570 GTX vs 6950 Toxic

[orija7]

Getting a 6950 Toxic had been almost a sure thing for me but I've heard that ATI's cards suck at Tesselation and Powered by Nvidia games, and that AMD releases somewhat mediocre drivers compared to Nvidia.

Do you guys think that I should prefer the 570? Which of these cards gives more value for money?

I game on 1920x1200, my cpu is the i5 2500k. I plan on playing resource heavy games like BF3, Metro and Crysis.

 

[borisof007]

AMD/ATI cards have come a long way. Their drivers aren't that bad anymore, and they do just fine in games that are "powered by nvidia", which by the way, just means that the developers made the game whilst using Nvidia hardware. It's not necessarily "better on Nvidia".

The 6950 is definitely a great value for the money. It's, on average, about $80 cheaper and is only about 10% slower. If the extra performance matters that much, then you could either pick up a GTX 570 or the 6970 (which is about $30 more than the Nvidia, offers similar performance).

Performance benchmark source:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/vga-charts-spring-2011/1

 

[ionut19]

I have seen an article on xbitlabs where a toxic was as fast as 6970 stock so that might also be the better choice if you are willing to change the bios and overclock the video card. Plus less power usage. I think it comes to witch company you prefer, Nvidia or AMD. Furthermore you might want to buy a video card that does not have stock cooling.

AMD does not suck just that Nvidia is a little better from that point of view.

The concept that AMD drivers are bad is wrong, even more when it comes to the 6k series from AMD. That reason for not choosing AMD/ATI video cards is now gone.

If you have the money buy the GTX570. If not, buy the 6950 toxic(that comes with vapor chamber and keeps the temperatures lower buy a few degrees).

 

[orija7]

I would get the 570 but won't the 1GB vram be an issue at 1900x1200 in a year?

 

[17seconds]

I would get the 570 but won't the 1GB vram be an issue at 1900x1200 in a year?

It's 1.25GB, so not so as much of a problem. They also make a 2.5GB version. Overall, the memory amount issue is overblown, now and in the foreseeable future. The GTX 570 is a higher performing card. They also make custom high-end versions that will easily outpace a custom, high-end 6950.