ASUS EAH6950 & ENGTX570 DirectCU II Vid Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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ASUS EAH6950 & ENGTX570 DirectCU II Vid Card Review - ASUS has released two enthusiast friendly overclocking video cards: the EAH6950 DirectCU II and the ENGTX570 DirectCU II. The question is which one is better, and does overclocking these change the victor. We test each out of the box and overclocked in Lost Planet 2, F1 2010, Civilization V, and Battlefield Bad Company 2.
 
nice looking cards.

At a $25 price premium over standard 570s that card is a no brainer for anybody considering a 570.

The 6950 is a bit harder to justify with its $100+ premium.
 
Has anyone flashed the EAH6950 to 6970? Can you flash all models of the 6950? I'm still on an EAH4890 and haven't been keeping up on what can and cannot be unlocked.

That would pretty much trump whatever the 570 had going for it in this shootout though.
 
"The problem turned out to be a lack of ASUS keeping SmartDoctor support pages update to date."

"As we found out though none of versions we downloaded allowed us to change the Vcore."

conclusion page sounds funny.

I am shocked by that 6950 price point.
 
snaggletooth said:
Has anyone flashed the EAH6950 to 6970? Can you flash all models of the 6950? I'm still on an EAH4890 and haven't been keeping up on what can and cannot be unlocked.

That would pretty much trump whatever the 570 had going for it in this shootout though.
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I could be wrong but I think they are omitting the bios switch now so you can't flash them any more

HD6950 were the last ones unless I am mistaken
 
"Currently, regular Radeon HD 6950 video cards range in price from as low as $209.99 with rebate up to $300."

Can I get a link to that deal?

How come you chose to used that 2007 test system? Also, can the 6950 be unlocked to a 6970?
 
tricky0502 said:
How come you chose to used that 2007 test system? Also, can the 6950 be unlocked to a 6970?
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My thoughts too...

It seems pretty odd to use something as old as a a Core 2 Quad (3.6 Ghz or not) for a review of modern video cards...

Personally, I would have thought that in order to make absolutely certain the CPU's are not influencing the result, one would use the highest end CPU possible, a highly overclocked Gulftown EE or a highly overclocked Sandy Bridge 2600k would be what I would use today, not a chip thats over 4 years old...
 
I am shocked and disappointed that unlocking the 6950 was not mentioned. I believe the BIOS switch isn't necessary to unlock the remaining shaders, but it does provide safetly from a failed flash. |H|ocp is where I come to get no BS information on my computing gear. I feel like this is one of the VERY few articles that doesn't tell the complete picture. Maybe the ASUS EAH6950 DirectCU II isn't capable of being unlocked and maybe it is. I would have expected you to give us this vital information. What's the bottom line Kyle? Did you try unlocking it and why not include this information in your otherwise excellent article?
Thank you for the work though. The rest of it was excellent!
 
Another good review, although i'm a bit disappointed at the price of that ATI version. $324 just seems a bit high. However it is nice to see that this card is really built well and comes with a such a nice cooling setup. I know that you guys awarded both video cards the silver, but it seems to be hard to justify that much of a premium on the ATI side of things.

tricky0502 said:
"Currently, regular Radeon HD 6950 video cards range in price from as low as $209.99 with rebate up to $300."

Can I get a link to that deal?

How come you chose to used that 2007 test system? Also, can the 6950 be unlocked to a 6970?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Newegg currently has the XFX 6950's on sale for $209 after MIB at least for the 1gig version. Not a bad price for something that comes with a double lifetime warranty. However there is a buyer beware thread somewhere on the video card section as it appears that XFX has done their dreaded mid-model year revision.
 
amdgamer said:
Another good review, although i'm a bit disappointed at the price of that ATI version. $324 just seems a bit high. However it is nice to see that this card is really built well and comes with a such a nice cooling setup. I know that you guys awarded both video cards the silver, but it seems to be hard to justify that much of a premium on the ATI side of things.



