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New graphics Card - 6950 Advice

bindip1

bindip1

bindip1

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Joined
12 Feb 2007
Posts
354
Haven't kept up to date with the graphics card market recently.

I have a 4870 running @ 1680 x 1050.

Looking for a new graphics card to run BF3 nicely, I have a i7 930 with 6 gig of ram.

Budget is around £220. I have been looking at the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 "Dual Fan Edition". But one of the reviews says its not possible to unlock the shaders on that model. Is that true ?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-273-SP&tool=3

Is it worth getting another version ?

Is the Nvidia GTX 560Ti worth getting or shall I stick with the 6950 and clock it?


Sorry for the n00bie questions, thanks for any advice. :)
 
You will find it very hard to get a referance 6950 now as they are all sold out (only referance models are unlockable) and even if you did get one that unlocks you are only gaining a boost of around 3%. If you get the saphire model and overclock it 3% then you have the same boost.

It is possible that the next gen Ati cards will be released in the next 4-6 months so it may be worth holding on to your 4870 for a bit longer as they may bring down 6950 prices or release better 7*** series cards for the same price as the current 6950.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
The 4870 should still handle 1680 res ok...I would agree it's best that you leave your upgrade till next gen cards.
Click to expand...

It's fine for most games, but the top end games it does struggle a bit. It didn't run the BF3 alpha very well. I am mainly looking to run BF3 well, will the new ATI series be out before BF3 is out ?? or likely to be after ?
 
Generally I would stay away from Sapphire, because they are famous of castrating the voltage chips on non-reference cards to cut cost.
 
The performance gain from the shader unlock isn't noticeable compared to a moderate overclock.

A 6950 is a beast at your res.

I should know. I game at the same res and my oc'ed Rev 1 Sapphire 6950 works sweet with games from Metro to Shogun 2 Total War. The only time it's a bit iffy is with a heavily modified Crysis 1 and Crysis 2 hi-rez texture pack and everything maxed.
Try and find a £200 6950. Or get the MSI and overclock it.
 
bindip1 said:
Haven't kept up to date with the graphics card market recently.

I have a 4870 running @ 1680 x 1050.

Looking for a new graphics card to run BF3 nicely, I have a i7 930 with 6 gig of ram.

Budget is around £220. I have been looking at the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 "Dual Fan Edition". But one of the reviews says its not possible to unlock the shaders on that model. Is that true ?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-273-SP&tool=3

Is it worth getting another version ?

Is the Nvidia GTX 560Ti worth getting or shall I stick with the 6950 and clock it?


Sorry for the n00bie questions, thanks for any advice. :)
Click to expand...

I have tried to flash a few times today to unlock the shaders with this card i received today.

The flash is successful, but when rebooted the shaders stay the same and do not unlock according to GPUZ,so it looks like there are locked im afraid.
 
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