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(If this shouldnt be in video games, just move to OT)

I am building a rig and for the love of all things holy I cannot decide between these two graphics cards.

My price range is $400 dollars for a GFX [graphics] card, and both these cards in australia are priced at $399.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=193_1178 [The 6970]

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1177&products_id=16614 [The GTX 570]

My plan was to buy one overly expensive card, without going insane, and then when the price comes down, buy another for $200 or so to make for a long lasting rig that will perform until 2013 with relative ease. I have to very tech savvy friends but they are divided on this. I lean towards Nvidia because it is better optimized for games like Crysis 2, which were designed with the Nvidia range in mind, but 6970 is more powerful according to stats.

What Shalt Be Done, Brothers!?

Well you could just buy two 6950 and unlock them to 6970 (which I've heard is really easy)

But if you want to go with just one card and dont want OC it then take 6970. More memory means more AA.

What monitor resolution are you using and what games you intend to play?

illuknisaa wrote:Well you could just buy two 6950 and unlock them to 6970 (which I've heard is really easy)

But if you want to go with just one card and dont want OC it then take 6970. More memory means more AA.

What monitor resolution are you using and what games you intend to play?

Games I intend to play are Brink, Crysis 2, Rage, stuff like that.

I am running at a reso of 1920 x 1080.

I agree with illuknisaa, go for the 6970.

Reasoning?

Ah, I missed the nvidia ready part on the latter.

I went for the 6970 because it it appears to be the more powerful card however lacking nvidia support is a decent blow to the cards usefulness...

I think I'll stick to the 6970 to be honest, the extra power seems to outweigh nvidia support in this case.

Jaon wrote:Reasoning?

Because you are playing at full hd it means more memory will be useful especially if you turn on anti alising. The nviaida ready stamp really means that at games launch games might run better on nvidia cards. 6970 is also better because you intend to crossfire/sli your card, you can crossfire different cards with amd like 6970 with 6950 or 6990.

Although I wouldn't recommend crossfire setup for a single screen so the best possible card for single card would be gtx 580.

Well, the GTX 580 IS the big brother of the 570, but its getting into the "I dont make that money in a month" range for a 17 year old like my self.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=193_1170

(all according to PCcasegear, who list theres at $580 AUD)

Jaon wrote:(If this shouldnt be in video games, just move to OT)

I am building a rig and for the love of all things holy I cannot decide between these two graphics cards.

My price range is $400 dollars for a GFX [graphics] card, and both these cards in australia are priced at $399.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=193_1178 [The 6970]

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1177&products_id=16614 [The GTX 570]

My plan was to buy one overly expensive card, without going insane, and then when the price comes down, buy another for $200 or so to make for a long lasting rig that will perform until 2013 with relative ease. I have to very tech savvy friends but they are divided on this. I lean towards Nvidia because it is better optimized for games like Crysis 2, which were designed with the Nvidia range in mind, but 6970 is more powerful according to stats.

What Shalt Be Done, Brothers!?

A single $400 video card will perform well into and past 2013 with ease. I have a 4870 that is over 1 year old and it runs all my games on max settings. Unless computer technology has suddenly gone back in time when I was not looking, then video cards do not become obsolete nearly as fast as people think they do. The hardware becomes "outdated" in that, a newer model comes out every month, but that does not make the video card obsolete. I would wait until november and get the 6970 for 50% off.

Also - Radeons always look more powerful on paper, but nvidia (somehow) gets more game support which usually means the nividia runs alot of big titles better. The stream processing is very important, especially with games that must process large areas at a time such as oblivion or BFBC2. It is also something that ATI focuses on much more than nvidia.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Something to note about that 6970 - the core clock is only 890, that is pretty darn slow for such a high end card. My 4870 was doing 850 core clock stock, it UCs down to 550 when I am perusing the internet and OCs up to 1000 core and somewhere around 6000 memory when I am gaming. My 4870 would have been considered "dated" when I got it new over a year ago for 150$ -_-

MSI makes a 6870 with better speeds than that 6970 for ~ 200$, I would check it out if you want to Xfire in the future.