Yeah, Newegg currently has the XFX 6950's on sale for $209 after MIB at least for the 1gig version. Not a bad price for something that comes with a double lifetime warranty. However there is a buyer beware thread somewhere on the video card section as it appears that XFX has done their dreaded mid-model year revision.
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i was referring to the typo in the write up. $300 rebate!!!
 
tell you what, if there was a substantial likelihood that this 6950 could unlock, then the $300+ price becomes much more interesting.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037133773 said:
My thoughts too...

It seems pretty odd to use something as old as a a Core 2 Quad (3.6 Ghz or not) for a review of modern video cards...

Personally, I would have thought that in order to make absolutely certain the CPU's are not influencing the result, one would use the highest end CPU possible, a highly overclocked Gulftown EE or a highly overclocked Sandy Bridge 2600k would be what I would use today, not a chip thats over 4 years old...
Click to expand...


because in single card form the processor will never be the bottleneck of the gpu, the gpu will always be the bottle neck, well unless they decided to benchmark a top of the line modern card at 1280x1024 like some review sites do. then and only then would the system become cpu limited. the only game in the review that you could raise an eye brow to with having a remote possibility of being limited by the C2Q is BFBC2 since it's pretty much the only true multi-threaded game tested.

if you want to compare, heres the ASUS GTX 570 on an i7 920 @ 3.6Ghz stock/overclocked
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/02/14/asus_engtx570_video_card_review/1

other then BFBC2 the numbers aren't much different.

flexcore said:
I am shocked and disappointed that unlocking the 6950 was not mentioned. I believe the BIOS switch isn't necessary to unlock the remaining shaders, but it does provide safetly from a failed flash. |H|ocp is where I come to get no BS information on my computing gear. I feel like this is one of the VERY few articles that doesn't tell the complete picture. Maybe the ASUS EAH6950 DirectCU II isn't capable of being unlocked and maybe it is. I would have expected you to give us this vital information. What's the bottom line Kyle? Did you try unlocking it and why not include this information in your otherwise excellent article?
Thank you for the work though. The rest of it was excellent!
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really you're shocked? um, why? theres no reason for them to mention the fact that the cards can be unlocked. look at it this way. say you you knew nothing about the 6950 being unlocked and you decided to buy a 6950 6 months or a year after the card was released. say you decide to look at reviews and see review's mentioning the card can be unlocked to a 6970. you decide, "hey I'm going to try that". so you flash your bios to unlock the extra shaders and low and behold you now own a bricked 6950 all because you read a review that came out when the only cards that existed were the reference cards which COULD be unlocked unlike the card you bought that was not a reference design and had been modified so it wasn't possible to unlock the extra shaders.

its just plain common sense and the fact that this is a business and I'm sure it wouldn't make ASUS or AMD happy that the reviewers were mentioning that stuff to the public.
 
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Sorry this is Hocp. Mentioning the state of unlocking is something the vast majority of members here know about and are interested in. I would have thought anyway. But since I'm the only one interested I'll move along and go some where else for the info.
 
flexcore said:
Sorry this is Hocp. Mentioning the state of unlocking is something the vast majority of members here know about and are interested in. I would have thought anyway. But since I'm the only one interested I'll move along and go some where else for the info.
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like I said 4 posts above, I am interested as well.

Why would AMD care if we try to unlock our cards? The warranty specifically excludes repair from modifications, etc, so if we brick our cards trying to unlock them it's not AMD's responsibility to fix it.
 
Well I grabbed the 6950 directcu ii. It's a great card but the major problem with it is the voltage can only be increased with Asus Smartdoctor (other apps don't work as it's a non reference card). Now that would be fine if only Smartdoctor saved the voltage setting after a reboot!

I've posted about this issue here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1602254

Way to go to ruin a card with great OCing potential. Now I have to look at editing the voltage in the bios which from what I have read will likely result in BSODs when loading up windows.
 
