Decided to return XFX 6950 unopened

[Kudro]

IMO all current video cards are a rip-off compared to the GTX 460 which can be found for as low as ~$90. I would return a 6950 as well.

Say whaaa? Where? Where?!

 

[KevinH]

Say whaaa? Where? Where?!

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=397701&t=2505901

In and out of stock since yesterday evening.

I sat on it debating to grab 2 and the decision got taken out of my hands.

 

[ronnn]

IMO all current video cards are a rip-off compared to the GTX 460 which can be found for as low as ~$90. I would return a 6950 as well.

Certainly depends on your angle of approach. Having spent at least $1000 (likely much more, but don't really like to think about it), + 40 or so a month to connect - I think my vid card can be up to $300 without a big impact. So in that range I pick the one I like best and live with it for at least a year, likely 2.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

IMO all current video cards are a rip-off compared to the GTX 460 which can be found for as low as ~$90. I would return a 6950 as well.

Consensus is something that just doesn't exist on this subject.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Well, after reading all this I don't understand a few things.

Why does everyone need to know why someone is returning or refusing delivery of a card? I mean it's his or her time and money and whatnot. If they have a change of mind, it's fully within their rights to go another route.

Second, why is it that everyone sporting an AMD card in their system comes here and says "AMD drivers are fine!" and tries to defend something that was not attacked. I don't understand that...

 

[SickBeast]

Certainly depends on your angle of approach. Having spent at least $1000 (likely much more, but don't really like to think about it), + 40 or so a month to connect - I think my vid card can be up to $300 without a big impact. So in that range I pick the one I like best and live with it for at least a year, likely 2.

Well, 2 GTX 460's in SLI will basically be faster than a GTX 480 in most cases, provided that you use a reasonable resolution, and they cost only $180 compared to $400+. With your budget I would run a pair of 460's. I'd say they can even compete with a GTX 580.

 

[SickBeast]

Consensus is something that just doesn't exist on this subject.

I just don't understand all the people buying 6850's and 6950's when a GTX 460 can keep up with them overclocked for less money, plus they have more features. The only time I can see those AMD cards being useful is if you game at 2560x1600, and in that case I would hope you had 2 of them to even drive such an insane resolution.

 

[nitromullet]

Why does everyone need to know why someone is returning or refusing delivery of a card? I mean it's his or her time and money and whatnot. If they have a change of mind, it's fully within their rights to go another route.

Once you post something on an internet forum it becomes subject to public debate. If you don't want your opinion questioned, poked, prodded, disagreed with, twisted, distorted, misunderstood, contradicted, quoted, misquoted, and/or any of the other things that takes place here in a regular basis; don't post it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Once you post something on an internet forum it becomes subject to public debate. If you don't want your opinion questioned, poked, prodded, disagreed with, twisted, distorted, misunderstood contradicted, quoted, misquoted, and/or any of the other things that takes place here in a regular basis; don't post it.

Yeah, but everyone is all like "why? the 6950 is uber awesome and can bake you cakes daily"

Ok that's exaggerating, but it's like everyone is hurt because of someone else's decision.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

Well, after reading all this I don't understand a few things.

Why does everyone need to know why someone is returning or refusing delivery of a card? I mean it's his or her time and money and whatnot. If they have a change of mind, it's fully within their rights to go another route.

Second, why is it that everyone sporting an AMD card in their system comes here and says "AMD drivers are fine!" and tries to defend something that was not attacked. I don't understand that...

What I did was stupid, emotional, and akin to headlines like "Alien invited to dinner at the White House".

I canceled an order for what is a pretty hot and desirable new product that I'd gotten a really good price on. They had even included free shipping, and THAT is a rare deal indeed for we Chosen Frozen ones who live in Alaska. And I canceled it for a reason that was nonsense. The manufacturer had the temerity to issue an updated driver. Somewhere in Geek 101 we learn that the first thing you do when installing anything like a video card is to look for the NEWEST drivers...

I was having a VERY bad day. I use insulin and you have to be very careful to balance what you ingest with the type and amount of the drug. Something I usually do pretty well. On that day I'd had to work on what was normally my day off and had had to work a double shift. In addition several co-workers hadn't come in so I had little time to do things like eat. No excuses, I KNOW what I should do, but on that day it got away from me. Plus I've had a lot of orthopedic issues that cause a certain amount of discomfort, and that contributed to the gestalt as well.

Add in the fact that for some reason discussions about video cards among we "enthusiast's" often resembles the brawl one associates between the anti abortion zealots and those who favor a woman having the right to control her own body.

On one hand you are literally talking life and death and on the other it's about what flavor of video card you prefer. Hollywood writers aren't creative enough to make stuff like that up.

