• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Help me choose a gpu for my new rig

killianzz

killianzz

killianzz

Associate
Joined
16 Feb 2011
Posts
320
P8P67 pro
2500k
Gelid Tranquillo cpu cooler
OCZ platinum 1600mhz ram 4gb
Corsair TX750W psu
1TB Samsung Spintpoint F3

..and waiting very impatiently for the corsair 600t case in white:D

I need help choosing a graphics card. I have spent hours reading reviews on all the gpus in my price range, and the benchmarks and arguements have become more or less meaningless to me.

I will be playing some top end games, a lot of flight sim, and using it as a HTPC so a quiet card would be preferred (like the look of the twin frozrs - cool n quiet).

Budget is £270. I'd like to hear from anyone who has a current £200 to £300 card and what you like about it and why you chose it.

Two front runners for me at the moment are the 560 twin frozr and 570 twin frozr, however I don't care at all whether its amd or nvidia, please no fanboy-ism like the reviews ive been reading.

Thanks all.

EDIT: I also plan on adding another card in SLI after the first major price drop. I need they system to be good for 3 years.
 
Last edited:
I would say get an HD6950 and pop the HD6970 BIOS on it to unlock the extra performance, or the Asus GTX480 on offer.
 
Tute said:
I would say get an HD6950 and pop the HD6970 BIOS on it to unlock the extra performance, or the Asus GTX480 on offer.
Click to expand...

What is the success rate while doing that? Also what are the best 6950s for doing that to? What happens if the flash fails? Had a look at the GTX480, cracking card for £200, but a little too noisy for me by the sounds of things. Completely forgot to mention, but I am going to SLI the cards after the first major-ish price drop.
 
Success Rate appears to be 100%, although there were rumours going around that ATI were looking to block it with a new card revision. I don't know how true that was, I was hoping an actual owner of the card would pop in and clarify. :p

As for the flash itself, the card has a switch on the top to switch to a backup BIOS so you're covered in the event of a bad flash.

The GTX480 is a noisy card, yes. I believe our own TWFox sent his back for a GTX570 on the basis of noise. But the GTX570 carries a premium over the GTX480.

There's also the option of the GTX560 with a hefty overclock - something in the region of 950MHz+ on the core would put it right there with the GTX480. But i'm not allowed to recommend that, because it only has 1024MB GDDR5. :p
 
I have been tempted to go down that road before I must say, but I was hesitant after I heard of a few people who got artifacting on their flashed 6950s, although they could have been some undercover nvidia fankids. I wouldn't normally mind a 480 too much, if I hadnt just specced a pc on how quiet the components were. There is definitely a premium, but I reckon that its made up for by the fact its quieter and greatly overclockable. Have you heard of anyone running flashed 6950s in xfire?
 
Nvidia cards seem to handle cloud formations better than AMD cards, so if that's your main use then go for it.
 
480 is an absolute bargain for £200, very little difference between it and the 570 in terms of performance. Its just a shame that it sounds like an airbus on full thrust. Gtx 570 for £280 or flashed 2gb 6950 with equal performance for £220ish. I know the flashing is a little bit long but im not sure whether the graphical difference between cloud rendering is really justifiable for £60. I could spend that on a more beasty cpu cooler, and push a 4.8ghz overclock. FSX is very cpu intensive so I reckon this would probably be more worthwhile, opinions?
 
Id say that the 570 and 6950 are equals but the 6959 is better value for money. The 570 is more powerful.
If the op agrees with the above theb i think he should get the 570 as it will overclock to 580 levels
 
Cleeecooo said:
Id say that the 570 and 6950 are equals but the 6959 is better value for money. The 570 is more powerful.
If the op agrees with the above theb i think he should get the 570 as it will overclock to 580 levels
Click to expand...

No offence fella but how can they be equal if the 570 is more powerful as you rightly say? Do you mean equal in another respect? :)
 
I think he meant the 6970. Twin frozr 570 would overclock like a beast I imagine.
Do you any of you know about unlocking the 6950 shaders, rather than flashing to a 6970? Is there much of a difference?
 
GTX 480 if you dont mind the extra power usage and heat (although i dont find heat all that bad... but my case has good air flow) or spend a bit more and get the GTX 570. Same speed but less power usage and easier heat management.
 
I'd either get the 560 or 570 if im going nvidia. As theres a fair possiblilty of both the 6990 and gtx 590 coming out this month, it might be worth holding out until then, incase there are any juicy price drops. A 580 for £300 would be very nice. I cant imagine my corsair tx750w psu coping very well with 2 of them in SLI though!
 
At this point, I would suggest either a gtx480 or a 6950. The slight performance premium on both the 6970 and gtx570 do not justify the extra cost. If you are going for FsX, I would suggest a gtx480. for everything else, I would suggest a 6950 unlocked.

The gtx560 was instrumental in bringing the prices of AMD's cards down, but that has left it in somewhat murky waters itself. I wouldn't buy one as of this moment, unless the price is lowered another £15-20, as it is not as fast as a 6950 at stock or overclocked and only has 1gb of ram in it

*edit* on the subject of unlocking a 6950, it is safer to unlock the shaders than to flash the bios to a 6970, as the 6970's ram runs with different timings, as well as running a higher vcore. The issues that Tute found I'm guessing were people flashing the card.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom