Sli 570 vs CF 6950 2560x1600 gaming

[Snowshredder102]

I am getting a high resolution monitor very soon and debating which video cards would be better to get. I would normally go with the 6950's, but I have heard some pretty bad things about their drivers. An easy fix would be going with the 570's but I'm very concerned that 1.25 GB VRAM might not cut it vs 6950's 2GB's. Anyone have any ideas, trying to look for video cards on black Friday.

 

[happy medium]

I suggest you dont buy a 2500x1600 monitor till the new cards come out in 2 months, if you can.

We need the specs of the rest of your system also.

 

[tweakboy]

The monitor you get will have probably 5ms response if not more. Games FPS games the mouse will have lag when vsync is on. Also there will be ghosting and motion blur.

Why you wanting to go SLI or Xfire route. People dont understand its better to get a single card power house then do this SLI stuff with a 570 and a 6950.

Get a GTX 590 with 2GB VRAM and your set. This single card will blow away your xfire or SLi treatment. gl

 

[tweakboy]

Also you will OC the heck out of the card. I suggest EVGA #1 nvidia graphics provider in the world.

Youll OC it soo much it will act like a GTX 600. Heat is a issue with SLI , their gonna pancake eachother,, youll have to open your side case and aim 120mm fans at both cards. OCing the cards is a pain and your OC wont be much thing will be too hot already no head room for OCing. gl

 

[Snowshredder102]

I suggest you dont buy a 2500x1600 monitor till the new cards come out in 2 months, if you can.

We need the specs of the rest of your system also.

I've been hearing a lot of speculation with the 28nm cards some saying it's not going be much of an upgrade and some people saying it's going to be blazingly faster. When they come out won't they be pretty expensive? I got i7-920 clocked at 4.1 ghz and 6 gigs of ram.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Running on XDR2 ram thats a bit more bandwidth they need some serious horsepower as well otherwise its going to be the bottleneck.
The problem is only the 580 got the horsepower to make use of lots of vram.

The 570 can do it only in certain situations depends as it doesnt have the horsepower that the 580s got.

Also remember SLI or CF is still being seen as 2 separate GPU's rather than one big rendering action.

 

[happy medium]

When they come out won't they be pretty expensive?

Yea, but they will also be at least 50% faster.
I bet a single high end card will run 2500x1500 resolution just fine with the next round of cards for the same price of 2 6950's.

Mabe 2 6870 2gb cards for now? They are only 179$ eachAR with a free copy of Dirt 3 on Newegg.
They are about 20% faster than a gtx580 and should be just fine for you till the next generation comes out and prices drop a bit..

2 high end, next generation cards will max your system with that cpu @ 4.1.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

The monitor you get will have probably 5ms response if not more. Games FPS games the mouse will have lag when vsync is on. Also there will be ghosting and motion blur.

Why you wanting to go SLI or Xfire route. People dont understand its better to get a single card power house then do this SLI stuff with a 570 and a 6950.

Get a GTX 590 with 2GB VRAM and your set. This single card will blow away your xfire or SLi treatment. gl

You don't even know what a GTX 590 is. It is SLI on one PCB, you gain nothing from this.

 

[Silverforce11]

Yea, but they will also be at least 50% faster.

All signs point to the 28nm high end as massive monolithic dies from both companies, due to the TDP and thermal solutions outed. I am eagerly awaiting next gen, grab the best single gpu card and call it a day.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I am getting a high resolution monitor very soon and debating which video cards would be better to get. I would normally go with the 6950's, but I have heard some pretty bad things about their drivers. An easy fix would be going with the 570's but I'm very concerned that 1.25 GB VRAM might not cut it vs 6950's 2GB's. Anyone have any ideas, trying to look for video cards on black Friday.

570 sli here you will be fine at that resolution. I game 5760x1200. Some games I have to sacrifice some AA that is all. In BF3 I run everything high in surround view fine (hbao and blur off). I can enable the post AA but MSAA will cause some slow downs.

at 2560x1600 you should be less limited

 

[mrjoltcola]

Get a GTX 590 with 2GB VRAM and your set. This single card will blow away your xfire or SLi treatment. gl

No way. Bad advice for multiple reasons.

The 590 is underclocked and overpriced.

It is a huge price to pay for a single card with more points of failure. What happens after warranty runs out and a part fails? Your whole shebang down the drain.

1) 570 SLI outperforms a 590
2) 570 SLI will cost less if you shop around
3) 580 SLI will allow you to buy in phases, and far outperform a 590

To the OP: 570 SLI will run great on that display. If your max budget is $600, then that is my choice. If, however, long-term you are willing to add more $$, start with the single 580 today for $450-$480. Add a second later.

 

[3DVagabond]

I'd recommend the CF 6950's. The additional VRAM and perf/$ are better than the 570. The 570 also has a rep for not being particularly robust when O/C'ing. Most of the new Sapphire 6950's come with the 2nd bios already unlocked. This gen CF scales better than SLI.

