Calling all 6950 owners advice please

BaNksY IV · 29 Dec 2011 at 22:13

Hello

Straight to the point really,
Are you still happy with your 6950 cards?
What brand do you have?
Are you looking at the 79xx and thinking i could do with that extra oomph?
Ive been looking to buy one for the last 3months but been advised to wait because of the 79xx series coming out, now i know these are expensive, are they worth the extra if you game at1080p

Thanks people

Sayso · 29 Dec 2011 at 22:34

ive got a 6950 VTX, got it for £200 on release day. The stock cooler was very noisy and the temps i was getting were high.
My card can unlock shaders but is a bad over clocker.
Overall there hasn't been a game i haven't been able to play at good frame rates this year i play at 1680x1050 keep wanting to change screen but i like the aspect ratio and it will only be worth upgrading if i go to 27" which are a bit out of my price range at the moment.

i would wait to see what the 7950 costs...even the 7850, the prices being touted for the 7970 are about what i expected but i go for the £200ish cards.

Kei · 29 Dec 2011 at 22:34

Are you still happy with your 6950?

Yes

What brand do you have?

Sapphire toxic edition

Are you looking at the 79xx and thinking i could do with that extra oomph?

Grass is greener and all that so yes, but i sure as hell am not paying more than i paid for the 6950 to get one. (i was used to paying around £150-200 for a top of the range card as i only upgrade every couple of years.)

I've been looking to buy one for the last 3months but been advised to wait because of the 79xx series coming out, now i know these are expensive, are they worth the extra if you game at 1080p

I've not had any trouble with the games i play at 1080p (but BF3/crysis/metro aren't games that i play) Skyrim can have its slow patches but i believe that is down to the cpu.

muggs · 29 Dec 2011 at 23:18

Sayso said:
ive got a 6950 VTX, got it for £200 on release day. The stock cooler was very noisy and the temps i was getting were high.
My card can unlock shaders but is a bad over clocker.
Overall there hasn't been a game i haven't been able to play at good frame rates this year i play at 1680x1050 keep wanting to change screen but i like the aspect ratio and it will only be worth upgrading if i go to 27" which are a bit out of my price range at the moment.

i would wait to see what the 7950 costs...even the 7850, the prices being touted for the 7970 are about what i expected but i go for the £200ish cards.

i got two of those same deal, one is a great overclocker the other is not so great. what does yours clock to out of interest.

1 of these would be fine for 1080p with a sandy bridge, you be able to max out aa on a lot of games too, what processor have you got?

dwskillz · 29 Dec 2011 at 23:27

im only looking at the 79xx series because the extra vram will help with my 2560x1440 resolution

muggs · 29 Dec 2011 at 23:37

dwskillz said:
im only looking at the 79xx series because the extra vram will help with my 2560x1440 resolution

i think 2gb would be fine at that res, well certainly for the games of now and the past.

BaNksY IV · 29 Dec 2011 at 23:41

I have a i7 860 at the mo and a ati 5770 . the new build im doing will be a i5 2500k
I do play bf3, skyrim, cod4 etc.
Thanks so far people, think im swaying towards getting one then wait for the price war around the kepler release!

DarkHorizon472 · 29 Dec 2011 at 23:45

I very recently bought the msi 6950 2 gb in my signature below. It runs bf3 fine at 1080p with fps of 60 or greater even on 64 player servers with a lot going on. I play on a combination of medium and high settings as for me higher fps is more important.

While playing bf3 my gpu is at 100% while my CPU is well below 100%.

I was going to wait for the 7xxx series but saw the initial pricing and it was over twice what I wanted to pay.

Hope that helps

ThePengu1n · 30 Dec 2011 at 00:29

Running 2 msi twin frozr (2 and 3) 6950's in XFire and they destroy most things at max setting on 1080p, I still want a couple of 7970's though, cos they're newer and better, but unless they are really cheap, I will just stick with what I have now.

tommybhoy · 30 Dec 2011 at 01:24

Running 2 6950 unlocked to 6970's more or less since launch(1st Dec, 2nd one Feb), both capable of 1GHz in CrossFire using AC Extreme coolers!

