Best Performance Card for $250 Price Range?

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gamerx11

Limp Gawd
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Nov 7, 2008
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I was thinking of getting the radeon 6950 that fits in the $250 price range. Would be the best choice to go with?
 
It's either 6950 or a GTX 570,if you can find one on sale.It's depends on your personal preference, and resolution you play.
 
~CS~ said:
It's either 6950 or a GTX 570,if you can find one on sale.It's depends on your personal preference, and resolution you play.
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6950 is the only real choice. The GTX570 is way above the price range the OP quoted. You will have a hard time finding a GTX570 on sale for $250 unless you buy used. And if you are buying used you can find a just as good a deal on a 6970 which is faster in most games than the 570. The direct competition to the 6950 is the GTX560ti in the same price range and the 560 needs to be overclocked to barely beat a 6950 at stock.

FLCLimax said:
6950 for sure.
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+1 Only sensible choice at the OPs price range. If you can find an unlocked or unlockable 6950 it's an even better value http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,2997-4.html
 
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2GB 6950 for sure! Can't go wrong in any game...(other than) It struggles in Metro 2033 maxed and maybe Crysis maxed, but who doesn't...
 
I was asking the same question 5 months ago. Luckily things haven't changed much and it's still the 6950. If you're playing 1920+, go 2gb.
 
lol

I got a galaxy 480gtx soc w/ the 3 fan cooler for $230 ar. Wish those were still avail. Great card. Quiet.
 
According to the Anandtech benchmark the 570 competes with the 6970 and performs better on most games. Not sure what to make of it. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=306

If you can find a 570 for the same price as a 6950, I'd say the 570's clearly the better buy. Doesn't even seem very close, assuming the anandtech benchmarks are accurate.
 
Yea that is a pretty good deal on that ECS 570. Never heard much from about them though they have been around for a while right?
 
shantd said:
According to the Anandtech benchmark the 570 competes with the 6970 and performs better on most games. Not sure what to make of it. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=306

If you can find a 570 for the same price as a 6950, I'd say the 570's clearly the better buy. Doesn't even seem very close, assuming the anandtech benchmarks are accurate.
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The GTX 570 is a better card for running benchmarks. It gives you a higher score in those canned benchmarks. If you buy your videocard to run benchmarks all day long and want the highest score possible the GTX 570 is for you. However, if you buy your card to actually play games and want the best fps between the 2 cards the GTX 570 is inferior to a 6970 and gives you slower frame rates in actual games, most of the time.

Depends on what you buy a videocard for. This is all the anandtech articles are good at showing you since all they run are canned benchmarks.

Also the higher the resolution the better the 6970 fares against the 580 and pulls further beyond a GTX 570 level of performance.
 
If you do your homework and find a ref HD6950 2Gb card then you are buying two cards in one.. it will unlock to the sharder count of the HD6970 as they are really there and waiting ,, there are bios firmwares out there that makes the card run the same factory clocks and sharders count as the HD6970 2Gb and mine only cost $284 .. so i have a HD6970 2Gb at that cost and you can look at the latest reveiw by [H] on the front page that compares it with the 570/580GTX on driver 11.7 and it is even taking the 580GTX on toe to toe..
 
Lord_Exodia said:
The GTX 570 is a better card for running benchmarks. It gives you a higher score in those canned benchmarks. If you buy your videocard to run benchmarks all day long and want the highest score possible the GTX 570 is for you. However, if you buy your card to actually play games and want the best fps between the 2 cards the GTX 570 is inferior to a 6970 and gives you slower frame rates in actual games, most of the time.

Depends on what you buy a videocard for. This is all the anandtech articles are good at showing you since all they run are canned benchmarks.

Also the higher the resolution the better the 6970 fares against the 580 and pulls further beyond a GTX 570 level of performance.
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No one who has actually used a GTX570 and 6950 is going to say that. The GTX570 is an all around better card. It performs a little more reliably in a wider variety of games. You can cherry pick games all that you want across the board a GTX570 is a better card than a 6970.

Now if you double the cards up that changes everything. 6950 crossfire will blow the GTX570 sli solution out of the water based on what I've seen.

