Having a har time choosing between 2 GFX cards

[DeltrusDisc]

Apparently NVidia does better at BF3 than AMD Radeon does, from what benchmarkers have said at least. Could have changed by now.

[Milkshake86]

AMD was pushed ahead more recently by a decent margain w/ the last driver update. In BF3 price to performance ratio AMD is king atm. Even w/ the old 980 BE and a 6970 your going to push better fps than even an intel setup, simply the game is extremely well optimized on cpu's and the 2 kings of graphics are working heavily to out do each other but if im not mistaken Physx is enabled in BF3 which actually is a detriment to benchmark performance.

[DeltrusDisc]

A 980BE will get better fps than a newer Sandy Bridge? Show me some proof, I've not heard this at all.

[GG you got me]

Btw milkshake did you look at the anandtech benchmarks side by side? And a stock speed 570 as well lol. And there is no nvidia physx in bf3. And please benchmarks for the 980 be beating i5-2500k since you mentioned amd against sandy bridge.

<SNIP>

Feel free to post and argue against other users, but do so without the personal attacks.

[DeltrusDisc]

Btw milkshake did you look at the anandtech benchmarks side by side? And a stock speed 570 as well lol. And there is no nvidia physx in bf3. And please benchmarks for the 980 be beating i5-2500k since you mentioned amd against sandy bridge.

<SNIP>

Honestly? Read his signature and edit your post... I'd agree with you if he didn't happen to own a 2500K OC'd to 4.5GHz.

[GG you got me]

Honestly? Read his signature and edit your post... I'd agree with you if he didn't happen to own a 2500K OC'd to 4.5GHz.

Was referring to his 6900 series gpu actually.

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2130506

[haxs101]

I love my 2 gtx 570's. AMD's drivers are awful.

I had a 5870 before my 570's, and a 4870 before my 5870.

[Milkshake86]

Honestly? Read his signature and edit your post... I'd agree with you if he didn't happen to own a 2500K OC'd to 4.5GHz.

Hey whoa its stable under 1.3v

[DeltrusDisc]

Hey whoa its stable under 1.3v

Even better. O_o That's a nice chip you got there.

[Milkshake86]

I love my 2 gtx 570's. AMD's drivers are awful.

I had a 5870 before my 570's, and a 4870 before my 5870.

Personally never had problems w/ the ati/amd drivers. Had minor issue's w/ Nvidia, but nothing to make me lean one way or the other on purchase. Only real purchasing factor is price to performance. Nothing on the nvidia side is bad or even not worth the price but when stuff like the sapphire 2gb 6950's are floating around, for $100 less than a 6970 give or take a few bucks then i'd have to nominate the 6950 2gb from sapphire as the best option in a $250 price range. I really wanted to get an MSI 6950 but it wouldnt unlock =(

Even better. O_o That's a nice chip you got there.

Funny story i push to 4.6 and I need 1.33, so im happy w/ 4.5

[Mybuddyphil]

A more expensive 1.2 GB vs. a cheaper 2 GB, while they perform roughly the same at lower-ish resolutions. The 6970 wins. The 2 GB should have more longevity, due to the fact that people are still using 4870's, and although they're not as efficient, or as powerful as the absolute top-end cards, they still pack enough punch to play most games on high/ultra, even to this day. The 570 draws slightly less power though.

Equal performance, and one has more longevity than the other. I'd go with the 6970.

[Milkshake86]

A 980BE will get better fps than a newer Sandy Bridge? Show me some proof, I've not heard this at all.

It was first noted in beta, and has came over into the retail release. It's minor to the point of 1 fps so it could be a skewed RNG moment of a pc. However the point was more along the lines of that an intel based system w/ like a 560 ti won't produce the same as a 980 be w/ a 6950. Kind of a CPU is not limiting you situation w/ battlefield.

However it would seem after looking over 7970 benchs that the AMD terrible crap bad drivers have 6970 knocking 580's by half a frame in battlefield 3. $400+ for a 580 and $300+ for a 6970, comes back to that price to performance concept. This also pretty much says directly that atm AMD is fairly well ahead. I love my old 460's but it may be an AMD year for gpu's. We still have no idea how the Bulldozer revisions will go, as the bulldozers failed miserably but still that potential is alive and being refined. Given time and such it might end up being an AMD year overall but im going to doubt it, ill say at best AMD will release much better chips but unless ivy ends up being a bulldozer ill put doubt in it.

[DeltrusDisc]

The absolute minimum we'll see with Ivy Bridge is about a 30% decrease in heat of the CPU and slightly better productivity, but nothing spectacular. Now an Ivy Bridge chip+Ivy Bridge chipset mobo (not P67/Z68) I want to see. Full on 3D transistors should be interesting.

In terms of GPUs, we'll see when NVidia gets their stuff released, I am making no final decisions till NVidia starts putting their cards out.

[Deleted]

It was first noted in beta, and has came over into the retail release. It's minor to the point of 1 fps so it could be a skewed RNG moment of a pc. However the point was more along the lines of that an intel based system w/ like a 560 ti won't produce the same as a 980 be w/ a 6950. Kind of a CPU is not limiting you situation w/ battlefield.

