Which card is generally superior - 560TI or 6950?

[DrBoss]

title: "Which card is generally superior - 560TI or 6950?"

The Radeon 6950, as indicated in the benchmarks above, performs better than the 560TI.

 

[Gikaseixas]

6950 is the better card overall.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

When you oc the 560ti it pulls ahead but then you do the shader unlock and its all over for the 560ti as the 6950 2gb version leaves it behind at higher resolutions

 

[load81]

It depends on the persons needs. They are pretty close in performance you wont really notice the difference till resolutions over 1900x1200 were the 2gb vram gives the 6950 an advantage. So if you like Physx, Cuda, Folding, or want game specific image quality profiles the 560 is better. If you want to go multi-monitor or have a monitor over 1900x1200 resolution the 6950 is better.

 

[brencat]

6950 2gb is faster and also uses much less power when comparing the necessary GTX 560 overclock speeds that would make the card competitive with the 6950.

Then you also have the shader unlock mod too which pushes the performance delta even further.

Been really happy with my 6950 -- had it ~ 2 mos now and it has performed flawlessly. Is my first AMD card in 6+ years.

 

[DrBoss]

Been really happy with my 6950 -- had it ~ 2 mos now and it has performed flawlessly. Is my first AMD card in 6+ years.

agreed, i recently purchased two of them for crossfire and they are amazing. i have yet to unlock my cards, but simply increasing the gpu clock speeds has yielded significant gains.

 

[SickBeast]

Yeah if I had to choose I would take the 6950, however I still recommend the GTX 460 so long as you're willing to overclock.

You could get two 460s for the price of one of the cards you're asking about, OP.

 

[Powermoloch]

6950 2GB no questions asked :thumbsup:

 

[notty22]

I'm very impressed with the gtx 560ti, and it also has great o/c abilities like the gtx 460. But the 6950 is the overall faster card, and seems to be the model that AMD is leveraging with the best deals.
The gtx 560 came out to take back or fight against the then 240.00 6870. Its good for the gamer/potential buyer AMD is fighting back with price cuts.

 

[Keysplayr]

Better tesselation performance with heavier tesselation loads.
(which no games make use of atm, mainly shows in tess heavy benchmarks)

PhysX.. how many games support GPU only PhysX? on the pc? ~20 games?

CUDA is dieing... Directx's alternative DirectCompute, and OpenCL are replaceing it, withtime less and less CUDA only software will be around.


The tesselation reason though is a valid enough arguement for the 560 though, I guess the PhysX is too, if your playing one of those 20 or so games.

I still think 6950 unlocking to a 6970, means its value is better.
Power wise, it uses 20+ watts less on avg loads.


performance wise: 6950 > 560:

560 is closer to a 6870 than it is to the 6950.

560 is ~5% avg faster than a 6870.
6950 is ~8% avg. faster than a 560.

Arkadrel, would you mind please posting a link to where you're getting those bar graphs from? And also would you mind elaborating when you state that CUDA is dieing? I'd love to get to the bottom of that thought process. Thanks.

 

[DrBoss]

Arkadrel, would you mind please posting a link to where you're getting those bar graphs from?

pretty sure that is TechPowerUp.com

 

[Keysplayr]

pretty sure that is TechPowerUp.com

Thanks!
Yah mean like this one?
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_6950_Twin_Frozr_III/23.html

 

[Lonyo]

Thanks!
Yah mean like this one?
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_6950_Twin_Frozr_III/23.html

Basically says it all.
The lower your resolution, the better it is to get NV.
1024x768 to 1680x1050, NV is the way to go.
1920x1200 or above, AMD is faster.

 

[SickBeast]

The thing is, why would you spend $200+ on a GPU to run at lower resolutions?

I'm curious as to how AA plays into this comparison.

 

[Keysplayr]

Basically says it all.
The lower your resolution, the better it is to get NV.
1024x768 to 1680x1050, NV is the way to go.
1920x1200 or above, AMD is faster.

It says a lot more than that.

Anyway, to the OP. Go for the 560Ti.

 

[SickBeast]

From what I can tell it says that the GTX 560 is slower than the 6950.

 

[GaiaHunter]

It says a lot more than that.

Anyway, to the OP. Go for the 560Ti.

What about this one? What does it say?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_580_Lightning/23.html

 

[SickBeast]

pwn3d

/thread

 

[tviceman]

too many TWIMTBP titles

Battleforge,Call of Juarez, Civilization, skewer the results to much.

So let me get this right -

A TWIMTBP title shouldn't be considered a viable benchmark unless it favors AMD hardware, is that what you're saying?

This nonsense has to stop.

 

[GaiaHunter]

So let me get this right -

A TWIMTBP title shouldn't be benchmarked unless it favors AMD hardware, is that what you're saying? There are a large number of TWIMTBP games that run faster on AMD hardware.

This nonsense has to stop.

It is irrelevant.

That chart came from a review that has no mention of GTX560 Ti until the final charts.

The mystery of the missing GTX560 Ti.

Sincerely those TPU charts are a mess, with some cards being tested with current drivers and others with really old drivers.

Look at the most recent review. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_6870_PCS_Plus_Plus/

The 6870 PCS++ ends up being 12% faster than the regular 6870 with a 8% clock and 9% memory boost. In some games it is 20% faster - great scaling!

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Does anybody know which of these two cards would be better in Starcraft 2? 1920x1080 ultra with AA 60FPS is what I'd like to be experiencing.

I was thinking I would go with the 560, but this thread has made me reconsider a bit. Newegg currently has a HIS 2GB for $235 (CAD) AR. Is this a reference (unlockable) model?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814161355

 

[SickBeast]

Starcraft will run well on pretty much any midrange GPU or greater. It's a CPU hog, though, and it prefers Intel processors.

 

[SZLiao214]

The 6950 is the better card especially if you can make use of the 2gb vram. You are paying more money for the difference though.

 

[tviceman]

Starcraft II runs noticeably faster on Nvidia hardware when running with AA.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Starcraft will run well on pretty much any midrange GPU or greater. It's a CPU hog, though, and it prefers Intel processors.

Currently I'm using a GTX 280 (comparable to a GTX 460 768MB) and it's not good enough to run the game perfectly at ultra, let alone with AA. Things with a lot of lighting effects slow the game down quite noticeably, so I have to turn down some of the settings to high . As for the CPU, I think my i5 750 @4.0 should be good enough... I just need to decide between a 6950 and a 560. SC2 is currently the only thing I play, although it would be nice to have a bit of future proofing, which would seem to favour the 6950... tough decision, especially considering the 560 is $40 cheaper.