But I do agree about Anandtech. I hate their use of canned benchmarks. It really skews the results. Their cpu benchmarks are just useless because of that. [H] reviews are nice but they don't use a wide enough variety of games to really base an opinion off of.
 
SoldHD5870 on the bay for $300.00
I bought a GTX-570 "recertified" from Newegg Month ago for $249.00
I only play Black ops and L4D2 lateley.
The GTX-570 Was a kick ass card but needed to reboot machine every day or two.
It would make noise and kinda lock up. It was early model EVGA.
Like the 5870 the two games ran great.
I know these two games did not tax the cards at all.
I crossshipped for a HIS ICE Q turbo 2GB with no bios switch from the Egg Click Here

Mad props to a guy named Bystander over @toms for his thread on unlocking the HD6950 shaders
Thread Here

Did a simple bios trick and the shaders were unlocked to 1536 from 1408.
Here is my post from toms:

hisnoswitchsuccess.png

Followed steps 1-13 and this is the result Success I guess
Not only the shaders went up but also the Pixel fillrate from 25.6 to 28.2
and Texture fillrate from 70.4 to 84.5 Both 6970 figures. But this is based on Gpu clock speed.
More GPU clock speed more texel pixel's
Thanks for the hard work dude
Appreciate it alot

So just unlocking the shaders on some cards without bios switches is still doable at least in our cases at that thread.
Good luck with your choice. At least with the HD you can go eyefinity out of the box
without adding another card. But both are great cards IMHO
 
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A gtx 570 for $275 is a better buy than a 6950 at $240, price /performance. Even an unlocked 6950 can't touch a overclocked gtx570. Unlocked shaders on a 6950 adds a whole 3% performance.
The 6950 is now overpriced unless you have a 30 inch 2500x1600 monitor, and if you can afford a 1,200$ monitor, you should be buying.a gtx580/6970 anyway..

Simply put, for 1080p, a gtx570 for 275$ is unbeatable. Please dont believe the fanboys.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
No one who has actually used a GTX570 and 6950 is going to say that. The GTX570 is an all around better card. It performs a little more reliably in a wider variety of games. You can cherry pick games all that you want across the board a GTX570 is a better card than a 6970.

Now if you double the cards up that changes everything. 6950 crossfire will blow the GTX570 sli solution out of the water based on what I've seen.

But I do agree about Anandtech. I hate their use of canned benchmarks. It really skews the results. Their cpu benchmarks are just useless because of that. [H] reviews are nice but they don't use a wide enough variety of games to really base an opinion off of.
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The 6970 is faster than a GTX 570 most of the time and anyone who uses the cards will agree unless you only play a few nvidia bias games like bfbc2 which performs much better on nvidia, etc.. Show me a review without cherry picked games that shows a GTX 570 beating a 6970 in real world performance (non canned) benchmarks using a stock vs stock clock comparison or a oc vs oc comparison and recent drivers as of at least 3-4 months ago or so.

Another valid point is that GTX 570 @ $250 is very rare. And as such shouldn't even be considered in the $250 consideration as a 6950. Your Waaaaaaay more likely to find a GTX 560 Ti oc card around $250 than a GTX 570. It has happened before but under extreme conditions or a very unreliable and cheap AIB partner like ecs elite group etc...
 
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Lord_Exodia said:
The 6970 is faster than a GTX 570 most of the time and anyone who uses the cards will agree unless you only play a few nvidia bias games like bfbc2 which performs much better on nvidia, etc.. Show me a review without cherry picked games that shows a GTX 570 beating a 6970 in real world performance (non canned) benchmarks using a stock vs stock clock comparison or a oc vs oc comparison and recent drivers as of at least 3-4 months ago or so.
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Dude, I'm not making assumptions. I'm speaking from first hand experience. I actually have used both cards, recently. In a wider array of games than just the handful of DX11 games used for testing these days. None of the open GL source ports that I tried like eDuke32 or Darkplaces ran half as well on the unlocked 6950 crossfire setup as it did on a single GTX570. Crysis ran better than a single unlocked 6950, I saw better minimum framerates with a single GTX570 than I did on a 6950 unlocked crossfire system in Serious Sam HD, Borderlands ran better on the GTX 570 than on a single card, GTA4 ran better than the crossfire setup, the list goes on. When the 6970 does outperfrom a GTX570 the difference tends to not be as large.

Like I said before when you're talking sli vs crossfire that changes everything. I wasn't impressed with GTX570 sli.

The fact of the matter is that the OP couldn't go wrong with either a GTX560ti or a 6950. I would lean towards the 6950 personally but either is a very good card.
 
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BababooeyHTJ said:
Dude, I'm not making assumptions. I'm speaking from first hand experience. I actually have used both cards, recently. In a wider array of games than just the handful of DX11 games used for testing these days. None of the open GL source ports that I tried like eDuke32 or Darkplaces ran half as well on the unlocked 6950 crossfire setup as it did on a single GTX570. Crysis ran better than a single unlocked 6950, I saw better minimum framerates with a single GTX570 than I did on a 6950 unlocked crossfire system in Serious Sam HD, Borderlands ran better on the GTX 570 than on a single card, GTA4 ran better than the crossfire setup, the list goes on. When the 6970 does outperfrom a GTX570 the difference tends to not be as large.

Like I said before when you're talking sli vs crossfire that changes everything. I wasn't impressed with GTX570 sli.

The fact of the matter is that the OP couldn't go wrong with either a GTX560ti or a 6950. I would lean towards the 6950 personally but either is a very good card.
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So it's faster cause you say so? All the reviews I've read say otherwise unless;

Canned benchmark (useless review)
Games are heavily nvidia favored
GTX 570 overclocked vs stock 6970 etc..

This is why I ask you to link some reviews. I don't accept "it's faster cause I say so" ;)
 
Lord_Exodia said:
So it's faster cause you say so? All the reviews I've read say otherwise unless;

Canned benchmark (useless review)
Games are heavily nvidia favored
GTX 570 overclocked vs stock 6970 etc..

This is why I ask you to link some reviews. I don't accept "it's faster cause I say so" ;)
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I can link you to some benchmarks that I've done and posted here but you will just find some flaw, or claim some Nvidia bias bs like you will do with any link that I post. Posters like you are why I stay out of the video card section. No matter what anyone says or what benchmarks get posted your mind is already made up and isn't going to change. I'm not going to argue with you but you can think what you will.

I don't care about a 5% performance difference. What I will say is the the GTX570 tends to perform a bit more reliably than 6970 across the board. I'm not even sure why that matters in this thread since both cards are out of the OPs price range anyways.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
I can link you to some benchmarks that I've done and posted here but you will just find some flaw, or claim some Nvidia bias bs like you will do with any link that I post. Posters like you are why I stay out of the video card section. No matter what anyone says or what benchmarks get posted your mind is already made up and isn't going to change. I'm not going to argue with you but you can think what you will.

I don't care about a 5% performance difference. What I will say is the the GTX570 tends to perform a bit more reliably than 6970 across the board. I'm not even sure why that matters in this thread since both cards are out of the OPs price range anyways.
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Okay your going by your own thread with your own experience. I guess that makes it a fact as far as your concerned. Fair enough, however in your computer under your circumstances there could have been an issue on your setup when you benched AMD vs when you benched nvidia. I go by the countless non bias reviews posted around the web.

Remember everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not everyone is entitled to their own fact. The only reason I argue is because your stating something based on your own tests which are probably prone to error. I rather take a consensus based on over a dozen reviews from countess non bias reviewers posted around the web rather than from you, simply because I don't know you. I'm no AMD fanboy although I've been accused of both fanboy camps before. For all I know you might work for nvidia :D

Those reviews show

Single card below 2560x1600
6950 > 560Ti
GTX 570 > 6950
6970 > GTX 570
GTX 580 > 6970

Single Card at or above 2560x1600
6950 > 560 Ti
6950 </= GTX 570 (less than or equal to)
6970 > 570
GTX 580 >/= 6970 (greater than or equal to)

multi card 2560x1600 and eyefinity type resolutions
6950 Crossfire >/= GTX 570 SLi
6970 Crossfire > GTX 570 Sli
6970 Crossfire >/</= GTX 580 Sli (trades blows depending on apps in eyefinity resolutions)
GTX 580 3gb SLi > 6970 crossfire etc...
 
