Which 2GB 6950 to get?

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d4a2n0k

Senior member
May 6, 2002
375
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Hi All,

One of my GTX 460's in SLI crapped out so I will be moving the working one to my backup machine and am looking to get a 6950.

There is that Sapphire Toxic 6950 with the switchable bios but its never in stock. What are some of the other good ones for overclocking and quiet coolers? My GTX460's are Palit and the coolers are very loud so looking for something quieter if possible.

System specs:

2600K @ 4.8
P8P67 WS Revolution
8 GB RAM
Corsair TX750

Looking to keep it under $300 so thats why the GTX570 is out, unless there is a cheap one around? I play BFBC2, BFBC2 and BFBC2. :) Will also be getting BF3. I play at 1920 x 1200.
Thanks
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
yeah stay away from that MSI gtx570. as I have mentioned in other threads, MSI switched the cooler to the crappy gtx470 version.
 
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blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
0
It depends a lot on what matters to you. Are you looking for OC headroom? A quiet card? Dependability?

1) If warranty matters to you, definitely get XFX. I can say sapphire cards have always been reliable for me, but their warranty isn't very good. I remember a few years back you had to ship overseas to get warranty service, obviously that isn't very desirable - although that may have changed.

2) MSI has made a habit of putting old coolers on cards, i'd be wary of that.

3) The reference fans on 6950/6970 are horribly loud with default fan throttling. If that matters to you, i'd look into a HIS card or something with aftermarket cooling.

4) Finally, overclocking wise my sapphires easily OC to 950. (6970, though) The increase in performance is roughly 6%. I'm not sure of what brands speficially have OC binned chips though, haven't kept up with brands/cards lately.

5) I personally would not pay 300$ for a 6950. There comes a point to where the premium price for a premium 6950 makes it about the same as a 6970. What resolution do you play at ? If its 720p, get a 1gb card. You probably don't need 2gb unless you game at higher than 1080p. The 1GB 6950's, i've seen a few on sale for extremely cheap prices, 170$ or less. I know that I would not pay 300$ for a 6950, because i've seen 6970's on sale for 300$. 6950 isn't worth 300$, IMO.
 
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lehtv

lehtv

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2010
11,900
74
91
3) The reference fans on 6950/6970 are horribly loud with default fan throttling. If that matters to you, i'd look into a HIS card or something with aftermarket cooling.
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Every brand I know of offers dual-fan cooling on 6950.

I personally would not pay 300$ for a 6950. There comes a point to where the premium price for a premium 6950 makes it about the same as a 6970
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Exactly, at a lower price than a 6970.

You probably don't need 2gb unless you game at higher than 1080p.
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Untrue. Some games already use over 1GB on 1080p. It may be very soon that that will be common.
 
jjj807

jjj807

Senior member
Jun 20, 2004
395
0
71
MSI seems to have the highest clock speed, and its 264 on tigerdirect. Has dual fans.

would anyone choose anything else over the MSI twin frozr?
 
frostedflakes

frostedflakes

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2005
7,925
1
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Picked up an ASUS 6950 DirectCU II about a week ago and it's nice, card stays very cool and quiet. The Twin Frozr II on my old 5770 was nice as well, though, those Twin Frozr coolers are very good. Don't think you can really go wrong with either, both are great heatsinks. Only complaint with the ASUS is that SmartDoctor is terrible, MSI Afterburner is much better software for tweaking video cards.

Also for kicks I tried unlocking the shaders on the 6950 and it appears to have been successful. Haven't done any extensive testing but I verified 1536 shaders in GPU-Z and ran some benchmarks to make sure performance had increased and it had. Kind of surprising, I thought the Cayman shaders had been laser cut for a while now. I must have got lucky and received an older card. But anyway, point is a lot of people say 6950s can't be unlocked anymore, but I wouldn't let that discourage you from trying, apparently there are some unlockable ones still floating around. Just make sure you have a backup card around or something in case the flash isn't successful and you need to go back to the original BIOS. Without a backup BIOS switch it isn't as easy to revert back to the stock BIOS as just flipping a switch.
 
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d4a2n0k

Senior member
May 6, 2002
375
0
76
Thanks for the replies. So the Twin Frozr's seem to be the ones to get. Is there much of a difference between the two versions? I do want the 2GB version though because I tend to overdo the AA and want to make sure I am covered for BF3. Currently BFBC2 jumps between high 800's to low 900's Mb's of video memory usage.

I like ASUS video cards but will most likely be adding another one to crossfire. While my motherboard has room to crossfire triple-slot cards, it will cause every other slot to be unusable.

My Palit is going in the trash, not gonna RMA a card I beat to hell. :)
 
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lehtv

lehtv

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2010
11,900
74
91
Are you kidding? That's a reference cooled 6970. Going to sound like a jet engine.

You can get 6970 performance at excellent dBa and temperatures with the MSI 6950 Power Edition. Only $280 AR. Or MSI Twin Frozr II/OC for $260 AR. Or you can get Sapphire 2GB dual-fan dirt3 edition for $245 AR.

I really fail to see how the so-called "premium 6950 2GB" is overpriced. It's $40 cheaper a reference 6970! Wake up
 
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blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
0
lehtv said:
Are you kidding? That's a reference cooled 6970. Going to sound like a jet engine.

You can get 6970 performance at excellent dBa and temperatures with the MSI 6950 Power Edition. Only $280 AR. Or MSI Twin Frozr II/OC for $260 AR. Or you can get Sapphire 2GB dual-fan dirt3 edition for $245 AR.

I really fail to see how the so-called "premium 6950 2GB" is overpriced. It's $40 cheaper a reference 6970! Wake up
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Well, if it was me I wouldn't get a tier 1 card if it was within 30$-40$ of the better tier 2 card. Also, the 6970 is only loud with default fan throttling. With a utility such as sapphire trixx or msi afterburner, its not nearly as bad. The 6950 is pretty good but its not 300$ good...this is all just my opinion though :cool: Whatever floats your boat.

That said, i'm not too satisfied with stock fan throttling on either the reference 6970 or reference gtx 580. They can both get somewhat loud at load temps.....

Time to get some accelero plus II's.
 
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