 

[Pandora's Box]

Those of you telling him to wait for next gen, may I ask why? What games can current gen cards in crossfire or sli not provide excellent frame rates for?

 

[Silverforce11]

Some people like to build their gaming rigs to be a tiny weeny bit "future proof" and not build their entire system around current games.

However, even now, at 1600p, cards CF or SLI with less than 2gb vram can't run BF3 with MSAA (not that it matters but just for fun).

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Those of you telling him to wait for next gen, may I ask why? What games can current gen cards in crossfire or sli not provide excellent frame rates for?

I myself am waiting because of all the headaches/issues inherent with crossfire/sli setups. Ask all the people waiting for crossfire profiles for skyrim at the moment if multi gpu setups are always great.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Those of you telling him to wait for next gen, may I ask why? What games can current gen cards in crossfire or sli not provide excellent frame rates for?

That's not the point. The cycles between generations have become so long (2+ years) that it would be silly to spend so much money so soon before new cards. If it were 6-9 months, I'd say okay, but it's really close now, at least for AMD.

 

[Skurge]

Those of you telling him to wait for next gen, may I ask why? What games can current gen cards in crossfire or sli not provide excellent frame rates for?

I think it may just be that you might be able to get similar performance from a single card next gen. That would be the better option overall.

If you want to get cards right now. It's pretty common knowledge the 6900 series perform better at higher resolutions. The Vram is also going to play a part in 1 or 2 current games and a lot more future games.

 

[Grooveriding]

I run the same resolution. 1.25GB is not enough and 570s are not a good choice if you want to run modern games on their highest settings.

Whatever you've heard about the drivers is just forum fodder or the results of PEBKAC. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=213 People have driver issues for a lot of reasons and neither AMD or nvidia are more prone to them than the other.

If you are set on nvidia, get two 580s, if not; two 6950s is the better choice in terms of cost.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Out of the choices you listed, OP, 6950's without a doubt. 1.25GB will hurt at that resolution. Crossfire scaling is fantastic with the 69xx cards. AMD drivers are fine these days, not perfect, but probably on the same level as Nvidia.

 

[RussianSensation]

That's not the point. The cycles between generations have become so long (2+ years) that it would be silly to spend so much money so soon before new cards. If it were 6-9 months, I'd say okay, but it's really close now, at least for AMD.

:thumbsup: This. NV and AMD have both officially moved away from 12-15 months generational leaps to 18-24 months. In fact, it's now been more than 24 months for AMD and by March of next year NV will have hit the 24 month mark as well. I think the next generation of GPUs will bring a huge performance increase and we'll see another 15% or so gains from refreshes that might follow 8-9 months from that point. HD7950/70 might actually use the brand new GCN architecture which would bring a massive increase in geometry performance. Obviously, this just me speculating.

If you must buy now, for 2 cards and at 2560x1600, I'd take 2x HD6950 2GB.

 

[Elfear]

:thumbsup: This. NV and AMD have both officially moved away from 12-15 months generational leaps to 18-24 months. In fact, it's now been more than 24 months for AMD and by March of next year NV will have hit the 24 month mark as well. I think the next generation of GPUs will bring a huge performance increase and we'll see another 15% or so gains from refreshes that might follow 8-9 months from that point. HD7950/70 might actually use the brand new GCN architecture which would bring a massive increase in geometry performance. Obviously, this just me speculating.

If you must buy now, for 2 cards and at 2560x1600, I'd take 2x HD6950 2GB.

+1

If you can't wait, the 6950's will serve you well. They do very well at 1600p. If you can hold off for a 2-3 months though, the next gen should be out and it looks to offer a nice performance boost.

 

[3DVagabond]

:thumbsup: This. NV and AMD have both officially moved away from 12-15 months generational leaps to 18-24 months. In fact, it's now been more than 24 months for AMD and by March of next year NV will have hit the 24 month mark as well. I think the next generation of GPUs will bring a huge performance increase and we'll see another 15% or so gains from refreshes that might follow 8-9 months from that point. HD7950/70 might actually use the brand new GCN architecture which would bring a massive increase in geometry performance. Obviously, this just me speculating.

If you must buy now, for 2 cards and at 2560x1600, I'd take 2x HD6950 2GB.

nVidia has stated they are doing 2 yrs. between gens with a refresh in between. AMD has still been working on new gen every year, though. The 6800 could be considered a refresh of the 5000 series, updated VLIW5, but the 6900 was more than a simple refresh.

 

[miahallen]

I run GTX 580s for my 2560x1600 monitor and I often run out of VRAM (1.5GB) when pushing settings up on modern games....I'd suggest getting 2GB+ cards

For instance in BF3...my cards have plenty of power to run Ultra settings at 2560x1600, but I must lower MSAA to x2 or else I run out of VRAM and get massive stuttering.