Keep 6970 or replace with a GTX 570?

opethdisciple · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:33

Marine-RX179 said:
For 1920 res with 4xAA, the GTX570 would have better minimum frame rate than the 6970 though.

Black OPs 1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF= 2fps higher:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/7
Just Cause 2 1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF= 2fps higher:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/8
BFBC2 1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF=7fps higher:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/9

But I agree...if it's gonna cost the OP extra money for sending the 6970 back, then it's probably not worth the hassle at all...unless he's crazy about BFBC2

Minimum frames are very important. Possibly the most important.

All this talk of better Nvidia drivers, is it true?

I quite like the monthly ATI drivers...

Benihana · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:36

Im in the same situation as the OP, got to decide which to go for, or maybe 6950 to go crossfire later.... Tearing my hair out!

Marine-RX179 · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:41

Benihana said:
Im in the same situation as the OP, got to decide which to go for, or maybe 6950 to go crossfire later.... Tearing my hair out!

This is how I see it...for someone that game only on a single 1920, push the budget for a GTX570 as no game except for Crysis and Metro would need more powerful graphic card than it.

However, if someone think he might go down the monitor upgrade path in the future, either to 2560 res or Eyefinity, then the 6950/6970 would be a better option.

555BUK · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:44

My preference would be for the 570. I have been very happy with my 580's, and the fact that 570 offers 90% of this performance for two-thirds of the price makes it a real winner. It provides consistent results within all games (unlike 6900 but this could be driver issues), it's cool, quiet and overclocks like a beast.

Benihana · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:48

Would fit neatly with my graphic card history as well, so far has been Nvidia-ATI-Nvidia-ATI etc, just impressed by the scaling of the 6950's but I prefer single cards to CF/SLI.

I used to be uncertain, now I'm not so sure...

straxusii · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:51

kitch9 said:
I've just picked mine up from OcUK this morning (Gibbo gave me 3 free games as I was the first punter to mention the forum deal! Nice 1 Gibbo!)

I'll let you know how I get on once I've installed n tested....

So is Gibbo a blond with big boobs then?

Benihana · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:54

TTIUWP!!!

kitch9 · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:58

RavenXXX2 said:
Three games and a discount, great service.

4 actually, just found MW2 in the box as well!

2 screws had fell out of the cooler backplate in the box though, but card seems to work well regardless. (I just screwed them back in...)

kitch9 · 15 Dec 2010 at 13:59

straxusii said:
So is Gibbo a blond with big boobs then?

I imagined he'd look like his avatar........

.............He doesn't.

At least I think it was Gibbo who came round to sort a systems problem they were having on the front desk...

oweneades · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:05

Marine-RX179 said:
For 1920 res with 4xAA, the GTX570 would have better minimum frame rate than the 6970 though.

Black OPs 1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF= 2fps higher:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/7
Just Cause 2 1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF= 2fps higher:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/8
BFBC2 1920x1200 4xAA 16xAF=7fps higher:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/9

But I agree...if it's gonna cost the OP extra money for sending the 6970 back, then it's probably not worth the hassle at all...unless he's crazy about BFBC2

OP how much did your 6970 cost by the way? If it costed like £300 and over, then may be it is worth sending it back and get the £270 Gigabyte GTX570 that OcUK has on this week's offer. But if it is the HIS 6970 that only costed you like £280, then don't bother (unless you play BFBC2 a lot hehe).

Of those three tests only BFBC2 is relevant when we look at minimums. BLOPs minimum is 63 plays 65 (so no difference in actual gameplay) and JC2 is tested using the Concrete Jungle built in benchmark which isn't representative of in game peformance at all.

We also need to consider a frame of reference when looking at minimums. Bit (and others) only quote a single absolute minimum on their graphs (taken as the lowest framerate recorded in a set period), this only tells us that at one point the card hit that number, it doesn't tell us how that affected playability.

In order to correctly quantify minimums we need to see a graph of framerates plotted over time (Fraps can be used for this as it provides this information along with the absolutes). Unfortunately very few review sites provide this sort of detail.

As for the price of the GTX570, why pay £270 for something you can get for £250....

Triggaaar · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:20

opethdisciple said:
Look at some benchmarks, choose your card based on the games you like to play, and which of the two has the upper hand.

