• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

u 2711 arriving soon.. gfx update needed?

seems a bit of a mix of opinions with most saying 2x5870 or just stick as it is..

not many saying go for the 6950>6970
 
If you find you need to upgrade, I'd say get another 5870 - I don't think a 6870 is substantially better than a 5870 - so you'd end up needing two of those anyway.
 
I have the same monitor as you, the U2711 and went for the 6950@70 and I am well happy indeed. It flies at 2560x1440, much better than my overclocked 460 GTX. :)
 
Hello, the 6xxx series has much improved scaling in CF so 2x5870 is at the moment terrible value for the money because even 2x6850 is better or at least equal in performance so you would be much better with selling the 5870 and buying 2x6850 (note that of course single 5870 is > single 6850). Also with higher res you want as much video ram as possible, with 2x5870 you would be still limited to 1GB. So unless you are budget limited I would recommend you buying something more adequate for the that monitor - not only for games that are already out, but also to be future proof (although Metro 2033 has future-like requirements even today) - for example Crysis 2 is coming soon and I bet you would like to run it as smooth as possible ;-)
Have a look at some of the reviews e.g. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/13 how do the various cards scale based on the res and make your decision. I would recommend you to buy at least 2x6950 for that monitor (to be future proof) or wait until AMD/Nvidia next gen dual GPU arrives. (which should be soon)
 
If it were me I would stick with the 5870 and see how my games performed at the new resolution.

If your system starts to struggle then lower or completely disable AA on all games as you really dont need AA at such a high resolution.

If your still not happy with game performance then I would add a second 5870 for xfire as it would be the most cost effective upgrade for you at the moment.
 
I just sold this monitor, for that resolution I was running 2 x gtx 480 and it pretty much ran everything amazingly well!

Probably if I was you I would get 2 x 6950 flash them, and run in Xfire.
 
personally i think that people get far too hung up upon the amount of video ram needed.
i think back to when i had a 8800gts 320 and i got my 24" 1920x1200 screen, people were telling me that it would run anything at that resolution, well it did, it managed fine, maybe a few frames per second slower but it was able to do it.
now when your talking about a card that has 1Gb against cards that have more, well i defiantly wouldn't be selling one and buying the other if i wasn't upgrading my graphics card anyway.

bottom line 1Gb cards will still do the business at your new resolution so don't worry about it.

heres a link as just to show that the extra memory even though it helps it doesn't suddenly make the lower equipped card useless.

http://www.*****.net/content/item.php?item=23079&page=6


edit: sorry here it is as an image becuase you cant link to hex...net

1gbvrs2gb.jpg
 
Last edited:
I had a Gigabyte 460 GTX overclocked to 800/4000 and it struggled on my Dell U2711 at the native resolution in both StarCraft 2 and BFBC2 (and Vietnam). I could play but the framerate wasn't great. In Metro 2033 it was a joke and couldn't even play.

I upgraded to a 6950 and unlocked the shaders and overclocked it and now I am laughing with consistent 60 fps in both StarCraft 2 and BFBC2. And I can at least play Metro 2033.

So, yes 2GB at that resolution make a difference. I would still try your 5870 and see if you are happy with it.
 
You can unlock a 6950 to a 6970 for free at the moment but I agree it is poor value if you already own a 5870 and getting a second one for CrossFire makes more sense.
 
ive decided to go for the 6950 >flashed> 6970 for £205 delivered as i can sell my 5870 for £175 take home which puts it at only £30 pounds more, im going to stick with that and if i have to lower the details on a few games thats fine, ill add a second 6950 when games get too demanding when im having to turn down the graphics on more and more games

the ocuk one was just too much money [£50 extra], my main reason for the 6950 is the much improved xfire ability later
 
Last edited:
nice one mate, hope it all goes ok. As a recommendation, get the shaders unlock and then overclock it, less possibility of breaking it.
 
Ezyryder said:
nice one mate, hope it all goes ok. As a recommendation, get the shaders unlock and then overclock it, less possibility of breaking it.
Click to expand...

I hope you enjoy your new card and as above, just unlock the shaders and keep the memory timings at 6950 level. It's the safest path to take. I'm contemplating using RBE to raise my voltages or SmartDoctor but at 880Mhz core I'm happy for now until something simpler comes along. Either that or until I get bored :D.
 
the card arrived today, its come from a proper shop i think, its got an invoice and google brings up a shop address, also looks like its bgrade to to box damage which is good with me, saved me £25-30

ive never had much luck overclocking gfx cards before, just got artefacts and didnt want to try anything else as i got scared lol so ill just unlock it and thats all, again, at least for now,
hopefully it will be a little while before i feel the need to put in a second one
 
Last edited:
al4x said:
the card arrived today, its come from a proper shop i think, its got an invoice and google brings up a shop address, also looks like its bgrade to to box damage which is good with me, saved me £25-30

ive never had much luck overclocking gfx cards before, just got artefacts and didnt want to try anything else as i got scared lol so ill just unlock it and thats all, again, at least for now,
hopefully it will be a little while before i feel the need to put in a second one
Click to expand...

Shweet :D. Get it installed and let us know what you think. My jump was from a 4870 512mb to the 6950. Also with a processor jump up and 1Ghz over my old 3.2Ghz overclock on my Intel Pentium E2180 so I seen a massive boost in my gaming.

Obviously your journey will be different than mine but I'm hoping you notice a difference as I've seen a few who have changed from the high end 5 series to the high end 6 series and they have all had smiley faces after posting their opinion :).

Edit due to you editing your post while I was writing this* Aye, just unlock the shaders. Install MSI Afterburner and enable unofficial overclocking. With the 6950 stock voltages you should reach 880Mhz on the core at least and when there is voltage control you can try and surpass that further down the line. If you don't want to even bother with MSI Afterburner then it's nothing big because it's only 40Mhz extra on the core which will not be significant enough to make an unplayable game playable.
 
Last edited:
yeah that is a big jump, ill no doubt end up having a play with those settings at some point, probably sooner than later lol, im hoping the extra ram will be useful for this higher res screen, i expect the real benifit will come when i am 'forced' to xfire this card lol

im also quite happy the brand is xfx
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom