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Which cards?

b34st

b34st

b34st

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Joined
1 Jul 2009
Posts
127
Two 1.5 GB will be faster than one 3 GB card by far.

I would say yes the extra money is worth it if you like 3D vision, PhysX etc, I personally don't like ATI, but that's just my opinion.

If you want to get 2 cards you could always get two 560 Ti's, they out perform a single 580, I only have the 1 GB VRAM versions, but they max out everything game I've played at 1080p, and are a lot cheaper than two 580's, but if you got the dough then get the two 580's as they will last longer.

VRAM isn't as big as an issue as people make out, a single card with 1GB will struggle a bit, but if you are going SLI then it won't matter, two 580's are not worth the money in my opinion, that's why I went for two 560 Ti's and I'm more than happy with performance.

But then again you could always wait for the new cards to come out if you can wait that is.
 
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2 1.5gb cards will eat anything up tbh and they are a lot faster than a single 3gb card. Though as previous post states it depends if you use 3d vision or not as 3gb is more beneficial.
 
Thanks for posting I will take a look at the 560 and 570s in that case. I will be going for a resoultion of 1920x1080 and im running an i7 920 overclocked to 4.1gb with gigabyte ud5 mobo and 6gb of ram Im also buying a Crucial M4 SSD with whichever gfx upgrade i go for
 
Talking about single card setups, your experience will be much the same using equivalent cards from either ATI or Nvidia. There are no real driver or performance issues with either. With 2 or more cards however it becomes a different story.

There are a lot of questions, disagreements and general uncertainties when it comes to drivers for multiple card setups. Generally speaking though, people seem to favor Nvidia for this - if only by a little... it is hard to guage. Certainly Nvidia seem to have their drivers ready faster, if less optimized than they could be. Though AMD usually release their drivers before too long anyway so it depends how long you are willing to wait.

the GTX 580 is a much stronger card than the 6950, but is the 580 worth the extra money? It is up to you. A more interesting factor is the amount of Vram. As stated above, two 1.5gb cards will be much faster in general than a single 3gb card. However some games (BF3 being an example I believe) take great advantage of the extra video memory. On that basis I would be tempted to buy the single 3gb card now, and drop another one in there when the price drops after Nvidia release their new cards in the new year.

A single 580 3GB will handle just about everything out now on high or ultra anyway.

Hope that all made sense

Edit: If you are going to look at the 560's make sure you look at the TI's
 
b34st said:
Thanks for posting I will take a look at the 560 and 570s in that case. I will be going for a resoultion of 1920x1080 and im running an i7 920 overclocked to 4.1gb with gigabyte ud5 mobo and 6gb of ram Im also buying a Crucial M4 SSD with whichever gfx upgrade i go for
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You will be fine with two 560 Ti (make sure it's the Ti version as it's a lot faster than the standard 560) or two 570's.
 
BluSky said:
the GTX 580 is a much stronger card than the 6950, but is the 580 worth the extra money? It is up to you. A more interesting factor is the amount of Vram. As stated above, two 1.5gb cards will be much faster in general than a single 3gb card. However some games (BF3 being an example I believe) take great advantage of the extra video memory. On that basis I would be tempted to buy the single 3gb card now, and drop another one in there when the price drops after Nvidia release their new cards in the new year.
TI's
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It is mainly bf3 that I am playing at the moment which is why I need to upgrade from my current 285. But I do play other games so want the best of eveything really.
 
b34st said:
It is mainly bf3 that I am playing at the moment which is why I need to upgrade from my current 285. But I do play other games so want the best of eveything really.
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Those two 560's you posted will run it perfectly.

I play bf3 at 1080p everything Ultra and 2X MSAA and it doesn't drop below 60fps, I also have the 1GB versions of the 560 Ti, so getting the 2GB version will obviously be a bit better.

Go for the 560's you posted if you want to save some dough, and they will be good for at least another year or so.
 
Thanks for the help, those 560's look like a good buy and will certaintly out perform most but for some reason I am still drawn to the 580's. you say the 560's will run bf3 and all current games perfectly and the 580's is overkill for the price? The only main difference is the 580's are more future proofed?

edit: what is with the ti? if i found a 2gb 570 is 560 ti still better?
 
b34st said:
Thanks for the help, those 560's look like a good buy and will certaintly out perform most but for some reason I am still drawn to the 580's. you say the 560's will run bf3 and all current games perfectly and the 580's is overkill for the price? The only main difference is the 580's are more future proofed?

edit: what is with the ti? if i found a 2gb 570 is 560 ti still better?
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Yeah I would say it is overkill for games today to be honest, it will give you great performance, but the price for two of them is not worth it, obviously it will be more future proofed, but it's like £700 for two of them, for £440 you can get the two 560's and max everything today, and for the next year or so.

the 570 is slightly better than the 560 Ti, but you can overclock the 560 Ti to 570 speeds, two 570's will cost nearly another £200 so again it's not worth it.

But like I say, if money is not an issue and you don't care about chucking nearly £700 towards graphics card then go for the 580's, it's entirely up to you, I'm just helping you save some cash.
 
Thanks again for the advice, I am prepared to spend the money if its needed but that doesnt mean I want to waste money unecessarilly, so I think I will go for the 260s unless I can find the 270s on offer.
 
b34st said:
Thanks again for the advice, I am prepared to spend the money if its needed but that doesnt mean I want to waste money unecessarilly
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Then wait for 7 series or Kepler/Fermi1

If you wait ~14 days the mid range Amd 7 series will be out and you will either get much better performance for the money, or those 2Gb cards(at a guess) will be much cheaper than today's prices.

If you absolutely must buy a card right now, just a suggestion from me would be to buy this 1Gb 560ti for £150: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...source=newsletterblackfriday&utm_medium=email and sell it on when the new cards come out, then spend your money on the new far better gpu's coming out soon.

If you are still set for splashing the cash regardless then there is this 2Gb 560ti for £196:http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-175-OK
 
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