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Going from 5970 to what???

SeaFoam

SeaFoam

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 13, 2004
Messages
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Budget is around $700 - was looking at 2 or 3 6950s (flashed of course), would that be the fastest solution or would I be better looking at nVidia?

Thoughts?
 
Buy another 5970. You could probably find a great deal on a used card.
 
Get 3 6950s and unlock them. You should be able to get 3 for about $250 each. Granted it's over your budget but the trifire would own everything, not by a little but by an immense amount, for only $50 more after you get your rebates. Or simply get 2 6970s.
 
CSC Tiscali said:
6990 at the same price and save the extra slot for a couple of years down the road
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Why save the slot? There is nothing to gain by waiting a couple of years to add another card from the same generation. By that time, a new generation of cards priced in similar brackets would have made this move pointless, besides the fact that the OP may move on to a completely different CPU platform.

@ SeaFoam: For your budget, try out just a couple of the 6950's first. The extra VRAM and better Crossfire scaling should make Eyefinity a much smoother experience. If you feel you need just that extra push in performance, you can always add a third.
 
Are all the 6950s about the same when it comes to unlocking?
 
I've also thought about upgrading my 5970 to 2 6970's but decided it's not worth it at this point. I want to see bigger performance gains before upgrading, so I'm going to wait until the next generation of cards from AMD/Nvidia before upgrading.
 
der_jackal said:
It doesn't? I better go tell my dual 5970s they're not working then.
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I think he meant scaling wise..

Well, I just sold my 5970 and ordered 3x 6950s (I hope they all unlock, if not well.. yeah, gonna be that guy and return one)
 
I went from a 5970 to two unlocked 6950's and couldn't be happier. 5970 still kicks a lot of ass, but running eyefinity I get smoother frame rates with the 6950's (VRAM!!!)
 
would a 6950 and 6990 work?? They are pretty much close to spec right??
 
Spooony said:
what speed are they running at? What cpu do you have btw?
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I just ordered them last night, HOPEFULLY they will be here tomorrow. I have an i7-920@4.0.

Also - FFS people this is OP, I already ordered 3x 6950 2gb. The 5970 is a nice card but having no vram was killing me in eyefinity. I only spent a total of $200 on the upgrade, which is much less than another 5970 and should be miles faster.
 
SeaFoam said:
Budget is around $700 - was looking at 2 or 3 6950s (flashed of course), would that be the fastest solution or would I be better looking at nVidia?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Right now I can run anything with my 5970 at 1920x1200 at the moment. Funny thing Crysis 2 didn't make my card scream in pain. But Dragon Age II with the DirectX 11 rendering sure did.

While we're on the same boat. I would honestly wait for Nvidia Kelper or AMD Southern Island. The more I read about Battlefield 3 being a PC centric the less likely I am going to upgrade my video card till Kelper or Southern Island. Battlefield 3 is coming out around the time of the new 28nm GPUs which is a significant upgrade from what we have right now. A refresh of the 40nm GPUs doesn't warrant that massive of an upgrade. Saving your $700 is a better investment. The upgrade bug is also bitting me too. I was about to get two 3GB GTX 580's.
 
5970 QUAD CROSSFIRE will cost you $700 and outperform a single 6990 or GTX 590, dunno by how much, I would love to see though.
 
phiberoptik said:
5970 QUAD CROSSFIRE will cost you $700 and outperform a single 6990 or GTX 590, dunno by how much, I would love to see though.
Click to expand...

It will not outperform either of those setups in eyefinity.

1GB Vram FTL (For The Loss)

Unless of course you think it's okay to turn off all Anti Aliasing except in 4-6 year old games and play at lower than max eyefinity resolution. If he had the 2gb (per Gpu) version and could get a second cheaper then i'd agree.

My last post summed it up perfectly


PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER (Quad Crossfire 5970)

genie.jpg


itty bitty living space.(only 1gb vram)

pin32950th72
 
Last edited:
haha i'm referring to 2560x1600 not eyefinity for games like Metro2033, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 1/Warhead etc.
 
Good analogy Exodia, pretty much sums up what a 5970 is. Congrats to you OP on the new cards, that's what I would recommend had I gotten involved in this thread earlier. It's good to know that certain disaster was averted in spite of my absence. :D
 
They showed up today, I got Gigabytes - I just did a quick check and flashed them to 6970, none of them had artifacts. My PSU can't handle the extra wattage so I am going to pick up a bigger PSU and maybe a 4th 6950. I can tell a big difference already though.
 
phiberoptik said:
haha i'm referring to 2560x1600 not eyefinity for games like Metro2033, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 1/Warhead etc.
Click to expand...

check out Anandtech's recent review of triSLI GTX580 vs triFire HD6970. While their testing methods are rather shitty, it shows even the 1.5GB GTX580 can run out of VRAM at 2560x1600... leaving the poor HD5970 in a worse place.
 
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