Graphics card for my new build

[ginnyfizz]

Hi fellow forum goers, I have collected most of the parts for my new build now, here's what I have, from what I have seen on various hardware forums and by the reviews on the site where I bought these parts I have a decent set up in the making;-

 

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T

Asus Crosshair IV Formula MOBO

Corsair XMS3 DDR3 8GB (2 z 4GB)

Zalman HP 1000 PSU (from current rig, it is tested as sound)

Optical drive from current rig (forget what sort it is but it works just fine)

Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200RPM HDD

Coolermaster HAF 932 case (has USB 3.0 on front)

 

I had already acquired an Sapphire ATI 5850 extreme graphics card to try and make work in my current rig (it won't). I hear good reports about these cards which are by all accounts much bang for your buck, so I was thinking about getting another and having them in Crossfire in my new set up.

 

However, I have also read comments that suggest that Crossfire can be a real pain and doesn't work with certain games - Vindekarr was mentioning it in one of the threads on Skyrim on here. My system builder is not an especial fan of Crossfire for sure. So the alternative is to sell the 5850 and get a 6950 instead (hears the wailing from bank manager and ignores it....)

 

What do you people all think?

[Commander19]

Very good system I have an AMD Phenom II X6 1100T and ASUS Crosshair IV Formula myself, in terms of the graphics card, I personally don't like ATI/AMD HD Radeon, but it depends on the version you want to buy such as the Flex Edition. I personally would choose this AMD HD Radeon 6950, but others such as this version of the 6950 are fine too.

 

I wish you the best of luck my friend.

[hector530]

crossfire/SLI support is much greater now then it was before. most game now release with day one CX/SLI support but id go with the 6950. the 2gb one not the 1 gb. Edited June 12, 2011 by hector530

[Nysba]

The 6950 is surely a great card, especially for that price. Like hector said, if you go with the 6950 go with the 2gb version.

You could possibly flash it to a 6970 too, a much more expensive card. Not that it's really needed, the 6950 should play pretty much any game at full res. or very nearly.

 

It also leaves you more room for improvement than the 5850. If you need more GPU power, just buy another 6950 and you should be set for quite some time :P Whenever that time might come, the price will have dropped. Probably a lot.

Edited June 12, 2011 by Nysba

[Fumofumo]

I would suggest getting a single, powerful card. Crossfire can be quite a pain as certain games don't really have support, thus no performance gains whatsoever. SLI seems to have better scaling at the moment too. If you do get a 6950, you should ask your system builder if he/she can flash it to a 6970.

[ginnyfizz]

Good advice there my friends, it seems that Nexus persons are coming out solidly in favour of the 6950 2Gb.

(Hears more howling from bank manager....)

 

:biggrin:

[obobski]

Depending on your monitor, either board would be perfectly fine. If your monitor isn't particularly high resolution, the 5850 will be just peachy, if you've got a monster to drive then the 6950 might be a good choice. The 5850 should have no trouble though. I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "crossfire not being supported by games" - it's generally assumed to be abstracted by the graphics driver and the hardware developer, if an application profile doesn't exist that's on AMD-GPD. Some games will "scale" poorly, but this is more to do with SMP in general (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law). nVidia and AMD-GPD have both posted very respectable numbers for most mainstream games, and will usually work to correct problems in their drivers VERY quickly for mainstream titles. That said, you will never realize 200% gain real-world doing FSR (which is what all desktop graphics cards do), even with AFR (no matter how SLI-Zone and AMD spin it for marketing); expect 150-180% as more realistic (170% is, or at least was the last time I did numbers, mid-line).

 

Basically, with the exception of first-day problems (for example when Fallout 3 was first released, older versions of AMD Catalyst and the X2 boards had performance troubles, but it was fixed within hours, I'm reading about similar issues with Brink but haven't seen any numbers or played with it myself) and some less than mainstream titles (like Gothic) you'll probably never notice trouble with a CrossFire setup. That said, the extra investment is usually not worth it given the state of modern videogames - the demand for processing power simply isn't there beyond IQ enhancement (things like AA, AF, 3D, etc), and as always - if a single board/chip cannot do the problem, multiple boards/chips will not be able to do it either (at least not FSR, which you'll never get around).

 

If your monitor is in the 1024x768 to 1680x1050 range (or you're not rolling in money), keep the 5850 - it'll be perfectly fine; if you have a monster monitor (2048x1152 or larger) the 6950 should be considered, but again isn't required. Let's go to the numbers for more:

 

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/1

 

Page through and look at the comparisons to other boards, like here:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/15

Here:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/16

And here:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/22

 

Now, at first blush you might say "well, the 6950 surely wins!", not quite so simple. Your monitor is not going to give you 90 or 120 or 130 or 200 FPS (some high end CRTs and even fewer LCDs can do 120, do you have one of them?) - it simply cannot physically display it. Your monitor is going to give you something between 60 and 75hz refresh rate, which means a maximum framerate of 60-75FPS can be displayed (the monitor cannot physically draw any faster). This is still all very much above your lowest-common denominator, the human eye, which will generally perceive an image as "real motion" at 24FPS and above (gaming at 24FPS may feel choppy, for various reasons; motion pictures are shot at 24FPS, and most gaming above 30FPS is "good").

 

Bottom line: both boards should have absolutely no trouble with modern games, even at higher-ish resolutions, and if you're not using a high resolution display the 5850 should be kept without question. The benefits of the 6950 and CrossFire (for either the 5850 or two 6950s) are measurable, but the real question is whether or not they're tangible for you - I'm guessing they aren't. Save the few hundred bucks and have a nice dinner or something.