Radeon HD 6970 *vs* GeForce GTX 570

[ungovernable]

i'm about to buy this card:
XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

but i was wondering how it would do against a nvidia card in the same price range, like this one:
EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Radeon has 2gb against 1280mb for nVidia, looks like an advantage to me... But the radeon has very bad review about the noise, according to review the fan is very loud.

Should i stay with the XFX Radeon or go with nVidia ?

Both have lifetime warranties. I'm not interessed in anything not having a lifetime warranty, this is the only thing that convince me to invest so much in a video card

 

[DM186]

I like Nvidia better than Radeon. the 2GB of vram is good for higher resolution than 1920 x 1200 or more than one monitor or you plan doing any of this in the fucture. Here is a link to a benchmark chart plus a forum one that talks about this subject. Good luck to ya I hope this helps a little

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=306

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/326506-33-6970

 

[Red Team FTW]

Both cards are good but really it comes down to price and the Radeon can be had for consistently cheaper at majority of retailers and Etailers and does have the edge in the performance to boot so I would just get the 6970.

RED TEAM FTW !

 

[hellfire24]

+1 for above advice.radeon hd 6970 2Gb and gtx 570 1.2GB are almost similar interms of common gaming.gtx 570 will do better with physx games.but some games such as crysis,crysis 2,BF3,Metro 2033 are known to eat up more than 1.5GB of VRAM when completely maxed out including AA/MSAA.HD 6970 2GB will do better with multi-monitor
and more VRAM will do better with AA/MSAA.
here's is power consumption and thermals of gtx 570-
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/07/nvidia-geforce-gtx-570-1-3gb-review/9

and here's HD 6970-
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/10

i would suggest get the cheaper one.both are good 😉

 

[Red Team FTW]

+1 for above advice.radeon hd 6970 2Gb and gtx 570 1.2GB are almost similar interms of common gaming.gtx 570 will do better with physx games.but some games such as crysis,crysis 2,BF3,Metro 2033 are known to eat up more than 1.5GB of VRAM when completely maxed out including AA/MSAA.HD 6970 2GB will do better with multi-monitor
and more VRAM will do better with AA/MSAA.
here's is power consumption and thermals of gtx 570-
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/07/nvidia-geforce-gtx-570-1-3gb-review/9

and here's HD 6970-
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/10

i would suggest get the cheaper one.both are good 😉

Unfortunately Physx is only in five games so OP would need to take that into consideration does OP play any Physx games and if so how much.

 

[amuffin]

Get the twinfrozr ii version if possible.

 

[xxsjxx1]

FYI on this website (tomshardware) the 570 beats the 6970 in BF3 frame rate....

I have the 560 TI 448 classified and I run at 60FPS consistently on all ultra using vsync... i just have the msaa crap off.

 

[amuffin]

FYI on this website (tomshardware) the 570 beats the 6970 in BF3 frame rate....

I have the 560 TI 448 classified and I run at 60FPS consistently on all ultra using vsync... i just have the msaa crap off.

What resolution? Its not ultra without msaa!

 

[xxsjxx1]

i play on 1080P lol

what does msaa even do?

 

[hellfire24]

@xxsjxx1
it's eyecandy lol! 😉

 

[amuffin]

i play on 1080P lol

what does msaa even do?

antialising! Makes everything look sexy

 

[molo9000]

If you are worried about noise, consider a card with a custom cooler.
They are a bit more expensive but they can be much quieter and give you much more overclocking headroom than reference design cards.

I have a EAH 6970 DCII, and while I wouldn't recommend it, it runs very quiet and cool.
Why I wouldn't recommend it:
-it's too big (3slots)
-it's too heavy (the damn thing bends under it's own weight. very bad design from ASUS)
-the ASUS software is complete crap. I have to use MSI Afterburner with a custom fan profile to properly control the fan.

 

[xxsjxx1]

FYI... id go with the 570 just because its made by EVGA. Thats the whole reason i bought my card over the 6970. I read reviews on Newegg for almost a week... and its seemed like IF you ever had an issue, EVGA provides the best and most consistent support for their products.

 

[guskline]

I have a XFX 6970 factory OC to 900 and love it. Solid card. Very big. FAST

 

[hellfire24]

@guskline
that's a sexy card!

 

[vitornob]

Well, I would go for Nvidia card since looks that Nvidia have less problems with performance.
Sometimes I see people complaining about bad performance from AMD cards since the driver isn't updated. AMD driver updates looks that take a longer time to be released. If I'm not mistaken some RAGE problems have been adressed only these last weeks.

If sometime you want to go for 3D gaming, Nvidia solution is a much tested solution, with an extensive support and games tests database.

If you do some rendering/editing, even some Nvidia cards can help you out with the Cuda programming integrated in these cards. Adobe Photoshop CS5 is one of these softwares that uses Nvidia Cuda language.

 

[ilysaml]

 

[dharmenparikh]

The GTX 570 is between the 6950 and 6970 if you look at newer games that consume a lot more vram..thats the only issue with the GTX 570. It overclocks a lot better than 6970 and plays most games on par with the 6970 but when you crank up AA and AF thats when the 6970 shines...even at 1080P. So with upcoming games in 1-2 yrs the GTX 570 will surely fall behind if you are the type that wants to max everything out.

However you can get 570 for around 270$ on newegg.com..there's the galaxy card that used to be that price in December and even in November.

Frankly, don't look at any of the 2..just get the new 7870 in Feb/March...it will overclock like mad judging from the 7970 reviews...none of the current cards will be able to keep up.

 

[DM186]

There is a lot of good info given to you and I know you have learned a lot as I have. Bottom line is what you want and how much to you want to spend. As you can see both cards have there good sides and there bad side.

Anyway you go. You will know that you are getting a nice card. If you wait for the 7xxx series cards they are evern better. I wish you good luck on this.