GTX 560 TI or 6970 ?

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Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 15, 2011
Messages
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Hi there, long time lurker and first time poster, I need some opionions 8)

I'm building a system for my friend, who through black friday was able to upgrade a little bit. His current system build is :

AMD Phenom X4 840- clocked at 3.6ghz
8gb of RAM
128 gb SSD + 500gb HDD
He's planning on playing games like Star wars Old republic and BF3 at 1680x1050

What I'm wondering is we where able to buy a gtx 560ti and a 6970 for about a 30 dollar difference. Will the 6970 be to much for his system? Does all he need is a gtx560ti? I don't think he will be upgrading any time soon, maybe 1 year or so down the road. Thanks in advance for all the help.
 
I'd definitely go with a 6970 for $30 more. The 840 may be a bit of a bottleneck, but at that price point I think the 6970 would still be worthwhile.
 
For just $30 difference, I'd go with the HD6970. That card competes in the GTX580 arena. The HD6950 is closer to the GTX560Ti market. I love the GTX560Ti though. I have two.
 
Either the GTX 560ti is over priced, or the 6970 you found is under priced. So the 6970 is significantly better value for that price difference.

That being said, at that resolution it is doubtful you need the extra performance of a 6970 for the next year, if he really will upgrade again then. So you don't really need to spend the extra $30 from that perspective.
 
He'll definitely be CPU "bottlenecked", but that X4 is still a reasonably powerful processor. All it means is the CPU won't be delivering 100-200 fps in some titles, but more like 60-100. For some games, the video card COULD render a lot more than that, so on those, you just crank up the FSAA and Ambient Occlusion and AF and... etc...to bring the video card down to the CPU's level, and enjoy the higher quality.
 
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