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XFX 5870 XXX vs XFX 6970

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Mazurizi

Mazurizi

Mazurizi

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Joined
27 Apr 2010
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Hello Guys,

Hope you can help - I recently RMA'd my XFX 5870 XXX and they discovered it to be faulty. They have sent me a replacement XFX 6970 - is this a good deal?

Looking on the net they seem fairly similar cards - I paid about £305 for the XXX about 12 months ago. The 6970s are currently selling at £300.

Is this a good deal?

Thanks for your help,
Maz.
 
Of course it is a good deal! 5870 to a 6970 is a free upgrade! (Bare in mind that a new 5870 is only £150 now). The 6970 should be around 10-15% faster. But the 6970 do have higher power consumption than the 5870, so you might want to check your PSU...what PSU have you got?
 
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Ok - yeah I understand this was a bit of a daft question.

Originally I bought 2 x XFX 5870s to Crossfire, but now the 6890 breaks the Crossfire and makes the 5870 redundant.

What can I do? Overclockers have basically told me to sell the 6890 and buy another 5870 as a replacement.
 
Get it straight.
Which card have you been given?
The 6870, or the 6970? The 6890 doesn't exist, and I find it hard to believe they've given you a 6970.

A 6870 is a downgrade over a 5870.
 
Mazurizi said:
Ok - yeah I understand this was a bit of a daft question.

Originally I bought 2 x XFX 5870s to Crossfire, but now the 6890 breaks the Crossfire and makes the 5870 redundant.

What can I do? Overclockers have basically told me to sell the 6890 and buy another 5870 as a replacement.
Click to expand...

What's a 6890?

What have they actually sent you?

Is that OcUK or another place?

You can't Crossfire a 5 series card with a 6 series card.

Ask them to send you another 5870 instead.
 
Sounds like a 6870 :P which be a bad deal if you have two 5870's before since you can't use 6000 cards with 5000s.
 
Apologies - they have sent me: XFX ATI Radeon 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I originally bought: XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Confused myself with the numbers! Sorry!

Thanks for the help so far :)
 
How did the 5870 break down anyway? 1 years life seems poor. Or did the 5870's come out in Christmas 2009?
 
V F said:
How did the 5870 break down anyway? 1 years life seems poor. Or did the 5870's come out in Christmas 2009?
Click to expand...

They came out September 09 IIRC.

Mazurizi said:
Apologies - they have sent me: XFX ATI Radeon 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I originally bought: XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Confused myself with the numbers! Sorry!

Thanks for the help so far :)
Click to expand...


A 6970 is the better card.
Just sell your spare 5870..

Brilliant CS from OCUK btw!
 
Mazurizi said:
Apologies - they have sent me: XFX ATI Radeon 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I originally bought: XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Confused myself with the numbers! Sorry!

Thanks for the help so far :)
Click to expand...

Well you've got a choice.

A new 5870 is £150 on OcUk (£158 from tomorrow):

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711

Either ask for one of those or try and sell the 6970 and buy a 5870.

Or just keep the 6970 and sell the 5870 but a 6970 is not as good as Crossfired 5870's:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/300?vs=292

Asking for a 5870 is the easiest option.

Selling the 6970 involves more effort. I'm not sure how much you could sell it for as the 6950 (which can be flashed to virtually a 6970) is available for £210.

Keeping the 6970 and selling your 5870 is an overall downgrade.
 
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Surveyor said:
Well you've got a choice.

A new 5870 is £150 on OcUk (£158 from tomorrow):

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711

Either ask for one of those or try and sell the 6970 and buy a 5870.

Or just keep the 6970 and sell the 5870 but a 6970 is not as good as Crossfired 5870's:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/300?vs=292

Asking for a 5870 is the easiest option.
Click to expand...
You'd have to be crazy to ask for a 5870 instead when got offered a 6970. Also, benchmark don't mean everything, as it doesn't tell about smoothness of the actual gaming experience or if there are any shuttering or poor Crossfire scaling issues for some games. Point is 6970 2GB is more than good enough for 1920 res...Crossfire 5870 might have higher frame rate, but does it actually feel and smoother than the 6970 2GB gaming at 1920 res? Most likely not...if anything the 6970 2GB would provide smoother experience due to no shuttering concern with multi-GPU.
 
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Isn't it sort of bad customer support from Overclockers to just send the card before confirming that I actually want the card?

The cards were bought together (not in a bundle) but in the same order so it would strongly suggest that I was going to Crossfire them.

I have been having a few issues with my current 5870 - the device driver seems to keep crashing when gaming, I have been onto XFX and they have suggested raising an RMA. I will be testing the card more thoroughly when I receive my replacement card.
 
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