Not swapping these 2 any time soon as they eat everything you throw at them and considerably outperform both the 580(only £30 extra for 26950's) and 7970 @1080p too!

steve45 · 30 Dec 2011 at 01:46

BaNksY IV said:
Are you still happy with your 6950 cards?
Yep not come across anything that i can say have made my CF'd 6950's struggle much, can max out all the games i play and still have comfortable headroom in the fps department

What brand do you have?
CF'd MSI R6950 TFIII PE/OC

Are you looking at the 79xx and thinking i could do with that extra oomph?
nope not interested at all, when my system starts to struggle then i may consider upgrading to what ever is around at the time, but i have no intention upgrading this soon, only had them for about 6 months.

i play on 1920x1080, as i say not an issue at all.

however if I was buying new now on a single card, and i didnt already have the 6950's, I dont think i'd still go for the 6950, i'd probably put my money on the msi 6970 TFIII(with the intention of CF in the near future) or splash out big on the 7970 if i had the money.
all depends on the budget.

Si105 · 30 Dec 2011 at 02:01

Very happy with the Twin Frozr II version, so much so I just bought a Twin Frozr III for Crossfire.

Number_25 · 30 Dec 2011 at 02:23

Are you still happy with your 6950?

Yes, although I wished I kept back a bit as I bought it on release and ended up paying £35 more than I should have!

What brand do you have?

Sapphire Reference 2gb.

Are you looking at the 79xx and thinking i could do with that extra oomph?

After Overclockers UK posted up some benchmarks I looked on with envy, however on further inspection I'm quite pleased with what I've got!

I've been looking to buy one for the last 3months but been advised to wait because of the 79xx series coming out, now i know these are expensive, are they worth the extra if you game at 1080p

The 6950 is fine if you game at 1080p!

bro-tip:- Unlock it to a 6970 for added "oomph" - link

BaNksY IV · 30 Dec 2011 at 02:24

I nearly pressed the button to order the 6970 msi that overclockers had thn realised just as i was about to order that it will not fit the case i have 2 cm too long! Besides looks like a few people have had problems with them maybe a faulty batch?
260 quid was/is the top of my budget really unless there is 7950 is 300 quid and more future proof then id probably go for that, would want the new car to last at least 2 years.

Surveyor · 30 Dec 2011 at 02:35

Number_25 said:
bro-tip:- Unlock it to a 6970 for added "oomph" - link

bro-tip:- Unlocking is far from guaranteed with the currently available cards.

Surveyor · 30 Dec 2011 at 02:37

BaNksY IV said:
I nearly pressed the button to order the 6970 msi that overclockers had thn realised just as i was about to order that it will not fit the case i have 2 cm too long! Besides looks like a few people have had problems with them maybe a faulty batch?

The reason they're 'cheap' is because they're this card but they haven't been tested to see if they meet the grade.

Omega · 30 Dec 2011 at 05:33

Was gonna go for the 7xxx and worked out it wouldnt be worth it unless I bought 2... So instead I bought a Dell U3011

BaNksY IV · 30 Dec 2011 at 15:12

Cool thanks for the input people.
Im 99% sure i will order the sapphire 6950 with the dual bios as this card has a high success rate with unlocking to 6970.
Also with the 6950 i can order a i5 2500k and motherboard for the same price as a 7970 give or take!

Sayso · 30 Dec 2011 at 16:08

muggs said:
i got two of those same deal, one is a great overclocker the other is not so great. what does yours clock to out of interest.

880/1250 have benched higher though but just not stable enough, i was hoping putting under water would allow me to give it some and TBH if i switched back to stock shaders rather that 6970 i think it would clock a lot higher.

Alex74 · 30 Dec 2011 at 16:37

BaNksY IV said:
Hello

Straight to the point really,
Are you still happy with your 6950 cards? yes
What brand do you have? MSI TwinFrozr III PE
Are you looking at the 79xx and thinking i could do with that extra oomph? Not yet
Ive been looking to buy one for the last 3months but been advised to wait because of the 79xx series coming out, now i know these are expensive, are they worth the extra if you game at1080p

Thanks people

I have two of them, still love them to bits. Shouldnt need new cards for a while and i'm gaming at 1440p