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Lord_Exodia said:
Okay your going by your own thread with your own experience...I go by the countless non bias reviews posted around the web.
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Why don't you post some of these non-bias reviews? Both of you guys are talking about reviews/benchmarks but neither of you are posting any links. Surely there are many 'non bias' reviews/benchmarks out there that have compared these 2 cards.
 
shantd said:
Why don't you post some of these non-bias reviews? Both of you guys are talking about reviews/benchmarks but neither of you are posting any links. Surely there are many 'non bias' reviews/benchmarks out there that have compared these 2 cards.
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Just pick any review besides this site, its really that easy.;)
 
Find the best deal. I would vote for a 6950 if you can unlock it to a 6970 at retail pricing

I got my 6950 for $220AR, but I would have a 570 or 560Ti instead depending on price. For equal money, I'd lean towards a 570 but I haven't seen any for $220.
 
undercoverDrunk said:
Find the best deal. I would vote for a 6950 if you can unlock it to a 6970 at retail pricing

I got my 6950 for $220AR, but I would have a 570 or 560Ti instead depending on price. For equal money, I'd lean towards a 570 but I haven't seen any for $220.
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There is no 6950's for $220 no more,, the prices all went up. Plus I dont think they unlock any longer. A gtx570 can be had for 275$ now and most of the 6950's are around 245$.

I would just pay the extra 30$ for the gtx570 at 275$ and have garanteed 6970 performance.
 
shantd said:
Why don't you post some of these non-bias reviews? Both of you guys are talking about reviews/benchmarks but neither of you are posting any links. Surely there are many 'non bias' reviews/benchmarks out there that have compared these 2 cards.
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Why you gotta single me out :D

Actually to be honest and answer your question at the same time, I haven't linked anything for 2 major reasons;

1. I asked him to link something first, and if I link first it violates basic forum principle. His claim goes against multiple reviews I've read that include real world performance numbers and not just some benchmarks from in the game that don't really show what you experience when you play the game.

2. I believe I would have a easier time proving my point simply by finding any of the reviews I've seen, however I'm challenging him to find a review that supports his claim. Since it was his turn to link (since as I said I asked first) had his claim been correct he would have linked something worthwhile by now.

You should have quoted him and told him to link if you read the thread since I did ask first but I aint mad though ;)
 
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Lord_Exodia said:
The GTX 570 is a better card for running benchmarks. It gives you a higher score in those canned benchmarks. If you buy your videocard to run benchmarks all day long and want the highest score possible the GTX 570 is for you. However, if you buy your card to actually play games and want the best fps between the 2 cards the GTX 570 is inferior to a 6970 and gives you slower frame rates in actual games, most of the time.

Depends on what you buy a videocard for. This is all the anandtech articles are good at showing you since all they run are canned benchmarks.

Also the higher the resolution the better the 6970 fares against the 580 and pulls further beyond a GTX 570 level of performance.
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Ridiculous. lol, I mean, c'mon kid, really? What are you smoking?
 
Look, OP, I like Nvidia a little better and would prefer a green card. Right now, in this rig I'm on, I'm running a 6870 and I like it.

It just happened I got a deal on it. Having said that, buy the 6950. A couple extra frames isn't worth the extra money you'll have to spend.
 
Boomstick said:
Ridiculous. lol, I mean, c'mon kid, really? What are you smoking?
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Not a kid but seriously, prove me wrong. That is if you are knowledgeable enough to know the difference between canned benchmarks and the difference it can have with real world performance benchmarks. Lemme guess you read anandtech for all your reviews. They show that nvidia wins all around the board and that is what you like to see so nevermind what hardocp says with their real world tests and all the other sites... bah!! LOL Ignorance is bliss I guess.

Prove me wrong, show me a review where they use real world benchmarks and the 6970 doesn't beat the GTX 570 most of the time in non nvidia biased games. I'm waiting... :D

BTW I know you say you have a 6870 and recommend a 6950,
 
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