6950 CF or 580 GTX

[Drazn]

Hey guys, I am building a new system and I am torn between these 2 cards. So if it was up to you guys what would you buy 2 x 6950s or 580 GTX? I am going to be playing on a single monitor running at 1920 x 1200.


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[NTAC]

I went with 2 x 6950s... the dirt 3 edition, had some good deals and you got two copies of the game for free that was nice.

As far as performance goes, it rocks, but with crossfire you'll always encounter those random issues with some games that don't play well with crossfire...

Still, I'm very happy with my setup at this point, BF3 is my bitch!!!

I'm on one monitor 1680 x 1050.

 

[nsavop]

Hey guys, I am building a new system and I am torn between these 2 cards. So if it was up to you guys what would you buy 2 x 6950s or 580 GTX? I am going to be playing on a single monitor running at 1920 x 1200.


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I personally always go with the fastest single card i can afford, i did have a sli set up and didnt like the lack of support from certain games and micro stutter.

A gtx 580 will handle most games at max setting, if you need more you could always sli in the future.

 

[Wuzup101]

I personally went for the xfire setup - but again both are good options and should be able to play most games at max settings at your resolution. You don't have to worry about the (generally minor) issues that can plague an xfire / sli setup either... which is nice (though I honestly haven't really had any to speak of).

 

[IGhzI]

If your going to go with the 580 wait till amd 7000 series is released the price will drop big time. But as performance the 6950 cf wins.. either way just wait on a gpu the 7000 series looks awesome

 

[RavenSEAL]

6950 x 10000000000000000000000.

Hell, my HD 6870 CrossFireX has 23 FPS on most GTX 580s with low/mild overclocks.

 

[Drazn]

hmm so if you were going to buy a video card right now. what would it be? I dont want to buy something expensive because im waiting for the 7000 to drop.

 

[Subyman]

hmm so if you were going to buy a video card right now. what would it be? I dont want to buy something expensive because im waiting for the 7000 to drop.

I would get a 560 or 560TI to hold me over until the next gen. They handle pretty much anything you need. You can pick them up for around 180-200 on specials and you could resell it in a month or two for 120-150.

 

[Elfear]

A pair of 6950's will manhandle a GTX 580. You do have to deal with the occasional driver update for maximum Crossfire compatibility but that has been pretty rare for me. Skyrim has been the only game I've played lately where I had to wait for Crossfire support.

That being said, it might be better to buy a 6850/6870/GTX 560 to tide you over until the new cards come out.

 

[alcoholbob]

Thing with crossfire is, with games at launch, a lot of times there is no CF support, and by the time the driver comes out, you already beat the game, lol.

 

[Silverforce11]

Thing with crossfire is, with games at launch, a lot of times there is no CF support, and by the time the driver comes out, you already beat the game, lol.

Bullshit. This comment can't slide.

Name the "lot of times" games in recent history that had CF problems?

Besides Skyrim (which had fixes if users could be bothered to troubleshoot) and RAGE (which doesn't matter because its frame rate cap so CF/SLI does jack all).

 

[stuup1dmofo]

Bullshit. This comment can't slide.

Name the "lot of times" games in recent history that had CF problems?

Besides Skyrim (which had fixes if users could be bothered to troubleshoot) and RAGE (which doesn't matter because its frame rate cap so CF/SLI does jack all).

Terraria.

 

[nsavop]

Bullshit. This comment can't slide.

Name the "lot of times" games in recent history that had CF problems?

Besides Skyrim (which had fixes if users could be bothered to troubleshoot) and RAGE (which doesn't matter because its frame rate cap so CF/SLI does jack all).

Saints Row 3, LOTR: War in the North, The Witcher 2, Skyrim, Rage

 

[Silverforce11]

Skyrim/Rage CF issues were easily fixed even on release.

That leaves 3 games, fixed pretty quickly with drivers. Prolly with 3rd party tools before drivers fixed.

Doesn't seem like a big deal to warrant "lot of times" comment. More like exceptions than the norm.

 

[Raxes]

Woah woah woah, @Silverforce11 - if by 'Fixed Pretty Quickly' you mean within a month, maybe - which was the case with RAGE. My second 5850 (overclocked same as yours!) died just before skyrim came out so I don't know how long that took and I still haven't played RAGE due to the blue texture problem.

The point is, I've had an issue requiring waiting for a driver fix with every major release this year except battlefield 3, and that is unacceptable.

