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2x6950 overkill?

H

helluvagood

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
93
Are 2x6950 overkill for gaming at 1920x1080 on a 23" monitor?
Or 6970/gtx 570 good enough?

What do you think?
 
For most games currently on the market, a single 6950 will be more than enough. Metro 2033 was the only game I've played with my 6950 where I've wanted just a little more performance in certain situations.
 
Way overkill. As mentioned a single 6950 should be good enough. Even the 1gb version would be alright.
 
I have 3 24" screens so 2x6950 is pretty much required for eye candy + performance.
Therefore, I'm getting 2.
 
Nothing is ever "OverKill" it all depends on your settings you want to play at...

If you wanna play Crysis at 8xAA 16xAF and Very High settings you might very well need 2.

Heres what i would do:

1: Get a 6950
2: Unlock said 6950 to 1536 Shaders then OC to 880/1375.
3: Play games at settings you want.
4: If FPS are under 30 or at 30 you might want to consider another since your willing to get 2.

if you get 2 then just repeat 1-3

The 6970 at its current price is not worth it when you can still have a 6950 Unlocked/OC for 50-100$ less. Also same with 570 at that point.
 
I don't think there is anything out there game wise that will challenge a 6950's performance. I'd say if you're doing video editing or 3DCAD yeah, but for games you're just overspending.
With an extea 6950 thats basically for a bigger e-peen and bragging rights.
 
zyzeast said:
there is no such thing as overkill :p
Click to expand...

I agree with this..:p

but yeah, it probably is a bit overkill, but if you can afford them and want them, then why not?

Its your machine, and if it makes you happy, then go for it.
 
tory said:
Nothing is ever "OverKill" it all depends on your settings you want to play at...

If you wanna play Crysis at 8xAA 16xAF and Very High settings you might very well need 2.

Heres what i would do:

1: Get a 6950
2: Unlock said 6950 to 1536 Shaders then OC to 880/1375.
3: Play games at settings you want.
4: If FPS are under 30 or at 30 you might want to consider another since your willing to get 2.

if you get 2 then just repeat 1-3

The 6970 at its current price is not worth it when you can still have a 6950 Unlocked/OC for 50-100$ less. Also same with 570 at that point.
Click to expand...

This.

I just traded my Evga GTX570 SC (very nice card) for an HD6950 2GB because I found the Nvidia card to be running out of memory at my HPs 2560x1600 resolution, and I intend to add a second card later, which would have made the situation worse. At lower resolutions though, such as 1920x1200, the Nvidia card was untouchable.

However, now that I have the single AMD card at the higher resolution, I have to say that it's definitely more than good enough for now. My planning pushes for Crossfire between now and the end of summer along with a Sandy Bridge upgrade, and I feel that I'll be fine for a while. You would do great with just one of these cards.
 
Haiku214 said:
AMD 7000 series GPU will be released soon
Click to expand...
oh really? Who do you know at ATI? We won't see them till November at the earliest. I hate when people talk out of their ass and act like they have an uncle who knows someone who knows someone who knows when it is coming out.

I would start at 1 6950 try out the games you enjoy, if it's not enough unlock it and over clock it 20%. Try again, if not good enough (which it will be for single monitor gaming) grab a second.
 
I'm slightly disappointed with a single unlocked + overclocked 6950 at 1680x1050 so no, it's not overkill.
 
Bankie said:
I'm slightly disappointed with a single unlocked + overclocked 6950 at 1680x1050 so no, it's not overkill.
Click to expand...

If I can use a stock clocked version at over twice the resolution, I'm thinking your priorities are out of whack. Are you playing games or trying to compete in a benchmark competition?
 
MaynardLD50 said:
oh really? Who do you know at ATI? We won't see them till November at the earliest. I hate when people talk out of their ass and act like they have an uncle who knows someone who knows someone who knows when it is coming out.

I would start at 1 6950 try out the games you enjoy, if it's not enough unlock it and over clock it 20%. Try again, if not good enough (which it will be for single monitor gaming) grab a second.
Click to expand...

Try referring to the thread in the ATI section with some sources including digitimes titled 'Radeon 7xxx nearing production' or something like that. There are a few sources for the same rumor as well. While not directly from ATI, digitimes being more of a news-organization is generally much more trustworthy in their reporting than 'random-chinese-forum-guy-claiming-to-be-factory-worker'. Here's a direct link to the thread if you have difficulty finding it.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1600838

In that regards, the rumor suggests earliest the card would be released is late June to July. That's relatively soon in my opinion considering people are already getting excited about Skyrim and that's not scheduled to release until 11/11/11. I know in my life, 2 months passes by really quick :(. All I have to do is go to work each day, pick 4 games and try to play through them from start to finish and it'll magically be June.

In regards to the OP's question. I'd personally go for 2x6850 and get the 2GB version. 1GB of memory might become a limitation with some games in the future when you try to apply AA. Some of the gamers on this forum who are driving triple monitors claim that in games like Arma 2 trying to apply 4xAA can exceed the 2GB frame buffer and they need those '3GB GTX 580' cards. If you play games like GTAIV for the PC and try turning up the detail settings, exceeding 1GB unfortunately is really easy to do. :(
 
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IdiotInCharge said:
If I can use a stock clocked version at over twice the resolution, I'm thinking your priorities are out of whack. Are you playing games or trying to compete in a benchmark competition?
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: If you can use a stock clocked version at over twice the resolution, I'm thinking your priorities are out of whack.
 
Bankie said:
:rolleyes: If you can use a stock clocked version at over twice the resolution, I'm thinking your priorities are out of whack.
Click to expand...

