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570 or 6950 toxic?

JoeUk

JoeUk

JoeUk

Associate
Joined
2 May 2006
Posts
137
Hi guys,

I'm in a dilemma with which card to choose - I've got my eyes on both the MSI twin frozr version of the 570 or the Sapphire 6950 Toxic. They both seem to be pretty similar but I wondering in real world usage which one would suit me better.

I'll be playing at 1080p rez.. is the added ram from the ATI worth it? I also hear that it has a bios switch built in which unlocks the shaders.. all a bit confusing really.

All I'd really like to know is - which is quieter and which would play games best with aims to buy another in 6 months time? The price isn't so huge between them that it's a factor.

Cheers :)
 
Don't bother with unlocking the shader - it's only worth 3% performance increase.

The large vram on 6950 can be an advantage if you plan to go for CrossfireX in the future. Meanwhile, it is a bad idea to do SLI with the GTX570 with only 1.25GB vram. If you listen to those who say it's fine to go SLI with only 1.25GB vram per GPU then you might eventually regret when you find the truth. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18284509

If you are never going to do SLI/CrossfireX in the future, then the extra vram on the 6950 wouldn't give you any real benefit, unless you do abnormal things such like WoW dual-instance. This is because when you crank up the AA level and graphics settings, before you run out of vram, you already lack the GPU power.

If you are going to do SLI/CrossfireX in the future, then I'd recommend cards with OTES design (e.g. 6950 toxic). Also remember to get enough vram (i.e. at least 1.5GB vram per GPU).
 
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Aha I get it - well to be honest I was thinking of going SLI / Crossfire in the future as I've never done it before, I can see where the limited ram might hurt.. especially in the future with battlefield etc.

Well seeing as you say its not worth to unlock - would I be better off getting the Twin frozr version of the 6950? It seems a more popular card?

Right now I want good performance from 1 card in 1080p.. so I'm hoping either of these will do it for me, but the 570 is the better card if by itself.. right? Was just hoping to drop in another card when things start slowing down or the prices drop on second hand market.

I suppose price is a concern too ;) I just don't want to get a gimped card.. done that too many times!
 
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The VRAM issue will only be a concern if you jump up to 2560 x 1600 or a surround/eyefinity setup. 1.3GB is plenty at 1080p.

The 570 has a better cooler and an extra year's warranty, but the 6950 is a bit cheaper, comes with an extra game, and has more VRAM.

At the end of the day though, either one is a very good card. Pick one, and be happy with your choice.
 
You can get the MSI 6950 Twin Frozr II for £190 delivered free from a competitor. That makes it considerably better value than the 570.
 
OTES design means the cooler exhaust most of the heat out of the case.

Twin Frozr coolers are bad choices for SLI/CrossfireX. They dump most of the heat inside the case, and before your case can exhaust the heat, the hot air simply heats up your upper cards. Most SLI/CrossfireX users suffering from overheating problems are indeed using such non-reference coolers. That's why I recommend the 6950 Toxic for CrossfireX. I would stay away from the Twin Frozr II coolers, as I have ever used three cards with it and two of them had noisy fans - they produce intermittent noise and it's pretty hard to RMA (OcUK will charge you £20 each time they fail to reproduce the noise problem). Not sure about Twin Frozr III though.

Yes if you will never go for SLI/CrossfireX then the GTX570 is a faster card than the 6950 in most cases.

After having played with lots of cards, I'd say the best bang for buck in 40nm process is the 6950 2GB x 2 CrossfireX, which even beats GTX580 x 2 SLI in certain cases.

You could also wait for the upcoming 28nm cards. Die-shrink / pipe-cleaners might come by the end of this year but the flagships will come next year.
 
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Tediore said:
The VRAM issue will only be a concern if you jump up to 2560 x 1600 or a surround/eyefinity setup. 1.3GB is plenty at 1080p.

The 570 has a better cooler and an extra year's warranty, but the 6950 is a bit cheaper, comes with an extra game, and has more VRAM.

At the end of the day though, either one is a very good card. Pick one, and be happy with your choice.
Click to expand...

1280MB vram is not plenty for 1080p. You can't max out GTA4 and Shogun 2 if you don't hack the games.
 
harmony said:
1280MB vram is not plenty for 1080p. You can't max out GTA4 and Shogun 2 if you don't hack the games.
Click to expand...

I believe there's some truth in what you say. However, if you don't use very high levels of AA or have particularly high minimum frame rate requirements then I think they are fine for gaming. I appreciate that some people will have different wants and needs for minimum acceptable frame rates, but most I think will find 570 SLI or 1gb crossfire / SLI more than adequate at 1080p. :)
 
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harmony said:
Don't bother with unlocking the shader
Click to expand...

It's already unlocked!
Flicking the bios switch on the 6950 toxic more or less turns it into a 6970 although it's not guaranteed to work. In the case of the Toxic you'd be mad to pay extra and not run the card unlocked.

harmony said:
it's only worth 3% performance increase.
Click to expand...

Out of the 3 games tested in [H]'s review, there was a difference of at least 4%, the highest was 10%.

A 4 to 10% increase in performance is usually why people would buy a 580 over a 6970.

As said above though, are the 2 cards worth £40 extra over the twin frozr that can be found elsewhere.

Regarding vram @ 1080p, in light of the vram usage now available to Amd users, take note that if Crysis 2 uses 1.5 Gb with the 2Gb 6950>70 due to the use of high res textures/tessalation(regardless whether it's poorly implemented or not!), what will BF3 use considering lead development is for PC.

Yes 1Gb will also run using 1Gb, but until we see Crysis 2 benchmarks, it remains to be seen what kind of hit(if any) a 1Gb limit imposes at 1080p.
 
I've gone for the twin frozr simply because it's a bargain.. at that price I can buy it without sweating and sell it on if the new AMD tech is great, and if not - buy another in the future when things slow down
 
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