Should I go with a 560ti or a 6950?

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TopGun

TopGun

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Apr 28, 2009
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Hey guys,

I've been trying to decide on which of these cards to go with for a long while. Could you please help me decide? Unlocking the 6950 shaders to a 6970 was greatly tipping the scale in favor of the 6950, but I'm not sure you can even do that any more.

Also, I just came across a deal for "PNY Technologies nVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB PCIe Display Card" for $177.19 after MIR. The cheapest I've seen a 6950 has been in the $225ish range iirc.

What do you guys think?
 
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Wow. OP asks some questions and all Eyefinity can do is "protect" his little company? Without providing a single link? Way to help out.

So an OC'ed 560ti beats a 6950 stock...what about if the 6950 were OC'ed too? Or do they not OC well?
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They used to not just overclock, but unlock. Take a look at the scores that were posted.

$ 260.00 6950 Frozr OC (484/759) $ 0.54 - $ 0.69
$ 220.00 560 Ti - 900 Mhz (495/862) $ 0.44 - $ 0.51
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484 total frames vs 495. I doubt you'd notice 11FPS. What you could notice is that costs $.54/frame while the other is just $.44. It's not so much that one is faster, but that it costs less while giving more.

Which card is most likely in 2-3 years to be cheaper, still in supply, and most stable drivers based on previous gen cards history? I do think I'd like to SLI/Xfire at some point.
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Sorry, not a fortune teller here. I would be willing to bet that both cards could be found. You'll have to hit the used market. But both of these are popular now so both will be able to be found later.

What exactly is PhysX and what does it do/why would I want it or not?
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PhysX is a way to make a game look and act more real by providing more realistic physics. There are two ways to do this. Either have the PhysX run on the CPU, or have "accelerated PhysX" which runs only on an Nvidia GPU, and only when there is no other GPU present. The PhysX wiki has a list of games that support this type of PhysX. Note that if the game is not on this list having Nvidia/PhysX card won't do anything!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX

Still wondering if I could/should look at any of the 6850/6870/460's instead of the 6950/560ti?
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Seeing as you want a 27" monitor I'd stay with one of these. The 6870 isn't a bad backup option but there is no point is dropping down a card just because you can't make up your mind.

684.jpg
 
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Thanks for the answers. I must have missed the 6950 OC somehow.

If the price/frame info is correct, I don't see how I could not go with the 560ti. Cheaper + more frames sounds like a pretty good value.

I did really want to unlock the 6950 to a basically 6970, but it doesn't sound like that is as likely to be possible as it once was. I think that is why I strongly favored the 6950 before...if not possible/likely anymore, and if the price/frames info is correct...it just doesn't make sense to go that route. Only thing that could really put it back in 6950's favor would be to lower the price...IMO.

Thanks for all the help guys.
 
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If you're going to go with a card that's less than 200, I'd go with a 460. I bought a 5870 over a 460 over a year ago, and the 5870 was killer at first, but does not age well with newer games and drivers. And it's a pain to OC unless you get one with a really nice cooling fan.
 
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Maybe you missed the other 10 threads on the same topic where I posted multiple links and screenshots? Should I link them or did you find them after posting this?
 
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Why? He's Eyefinity. Any time he posts your supposed to research all his previous posts so that he doesn't have to waste his time typing everything over and over. Guess it's time I take a break from this thread. I hope the OP has the answers he's looking for.
 
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That card and the Asus one linked by JackNaylor seem good. How's the heat on that one?
 
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I have that one. I like it a lot. I picked it over the stock 6950 specs out there.
 
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If what you mean is there are 1 or 2 games where the 560 Ti wins where it normally loses by more, that only proves that some games seriously favour certain architectures more.

There are plenty of games where the 6950 totally embarrasses the 560 Ti. Also, most of my links showed an overclocked 560 Ti vs a stock 6950...can you at least get that part right?

Wanna see overclocked 560 ti vs overclocked 6950?

http://techgage.com/article/amd_hd_6950_1gb_vs_nvidia_gtx_560_ti_overclocking/1

The 6950 is so far ahead it's embarrassing. In all but one game it's a total massacre. Look at Just Cause 2 it's almost 50% faster, that's a total annihilation.

edit - woops pasted the wrong link before, corrected.
 
