4320x900 Eyefinity: HD 6950 CFX or HD 6970?

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exlink

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Looking to upgrade my GPU to better accommodate my Eyefinity setup. I've been debating whether I should blow the extra cash on HD 6950 Crossfire or just stick with a single HD 6970. 4320x900 with bezel compensation is roughly equivalent to 2560x1600 in terms of pixels being processed.

This is basically what it comes down to:

HD 6950 Crossfire
+ 70-95% Increase in Performance
- $550-$600
- Larger Power Consumption
- Possible Crossfire/Eyefinity Issues
- Louder and Runs Hotter

Single HD 6970
+ $350-$375
+ Lower Power Consumption
+ Runs Cooler and Quieter
+ No Crossfire Issues
- Slower Performance

Basically I was looking at either getting 2 Sapphire HD 6950's or one of the new Asus HD 6970 Direct CU II GPU's. At 4320x900 (2560x1600) it seems like a single HD 6970 should be enough for the majority of games. But with the Asus HD 6970 Direct CU II being a triple slot card...there is no option for me to Crossfire it in the future (P180 Mini case).

Which one do you guys think would be a more logical choice?
 
The logical choice is a single 6950 for now. Then unlock it to a 6970. Then if your not satisfied with performance, buy another one. I set up my 6950 CrossfireX/Eyefinity today. It wasnt flawless but it wasnt terrible either and im enjoying BC2 quite a bit. This is my first ATI setup ever and i expected trouble going into it...but it seems to be working well so far.
 
Get one 6950 unlocked or 6970. If that's not enough, get another. A lot of people get by fine at 4Mp with one 6970, I know two of them :)
 
The difference is though that the Asus HD 6970 Direct CU II overclocks a good amount better than the reference HD 6970 (reviewers have been hitting as high as 1100MHz on the core). Plus many unlocked 6950's can't achieve 6970 memory speeds due to slower ram. So the Asus HD 6970 Direct CU II would give me a lot more performance headroom than an unlocked 6950, of course at a premium as well.
 
I've seen reference 6970s hit a gigahertz, but that's about it. Whatever you say about Asus and the extra price tag, I'm unconvinced the extra 100mhz is worth the extra slot.
 
i failed to read the OP and posted something stupid. so it got erased
 
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Go with the CFX 6950s. I've been running CFX 6950s + Eyefinity since release and they've been fantastic. Before I put them under water I just had them spaced so there was one PCI slot between them and both ran fairly cool and at comfortable noise levels.
 
Just curious, does your current 5870 E6 CF not manhandle that already? I'm genuinely surprised if it doesn't.

If it doesn't, you'd obviously need more than a single 6970, in which case I'd recommend 6950 CrossFire.

If your current setup does handle that resolution and there are other factors at play, I recommend going with a unlocked 6950. If it's choosing between a ~$400 6970 DirectCU II and a reference 6950 for ~$250 AR, I don't think the ASUS is worth it. For only $100 more than the ASUS you'd be rolling 6950 CrossFire, which would be significantly faster.

Also, here's another special case: if you are very very noise-sensitive, go with the ASUS. It's whisper quiet and cool.
 
I would recommend getting a real 6970. No unlocking, no voiding warranty, no overheating problems, no stability issues, no shader problems, no locking up, no BSOD, no joking around. Pay a little more get the real thing and walk away like a champ. the 6970 is still faster at stock clocks than an unlocked 6950.

Source of opinion: I own 2x 6970's - my friend has an unlocked card. We tested my card (crossfire off in CCC) against his card (single card) in my computer and my 6970 was a slight bit faster. Just a few points here and there but still faster.
 
Crossfire seems really good in this go-round, better than in the 5000 series.

I'd choose the 6950CF for the room it gives you to expand if you get bigger monitors, and I think it will handle more stenuous IQ settings better.
 
6950CF for sure unless its possible that you could go 6970CF in the near future. Multicard gaming isn't cutting edge anymore so most of the early adoption issues that plagued these setups are gone or have been highly minimized. Scaling is excellent on the 6 series and microstutter is almost non-existant (I personally havent seen any). The main benefit imo though is getting the extra GB of ram to play with. I ran 5870CF prior to the 6970s I have now and just the extra space alone was worth the cost of the cards in terms of eyefinity performance boost.
 
Im running a single 6950 on my 3240x1920 eyefinity display and seems to be doing well enough so far. Shaders unlocked and 900mhz core Im getting ~95% usage on bad company 2. Remember you its incredibly hard and unnecessary to enable all the eyecandy at these extreme resolutions. so even though my settings arent rocking it to extreme, Id still say it looks just as good if not better than higher settings/AA at 1080p on my old 24" monitor
 
nissanztt90 said:
The logical choice is a single 6950 for now. Then unlock it to a 6970. Then if your not satisfied with performance, buy another one. I set up my 6950 CrossfireX/Eyefinity today. It wasnt flawless but it wasnt terrible either and im enjoying BC2 quite a bit. This is my first ATI setup ever and i expected trouble going into it...but it seems to be working well so far.
Click to expand...

This ^^^
 
6950 Crossfire all the way!
i own a 6970CF setup and the gaming experience is amazing.
 
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