Old graphics card defective; looking for advice on new card ~$150-250

[gameranew22]

Hiya folks, first off let me thank you for taking your precious time to help a fellow soul out, i appreciate it. Now, my former HIS IceQ Radeon 6870 was BsODiing and locking up my comp like crazy so I've had to ditch it because it's a now pretty common fact that most of that batch of cards had a very high rate of error. Anyways I'm getting a refund thanks to some artful complaining and will have around a 150~250USD price range. I'm keeping the option of overclocking open(though am an admitted newb on that end). I more likely plan on cross firing/sli'ing in the future and won't be using eyefinity or 3d for nvidia (though I'd prefer a great standalone card to a crossfire/sli-dependent setup). Here are my specs and thanks for helping me out!

PURCHASE DATE: next week

BUDGET RANGE: USD $150-250) Before / After Rebates

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming [skyrim, tf2, deus ex, gta4, max payne 3, la noire, Metro 2033 ~highest settings], home theater/watching movies, cs4

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: ATI Radeon HD 6870 and corsair 750TX 750W PSU

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: i5-2500k, p67 asrock extreme4, 8gb seagAte .
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: (e.g.: newegg.com, ncix.com -- to show us selection & pricing) COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: (e.g.: Grand Fenwick)

PARTS PREFERENCES: more familiar with ati, but I swing both ways

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe, most likely in the future

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: would prefer most bang for buck, if factory over locked and good prices and performance ratio I'm down. does it make fine Danish cheese also?

 

[dish_moose]

GTX560Ti or HD69501G. When/if you double up the cards it will truly rock.
-Bruce

 

[gameranew22]

Thanks man, that seems to be the direction I'm heading in. I think Radeon would be the best/path of least resistance for me to take on that front but there are so many manufacturers out there, who would you suggest? Sapphire, Diamond, XFX, HIS (I don't trust HIS products after my last one though...)?

 

[gameranew22]

Also, I feel that it should be mentioned that the HIS IceQ Radeon 6870 that I have has some serious design flaws that are well noted in the reviews around the the internetz, most notably on Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161369). I'm far, FAR from an expert on the subject but, from what I gather, there is some sort of PCB design issue that crashes people's computers when they try to run graphically-intensive, multicore games like Bioshock 1&2, BF3, Skyrim, Gta4, etc. For me it was a pretty consistent occurrence that I would be playing those game for maybe 10-15 minutes tops and then BAM, video to my monitor "timed out" and I was forced into a hard screen-lock that forced me to do a manual restart. It had, I am sure, absolutely nothing to do with the temperatures as I have 5 fans running in my HAF 912 rig and a great CPU cooler. Perhaps it is too much power coming from my PSU (750W) or bottlenecking from my CPU (i5-2500k) but I don't know enough about component design and engineering to know if that is the de facto problem. All I know is that my favorite games would crash, without fault, every time and it was because of my graphics card. I'm curious if anyone else has some insight into the issue or similar experiences?

 

[amuffin]

Sapphire dirt 3 6950, 6970 bios is preloaded i believe.

 

[gameranew22]

Thank you my man amuffin, yeah I was reading about that on Anandtech and Newegg, apparently all I have to do is unlock the shaders and BAM it's a shiny new 6970? How does one go about doing that by chance or is that something easy enough to look up on the interwebs?

 

[amuffin]

Thank you my man amuffin, yeah I was reading about that on Anandtech and Newegg, apparently all I have to do is unlock the shaders and BAM it's a shiny new 6970? How does one go about doing that by chance or is that something easy enough to look up on the interwebs?

It will basically be a lower clocked 6970 so somewhere in the middle of a 6950 and a 6970, but you should be able to overclock that unlocked card almost to a 6970 just search it up on the internet or ask on the forums

 

[gameranew22]

gracias mi amigo.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Twin factory overclocked 900 Mhz 560 Ti's (852 fps) outrun twin factoy overclcoked 6950's (759 fps) and twin 6970's (825 fps) in Guru3D's test suite due to ther robust overclocking capacity ..... but in 10 days the landcsape may change.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/21520/nvidia_s_geforce_gtx_560_ti_448_cores_packs_a_great_green_punch/index.html

My only concern is that they used the GF110 silicon instead of the GF114 on the current 560 Ti ..... and I'm hoping that they used the 560's VRM as the 570's was a bit weak.

 

[gameranew22]

haha....dude you need to speak in laymens term for meeeeeeeee. I r newbie

 

[amuffin]

haha....dude you need to speak in laymens term for meeeeeeeee. I r newbie

In a few days the gtx 560ti is going to be upgraded from 384 cuda cores to something like 448 cuda cores, basically it will be a 570 with some of its cores disabled. Basically wait 2 weeks and get the upgraded 560ti, because it will destroy the 6950.

 

[gameranew22]

ahhhhhh....AWESOMESAWCE PEWPEWPEWPEW!!!!

 

[gameranew22]

Best answer selected by gameranew22.