[tomzki]

Hi.

I'm in the process of upgrading my ATI 6870 because it is not giving me the performance I want from my games in 1920x1080 resolution. I also thought about getting another and crossfiring them but I'm not too keen on crossfire and I'd prefer to have a faster single GPU.

The games that I want it to perform well in are: BF3, Witcher 2, Metro 2033, Crysis 2 DX11 Texture mod, GTA 4, as well as any other newly released games.

Most important for me is to max out and enjoy the games listed above as I have always had to turn settings down. I don't really mind if my upgrade now was to only be a stop gap until the next gen arrives, but I want it to obviously be a worthy upgrade in the mean time.

My budget does also allocate for a GTX 580, but understandably I don't want to spend the extra cash on one if the performance is not worth it - only if it really will make a considerable difference over the other cards in the games I play.

The 560 Ti is suggested in the thread title simply because of the 2GB VRAM, and the MSI Twin Fozr looks a nice card, which really is the money saver option if it can perform on par with the 570 GTX.

The 570 GTX looks a good option but the VRAM limitation is concerning me a bit. Given how all cards are moving past 1GB, I'm a bit worried about spending £200+ on something that will ultimately struggle within a month in BF3.

The ATI 6970 looks a great buy, but the ATI related driver issues constantly emerging has really put me off ATI quite a bit. I've had a fair few problems related to drivers with that 6870 and I'm sort of wondering if I want to go through that all over again. The problem is, there is no denying that this indeed a fast card, but the one thing I am curious about is whether it will beat a 570 GTX or even a 580 GTX in BF3 simply on VRAM.

I would say that I am probably swaying more the Nvidia route this time, my beloved game GTA 4 does not run so well on my ATI 6870. It stutters like crazy, and I haven't had the chance to enjoy it properly in all graphical settings/mods glory.

I await your input!

 

[El_Capitan]

I seem to paste this quite a bit:
Here are my fraps benchmarks for the first 5 minutes outside on Operation Metro at Ultra (defaults to High, Ultra not yet supported) graphics settings at 1920 x 1200 fullscreen:
Rig 1 = i7 2600K @ 4.9GHz and two GTX 570 SLI at 890MHz Core Clock.
Rig 2 = 1090T @ 4.2GHz and three HD 6970 Tri-fire at 940MHz Core Clock.
Rig 3 = 965 @ 4.0GHz and single GTX 580 1.5GB at 840MHz Core Clock.

Rig 1 = Min 62 FPS, Max 106 FPS, Avg 79.303 FPS
Rig 2 = Min 69 FPS, Max 179 FPS, Avg 99.576 FPS
Rig 3 = Min 18 FPS, Max 100 FPS, Avg 46.918 FPS

If you want, I can give you specific benchmarks tomorrow.

 

[PrototypeT800]

Just so you know GTA4 really does not run well on anything. Also I would say your best bet here would be a 570.

 

[discipline]

I've had my 6950(70) for a few months now(since May) and have had zero issues with AMD drivers. Only time I had problems was when I was OCing my card and benching it when I hit the wall and BSODed I crashed the driver and had to sweep+reinstall. This is just my experience but even running the latest drivers I've had zero problems.

Wow I was going to say 580s are not great cost/performance but I see tons of them on newegg for ~$450. You can't even SLI/crossfire for that price. I'd say 580 or 6970. I see people saying BF3 uses 1.4 gb vram on beta.

 

[Haze_hellivo]

Ive played all of the games you stated with no problems, except Metro I got no more than 40 fps at best.

 

[tomzki]

The 6970 seems best value for money compared to the GTX 570 and 580, but the heat and noise it has as said in the reviews and my own experience with ATI drivers doesn't help me.

 

[Ken1649]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomzki;15258030
Hi.

I'm in the process of upgrading my ATI 6870 because it is not giving me the performance I want from my games in 1920x1080 resolution. I also thought about getting another and crossfiring them but I'm not too keen on crossfire and I'd prefer to have a faster single GPU.

The games that I want it to perform well in are: BF3, Witcher 2, Metro 2033, Crysis 2 DX11 Texture mod, GTA 4, as well as any other newly released games.

Most important for me is to max out and enjoy the games listed above as I have always had to turn settings down. I don't really mind if my upgrade now was to only be a stop gap until the next gen arrives, but I want it to obviously be a worthy upgrade in the mean time.

My budget does also allocate for a GTX 580, but understandably I don't want to spend the extra cash on one if the performance is not worth it - only if it really will make a considerable difference over the other cards in the games I play.

The 560 Ti is suggested in the thread title simply because of the 2GB VRAM, and the MSI Twin Fozr looks a nice card, which really is the money saver option if it can perform on par with the 570 GTX.

The 570 GTX looks a good option but the VRAM limitation is concerning me a bit. Given how all cards are moving past 1GB, I'm a bit worried about spending £200+ on something that will ultimately struggle within a month in BF3.

The ATI 6970 looks a great buy, but the ATI related driver issues constantly emerging has really put me off ATI quite a bit. I've had a fair few problems related to drivers with that 6870 and I'm sort of wondering if I want to go through that all over again. The problem is, there is no denying that this indeed a fast card, but the one thing I am curious about is whether it will beat a 570 GTX or even a 580 GTX in BF3 simply on VRAM.

