Easy one this, as per title. Assuming I play an average spread of games at 1900x1200 max AA which card wins?

From my understanding it's a bit of a urinating contest between the 2?

This is all I can offer you.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=306

I understand the pickle that you're in. I'd go for what performs best on games that I like. I'd also lean towards which is cheaper but that's just me.

I would say the 570, though not by much. However, with AA applied it should pull ahead a little more.

For single card, in most cases a single GTX570 is faster than a single 6950.

If you are going to max out AA in every game then a single card may not be powerful enough. When you go for SLI/CrossfireX you'll need as much vram as you can get and in such case 6950 2GB x 2 is a better choice than GTX570 1.25GB x 2.

For 1080p or 1920x1200 I'd go for the 570. Anything higher and I'd want 2GB to max AA

I had the same choice and went for the 6970.

Currently there's very little in it, the 570 might edge slightly ahead in some things, but the 6970 does in others. I picked the 6970 to future proof, the 2GB of ram and better CF scaling than SLI tipped me that way.

ThomBassmonkey said:

Currently there's very little in it, the 570 might edge slightly ahead in some things, but the 6970 does in others. I picked the 6970 to future proof, the 2GB of ram and better CF scaling than SLI tipped me that way.

Click to expand...

+1

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-142-GW&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010
Free BAC for £234

Overclockable to 580 speeds(with less vram than the 580)

Or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-274-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Free Deus Ex and Dirt 3 for £250

Flick the bios switch and turn it into a full fat 6970 2Gb(not a guarantee), overclock it silly to sometimes even surpass a 580!

Or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-036-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Free Deus Ex and Dirt 3 for £210 and overclock it to 6970 speeds.

They are pretty similar except in crysis 2 where excessive tessellation is used and pretty much all amd cards are raped by even the 560Ti

rajravat said:

They are pretty similar except in crysis 2 where excessive tessellation is used and pretty much all amd cards are raped by even the 560Ti

Click to expand...

I don't wish to derail the thread but can someone explain to me the excessive tessellation thing with Crysis 2? I understand what tessellation is, just unsure how Crysis 2 uses it excessively compared to other games.

Adster3000 said:

I don't wish to derail the thread but can someone explain to me the excessive tessellation thing with Crysis 2? I understand what tessellation is, just unsure how Crysis 2 uses it excessively compared to other games.

Click to expand...

It renders tessellation where its not seen or needed which is pretty lazy of the developers. If you have an AMD card its easily fixed by turning down the tessellation rendering in the drivers which makes zero difference to image quality but fixes any performance issues you might otherwise get.

For example water is rendered and tesselated even when it cant be seen on every map ANY water exists.

@ Adster3000, heavy use of tesselation on things like flat concrete blocks, and tesselated water being rendered while not on screen:



http://techreport.com/articles.x/21404/1

Freddie1980 said:

It renders tessellation where its not seen or needed which is pretty lazy of the developers. If you have an AMD card its easily fixed by turning down the tessellation rendering in the drivers which makes zero difference to image quality but fixes any performance issues you might otherwise get.

Click to expand...

I thought the point of tessellation was that it increases the detail of an object the closer you get to it? Or am I missing something?

EDIT: Ignore this, it is explained very well above. Thanks!

harmony said:

For single card, in most cases a single GTX570 is faster than a single 6950.

If you are going to max out AA in every game then a single card may not be powerful enough. When you go for SLI/CrossfireX you'll need as much vram as you can get and in such case 6950 2GB x 2 is a better choice than GTX570 1.25GB x 2.

Click to expand...

He's talking about a 6970 unless I've read it wrong

At 1920x1200 or above the 6970 is slightly faster according to this review which uses a large number of games. The review is only a month old so drivers are pretty up to date. There really is nothing between the 2 cards but for me the extra ram on the 6970 would be more imporatant than the better overclocking potential on the gtx570.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/Mars_II/27.html

ThomBassmonkey said:

I had the same choice and went for the 6970.

Currently there's very little in it, the 570 might edge slightly ahead in some things, but the 6970 does in others. I picked the 6970 to future proof, the 2GB of ram and better CF scaling than SLI tipped me that way.

Click to expand...

Cross fire scaling I have to say is excellent.

Having used and owned the 6970 and gtx570, I'd go for the latter personally. Cooler at a given noise level and overclocks much better.

However, it's best to decide based on the games you play.

GTX 570. You get the option of 3D, and you get PhysX - Batman Arkham City is making me giddy with excitement

As for the AA argument, you reach the point where it stops making as much difference fairly quickly at your resolution, so all this 'OMFG MAXORZ!!1!' stuff isn't necessary. In my humble opinion, of course.