I really regret what I did, but life goes on. After a bag of M&Ms and a few shots of honey I discovered I had not made a very good decision. It happens even to the best of us sometimes.

When the reality of what I'd done set in it was too late to fix it, or at least fix it easily. So the card I bought has now been flown from Alaska to Kentucky and will eventually get back to where it started. When it does they will ship it BACK to me. Because I think it's the best bang for the buck given my present system and my plans to get into gaming.

 

[cmdrdredd]

What I did was stupid, emotional, and akin to headlines like "Alien invited to dinner at the White House".

I canceled an order for what is a pretty hot and desirable new product and did so for a reason that was nonsense.

I was having a VERY bad day. I use insulin and you have to be very careful to balance what you ingest with the type and amount of the drug. Something I usually do pretty well. On that day I'd had to work on what was normally my day off and had had to work a double shift. In addition several co-workers hadn't come in so I had little time to do things like eat. No excuses, I KNOW what I should do, but on that day it got away from me. Plus I've had a lot of orthopedic issues that cause a certain amount of discomfort, and that contributed to the gestalt as well.

Add in the fact that for some reason discussions about video cards among we "enthusiast's" often resembles the brawl one associates between the anti abortion zealots and those who favor a woman having the right to control her own body.

On one hand you are literally talking life and death and on the other it's about what flavor of video card you prefer. Hollywood writers aren't creative enough to make stuff like that up.

I really regret what I did, but life goes on. After a bag of M&Ms and a few shots of honey I discovered I had not made a very good decision. It happens even to the best of us sometimes.

When the reality of what I'd done set in it was too late to fix it, or at least fix it easily. So the card I bought has now been flown from Alaska to Kentucky and will eventually get back to where it started. When it does they will ship it BACK to me. Because I think it's the best bang for the buck given my present system and my plans to get into gaming.

Meh...if it were me I'd buy a GTX 570 anyway. I use CUDA and it's become an important feature.

All in all, I hope you're happy either way. That's most important of all.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

I just don't understand all the people buying 6850's and 6950's when a GTX 460 can keep up with them overclocked for less money, plus they have more features. The only time I can see those AMD cards being useful is if you game at 2560x1600, and in that case I would hope you had 2 of them to even drive such an insane resolution.

I have been tinkering with the idea of getting three monitors to play games on AND continue using my 52" high end HDTV for my primary desktop. I am under the impression the 6950 is a good card for that type of setup.

Although I have NOT been able to find specifics on whether what I have in mind will work. I want to run three monitors JUST FOR GAMING when seated at my desk and STILL be able to kick back in my LazyBoy to surf the web, watch TV and movies etc.

My rig:
Cooler Master 840 ATCS, Asus P6T6 WS REVOLUTION Intel X58, Intel Core I7 920, Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme CPU Cooler, Corsair TX-850 PSU, 6GB Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D DDR3, XFX 5700 LOANER, Intel X-25M 80GB System HDD, 1TB WD1001FALS Storage HDD, 4 Western Digital Elements 2TB Desktop External Hard Drives WDBAAU0020HBK-NESN For Audio files, DVD's and Blu Rays, Samsung SH-S223Q DVDRW, LG GBC-H20LI -Internal Blu-ray Disc ROM DVDRW, Logitech MX 3200 Laser Mouse, Logitech Illuminated Keyboard, Samsung 52" LN52B750 @ 1920x1080P,Pioneer VSX-1020-K AV Receiver, Klipsch RC-10 Center Channel Speaker, Klipsch RB-35 Front Surround Speakers, Klipsch RW-12 Subwoofer, Bose 201 Rear Surround Speakers, LazyBoy Comfy chair/Command Center

 

[Triggaaar]

Don't worry about it Wolf. You get people claming the strangest things on these forums, and when you said you were sending it back it's bait to all fanboys from whichever side.

When it does they will ship it BACK to me. Because I think it's the best bang for the buck given my present system and my plans to get into gaming.

That poor card has had a journey, I just hope it works without trouble when you get it.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

Meh...if it were me I'd buy a GTX 570 anyway. I use CUDA and it's become an important feature.

All in all, I hope you're happy either way. That's most important of all.

God help me, I don't know about Cuda or Physix.

You know I never thought that when I became 60 years old I'd have to go back to school to learn how to use my telephone, but I actually took a short class to learn more about my HTC Desire. I can surf the web, take videos, and see the weather stats on Anchorage, Shanghai, Scottsdale, and Aspen on ONE of my 7 screens. But I'm still a little shaky about making phone calls. I have been called a "World Class Butt Dialer". Something I had to Google.

Ain't being a Geek simply Capitol?

 

[SickBeast]

Alaska Wolf, I would say that it will be very hard to get a 6950 to properly drive 3 monitors. It would be plenty fast for a single screen at 1080P, but I would say you would need a CrossFire setup with a pair of them to run all 3 screens acceptably.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

That poor card has had a journey, I just hope it works without trouble when you get it.

