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Looking to beat 5870

R

rwdtech

n00b
Joined
Mar 15, 2011
Messages
8
I am currently searching for a new video card after finally setting some money aside and some birthday cash. A buddy of mine recently got a 5870 2gb card and consistently rubs it in my face since i have a 4870. I have been doing some extensive research on cards and just cant seem to find the best bang for my buck. I have only two requirements: it must be between $350-450 and be better than his 5870 (yes I know its silly). I do a lot of gaming at 1920x1080 and actually do need a video card. I am not getting one just for bragging rights....but the card needs to be noticebly better than a 5870. Ive been looking at the 6970, but it just seems overpriced when you look at benchmark and frame rates compared to the 5870. I currently play Bad Company 2. I am also considering crossfire or SLI (I have an 8x crossfire motherboard). I am open to Nvidia, ATI, and AMD. I have a power supply that is more than capable as well. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!
 
If you want to save some money pick up a 6950, and if you can spend $50 over your price range I would pick up two for crossfire. Also keep an eye out on the GTX 570's to drop around the $300 range. Both of these cards easily beat a 5870.
 
A 6950 2GB is one helluva card for the price (I love how helluva doesn't get marked as incorrect). It has a reliable chance of gaining enough performance to reach a 6970 after unlocking and overclocking. It's also the cheapest card that qualifies for your prerequisite :p, and is armed for well into the future with the massive VRAM.
 
6870 crossfire if you want to stay in budget.
6950 crossfire if you can go over budget.
Coupled with a quad core cpu, both will annihilate your friends single 5870.
FWIW I mainly play BC2 also, at a resolution of 2048x1536 (which is around 50% more pixels than your resolution) and i can max all settings, HBAO on, 2xSSAA, high quality and i never dip below 60fps with vsync on with my crossfire 6870s, and its very smooth and pretty. So i think at your resolution crossfire 6950s is definatley overkill.

Edit: Meant to say 2xAA
 
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Well a 6950 2GB, 6970 and GTX 570 are all in your budget of $350-$400.

A single HD 6950 2GB is roughly 2% faster than the HD 5870 at your resolution (~$275).
A single HD 6970 2GB is roughly 12% faster than the HD 5870 at your resolution (~$360).
A single GTX 570 1.2GB is roughly 10% faster than the HD 5870 at your resolution (~$325).

Out of the bunch I'd pick the HD 6950 and try to unlock it and OC it. It'll be the best bang for the buck solution right now.

Its a shame that you didn't buy the Sapphire HD 5870 2GB Newegg Shellshocker when they were $180 a piece. Could've bought two and stayed within your price range. Would've destroyed the performance of any of the single cards listed above for the same price and you would've had 2 of the cards he had to rub it in his face. :)
 
exlink said:
Its a shame that you didn't buy the Sapphire HD 5870 2GB Newegg Shellshocker when they were $180 a piece. Could've bought two and stayed within your price range. Would've destroyed the performance of any of the single cards listed above for the same price and you would've had 2 of the cards he had to rub it in his face. :)
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Oh God... don't remind me of that! That night was was contemplating buying it (this was before the birthday cash) and decided not to. While in bed i thought about it and decided the next morning to order the card. I woke up and the deal was over. So depressing...never speak of that again! lol

It seems the 6950 looks like a good route to go. I could buy one 6950 2GB and use the money I save towards an SSD Raid I have been researching for some time now.
 
how much breathing room would I have on my buddy if i got a 6950 2GB and tried unlocking it and overclocking it? he will be overclocking his 5870 as well :(
 
rwdtech said:
how much breathing room would I have on my buddy if i got a 6950 2GB and tried unlocking it and overclocking it? he will be overclocking his 5870 as well :(
Click to expand...

