MSI 570 GTX Twin Frozr III or MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II?

[Elgitaro]

Hi guys,

I am about to buy a video card and need help. Just building a system with i5 2500k,8GB or Ram, 1000W Silverstone PSU, MSI z68a-gd55 g3 motherboard. My monitor is Dell 24 inch, supporting 1920x1200 resolution.

Question is should I get MSI 570 GTX 1280mb Twin Frozr III or MSI R6950 2GB Twin Frozr II? Planning to CF or SLI in future. 570 gtx is faster than 6950, but lacking vram. On the other hand, I think R6950 can be modded to 6970 and shaders can be unlocked. Which card should I go for?

Thanks in advance!

 

[happy medium]

Wait for the new gtx560ti 448 core to come out next week.

 

[lehtv]

If planning to CF or SLI, neither. I wouldn't want the Twin Frozr cooler in dual-GPU. The heatpipes are near the mobo, so hot air will get packed between the cards, at least in theory. XFX and PowerColor 6950 have heatpipes away from the mobo and the cooler shroud near the mobo is fairly sealed so hot air will mostly exhaust away from the gap between the cards.

Unlocking the shaders gives a pretty meager performance boost. Overclocking the 6950 to 6970 speed or beyond should have a bigger impact

 

[mosox]

USA? That GTX570 is $370

This one is $320 after the mail-in rebate card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102957

 

[Elgitaro]

USA? That GTX570 is $370

This one is $320 after the mail-in rebate card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102957

No I am not in USA.

 

[lehtv]

So where are you then .........?

 

[Elgitaro]

So where are you then .........?

In Turkey Having stock problems here unfortunately. I need to decide between the two cards.

 

[jacktesterson]

I'd buy the 6950 over a 570, better value IMO

 

[Stuka87]

I would take the 6950. That 2GB of video memory comes in handy for modern games. And its a fair amount cheaper (here anyway).

 

[amenx]

Dont figure vid ram into this (unless you have multi-monitors or 2560x1600 screen), figure actual performance. Check benches in games that you play and see if performance is worth price difference.

 

[Mem]

Dont figure vid ram into this (unless you have multi-monitors or 2560x1600 screen), figure actual performance. Check benches in games that you play and see if performance is worth price difference.

I disagree,http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18344284 ,some games do need 2GB and as we know in the old days it was 64mb,128mb,512mb,1GB and now more 2GB games are coming.

Its quite self explanatory that a 2GB VRAM graphics card is a requirement for Battlefield 3 if your playing at resolutions of 1920x1080 or higher, especially with high detail settings.

What is scary is that a 2GB card is upto twice as fast as the equivalent 1GB card.

Releasing this information we deem vital to our customers to ensure they can make the correct purchasing decision, yes I can forsee us having major overstock issues with older 1GB cards, but we feel that customers need to know that going forward new modern games need more memory and 1GB cards simply don't cut it anymore if your planning on gaming at 1920x1080 or higher resolution.

 

[amenx]

Which is why I said "Check benches in games that you play". In the vast majority of games the 570 rapes the 6950.

 

[jacktesterson]

Which is why I said "Check benches in games that you play". In the vast majority of games the 570 rapes the 6950.

For $75+ more money

 

[amenx]

For $75+ more money

Thats the nature of the game isnt it? Faster cards cost more. Theres a nice price spread between the 6850, 6870, 6950, 6970 too.

 

[bryanW1995]

Depends on price. Gtx 570 is worth $75 more, it's a much faster card. At your resolution I'd lean that direction unless the price delta is too great.

 

[tviceman]

My personal recommendation is to get the best card you can afford to buy.

 

[railven]

I disagree,http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18344284 ,some games do need 2GB and as we know in the old days it was 64mb,128mb,512mb,1GB and now more 2GB games are coming.

Am I the only one having issues with this "study?" Basically a GPU vendor ran an independant study to show that 2GB versions of the GTX 560 ti are better for BF3 than the 1GB GTX 560 ti, and then go on to link their stock? Oh, one of their partners also found similar results?

Why didn't they show the a GTX 570 as a comparable in the metrics? I'd be curious to see how it would fair in their study. I mean, at least in the USA you can get a GTX 570 for $20 more after rebates than a GTX 560 ti 2GB.

Conflict of interest sensor going off.

 

[KingFatty]

As to the 1 GB vs 2 GB of ram for the video card, I believe it comes down to whether you will be running crossfire/SLI.