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Are we looking at the same review? What did legitreviews say about the 560TI?

If we had to pick one of these video cards today it is a tough call as the performance benchmarks were split for the most part. If you don't look at performance numbers, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti has the usual NVIDIA features like PhysX, CUDA, 3D Vision and great SLI scaling for those wanting to run multi-GPU setups. It also runs cooler at idle and load. It uses slightly less power at an idle state and, let's face it, our PCs sit at idle most of the time. The GTX 560 Ti is a small card at just 9-inches in length. This makes it 1.5-inches shorter than the Radeon HD 6950 1GB, meaning it will easily fit in your case and not block air flow. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti can also overclock really well and the price tag is lower.
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Doesn't sound like to me they said it was junk. Embarrasses? Seeing as some are talking about the 900MHz 560TI, look at the OC'd link.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1533/18/

Scroll down to the end where they show the AvP scores. The 560TI OC'd scores 35.4, and the 6950 1GB OC'd "embarrasses" it by scoring 37.4. OMG! How will the Nvidia fan boys ever live this down?

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1533/5/
AvP, 1080, 560TI scores 30.2, the 6950 gets 35.6. Getting warmer. I'd at least call that a win for AMD.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1533/6/
Batman:AA 560 gets 123, the 6950 gets 122.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1533/7/
JC2. 560 gets 28.9, 6950 has 37.1. That counts as embarrassing.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1533/8/
Metro 2033. 560 = 32, 6950 = 28.7

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1533/9/
And to round out the first five reviews, SC2. 560 = 162.4, 6950 = 179.8 Both so far over 60 or even 100FPS you'd never notice. 17FPS might seem like a lot, but as a percentage its nothing.

The OC'd model held up very well compared to the 6950, even OC'd itself. And I don't see where you get embarressing from when the GTX560TI was faster then the 6950 several times. Even the reviewers didn't agree with you. Did you link the wrong one?

Edit: LOL!!!!! I thought you pasted the wrong one. I'll look at that other one later. I need sleep.
 
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Yeah sorry lol. :cry:

You are right about the conclusion but that just proves the sick bias in the tech press. The 6950 beats it in just about everything yet you can see how much the reviewer fawned over the Nvidia card anyway and used the phrase...


If you don't look at performance numbers
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I mean wtf, what is up with some of these reviewers, sure lets do a dual card challenge and IGNORE THE PERFORMANCE NUMBERS. Would they have done that if the results were the other way around I wonder?
 
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You keep comparing the 560Ti to the 6950 but shouldn't it be compared to the 6870 instead? It is a mid-range card after all and has three cards above it just as the 6870 does, so on a tier to tier comparison that would seem to be more fair to me.
 
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One word.


Price.
 
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I think/hope they meant that because the numbers are so close you need to look at everything else. If the performance numbers between two cards are similar, but one is cooler, quieter, smaller, uses less power, etc, then thats the card you should with. (unless the other has a better bundle, longer warranty, etc.)

That second link is weird. I took a brief look at the 1080 benchies on the same games from the other one, and the scores are WAY off. For example in SC2 @ 1080 the first link has the 560 at 162.4, while the second has it at 77. ??? WTF!? And the second is supposed to be OC'd? Someone's test system is messed up or there is some odd driver stuff going on. But I need sleep.

Edit: I agree, "tiers" are meaningless. Price = tiers.
 
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Well who decides what the tiers are in that case?

You could say that the 6950 is the salvage part of the top end of AMD while the 560 Ti is the top end of the midrange.

Or you could look at the die size (they are quite similar I believe) but that doesn't matter to consumers, only to the companies.

In the end the main thing is performance at any given price range and this is where Nvidia has been losing for so long now. No matter how good a "deal" they do on some cards, AMD always seems able to drop the prices on the card above them to match. The 6950 really should be priced closer to the 570 but that just makes it even more of a bargain.

Don't get me wrong, $177 560 Ti's are a steal as well, but you can also find 6870's for $145 which are also total steals at that price.
 
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