I have the same concern. Can you imagine the joy of having to RMA it because it got toasted on it's journey from Earth to the Moon and back? I wish it qualified for air miles, I could darn near get a free flight to Hawaii...

 

[Alaska Wolf]

Alaska Wolf, I would say that it will be very hard to get a 6950 to properly drive 3 monitors. It would be plenty fast for a single screen at 1080P, but I would say you would need a CrossFire setup with a pair of them to run all 3 screens acceptably.

4, 4 monitors. 3 using Eyefinity for gaming, and the fourth as my primary desktop.

The single 6950 HAS the horsepower to do that. These new AMD cards SHINE when it comes to multiple monitor setups.

But I'm not sure if that particular configuration is possible without a switch or some dongle.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

Don't worry about it Wolf. You get people claming the strangest things on these forums, and when you said you were sending it back it's bait to all fanboys from whichever side.

Elwood P. Dowd: "Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it."

James Stewart as Elwood P Dowd in Harvey, 1950

 

[SickBeast]

4, 4 monitors. 3 using Eyefinity for gaming, and the fourth as my primary desktop.

The single 6950 HAS the horsepower to do that. These new AMD cards SHINE when it comes to multiple monitor setups.

But I'm not sure if that particular configuration is possible without a switch or some dongle.

AFAIK you can do it without a dongle.

That said, you'd better be running some low-resolution monitors to try to drive them with that single card. Certain games will only hit ~35FPS at 1920x1200 on that card.

 

[Alaska Wolf]

AFAIK you can do it without a dongle.

That said, you'd better be running some low-resolution monitors to try to drive them with that single card. Certain games will only hit ~35FPS at 1920x1200 on that card.

I have no games at all, yet. I plan on taking advantage of the sale on Steam tomorrow or at least this weekend.

And for another $280 or so I should be able to add another 6950 to my system in CF. Think THAT would do the trick?

 

[Cerb]

Since NV is so good with drivers "And I mean that" Then why don't they fix EVGA Precision to where it stops keeping my set fan speeds at startup ?

Have you tried switching to Afterburner? It should work, is mainly written by the same guy, and seems to be rather solid.

 

[Gloomy]

I don't understand why people don't ever notice that cards are usually benchmarked at the highest settings.

My suggestion is to tweak the settings and see if lower settings are acceptable to you. If they're not, then buy another card.

 

[evolucion8]

I just don't understand all the people buying 6850's and 6950's when a GTX 460 can keep up with them overclocked for less money, plus they have more features. The only time I can see those AMD cards being useful is if you game at 2560x1600, and in that case I would hope you had 2 of them to even drive such an insane resolution.

Anandtech's review of the HD 6970 doesn't show that. The GTX 460 FTW edition can only match the GTX 470 stock and sometimes outperforms it slightly reaching the HD 5870, sometimes slightly faster, sometimes slightly slower, often slower than faster, which is not enough to outperform the HD 6950 which is consistently faster than the GTX 470 in 6 of 10 games, plus it puts a good fight with the GTX 570 which is in a different league against the GTX 460. The GTX 460 offers incredibly performance for the price, far more bang for the buck than any other GTX 5x0 or HD 69x0 series, but also is slower than all of them.

 

[SickBeast]

I have no games at all, yet. I plan on taking advantage of the sale on Steam tomorrow or at least this weekend.

And for another $280 or so I should be able to add another 6950 to my system in CF. Think THAT would do the trick?

Yes, that would do the trick, but it's a ton of money to spend on a graphics setup. IMO you would be much better off going with a pair of GTX 460's for less than $200 for the pair (if you can find a hot deal on them).

That pair of 460's will crush a single 6950 for way less money, and should give you what you are looking for in terms of a multi monitor setup.

If you don't have an SLI motherboard, there is a patch for the latest NV drivers that apparently will let you use SLI on an intel or AMD CrossFire motherboard.

 

[SickBeast]

Anandtech's review of the HD 6970 doesn't show that. The GTX 460 FTW edition can only match the GTX 470 stock and sometimes outperforms it slightly reaching the HD 5870, sometimes slightly faster, sometimes slightly slower, often slower than faster, which is not enough to outperform the HD 6950 which is consistently faster than the GTX 470 in 6 of 10 games, plus it puts a good fight with the GTX 570 which is in a different league against the GTX 460. The GTX 460 offers incredibly performance for the price, far more bang for the buck than any other GTX 5x0 or HD 69x0 series, but also is slower than all of them.

I don't see any overclocked GTX 460's in the AT review of the 6970/6950.

The GTX 460 is known to be an overclocking beast that can clock up to 950mhz on the core from its stock frequency of ~700mhz.