Honestly if it really means that much to you to beat your friends card then go the Crossfire 6870 route. You'll destroy him and any other single card thats out & stay in budget :cool:. I run CFX6870s and BC2 is my primary game, can run the game maxed out all day long and not feel it skip a beat. In vietnam I can run 16xAA easily, in BC2 8xAA is the sweet spot I think.
 
so I guess I shouldn't mention the XFX 5870 for $180 deal from a few days ago? I just got my second 5870 off that deal and it did make a nice upgrade but mainly because I'm pushing 5760x1200 resolution.
 
I've successfully unlocked my 6950 into a 6970 --its trivial. With that 2nd BIOS there wasn't even a moment of hesitation because its always recoverable and as long as your card doesn't die in a fire its always revert-able.

edit... oh yeah I bought a 6950 for my sig.. haven't updated that signature since I'm sure I'll get yelled at for it...
eyefinity is pretty awesome :cool:, and my productivity has doubled since being able to have my SQL studio, IDE, and firefox all open and all with a good amount of real-estate. Life is good with 3 monitors, even if it is on a puny core 2.
 
If i go the 6950 unlocking route, will I need an aftermarket heatsink or will I be ok with the stock one?
 
I am really considering a crossfiring 2 6950's. The 2gb version is about a $50 difference when u multiply it by two. will i really need two 2gb 6950's???
 
I'm pretty sure if you want to unlock a 6950 then you have to get the 2gb version.
 
I have an Asus 6950 2gb. Unlock and OC worked perfectly on it.
I'd advise getting one of them also.
Great card.
 
Definately go with the 6950CF for best performance/dollar, it can't be beat atm and your friend will friggin' hate your ass lol.
 
buy the 6950 and unlock it. You can get them for 244 with 10 promo gift card at the Egg.
 
I'm going back on my word so I can add something. OP, I initially recommended to the 6950, based on the fact that you wanted to beat your friend. I understand that this in itself is an important thing for you, but to what extent do you want to 'beat' him? An overclocked 560 will be as fast as or faster than the 6950, and by virtue of that probably a little bit faster than the 5870. My point is, in spending the extra money for a 6950 instead of a 560, you won't be getting much, if anything. To that end, here is my new recommendation for you.

~$160: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1594236

~$200: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1593852

~$250: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7091952&CatId=3669
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Radeon-Ex...YXV2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1300478357&sr=8-3

You can use Mr. Rebates or FatWallet to receive cashback at TigerDirect.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Don't buy the GTX 560, according to HardOCP reviews, the GTX 560 needs to be overclocked heavily to match a stock HD 6950, the HD 6950 overclocked will beat the GTX 560, let alone an unlocked one. Right now the HD 6950 offers the best bang for the buck in the market and it is up to 8-15% faster than the HD 5870, overclocking and unlocking it will give you another 8-10% performance boost, or get a GTX 580 and will give you an additional boost of 7-12% of performance over the unlocked and overclocked HD 6950 for much more, after the HD 5870, there's not much performance to gain except with an HD 5970/HD6990 or SLI some cards like the GTX 460/560.
 
evolucion8 said:
Don't buy the GTX 560, according to HardOCP reviews, the GTX 560 needs to be overclocked heavily to match a stock HD 6950, the HD 6950 overclocked will beat the GTX 560, let alone an unlocked one. Right now the HD 6950 offers the best bang for the buck in the market and it is up to 8-15% faster than the HD 5870, overclocking and unlocking it will give you another 8-10% performance boost, or get a GTX 580 and will give you an additional boost of 7-12% of performance over the unlocked and overclocked HD 6950 for much more, after the HD 5870, there's not much performance to gain except with an HD 5970/HD6990 or SLI some cards like the GTX 460/560.
Click to expand...

You seem to have left the 6970 out of the equation as well.
 
USMCGrunt said:
You seem to have left the 6970 out of the equation as well.
Click to expand...