I like the methodology of [H] graphics reviews as there is an emphasis on the highest playable settings of a given tittle. This is a fine review but If I'm going to buy the HD6950 it'll be as an enthusiast level card on very reasonable budget. In this price point that is not going to be case. It has good cooler but so does MSI twin frozer HD6950 @ $264 w/rebate. The GTX-570 though looks impressive.
 
Disappointed in this review for several reasons:

First being that this is an enthusiast website not factoring in the ability to unlock the card as part of an evaluation is disappointing. Many people who read this review and are considering a 6950 will want that information. Also not factoring into the conclusion that you can get a 6970 at the Egg AR for about the same price as this card is also disappointing.

I don't see how this 6950 gets a silver award when it has no bios switch, can't unlock (do we know the answer to this? I would like to know) and costs about the same as a 6970. Why would anybody get this and not just get a 6970 if you are paying the same price? This lowers its value by a great deal.
 
jzodda said:
Disappointed in this review for several reasons:

First being that this is an enthusiast website not factoring in the ability to unlock the card as part of an evaluation is disappointing. Many people who read this review and are considering a 6950 will want that information. Also not factoring into the conclusion that you can get a 6970 at the Egg AR for about the same price as this card is also disappointing.

I don't see how this 6950 gets a silver award when it has no bios switch, can't unlock (do we know the answer to this? I would like to know) and costs about the same as a 6970. Why would anybody get this and not just get a 6970 if you are paying the same price? This lowers its value by a great deal.
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i was able to unlock shader on this card using RBE and so far having no problem running with unlocked shader 900/1300 with default voltage
 
I'm disappointed in this article as well. I could understand the omission of unlocking informaton if this were an article discussing only the unmodified base hardware, but it is heavily focused on overclocking and exactly what you can do if you max out the hardware.

Without that information, the article is incomplete at best, and misinformation at worst.

It's not at all often I've taken issue with the writing here, which is generally top notch, but this article should never made it past the editing phase. It's the kind of thing you would expect of a non-enthusiast website/magazine, but certainly not the [H].

Even a short addendum explaining why that information was not considered would at least help us understand the thought process at work here.
 
There isn't even a discussion of fan noise relative to reference models. Along with others I find this piece disappointing.
 
I'm curious if I can use the 4x Display Ports with 4x Display port to DVI adapters for 4x monitor output. It would be nice to get away from having dual cards.
 
I ordered an EAH6950 DirectCU II 2GB from Newegg earlier today. Looking forward to pushing its core to the max and testing out the cooling that takes up 2 1/2 slots. I measured and I'm hoping it will fit in my Silverstone FT02 because it's going to be cutting it close.
 
How loud are these cards?

I've just returned an XFX 6970 because it was just too loud (and hot) - I couldn't live with it.

Just wondering (I can't find much info on the ports). Is it possible to run:
3 x monitors (displayport)
1 x tv (displayport to hdmi cable)
1 x touchscreen (analogue dvi)​
With these (6950)?
 
Seems to be a no go for me on unlocking the shaders. I followed the steps at Techpowerup under update 2 for non-reference cards which I saw that several others had had success with on this card but it doesn't appear to work on mine since I guess I've got the newer laser cut shaders.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

After I flashed the modded BIOS to the card I saved it with GPU-Z and opened it up in RBE to see if the 6970 mod was still selected and it is but GPU-Z only reports me having 1408 unified shaders.
 
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Did you wipe out your old drivers and reinstall fresh after the flash? I've read that worked for others.
 
My 6950 DCII is a no go for unlocking the shaders as well. Tried RBE and Wizzard's script method. Tried with the switch in both positions (the card does indeed have 2 bioses), with drivers uninstalled and installed and reinstalled. I even flashed it with the 6970 DCII bios and still no extra shaders.

I have stayed with the 6970 bios though as it is the only way to get increased volts without having to set that garbage smartdoctor everytime you boot up into windows.
 
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