I would say that I am probably swaying more the Nvidia route this time, my beloved game GTA 4 does not run so well on my ATI 6870. It stutters like crazy, and I haven't had the chance to enjoy it properly in all graphical settings/mods glory.

I await your input!

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomzki;15258417
The 6970 seems best value for money compared to the GTX 570 and 580, but the heat and noise it has as said in the reviews and my own experience with ATI drivers doesn't help me.

Since you have had so much issues with ATI card and looking for a single most powerful GPU for 1920x1200, the best available option is GTX580 1.5GB or 3GB version.

GTX 580 : 1.5GB, 384-bit, 243W TDP
HD 6970: 2.0GB, 256-bit, 190W TDP

EDIT: Either the PSU 450w in the sig not updated or I read it wrong.

 

[tomzki]

Ken1649,

I am updating my PSU with the card. The GTX 580 is fast yes, but when you take into account newer games the 6970 gets very close now and also seems to be the case with the BF3 beta analysis. I'm just wondering if it is worth the extra money for 580 over the 6970.

So far the pros and cons are:

6970

Pros:
Is very fast in newly released games with possible benefit of extra VRAM.
Comes close to GTX 580 in many games now.
BF3 beta performance is around the same or similar of the 580 and may continue to improve in final version.

Cons:
Drivers can be problematic.
Reference design gets very hot compared to other cards in its price range.
Fan can be very noisy during gaming.
Won't allow me to play GTA 4 stutter free still (seems to be ATI issue).

GTX 570

Pros:
Good performance in nearly all games.
Better than 6970 in some things.
Lots of options regarding chipset cooling design.
Can overclock well if required.
Good driver support.

Cons:
VRAM limitation in some games is now becoming more apparent.
Isn't that great in BF3 compared to 6970 when you compare the cost/performance of 6970.

GTX 580:

Pros:
Still the best single GPU in many things.
Lots of options regarding chipset cooling design.
Can overclock well if required.
Good driver support.
Has more VRAM than GTX 570 for future titles.

Cons:
Cost/performance ratio is outclassed by 6970.
6970 is equal or near performance in certain newer games.
Isn't that much faster than GTX 570/6970 in BF3 when you factor in cost.

 

[Ken1649]

To be honest, no, it's not worth it if we are talking about cost/performance. But if we are talking about the best available then there is only one option in your case.

 

[tomzki]

But in the case for BF3 given how small the differences can be is the 580 really worth the extra over the 6970 or even the 570?

I'm not looking for reasons not to buy the GTX 580, actually the opposite - I'm looking for reasons to buy it but so far it hasn't convinced me it is worth it other than its 1.5GB VRAM which is safer than the 570 and of course Nvidia drivers (same with GTX 570).

The only good thing I like about 6970 is the price/performance but the drivers, heat and noise issues put me off.

 

[Ken1649]

You have all the answers, now it comes down to presonal preferences. Decision decision decision lol

 

[tomzki]

Damn. I knew this would happen. First, I would like to hear some more opinions from owners of the 6970 more though regarding BF3, GTA 4 and heat and noise from the reference design.

 

[Stuuut]

What sort of driver issues did you have with your AMD card?

 

[tomzki]

It was mostly in BC2 (kept crashing or having random bugs related to drivers), GTA 4 (stuttering again related to drivers and seems to be no fix still!), high GPU usage in flash videos, some stability problems in some software video players using HW acceleration, to name a few.

I just find it extremely annoying. Things I want to do, I can't because of driver related issues. I know I am not alone because I have been on the ATI forums and seen the same stuff, as well as the game related forums. It's been nearly a year so far and there is no sign of a fix yet, so I don't get my hopes up too much, is all.

 

[steadly2004]

Do you have any benchmarks you'd like us to post? Stock or OC, we can throw up some numbers to help you decide. Heck, choose a game you think will be VRAM limited. I ran run 1 or 2 570's. I am limited to 1080p though

 

[tomzki]

Thanks steadly2004, that would be very beneficial!

I wouldn't mind seeing the stock performance on a single 570 in Crysis 2 with or without DX11 texture patch, Metro 2033 and the original Crysis on Very High (not Warhead). Although the 570 I am looking at is clocked at 770Mhz.

 

[steadly2004]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomzki;15259141
Thanks steadly2004, that would be very beneficial!

I wouldn't mind seeing the stock performance on a single 570 in Crysis 2 with or without DX11 texture patch, Metro 2033 and the original Crysis on Very High (not Warhead). Although the 570 I am looking at is clocked at 770Mhz.

Here's Metro at stock, 742 and again at 800core 2000memory (an achievable clock for most everybody, usually on stock voltage). The settings should be the same as the metro2033 bench thread on here.

 

[tomzki]

That's pretty good so far!

 

[Crossfire]

I have heard the scaling on the 6870's is ridic in Crossfire, sounds worth it to me, you could OC both cards too.

 

[tomzki]

Again, reason for me not wanting crossfire is the issues surrounding it. I already have enough issues ATI driver related with a single card lol.