HD 6950 unlocked and OCED = HD 6970

I just that I saw it redundant and the price premium over the HD 6950 is a bit too much to ask if he's looking for some savings. A stock HD 6970 is in average between 12-30% faster when compared at same settings to an HD 5870, but with a review ala HardOCP, in max playability, that gap widens. But yeah, it might be a good SKU to consider as well if he's not willing to push the HD 6950 to the limits to reach HD 6970 performance, as the HD 6970 is pretty much certified and ready to run at stock settings and it can overclock too.
 
I would imagine if he's looking to spend as little money that he may not be willing to mod the 6950 cause if something goes wrong and it breaks....he's back where he started with less cash. I personally prefer to just plug and play my stuff without worries, but then that isnt [H] now is it :)
 
Ive ran a 6950, 6970 and GTX570 after selling my 5870. The GTX570 and 6970 were a bit faster but not a huge difference. The 6950 felt just like my 5870. I could barely tell them apart. The overclocked and unlocked 6950 did run just like the 6970 but in the end I could squeeze more performance out of the 6970 when overclocking both. I think for the OP the 6950 unlocked and overclocked would be more impressive. It shows your buddy that you are [H]ard and your sh!t is modified. :cool: It will be a nice jump over a 4870.
 
I guess I'd like to tag along on the discussion.

I have 2 5870s in crossfire, both sapphire. One is a Game Edition (1GB VRAM) and the other is the 2GB Eyefinity edition. I'm not sure why, but I'm not having much luck getting the things running smoothly for Crysis OR StarCraft II. I can max everything out at Very High settings, but as soon as I turn on AA it just chokes. I'm running on a Dell 30" in native resolution 2560x1600.

So, I have an offer from a guy on CL to trade...his SuperClocked eVga GTX 570 + $100 for my 2 5870 cards. I guess he doesn't want it for gaming but rather wants to use it as a GPU CPU for calculations.

Thoughts? Should I make the trade? Ask for a little more money? Hang onto my 5870 crossfire and just keep playing with various settings until I get things right?

Sorry if this is a hijack. I just figured it was such a similar question...
 
Personally I would grab a 570 from eVGA's b-stock for $270 and save some dough and still be able to tell you friend you've got a faster card..

 
Xenor said:
I guess I'd like to tag along on the discussion.

I have 2 5870s in crossfire, both sapphire. One is a Game Edition (1GB VRAM) and the other is the 2GB Eyefinity edition. I'm not sure why, but I'm not having much luck getting the things running smoothly for Crysis OR StarCraft II. I can max everything out at Very High settings, but as soon as I turn on AA it just chokes. I'm running on a Dell 30" in native resolution 2560x1600.

So, I have an offer from a guy on CL to trade...his SuperClocked eVga GTX 570 + $100 for my 2 5870 cards. I guess he doesn't want it for gaming but rather wants to use it as a GPU CPU for calculations.

Thoughts? Should I make the trade? Ask for a little more money? Hang onto my 5870 crossfire and just keep playing with various settings until I get things right?

Sorry if this is a hijack. I just figured it was such a similar question...
Click to expand...

Your running out of vram when you enable AA as simple as that. The 570 will give you a little more room as it offers a bit more vram but if your going from CF5870s to a single 570, your gonna lose performance. if you SLI 570s you'll gain a bit...though im not sure how much value there would be in that. If your wanting to enable AA id suggest going with the larger breathing room a 6950/6970 can afford you.
 
6950 unlocked crossfire FTW, he'll envy your setup. He'll feel like this guy who bought the bates 3000.

"If you have the bates 3000, throw that piece of shit in the trash LOL"
3762964849_0452d2e891.jpg

Onion movie reference for those that don't know
 
I didn't see enough benchmarks for the 2560x1600...the 570 seemed to outperform the 5870 in the tests I saw...but they were definitely at lower resolutions. I'm beginning to learn the importance of VRAM for my new monitor and resolution. Guess I could always sell off the older 1GB 5870 and save up for a 6970, 6990 or 580, 590...etc..etc.
 
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