Although it's true that 2 GB allows you to potentially max/ultra everything, the question is whether the card has the raw power to support that. it may turn out that the GPU is just not powerful enough to give you decent FPS when you crank up the settings that would be able to use more than 1 GB of ram.

But in crossfire, using multiple GPUs will provide the processing power to render scenes that could take advantage of a full 2 GB of video memory.

Taking the 6950 as an example, I'd say you should decide whether to get 1 GB or 2 GB based on whether you plan to crossfire it or if you think it will be easier to resell later when someone else is looking to crossfire his 2 GB card in the future and wants to buy yours. If you buy a 1 GB card, I think less people will want to buy that from you in the future for crossfire (but people will still want to buy it for just a straight non-crossfire upgrade).

 

[railven]

As to the 1 GB vs 2 GB of ram for the video card, I believe it comes down to whether you will be running crossfire/SLI.

Although it's true that 2 GB allows you to potentially max/ultra everything, the question is whether the card has the raw power to support that. it may turn out that the GPU is just not powerful enough to give you decent FPS when you crank up the settings that would be able to use more than 1 GB of ram.

But in crossfire, using multiple GPUs will provide the processing power to render scenes that could take advantage of a full 2 GB of video memory.

Taking the 6950 as an example, I'd say you should decide whether to get 1 GB or 2 GB based on whether you plan to crossfire it or if you think it will be easier to resell later when someone else is looking to crossfire his 2 GB card in the future and wants to buy yours. If you buy a 1 GB card, I think less people will want to buy that from you in the future for crossfire (but people will still want to buy it for just a straight non-crossfire upgrade).

An understandable position to take. When looking at the Radeon's it is an easier pill to swallow going from 1GB to 2GBs since it's often just $10-20 depending on vendor and rebates. On the GTX's side the cost is anywhere from $30-50 more. At that point, pony up the extra $20 and buy the tier above. GTX 560 ti 2GB/GTX 570 2GB - I'd just buy a GTX 570 or GTX 580.

As you note: the raw GPU processing power will give you the function for that extra RAM to use. Also, even if you are CFX/SLI if you are only using one monitor - what's the point? 2x6950 2GBs vs 2x6950 1GBs on a 1920x1080 display - eyecandy be damn, you'll max out almost anything @ 60FPS with the 1GB cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

HD6950 2GB cannot really take advantage of 2GB of Ram at 1920x1200 (i.e., when you need 2GB of VRAM like with 8xAA or in games like Shogun 2, a single 6950 won't be fast enough anyway). If you were considering 2 cards, then for sure I'd pick 6950 2GB in CF. Also, GTX570 has far higher overclocking room and scales better with overclocking. There are also almost no games where the 6950 is faster than a 570. 570 on the other hand is much faster in Crysis 2, Hawx 2, Civilization 5, Lost Planet 2 and in Battlefield 3. GTX570 is roughly 15-16% faster on average at your resolution in a variety of games. It also has PhysX support (which may or may not matter), it has superior Tessellation performance.

Also, I am pretty sure you can unlock Twin Frozr III but not sure about Version II. If there is a large price difference (say more than $75-100), then HD6950 starts to make sense. But if they are priced very close, 570 is the faster card.

HD6950 is a competitor to the GTX560Ti, while GTX570 trades blows with an HD6970, as this review illustrates.

 

[ocre]

HD6950 2GB cannot really take advantage of 2GB of Ram at 1920x1200 (i.e., when you need 2GB of VRAM like with 8xAA or in games like Shogun 2, a single 6950 won't be fast enough anyway). If you were considering 2 cards, then for sure I'd pick 6950 2GB in CF. Also, GTX570 has far higher overclocking room and scales better with overclocking. There are also almost no games where the 6950 is faster than a 570. 570 on the other hand is much faster in Crysis 2, Hawx 2, Civilization 5, Lost Planet 2 and in Battlefield 3. GTX570 is roughly 15-16% faster on average at your resolution in a variety of games. It also has PhysX support (which may or may not matter), it has superior Tessellation performance.

Also, I am pretty sure you can unlock Twin Frozr III but not sure about Version II. If there is a large price difference (say more than $75-100), then HD6950 starts to make sense. But if they are priced very close, 570 is the faster card.

HD6950 is a competitor to the GTX560Ti, while GTX570 trades blows with an HD6970, as this review illustrates.

+1

stop the insanity!!!