 

[Silverforce11]

I've been playing skyrim since release with no problems whatsoever. Took a dx9.dll fix 2 days after release when i had CF 5850 and it scaled great. The publishers botched the inclusion of an out of date dx9.dll for the game release.

RAGE i have not played but benches have it running 60 fps locked even on modest gpus so whats the point of CF or not. Similar to the new NFS, 30 fps lock.. why do game devs do that? RAGE is also a a full on TWIMTBP title and expecting things to work great out of the box on those games is asking NV to play nice.

 

[Mistwalker]

I've been playing skyrim since release with no problems whatsoever. Took a dx9.dll fix 2 days after release when i had CF 5850 and it scaled great. The publishers botched the inclusion of an out of date dx9.dll for the game release.

Workarounds don't equate to proper driver support, which was the original subject of discussion. I was able to use Radeon Pro to force various profiles, and finally settled on a dx9.dll file posted on some forum, and you know what? They all provided a boost to performance. They also each introduced various visual artifacts, from black, blocky fire effects to corrupt map screens to messed up transparency effects.

RAGE i have not played but benches have it running 60 fps locked even on modest gpus so whats the point of CF or not. Similar to the new NFS, 30 fps lock.. why do game devs do that? RAGE is also a a full on TWIMTBP title and expecting things to work great out of the box on those games is asking NV to play nice.

Irrelevant. Whether you personally think Crossfire is necessary has nothing to do with the fact that official support was well over a month after release.

The point was made that AMD has dropped the ball providing timely Crossfire support, you can't call bullshit and then provide reasons why it was delayed--the fact remains it was delayed. Skyrim was two weeks, Rage was much, much longer than that. These are pretty big titles to drop the ball on, that's a fact...attacking the games themselves to excuse lack of driver support is just weird.

 

[Silverforce11]

If you cant hack troubleshooting or using work arounds, dont use CF or SLI. /end

 

[Mistwalker]

If you cant hack troubleshooting or using work arounds, dont use CF or SLI. /end

Wow.

To the OP: Honestly a pair of 6950s will give you a large performance lead over a single 580 for not a lot more money, *when CF works* (which to be fair is the vast majority of the time, barring some new release hiccups). However, with the new generation of cards possibly a month away, I would strongly suggest waiting if at all possible. The 580 in particular is a poor value now and if the 7000 series delivers, should be seeing some significant price cuts once AMD's new lineup comes out, and the new cards might just be the better option all around.

 

[Silverforce11]

Wow.

To the OP: Honestly a pair of 6950s will give you a large performance lead over a single 580 for not a lot more money, *when CF works* (which to be fair is the vast majority of the time, barring some new release hiccups). However, with the new generation of cards possibly a month away, I would strongly suggest waiting if at all possible. The 580 in particular is a poor value now and if the 7000 series delivers, should be seeing some significant price cuts once AMD's new lineup comes out, and the new cards might just be the better option all around.

Quoting for emphasis: "which to be fair is the vast majority of the time, barring some new release hiccups"

Thats my point. Both CF and SLI have issues, but they are always exceptions and not the norm. People trash talking AMD for driver issues have no idea, go visit NV tech support forums, or heck, even the last time with Dragon Age 2, not so long ago.

They will always have issues once in awhile, if you cannot be arsed to troubleshoot, CF/SLI IS NOT FOR YOU.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I have had very slight issues with 6950 in crossfire.

The biggest being getting support for games to work in xfire.

Would I do it again? hell yeah! I still have them .

 

[Jacky60]

6950 crossfire all the way. Yes sometimes new games don't have immediate support BUT this is unusual and not the norm and 6950 xfire will p..s all over a 580. They scale really well too. I'd go 6950 xfire over a single 580 EVERY time. Not to say a 580 isn't a great card and the best single card solution generally but for the money the performance (which is, lets face it, THE most important thing) improvement is gonna be really noticeable and you get more memory per gpu which is becoming increasingly important.

 

[Smartazz]

Normally I'd advocate the most powerful single GPU, however dual 6950 2GB cards absolutely slaughters the 580 when Crossfire scales well. However dual 6950s would be overkill for 1920x1200, and is a bad choice imo, especially when we're getting close to 28nm GPUs.

 

[ghost recon88]

I'd take the GTX 580, will hold it's value and won't have all the extra heat from two cards and Crossfire patch issue.

 

[Smartazz]

I'd take the GTX 580, will hold it's value and won't have all the extra heat from two cards and Crossfire patch issue.

The heat is probably pretty comparable tbh.