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Help me upgrade my 6970

B

Bdonedge

Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2010
Messages
969
I have an old ASUS 6970. It's great, and does the job, but I am like 3 generations behind (that I know about) and I want to know what I should upgrade to. Not looking for a sidegrade, definitely interested in something that may cool a little better, and perform a little better. Even if marginally.

Thanks
 
Oh, whoops. I'm down to go up to 350. Is that a possibility to stay within that?
 
I'm not sure it is time yet with that budget

the Caymans are aging surprisingly well really

sure, you could get more performance, would it be worth it to spend your hard earned excess disposable?? only you can decide
 
I guess I don't know how much of an "upgrade" things are right now for the price point. Is there a way I can compare what I have now with what would be an upgrade?

First off, which are the ones people are going for that are the top performers and what do they run people, cost wise?
 
The 6970 is old enough that it's not going to be included in most (any?) reviews of current gen cards. That being said, you can always take a quick look at Tom's GPU hierarchy.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

With a budget of $300-$350 you'd be looking at either a 290X or GTX 970. Personally I'd recommend the 970 as it will run 1080p better (assuming that is what you have), and will use less power - that's not as big a deal for utility bills as is is for quite operation and, if you have a closed / smaller room, maintaining a comfortable temperature.
 
I love the 290 at around $240 AR. I have one powering my eyefinity setup right now and the performance is amazing for the price.
 
so for less than 300$ the 290X its more than twice powerful than a 6970, would you call it a upgrade? yes its a massive upgrade.. the HD6970 is a weak card actually, barely good to play games at medium settings at 1920x1080 and keep playable FPS, in the other hand the 290X its powerful enough to max games at 2560x1440... look at this as example
 
my 2 6950s pushing 5760x1080 would tend to disagree with Araxie...but everyone's mileage will vary based on what game, acceptable framerate, etc.
 
a single 290X will still be more powerful than your 6950s even in the best scaling scenarios of Xifre.. consistent frame rating will offer much better gaming experience, smoothing gameplay, better minimums and more consistent averages are much better than peak frame rates and even in those case its hard to believe a 6950 Xfire setup(even if unlocked) will be better than a single 290X. if you recall well the history, the 7970 at launch was already between 30-40% faster than a 6970 (without take into consideration the 7970ghz edition launched later) and the 290X was another 30-40% faster than the 7970 GHZ Edition. also the provided link show clearly how a single R9 290X are at minimum twice as a faster than a single 6970, yes double the frame rates at minimum, so you need more than perfect 100% scaling with a 6970 crossfire setup to be barely near the R9 290X performance and thats far away of the smooth game play of a single card setup. and Here is were you can see how im right.. you will not find any case where the 6990 (6970 Xfire) be anywhere near the 290X performance.. special attention to minimum frame rates.. so why your unlocked 6950s disagree with me?.. with a single 290X you can enjoy higher resolution with higher settings and still have much more performance than the Xfired 6970s..
 
If you need hdmi 2.0 get a 970 GTX (if you plan to do 4k at some point)

If not buy r9 290 or 290x with non-reference cooling

For either option I'd suggest buying used from the forums here.

Here is a comparison you can use between a 6970 and a r9 290x which will give you a general idea of the performance difference you can expect:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1061?vs=1056
 
I guess my next question is, is the 290/290x a good card? Power consumption wise I suppose and I have been reading of some issues people are having but I can't tell if that's a driver issue..


does anyone have experience with it?
 
Bdonedge said:
I guess my next question is, is the 290/290x a good card? Power consumption wise I suppose and I have been reading of some issues people are having but I can't tell if that's a driver issue..


does anyone have experience with it?
Click to expand...

Stock coolers are loud and don't do a great job of cooling. But, if you get an aftermarket one, then they manage to keep them pretty cool/quiet. But, power consumption is still up there.
 
Bdonedge said:
I guess my next question is, is the 290/290x a good card? Power consumption wise I suppose and I have been reading of some issues people are having but I can't tell if that's a driver issue..


does anyone have experience with it?
Click to expand...

I have owned a few different 290x and 290 cards, they are definitely good cards. The only reason I pulled a 290 out of my system recently was so I could use 4k on my tv. Just opt for a non-reference card for the enhanced cooling and noise reduction.

I wouldn't call it an issue with power consumption. People just prefer a lower power draw and want more power efficiency out of their cards these days. AMD just hasn't put much effort into this like Nvidia has since the 6xx series.
 
I've also got a 6970 and have been thinking for quite some time about an upgrade. I thought the GTX 970 was going to be THE card for me but all the issues with coil whine kinda made me pause. The 290X seems like a good choice as well and for under $300 seems like a bargain although I read a lot of bad user reviews for the 280x and 290x so I've been holding off on that as well.

I don't play anything cutting edge but the games I do play work fine on the 6970 at high settings. The one thing I HATE is the noise. The stock cooler is loud at least to me.
 
Bdonedge said:
I guess my next question is, is the 290/290x a good card? Power consumption wise I suppose and I have been reading of some issues people are having but I can't tell if that's a driver issue..

does anyone have experience with it?
Click to expand...

OP the R9 290X Tri-X is a fantastic card. one of the best R9 290X cards. excellent cooler

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202145

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-8.html

https://translate.google.com/transl...radeon-r9-290-290x-roundup-test/3/&edit-text=

R9 290X is 2.5x the perf of HD 6970. massive upgrade.

http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/20193-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x/18#pagehead

R9 290X - 100
HD 6970 - 40
 
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