I am using an intel i5 2500k, I cannot crossfire :(

(I was just informed today that i5 cannot crossfire, which makes me feel like an idiot)

Jaon wrote:I am using an intel i5 2500k, I cannot crossfire :(

(I was just informed today that i5 cannot crossfire, which makes me feel like an idiot)

Well that's odd because i5 is a processor and I have never heard of a processor that doesn't allow crossfire. Are you sure you aren't talking about your motherboard?

Yeah, processors have no bearing on your computer's ability to utilize crossfire/sli, that is entirely dependant on your motherboard. Assuming whoever told you that really meant that an i5 cpu cant crossfire, then you should probably stop listening to whatever that person has to say.

an i5 cpu is not very powerful and thus may bottleneck a high end crossfire setup, but that does not mean you cant run crossfire with an i5.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can you order items from newegg? or do they not ship to your area?

According to Tom's Hardware the 6970 outpreforms the 570 in real world apliplication, however there are other options out there. For example it may be more cost effective to go with a set of 6850's in crossfire.

Just going to +1 what King says, there is no reason you can't Crossfire on an i5, however an i5 is going to be a pretty significant bottlekneck when it comes to a high end system. Useing the i5 family your probably going to get better preformance out of a single GPu setup.

Just a question for you, and feel free to disregard this, but why did you decide to skimp on the processor but go all out on the graphics card?

I'll go ahead and +1 catyrpelius's comment. You really cant skip on any single piece of hardware in your system if you want a decent machine, you need to upgrade everything in tandem, or you are just going to have bottlenecks and all the extra money you put into the better equipment is going to go to waste.

Thanks for the help guys, but I am not super tech savvy in the CPU department just yet. Do you guys recommend an i7? I am dead set on getting an intel card, but should I be?

Many people will tell you one company is better than the other, but from my years of experience, they both make solid CPUs. Intel has higher performing top end cpus, but they tend to be very expensive. I prefer AMD cpus simply because I feel that you get more bang for your buck with them, and they have never let me down.

I have a Phenom II Quad core 965BE that clocks in at 3.6Ghz. It runs all the games that are out right now very easily and it cost me around 120$ on black friday.

If you want an i7, then go get yourself an i7, but know that AMD makes CPUs that are just as powerful and reliable unless you are looking at the top end i7 extreme...that costs nearly 1000$...

I would stay away from the new 6 core AMD cpus as they did not upgrade their cache system the way Intel did with the i7 extreme. This seems to be a trend with AMD as their first Phenom II cpu still had 6mbs total cache for a little while, until they upgraded it to 8mbs.

Also - the i5 2500k uses new sandybridge technology which does have something to do with your graphics, although I am not sure what yet. It just seems like a bad idea to have your CPU deal with your graphics instead of having a separate piece of hardware split the work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick update - the intel sandybridge processors have a Graphic processor built into the CPU. It is more powerful than most onboard GPUs, but it still wont handle high end games, it is just a small step for laptop technology to get laptops to be more versatile, it serves no benefit to desktop users because any mobo that takes the new cpu...probably wont have crossfire/sli capability. This still does not mean that the cpu limits your ability to crossfire - that is still restricted by the mobo, its just that the 2500k i5 is a laptop cpu and it is not meant for power or gaming.

KingKodo is right in his assesment. Technically Intel and AMD use the same "technology" since the two companies have insitiuted a knowledge shareing program. AMD actually developed the 64bit architerture that Intel uses. The biggest difference besides price between Intel and AMD cpu's is that Intel chips tend to be more efficiant.

If I was going to build a new computer that I intended to last awhile and run mulitple graphics cards on, I'd probably pick this CPU, then work from there.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115071

To this I'd then add 4gb of Ram, upgradeing to 8 when I got the second video card.

I'd run this video card, then add a second one in 6 months when this card becomes dirt cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121437

Throw in a decent motherboard, a hard drive, a case and a 600 ish watt power supply and you'll have a great computer.

I would try and get a more powerful PSU if you plan on going crossfire in the future - most video cards recommend at least 600watts with a single video card - let alone two. Some of the new 6000series radeons can use nearly 200watts a piece. Just something to keep in mind. I would try and shoot for 750 watts.