you may as well get a cheaper card.
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This. What resolution do you play at? If above 1920 you would be well off with the 6970 or 580. At that level the price performance falls into the 6970, but total gaming muscle at a much higher premium goes with the 580.

At 1920 x 1080 you'll do fine with the 6950 or 570 as both cards are more than capable of pushing max graphics in almost every game except perhaps Crysis and Metro 2033 at an acceptable frame rate.
 
In retrospect I would've gotten the 6950 instead of the 6970 and saved myself about 70 bucks. They seem to overclock just as far as the 6970's and perform nearly equally at the same clock speeds. But I'm actually quite happy with the new card as it basically doubled (closer to 80%) my gaming performance from the HD4890 at 1920x1080. The HDMI out is really, really nice for my lcdtv, and it has been interesting playing DX11 WoW. The game has become a seamlessly integrated part of my desktop and yet it is running fluidly in the low 50's at Ultra details, makes it real easy for me to browse Wowhead while playing.
 
At 2560x1600 the 6970 is a great buy. I liked it stock, then i oc'd it to 950/1450 and now I LOVE it. Averaging 45-50fps in Bad Co 2 with 8x AA 16xAF.
 
I'm not so sure that a cheaper card is necessarily the best choice for someone like me. I currently have a 5850 and I find that it lacks some of the muscle I wish it had to run all of my games at 1920x1080 with everything maxed out and at least 4x AA and 16X AF. In addition, play anything with heavy particle effects and tessellation and the card just complains. It's probably my fault that I'm such a graphics whore but I like the presentation to be as good as possible so that I become fully immersed in the game. I can't play Crysis or even Starcraft II maxed out and it turns me off from playing at times. It's the same thing with Battlefield, I can't stand turning the graphics down just to have very good framerates online because then it's not as involving.

So now I'm thinking of which card I should buy as I'm thinking of trading up. I'm struggling to determine whether the 580 is really worth it as I don't want to upgrade again for at least 2 years if I can help it since I would rather upgrade my processor to either the new Bulldozer or Sandy Bridge when they come out.
 
It looks like the GTX 570 and 580 are generally 10 to 30 percent faster when rendering in lower resolutions compared to the new Radeon 6950 and 6970 cards, but this situation flips when rendering at very high (2560 x 1600) resolutions, primarily because the Radeons pack 2GB of video memory.

Therefore, my advice is based primarily on imaging resolution. Go with a Radeon 6950/70 for very high-resolution rigs, especially Eyefinitiy configurations. Choose the GTX 570/580 in all other situations.

Regarding price/performance, the Radeon 6950 is truly a great deal. NewEgg is offering a Gigabyte Radeon 6950 for $280 after rebate; a single GTX 580 is around $520. Building a 6950 CrossFire rig will cost a modest $560, offering ideal performance at 2560 x 1600 resolution under the $600 price point.
 
I have 3 Dell 3007WFP-HC so a max resolution of 7680x1600 but currently only using one and have been since I sold both of my 5870 Sapphire Toxic Vapor-X 2GB cards. I don't game at anything less than 2560x1600
 
Jayham said:
I have 3 Dell 3007WFP-HC so a max resolution of 7680x1600 but currently only using one and have been since I sold both of my 5870 Sapphire Toxic Vapor-X 2GB cards. I don't game at anything less than 2560x1600
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wow pick a card already and post some pics! would love to see that setup!
 
Jayham said:
I have 3 Dell 3007WFP-HC so a max resolution of 7680x1600 but currently only using one and have been since I sold both of my 5870 Sapphire Toxic Vapor-X 2GB cards. I don't game at anything less than 2560x1600
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Well, tough call here. Considering the amount of money you blew out on those monitors Im going to assume that spending an extra 300 on cards is not going to be a big deal. I'd just go ahead and get two 580s.
 
Jayham,

I have a similar setup as yours except with 27" monitors and 5970+5870. I went with 2 GTX 570. Have you had any issues with your Xfire silently disabling? I got so tired with the eyefinity/crossfire drivers that I switched...
 
With three 30" monitors in play, it seems like you can afford almost anything. I'd suggest using as many 6970s as possible. At least two, if not more.
7680x1600 is going to be way beyond the capabilities of any single card.
 
Here's a shot of when I had them setup... sorry for the bad photo was a bit messy had to clean it up a bit.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I will be setting them up again very soon :D
 
Based off of [H]'s eval (which IMO is the best):
580 isn't worth the cash unless you want the best, buy a 6970 instead
570 isn't worth it, the faster 6970 is only $20 more (and/or save $50 and get a 6950 with the same performance and less heat)
6950 is a hell of a good value

But there isn't much to upgrade to if you've already got a 58xx or 68xx. If you've got a 480 or 470 then it might be more tempting just to get rid of the space heater, but that's about it.
 
I can't find a reason if you are in the high end market to go for a GTX 570 unless you are partial to AMD. The HD6970 is a fine product as well.
 
I don't know, if you are in my boat and have an mATX set-up with a single PCI-E 16x slot then you would probably want to go for the best graphics card available. I purchased a 5850 last year and regret not stepping up to the 5870 or 5970 since I couldn't crossfire anyway (the MSI 890GXM-G65 PCI-E 16x slots were too close together). That's why it's tough to decide whether or not the 580 is really worth it in my case at $500.
 
Rafale said:
Jayham,

I have a similar setup as yours except with 27" monitors and 5970+5870. I went with 2 GTX 570. Have you had any issues with your Xfire silently disabling? I got so tired with the eyefinity/crossfire drivers that I switched...
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No never any issues of CF disabling but some screen flicker issues in the past and I believe that was due to the Accell DP adapter.

xxdragonxx said:
I can't find a reason if you are in the high end market to go for a GTX 570 unless you are partial to AMD. The HD6970 is a fine product as well.
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Not really I have enjoyed both AMD/Nvidia cards alike just favor Nvidia drivers a little bit more.

Ducman69 said:
Now that is impressive! :cool:
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Thanks!

CIB24 said:
I don't know, if you are in my boat and have an mATX set-up with a single PCI-E 16x slot then you would probably want to go for the best graphics card available. I purchased a 5850 last year and regret not stepping up to the 5870 or 5970 since I couldn't crossfire anyway (the MSI 890GXM-G65 PCI-E 16x slots were too close together). That's why it's tough to decide whether or not the 580 is really worth it in my case at $500.
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I have that same exact board in my HT"E"PC great little board,
HTPC Specs:
65" 3d Rdy DLP
1055T @3.2GHz 1.22v
Scythe 100mm Shuriken Rev. B
Samsung 8GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
XFX 5850 Black Edition
Silverstone Grandia GD05B
1TB WD Black 64MB Cache internal
2TB WD Black external (Target BF deal)
Bluetooth Apple Mini Key board & MS mini Mouse
Antec TPQ 850w

My main rig spec:
950 @4GHz HT On 1.25v (Had but sold my 6/12 ES Chip)
Asus P6X58D Premium
3x2GB OCZ Platinum
Corsair H50 P/P green R4's
Corsair TX850w
2x Intel 80GB X-25M G2 SSD in Raid 0
Media Sonic Storage Bay USB 3.0 w/4x 2TB WD Black's (Target BF deal)
EVGA GTX 480 currently on step-up to GTX 580
Custom professionally powder coated metallic green HAF 932 w/ green R4's
 
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