However it would seem after looking over 7970 benchs that the AMD terrible crap bad drivers have 6970 knocking 580's by half a frame in battlefield 3. $400+ for a 580 and $300+ for a 6970, comes back to that price to performance concept. This also pretty much says directly that atm AMD is fairly well ahead. I love my old 460's but it may be an AMD year for gpu's. We still have no idea how the Bulldozer revisions will go, as the bulldozers failed miserably but still that potential is alive and being refined. Given time and such it might end up being an AMD year overall but im going to doubt it, ill say at best AMD will release much better chips but unless ivy ends up being a bulldozer ill put doubt in it.

I'd wait for Nvidia's kepler before saying AMD is far ahead. If done wel, Nvidia can win back serious amounts of terrain with kepler...

Since we are having realeases of GPU's this year, I'd even wait with upgrading, just to see if there's anything worth mentioning between there... Don't know how the 7k series are doing, but they might as well be good enough to think about buying one.

[DeltrusDisc]

You don't know how the 7970s are doing?

They are doing pretty fantastic..... though I feel almost as if AMD was holding back, like they just made the 7970 to beat the 580.... they need to think about just what NVidia could put out for the 680/780. Who knows, NVidia could do something pretty incredible.

[Jurwi]

You don't know how the 7970s are doing?

They are doing pretty fantastic..... though I feel almost as if AMD was holding back, like they just made the 7970 to beat the 580.... they need to think about just what NVidia could put out for the 680/780. Who knows, NVidia could do something pretty incredible.

Their performance is good, but they also cost a ton, heat up like fuck (thus the stock cooler is insanely loud), and use a lot of power.

Which is kind of strange considering it's usually been totally opposite for AMD cards.

[Evildeffy]

Their performance is good, but they also cost a ton, heat up like fuck (thus the stock cooler is insanely loud), and use a lot of power.

Which is kind of strange considering it's usually been totally opposite for AMD cards.

Performance is superb, beating out the GTX580 with ease (especially if OCed).
They do cost a ton (i'm betting this is on purpose till nVidia releases their next high-end just to capitalize on cash (i would, and so would you!).
Heating up part is where it differs from every single site, generally i still see their max temp as below the 580s (pre-custom) and the same in regards to noise, half says it's not louder, and the other half says it is (HardOCP/Guru3D vs. Tom's Hardware/Overclockers Guru (i think)) silent, not louder then any other revision of reference coolers.

So i would say that would be up to the guys in here owning it already.

As for power, Guru3D f.ex. states it takes 210W, other sites state 275W, this is rather confusing and i don't know what to make of this, it has however always scored under the power use of a GTX580 on every review i read, so their "power use" is tame (as far as high end tame can be).

[glo]

I have the Powercolor HD6970 and the thing can be noisy at times, almost as if there is a dodgy bearing in the fan, then at other times its silent. If I pulled up wow now it would make hell of a racket (sounds like a loud harddrive accessing or something) then it would chill out after a few mins. At first I thought the issue was my power supply, then I thought it was the harddrive, but it turned out to be the graphics card. As I speak to you the thing is silent as can be, but its a loud bugger at times, can only imagine that at certain RPM ranges one of the fans is not feeling so good.

With that said out of my annoyance I would recommend the GTX570, even tho the HD6970 is most definitely a great card, possibly having to send it back for replacement in the near future is not something I enjoy when purchasing a product.

So you recommend Nvidia over AMD because you bought a flimsy/cheap version of the 6970? Oh please. AMD and Nvidia have nothing to do with the build quality of their cards.

Not sure if you're aware, but it's up to the card manufacturers on how much quality they put in the card. If you went with XFX/HIS/ASUS/etc, you probably wouldn't be having these problems. Same goes for Nvidia, there's plenty of shitty cards from manufacturers there as well. *cough... Galaxy and Zotac... *cough.

Please refrain from bashing certain brands in a non constructive way. Calling brand X "shitty" is not ok. Saying that brand X is worse than brand Y because of Z and Q is alright.

---------- Post added 2012-01-16 at 03:24 PM ----------

Their performance is good, but they also cost a ton, heat up like fuck (thus the stock cooler is insanely loud), and use a lot of power.

Which is kind of strange considering it's usually been totally opposite for AMD cards.

Because they're reference cards? Derp. Same thing will happen with Nvidia's 6xx release. You're not supposed to buy reference cards unless you're ready to have problems. That's the whole point of letting manufacturers perfect Nvidia's technology with better cooling, memory, and clocks.

[llDemonll]

So you recommend Nvidia over AMD because you bought a flimsy/cheap version of the 6970? Oh please. AMD and Nvidia have nothing to do with the build quality of their cards.

Not sure if you're aware, but it's up to the card manufacturers on how much quality they put in the card. If you went with XFX/HIS/ASUS/etc, you probably wouldn't be having these problems. Same goes for Nvidia, there's plenty of shitty cards from manufacturers there as well. *cough... Galaxy and Zotac... *cough.

I agree with this statement. There are the low-level brands for both AMD and Nvidia and they tend to be hit-and-miss in terms of build quality. Performance will all be the same assuming the specifics of the cards are the same, but the build quality of the fans and heat sinks is what you're paying more for. Pointless to recommend Nvidia because you had bad luck with a low-level AMD card, when the same thing could have happened with a low-level Nvidia card.

My money stays with the MSI Twin Frozr series. Whether you get AMD or Nvidia, I personally will keep buying the Twin Frozr cards until they come out with something better.

[Sumatran]

So between

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%206970

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127582

What would be the better option for SWTOR, WoW and say ME3?