Possible new Toy Tempting me...

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madmattd
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Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by madmattd »

I've got to stop getting the Shell Shocker emails from Newegg...They've got a 2GB Radeon 5870 on sale today for 2 bills...is this card really still one of the best on the market as sites seem to imply? Tom's Hardware is implying that only 2 cards are really much better (as opposed to pretty darn close), those being the 5970 and the GTX 580. I might be interested in picking one up for that kind of deal if it is going to truely be much stronger than my SLI'd 9800's...That or I'm gonna block Newegg from my email and browser...
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by Mullet »

Do it, faster, less power and you should treat yourself. I say do it do it. Don't be scared.
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by madmattd »

Lol. It is a really nice deal, but I can't bring myself to buy a 1.5 year old card. Plus it has 6 monitor support, but all ports are mini-display port, my monitors are DVI (2 passive adapters are included) and I have a HDMI tv.

Now I'm thinking about a 6950 2GB. A bit more $$, but a touch faster with the chance to unlock to a full 6970 (doesn't mean I'm counting on it) and it sounds like much better DX11 support. Also sounds like it scales better in Xfire (and my mobo actually supports Xfire, unlike the SLI hack I have enabled, lol), though with that kind of performance jump over what I have (nearly 2x Vantage score), who cares about XFire? It'd require a new PSU anyway, I only have one 6 and one 6+2 PCIe connector.

O and the power isn't that much better, a 9800 GT is rated at 100W TDP, the 5870 at 188W, 6950 at 200W.

I don't know, maybe if I was gaming more these days. Plus nothing I play maxes my current rig except SC2 when there is a ton of units being cloaked by a mothership.

Maybe I should be asking what the best performance for the money is. 5870, 68xx, 6950, 560Ti, GTX 460/470/480 seem to be all in the same ballpark on both fronts, but I don't follow these things well. I'm considering the upgrade since I won't be getting my new laptop for a couple months yet since the Sandy Bridge chipsets got recalled...days before I was going to order^##%(&*@$(&*#$*(&
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by hulkvsspawn »

You're not interested in what nvidia's offering?
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by madmattd »

I'm fine with nVidias offerings but they use a fair bit more power and kick out a fair bit more heat from what I'm seeing. If there's something better in the same range I'll look at it.

And as Sandvich said, I've had some annoyances with nVidia. Like the fact that EVERY 9800GT will randomly crash to desktop for 15-30 seconds, and then Windows will give you a nice message about how the driver crashed and then recovered. THEN you get back into the game, and you are usually a dead corpse...and the medic that ubered you right before the lock up refuses to heal you for the rest of your life. nVidia has ignored this issue since day 1 with these cards. Everyone I know who had one had that problem, but nVidia never seemed to even TRY. The company line was something like that it is a general hardware compatibility problem, forget about the fact that EVERYONE had the problem...Mostly it only happens in TF2 so it could be Valve's fault, but I've also had random crashes on the desktop lately...

That said, if you have a suggestion Hulk I'll listen. But the 2GB 6950 is VERY tempting. Even without the potential to unlock to a card worth over $100 more.

I'm not looking for a 2-card setup. A single card solution is much more appealing, though if I get an ATI, I could x-fire later down the road without having to apply hacks (mobo supports xfire, not SLI).
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by hulkvsspawn »

Well if you took sli out of the equation, then maybe get a gtx560. But the cheapest one I could find was $250. You already mentioned the power cumsumption and extra heat over a 6000 series so six in one half a dozen in the other.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121424 <-- that's the card I was thinking about.
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by Mullet »

The 560Ti is a good choice.

My next card will be this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121429
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by madmattd »

Holy crap a 3 slot card...Yea $500 is a bit out of the budget especially since I would definitely need a different PSU...which is why I wasn't really considering a 580. And won't you be getting 2 of those Mullet? I'm sure Oops will insist? :mrgreen:

The 560Ti is an intriguing choice and essentially the same price as the 2GB 6950. Looks like it can OC like mad too. Heat isn't as big a deal, the 9800's run freaking HOT (ironically the fanless one runs 10C cooler at idle and about 25C cooler under load than the fanned one, despite the fanless being the primary and taking 95% of the load...), but power is just because of the PSU I have. Officially 3x 19A 12V rails, though one guy took this model apart and said it is really all on one rail (Antec TP3-650), so 52A total isn't a biggie.

So considering they are the same price and I'm pretty much between the two (unless someone has a better suggestion), GTX 560Ti or Radeon HD 6950 2GB? I can unlock the extra shaders on the 6950 and OC it to be a 6970 which gives it a very nice performance boost fairly close to a stock GTX580 (small chance it won't be unlockable), but the 560 probably handles texturing better.

For reference, here are the 6950's I'm looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102914
OR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161355
I'm leaning toward the Sapphire, it has some useful extra goodies that are well worth the extra couple bucks.

This is the 560Ti I'm eyeing:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125363
Factory OC'd for the same price as stock...yea and Gigabyte makes some nice stuff, I've loved the fanless 9800 I have despite it being even bigger than stock, and every build I've done (5 or so in the last 2.5 years for myself and family) has had one of their mobos.

I do wish the 560's had a bit more memory, I have a feeling I'm going to use up a fair bit of that 1GB with being able to crank up AA and such. If I have enough power to spare, I might leave one of the 9800's in running off a Molex-to-PCIe adapter as a PhysX.

I've pretty much decided I am going to upgrade soon, having DX11 (and losing the SLI game compatibility issues) would be nice. If there is better coming real soon I will wait, but from what little I've seen that is at least 4 months out yet, and it probably won't be much better for the price point anyway. Am I wrong?
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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

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Re: Possible new Toy Tempting me...

Post by madmattd »

Well that told me exactly what I figured, lol. 560ti wins in some stuff by a fair bit, 6950 wins by a bit in some others, and the rest are a tie. Overall slight edge to 560ti at stock settings. Using the same to compare a stock 570 (which the SOC Gigabyte card is pretty close to according to several tests - SOC is clocked to 1000mHz stock) to a stock 6970, similar deal. I'm leaning to the 560ti, either the mid-clocked one I linked or the SOC version once it comes back in stock. I also do CAD work on this computer at times, which I believe takes advantage of CUDA nicely, so nVidia gets a nod there. PhysX is not used in too many places, so having it isn't a big deal either way atm. Being able to run 3 screens off one card would be nice (which the Radeons allow, but you need 2 cards to do it on the GTX's), but honestly I can just switch one of the 22" ones off if I want to game on my TV.

BUT I'm wondering about the memory useage. I did some testing yesterday with GPU-z open on my second monitor while gaming at the 1680x1050 res of my primary monitor. Running with only moderate AA settings (4x) I was easily topping 700MB useage with both cards running in the 70-90% load range. I have a feeling that playing on a full HD screen will only worsen the deal. Now if there was a >1GB 560ti I'd not be thinking anymore on this. There is ONE, a 2GB by Palit. I'm not keen on getting a Palit, and that is a stock clocked card (not a huge deal on the latter, but when there are so many factory OC'd cards available...). Has anyone heard about other manufacturers doing 2GB ones? I might wait a little while and see, the 560 is barely a month old anyway.
"Chinese Sentries - they're cheap, crappy, and have little lights on the top!" - Pretendica
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