StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I'm looking at GFX card upgrades and have narrowed it down to 4.

My current system is:

Core 2 Duo E8500
Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3LR MoBo
4gb RAM (will be moving this up to either this or this).
And a R4800 series.

Please don't say SSDs right now, that's for when I make my next upgrade.

Anyhow, the cards I'm looking at (all from my friendly local retailer who are cheap as chips - PC DIY):

GTX560Ti for 255
GTX570 for 390
R6950 for 290
R6970 for 390

So, which of these would people recommend?

Is the performance jump worth the extra hundred (as I may keep it should I get to do CPU/MoBo/Drive upgrades soon-ish)? Is there one that just punches above it's weight?

Other considerations are temperature levels - as coming into summer in the house I live in and where my PC is located, temperature management is a REAL THING. And also that I run 2x monitors primary is 1920*1080 and the other 1280*1024.

You can do your head in trying to pick the right component to buy for a new computer. For myself, I got the Asus GTX570 for $399 at msy, but I was originally going to get the R6970 since it was similarly priced and seemed to have better stats, but it wasn't available. (it still isn't now that I just checked) EDIT Incidentally I don't know how much of a performance boost it entails to have 2GB vs 1.3GB; it seems somewhat implicit that the former would outpace the latter, but who knows really.

Temperature for graphics cards isn't as big a worry than for CPUs. Graphics cards are designed to run hot, and the cooling system that comes with them is usually adequate. If you're worried, maybe it would be a good idea to get yourself an extra case fan that's situated to support the card. If your case doesn't support that, perhaps you should also consider getting a new case for your eventual upgrade?

I've got one case fan slot empty that I'll be filling with a nice big diameter fan. It's just the location of where the PC is means that an additional box fan to actually have air not just get trapped around the PC is also needed.

I'd go with the 6950 2GB. I did some research a few weeks ago and it seems to be best bang for your buck currently. Also, the Nvidia cards I believe tend to draw more power and run hotter than comparable AMD cards this generation. There is also the potential to flash it to 6970 shader performance levels depending on your model and manufacturer of 6950 2GB, if your into that kind of thing and don't mind the risk*. If your concerned about heat, you might want to look into hunting down one of the MSI Twin Frozr II or III models. I don't see any 6950s with that cooling system listed on the site, but it might be worth it to hunt it down elsewhere. The reviews I've seen say they do a very good job of keeping the card cool, and should run about $20USD (in the case of the Twin Frozr III model) more than stock 6950 2GB MSRP.

Do you overclock? This recommendation is based on stock/factory OCed cards. I didn't take how well they overclock into consideration when I did my own research.

Note *: I'm fairly sure that all 6900 series cards have the dual BIOS switch, which lessens the risk of a failed 6970 flashing somewhat. Your best bet is to do some research on it if that aspect of the 6950 2GB interests you.

Stofsk wrote:Incidentally I don't know how much of a performance boost it entails to have 2GB vs 1.3GB; it seems somewhat implicit that the former would outpace the latter, but who knows really.

The extra VRAM is helpful at higher resolutions and higher levels of AA, since those two things are what eat up gobs and gobs of memory; the rest of the stuff a GPU does mostly hammers its processing power and don't require all that much spare memory to run. If you game at 1920x1200 and below, going for a 2 GB card isn't quite as important yet as it is at 2560x1600 and up.

That being said, of the choices you have weemadando, a 6950 2 GB will give you the best bang for the buck, while a 6970 2 GB will give the absolute fastest performance (it'll hold its own with a GTX 580 most of the time); you can use Anandtech's bench tool here to compare two GPUs directly for some more info to help your decision.

AMD's Southern Islands should launch in Q4 if you're willing to wait.

phongn wrote:AMD's Southern Islands should launch in Q4 if you're willing to wait.

I've heard there have been yield issues with 28nm process. IIRC December is the earliest we'll see them, though there may be availability issues until mid to late Q1 or even later next year. They appear to be ahead of Nvidia on the 28nm front, and in light of Bulldozer I wander if they'd take any chances with SI release.

Wing Commander MAD wrote:

phongn wrote:AMD's Southern Islands should launch in Q4 if you're willing to wait.

I've heard there have been yield issues with 28nm process. IIRC December is the earliest we'll see them, though there may be availability issues until mid to late Q1 or even later next year. They appear to be ahead of Nvidia on the 28nm front, and in light of Bulldozer I wander if they'd take any chances with SI release.

The rumour is that the 7-series are coming out on the 28nm LP (low-power) process, which is considerably more mature than the 28nm SHP (super-high-performance) process. That's good for a 3 to 6 month lead at some clock speed hit; if so when the Nvidia parts finally come out they will beat AMD easily, but the AMD refresh parts will be right behind and will get a big performance bump just from the process upgrade.