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5850 to 6950 but which one?

liamcrane

liamcrane

liamcrane

Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2007
Posts
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Location
Essex
Hi guys

Im thinking of selling off my 5850 and treating myself to a 6950 but i am just not sure which one to go for. I think i have narrowed it down to the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 "Dual Fan Edition" 2048MB and the HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2048MB but just cant decide.

Hope someone could maybe help me out, im not going to really be able to afford a 7 series card i dont think. Also just curious to know if you think my PII 955 would bottleneck it at all? I feel its still a pretty good chip and i have it OC to 3.7ghz.

Hope you can help

Thanks a mill
 
I have the HIS and it's a great card. It's silent even under load. Mine has the shaders unlocked and runs happily at 900/1325 which is the max of CCC.
The 6950 2GB is essentially a 2GB 5850 with a bit more go and more ram, It will be better in games like BF3 where the Vram helps. You are not going to see massive gains in lower Vram usage games. If you are wanting to see a huge jump you would need to look at the 7x series.
 
The MSI TFII cards are very nice and the triple fan Gigabyte models if you can get them at a decent price. Failing that the Asus DCUII which has a triple height cooler and I believe they can flash to 6970.
 
Assuming you sell your 5850 and get £80 after less the delivery cost, you would still have to pay extra £120 (150% extra in cost) for what...extra 15-20% speed on the 6950?

And considering the timing, you'd best wait for AMD or Nvidia's new gen whatever card for under £250.
 
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Thanks for the advice guys, i did like the sapphire one mainly due to it having dual fans. Might sound silly but can you control the fans on these non reference cards?
 
MOOGLEYS said:
I have the HIS and it's a great card. It's silent even under load. Mine has the shaders unlocked and runs happily at 900/1325 which is the max of CCC.
The 6950 2GB is essentially a 2GB 5850 with a bit more go and more ram, It will be better in games like BF3 where the Vram helps. You are not going to see massive gains in lower Vram usage games. If you are wanting to see a huge jump you would need to look at the 7x series.
Click to expand...

How come overdrive lets you do 900/1325? My unlocked 6950 only allows 840/1325 in overdrive.
 
I know its not the same but I have the HIS ICEQ 5670 1GB card and really pleased with it, it runs cooler than what the stock benckmarks seem to indicate and quite quiet fans also
 
I use MSI at the mo so glad i will still be able to control the fan speed with it, never actually tried overclocking thru the CCC.

What kind of overclock would i be likely to get on a 6950? if i could hit 900mhz + id be well happy. I managed to get my 5850 to 900/1100 on around 1.189v but it didnt really seem to make any difference at all ingame. Im guessing maybe the 1gb of vram is maybe holding it back
 
What kind of overclock would i be likely to get on a 6950? if i could hit 900mhz + id be well happy. I managed to get my 5850 to 900/1100 on around 1.189v but it didnt really seem to make any difference at all ingame. Im guessing maybe the 1gb of vram is maybe holding it back
Click to expand...

I have the HIS and it's a great card. It's silent even under load. Mine has the shaders unlocked and runs happily at 900/1325 which is the max of CCC.
Click to expand...

Results may vary... :D
 
i think you are wise to hang on for a little bit longer . have you tried o/clocking your 5850 to get more juice out of it .
cheers
 
Cleeecooo said:
Not pointless IMO.

Also coming from someone who's done it :p

Depends if you're happy with performance :)
Click to expand...

in some games i notice nearly double performance especially with the extras on

for instance in bf3 whole point i upgraded i was getting 60 fps on low med

now i can play all high with msaa and get 60 constant the 5850 would manage about 40 max and 30 lowest .where as the 6950 ,60 is the lowest.

in dirt 3 another big difference it feels turbo charged at same res with everything max compared to the 5850
 
~>Dg<~ said:
in some games i notice nearly double performance especially with the extras on

for instance in bf3 whole point i upgraded i was getting 60 fps on low med

now i can play all high with msaa and get 60 constant the 5850 would manage about 40 max and 30 lowest .where as the 6950 ,60 is the lowest.

in dirt 3 another big difference it feels turbo charged at same res with everything max compared to the 5850
Click to expand...

Aye, it the more intensive games that you see te differences in.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
in some games i notice nearly double performance especially with the extras on

for instance in bf3 whole point i upgraded i was getting 60 fps on low med

now i can play all high with msaa and get 60 constant the 5850 would manage about 40 max and 30 lowest .where as the 6950 ,60 is the lowest.

in dirt 3 another big difference it feels turbo charged at same res with everything max compared to the 5850
Click to expand...

I'd like to believe what you're saying but I game at 2560x1440 and the difference is really rather small.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/512?vs=510

Not to mention that my 5850 overclocked by 40% with ease and the 6950 does 20% at most.
 
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