Read the thread above and below your posts- I intend to go to SNB and add a second, which from various benchmarks has proven to be more than enough. Thing is, it absolutely works for what I play, and the only two games that I am worried about in the future are Skyrim and Battlefield 3. I know I won't have any issue running Duke Nukem Forever, The Witcher 2, the next Alice game, or Mass Effect 3.

My question is this: how the hell can you not get over 60fps regardless of settings with a 4.2GHz quad core backing up an HD6950, unlocked and overclocked even, at 1680x1050? Or were you looking for something more?
 
IdiotInCharge said:
My question is this: how the hell can you not get over 60fps regardless of settings with a 4.2GHz quad core backing up an HD6950, unlocked and overclocked even, at 1680x1050? Or were you looking for something more?
Click to expand...

Just off the top of my head: JC2 only averages around 40. Amnesia is probably around the same. Rift drops down into the low-mid 20s. Metro still doesn't run that great. Etc. Depending on the game there are still lots of dips below the 30s. I don't like to see framerates drop below 40fps as it starts to look "stuttery" to me in most games.
 
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Hmmm just wondering but, are you sure that it is an actual performance issue and not the "not divisible by 8" bug?

I mean, in games where you can edit the resolution to a specific one try and add 1680x1048, check if your dps gets a big bump, if it does then you know it was that silly bug that plagues things like Bulletstorm.

What you would need is to get both components of your chosen resolution divisible by 8, which tends to not happen naturally on 16:10 resolutions
 
MaynardLD50 said:
oh really? Who do you know at ATI? We won't see them till November at the earliest. I hate when people talk out of their ass and act like they have an uncle who knows someone who knows someone who knows when it is coming out.
Click to expand...

LOLLLL!!! The release of the 7000 GPUs has been reported several times already!!! If there is someone who talk out of their ass and act like they have an uncle who knows someone who knows someone who knows when it is coming out....then that would be YOU....you said it will come out in November???!!!!! Hahahaha!!!!
 
I would weigh the pros and cons of upgrading your current monitor to either an eyefinity setup or a 30in. Additionally I would look at SSD's. These type of upgrades are commonly overlooked by people who readily throw down for a second GPU. I personally could not live with only a single monitor -- 2 is a pretty standard minimum for productivity. A second monitor could easily be had for the price of a second GPU, and will last you a lot longer.
 
Haiku214 said:
LOLLLL!!! The release of the 7000 GPUs has been reported several times already!!! If there is someone who talk out of their ass and act like they have an uncle who knows someone who knows someone who knows when it is coming out....then that would be YOU....you said it will come out in November???!!!!! Hahahaha!!!!
Click to expand...

I'm not going to get into a pissing match about release dates but when someone says soon I think soon refers to a month maybe 3. So telling someone to skip on a 6950 because it's coming out "soon" is silly.

As for the thread, that I read, that's like saying iPhone came out a few months ago I bet the iPhone 5 will be out soon.

My point is that telling someone to wait on a inexpensive great set of cards is not my recommendation. I would tell him get a 6950, unlock it and love it. If you wait because something new is coming out soon than you'll never buy anything.
 
WBurchnall said:
Try referring to the thread in the ATI section with some sources including digitimes titled 'Radeon 7xxx nearing production' or something like that. There are a few sources for the same rumor as well. While not directly from ATI, digitimes being more of a news-organization is generally much more trustworthy in their reporting than 'random-chinese-forum-guy-claiming-to-be-factory-worker'. Here's a direct link to the thread if you have difficulty finding it.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1600838

In that regards, the rumor suggests earliest the card would be released is late June to July. That's relatively soon in my opinion considering people are already getting excited about Skyrim and that's not scheduled to release until 11/11/11. I know in my life, 2 months passes by really quick :(. All I have to do is go to work each day, pick 4 games and try to play through them from start to finish and it'll magically be June.

In regards to the OP's question. I'd personally go for 2x6850 and get the 2GB version. 1GB of memory might become a limitation with some games in the future when you try to apply AA. Some of the gamers on this forum who are driving triple monitors claim that in games like Arma 2 trying to apply 4xAA can exceed the 2GB frame buffer and they need those '3GB GTX 580' cards. If you play games like GTAIV for the PC and try turning up the detail settings, exceeding 1GB unfortunately is really easy to do. :(
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with you at all man. I actually agree with you but do you really think that we will see a 7950 by June? Why? 6950 selling well, 6970 selling good, 590 bumping A/C sales. I just get frusturated with the "soon comment", maybe giving the OP the idea it will come out next month.
 
Like some have said above, it's never going to be overkill because there will always be new games or graphical settings within a game that will bring down any system.
 
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If you can get Crossfire up and running for most games. At 1080p it won't be a overkill. Lower resolutions yes. It would be a good investment
 
still debating whether I should get 2 6950s now, or get a 6970/gtx 570. Then I could switch to a more powerful GPU down the road, or get 2 6970s/570s.
 
How do I get a 6950 that will guarantee being able to be unlocked?

That is what I worry about. Getting two of them and they not unlock..
 
If u sli/xfire u do it asap, not down the road, when a single newer gen card performs equally
 
HohnyF said:
If u sli/xfire u do it asap, not down the road, when a single newer gen card performs equally
Click to expand...

I really don't know why I keep hearing this on the forums. I love to get previous gen cards and SLI them accordingly as soon as I need it. I had a GTX 480 since launch and will be adding another soon to get the most out of the newest titles coming out. I don't need more!
 
because previous gen is previous gen, and because single is infinitely better then SLI/Xfire
but ok I see ur point, u'll add one in between gens.
 
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