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xfx ATI 6950 or gigabyte GTX 470 SOC

I have the OCZ ModXStream here & haven't had any problems with it.

Had 2 overclocked 5770's, i7@4ghz, 5 hard drives, 1 cd drive & 4 120mm case fans + various usb devices running off without any problems. The cards you're looking at are more power hungry than the 5770 though.

Not sure if it would run 2 470's in sli though, but it might handle 2 6950's ok :

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3744/his_radeon_hd_6950_2gb_video_card_in_crossfire/index17.html

438w at full load, although the pc in the review only includes the cpu at 4.2ghz, 1 hd & 1 cd drive.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/24

470w here. 100w less than 470 sli.
 
Nice as the 470s are, I would suggest the 6950. It is faster, can unlock to a6970, has more RAM, runs faster in multi card setups and is subject to further driver based advances. The gtx470 is EOL, inefficient and by the time you want to multi GPU it they will be hard to get hold of. Between a gtx470 and a 6950, for the love of god get a 6950!
 
6950 is good, but not all are guaranteed to unlock to 6970 speed, and from what ive seen lately, theyre not great overclocking cards, the 470 is old but theyre proven clockers, 800 mhz seems to be very easily achievable, and at the minute nvidia driver support seems to be a lot better, another thing ive noticed lately, ati 6 series owners reporting high temps in game, ironic when they all slagged the 470's for being hot running, theyre reporting temps higher than my 470's have ever seen.
 
setter said:
6950 is good, but not all are guaranteed to unlock to 6970 speed, and from what ive seen lately, theyre not great overclocking cards, the 470 is old but theyre proven clockers, 800 mhz seems to be very easily achievable, and at the minute nvidia driver support seems to be a lot better, another thing ive noticed lately, ati 6 series owners reporting high temps in game, ironic when they all slagged the 470's for being hot running, theyre reporting temps higher than my 470's have ever seen.
Click to expand...

At this point I would avoid a GTX470 anyway. 6950 notwithstanding, you can get your hands on a 5870 at OCuk for £190 anyway (£15 cheaper), which is faster and cooler than a GTX470s.

The only problems with the above two cards is that the only way to upgrade to a dual card system a la OP will be to buy second hand, as both 5870 and GTX470 are now EOL.

*edit* with regards to running temperatures, I have had a look around at reviews and the prevailing result is that the 6970 at stock seems about 2-3 degrees hotter than the GTX580 at stock.

*edit 2* with regards to driver problems, I certainly wouldn't base my purchase on the drivers, as drivers are a very subjective criterion by which to measure a graphics card. I myself had nothing but trouble with my 880GTX320, my GTX280 and my mate's new GTX460 768mb, whereas the two 3870s and 5870 I have had have been rock solid.
 
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True for standard 470's, but the op is looking at the gigabyte soc versions, and tbh you cannot compare them to a reference cooled 470 like i use, they run a lot cooler, quieter and use less power, theyll overclock a lot higher and still run cool/quiet, neither the 5870 or 6950 are that good at overclocking, tbh the overclocks ive seen people reporting on them arent that impressive tbh.
 
setter said:
True for standard 470's, but the op is looking at the gigabyte soc versions, and tbh you cannot compare them to a reference cooled 470 like i use, they run a lot cooler, quieter and use less power, theyll overclock a lot higher and still run cool/quiet, neither the 5870 or 6950 are that good at overclocking, tbh the overclocks ive seen people reporting on them arent that impressive tbh.
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Once again, I've had a look around at review of the cards at the prevailing conclusion is that when both the 6950 and GTX470 are overclocked the 6950 is still slightly ahead, with the 5870 still trading blows.

Between the GTX470, 6950 and 5870, the main differences is price. The 5870 is the cheapest, and that's what gets my vote, with the 6950 getting the next best vote with the opportunity for flashing to a 6970
 
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You should try looking for some comparisons, do your homework first!

Reviews
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3744/his_radeon_hd_6950_2gb_video_card_in_crossfire/index.html

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3...eforce_gtx_470s_in_sli_overclocked/index.html



From what I have seen the 6950 slaughters the 470. ATI have stepped up their crossfire scaling for the 6 series.

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Take into account that most 6950's unlock to 6970 speeds. If they don't unlock to 6970 then you can unlock the shaders. All it takes is clicking on a batch file, it really is that easy.





setter said:
6950 is good, but not all are guaranteed to unlock to 6970 speed, and from what ive seen lately, theyre not great overclocking cards, the 470 is old but theyre proven clockers, 800 mhz seems to be very easily achievable
Click to expand...

Great advice for a card that's been out for less than a month.
Don't you think it may overclock better with afterburner (when it's supported).
 
I can only go by my own experience, i dont put any faith in review site benchmarks as they dont reflect real users setups, but ill agree, the 6950 is a great card, same price as the 470 soc, give or take a few quid, but the soc is not the same card as a standard 470 gtx, i know from using them that 470's are very good overclockers, the 6900 series arent great yet, but that may improve with later drivers, from my own use, the 470's are excellent cards:)
 
6950 without a shadow of a doubt.

Just came off a 875/1275 5850, that card rivals a 470, not much can compete with the 6950 even at stock. I really did love my 5850, but it just isnt a contest.

200 was never better spent.
 
lol now i am really confused

theres just as many 470 voter than there is 6950

if the 470 is now EOL what would be the next card from nvidia to replace the 470 ???

if i get the 6950 it will be the XFX model, do these cards unlock to 6970's ??

beasty
 
For the exact same money as the GTX470 SOC you could have a 6950, which unless I'm much mistaken is a fair bit faster, and does overclock (maybe not as well as the 470, but it's faster in the first place). A 470 is not going to overclock to GTX480 speeds unless you get them to over 850 core, which is hardly guaranteed, and something that I'd use watercooling for.

The 6950 also has other benefits such as extra memory (although the importance depends on your resolution - I find that Black Ops at 1920x1080 can approach 1GB memory usage, and it's not that demanding, so Metro or Crysis might push the 1280MB barrier), a second BIOS (so you could flash the Asus BIOS for unlocked voltage tuning - without much worry as you have a back up BIOS), and the card is a little lighter on the power/heat front (50W less power consumption, ~10C less heat). Oh, and of course the good probability of unlocking to a 6970.

setter, no offence, but how exactly would a Gigabyte 470 SOC have a lower power consumption figure when it uses the same GPU core and memory as all the other GTX470s, at higher than stock clock rates?

The 6950's resale value should also be higher for longer too.
 
Nah, in very rare circumstances you won't be able to use PhysX (oh noes!) in the games where it's actually featured, and in Batman you couldn't use AA (though Nvidia cards can't with NFS: Hot Pursuit right now either...)

I would also suggest going for the OcUK value card, as the 2 year warranty is direct with OcUK rather than XFX (whose RMA process is meant to be rather poor).
 
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