6950 2gb or 6870 2gb or 6870 1gb @ 1920x1200

[robertomad]

hello every one. My XFX 5850 Black Edition has been bricked (purchased it on Dec 2009) so I've purchased a new MSI R6780 Hawk but unfortunately scan.co.uk has sent me a used card (from the state of it anyway ). But anyway, I am RMAing the card today. and I need to buy a new one and I need some advice here are the cards I'm aiming for

2GB MSI HD 6950 Twin Frozr III - £229 (with 2 games Dirt3 and Deux Ex)

Here

XFX 6870 2GB - £164.02

Here

MSI R6870 Hawk with Dirt3 - £150.82

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...r5-gpu-930mhz-1120-stream-processors-dvi-hdmi

I'm not a frequent gamer but I use this for dual display (benq 24" 1920x1200 and Samsung 40" TV). I watch bluray movies. I'm a sucker for good quality images and I love taking pictures. I want to be able to play 3d movies in the future (still trying to convince wifey to buy a 3DTV). And when I play games I would like to have smooth images. My budget limit is £250.

I've read about 6950 unlocking to 6970 but not really into extreme OCing (just use the CCC).

And also I would like to have a good cooling on the VCard because my 5850's fan broke and tried replacing the fan with VF300a and I think I bricked it. One thing I noticed on the MSI R6870 hawk was it's running average 50 deg Celcius. I this normal? (yes the card is working but the problem is it's not with a state of new because even the Dirt3 code that comes with it was already been used. I just felt like If I paid for a new card but I was give a used one which is a rip off really )?

Sorry for lots of questions. I just read a lot of forums and articles and I'm still confuse.

Any help would very much appreciated.

 

[Supernova1138]

At your resolution you don't need 2GB of RAM on your video card, virtually no games use more than 1GB at 1920x1200. The only ones that might use more than 1GB would be Grand Theft Auto IV, Crysis 2, and Metro 2033 on maximum settings, and for Crysis and Metro performance would be bottlenecked by the GPU on any of these cards before it would be bottlenecked by the amount of video RAM on the card.

The 6950 is about 10% faster than the 6870. Most 6950s will not unlock to 6970s these days, as the manufacturers started laser cutting the extra shaders due to low 6970 sales. I would say go for the 6950 if you are interested in the two free games it comes with. If you are not interested in the games, it isn't worth the extra 80 pounds just to get an extra 3 to 10 FPS over the 6870. If you aren't interested in the free games, either go for the 1GB 6870 or look for a 1GB model of the 6950, which would be much cheaper.

 

[robertomad]

At your resolution you don't need 2GB of RAM on your video card, virtually no games use more than 1GB at 1920x1200. The only ones that might use more than 1GB would be Grand Theft Auto IV, Crysis 2, and Metro 2033 on maximum settings, and for Crysis and Metro performance would be bottlenecked by the GPU on any of these cards before it would be bottlenecked by the amount of video RAM on the card.

The 6950 is about 10% faster than the 6870. Most 6950s will not unlock to 6970s these days, as the manufacturers started laser cutting the extra shaders due to low 6970 sales. I would say go for the 6950 if you are interested in the two free games it comes with. If you are not interested in the games, it isn't worth the extra 80 pounds just to get an extra 3 to 10 FPS over the 6870. If you aren't interested in the free games, either go for the 1GB 6870 or look for a 1GB model of the 6950, which would be much cheaper.

Thank you for the quick response Supernova1138. I've read that if the screen size if larger than 1920x1200 and want to use high AA settings 2GB is beneficial is this correct?

 

[Supernova1138]

Right now 2GB is mostly only beneficial for gaming across multiple monitors. If you are running an extremely high resolution single monitor like 2560x1600 you may see a small performance bump if you use high levels of anti-aliasing. As said above, there are a couple of games that can use more than 1GB, but with those games you'd be bottlenecked by the GPU first. The extra video RAM would probably only be beneficial for those games if you were running a high end SLI or Crossfire setup.

 

[robertomad]

Right now 2GB is mostly only beneficial for gaming across multiple monitors. If you are running an extremely high resolution single monitor like 2560x1600 you may see a small performance bump if you use high levels of anti-aliasing. As said above, there are a couple of games that can use more than 1GB, but with those games you'd be bottlenecked by the GPU first. The extra video RAM would probably only be beneficial for those games if you were running a high end SLI or Crossfire setup.

Thanks. Just FYI, I will stick to my question on the other thread. Thanks again for quick response.