Good advice - but the game I play isn't out yet. It will be DX11 - any idea which is better with DX11? Looking at the reviews, Metro, Dirt2, BattleFields BC2 and Stalker are all DX11, and some are better with the 6970, some with the 570 - and not by insignificant margins. So I'm confused which to go with.

kitch9 · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:21

bazmo said:
what games did you get kitch9? Am thinking of making my way down to pick one up but can't decide whether its worth it?

Am also torn between the MSI 570 and a 6950/6970, so the game might make all the difference!

They only gave me that many as I was the first, they'll just give you one if you go.

I got:

AVP
COD MW2
Lost Planet 2
Stormrise

Not sure what you get as a single freebie, you may get a choice.

BigBruiserAl · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:21

Marine-RX179 said:
But I agree...if it's gonna cost the OP extra money for sending the 6970 back, then it's probably not worth the hassle at all...unless he's crazy about BFBC2

Refuse the delivery and return to sender you dont pay a penny for that. Im just waiting on Gibbo to reply to mail then ill decide wetaher to refuse mine or not. people need to come down to earth, seems the people who were expecting a 580 beater are the people who are gutted but for £280 what do expect?

kitch9 · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:25

First up BFBC2 "feels" better than my other 460 SLI rig, I'm not sure how that is when they both are supposedly running at 60 fps v sync locked.

Heaven bench coming up, I'll have to download it as this is my shiny new office pc with none of the gubbins on it yet....

*Edit* max temps 75C after 30mins in a Silverstone Grandia 5 case....... Not bad.

Admiral Huddy · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:27

This maybe a daft question, but what games can't you play on the 6970 which you can on the 570?

Marine-RX179 · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:29

Triggaaar said:
Good advice - but the game I play isn't out yet. It will be DX11 - any idea which is better with DX11? Looking at the reviews, Metro, Dirt2, BattleFields BC2 and Stalker are all DX11, and some are better with the 6970, some with the 570 - and not by insignificant margins. So I'm confused which to go with.

Well, if we look beyond comparison at stock speed and actually consider overclock, which card do you think would do better of overclock?

GTX570 stock clock: 732MHz
6970 stock clock: 880MHz

GTX570 has already been confirmed to be able to easily overclock to 850MHz (16.1% overclock), most would do 900MHz (23% overclock), and beyond 900MHz is down to luck. Now let's think 6970...how many of them can achieve 16% overclock, which is around 1,021MHz (880MHz x 1.161)? Most likely...very very few, and 23% overclock is most likely out of question (880MHz x 1.23=1,082MHz).

Mr Krugga · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:30

Admiral Huddy said:
This maybe a daft question, but what games can't you play on the 6970 which you can on the 570?

You can play all games on this card. Some like DiRT 2, Far Cry 2 or Hawx will play better on GTX570 (as in around 20% better) but they are not very demanding games and a few others will feel better with HD6970.

Marine-RX179 said:
Well, if we look beyond comparison at stock speed and actually consider overclock, which card do you think would do better of overclock?

GTX570 stock clock: 732MHz
6970 stock clock: 880MHz

GTX570 has already been confirmed to be able to easily overclock to 850MHz (16.1% overclock), most would do 900MHz, and beyond 900MHz is down to luck. Now let's think 6970...how many of them can achieve 16% overclock, which is around 1,021MHz (880MHz x 1.161)? Most likely...very very few...

I fail to see why they wouldn't overclock by 15% at least.

Sycho · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:31

I've gone from a 5870 to a 6970 only because i am going crossfire with the 6970 and i am upgrading to a 30 inch monitor otherwise i wouldn't of done it.

I would stick with your 6970 since it probably will improve like the 5870 did and with 2011 probably containing more DX11 games which will have tessellation then it will be great in these.

kitch9 · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:34

Mr Krugga said:
You can play all games on this card. Some like DiRT 2, Far Cry 2 or Hawx will play better on GTX570 (as in around 20% better) but they are not very demanding games and a few others will feel better with HD6970.

I fail to see why they wouldn't overclock by 15% at least.

I don't either, just looking at the overdrive settings at it appears the TDP of the board is rated at 250W, but by default is running at 190W.

You can feel free to turn up the power in overdrive if you want quicker speeds, quite impressive actually.

Marine-RX179 · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:40

Mr Krugga said:
I fail to see why they wouldn't overclock by 15% at least.

May be I should put it this way...have you seen any review reporting that they managed to overclock the 6970 to 1,000MHz and beyond? Also, the current 880MHz stock clock is most likely already got clocked higher than what was planned for the launch back in November...