Expert Opinions needed - critique this set-up

[Skuzzy]

They are talking about the core being the same.  Does anything list the actual RAM specs?

Frame rates are not a good indicator.  The RAM speed will impact different things in each application.

[Spite]

For example, the stock 5850 out-muscles the stock 6950. It's pure BS.

I can't find a single benchmark to back up that claim.  They don't even seem to be close.  Perhaps you could share one.  Or perhaps you have the 5850, 6850 and 6950 confused?

5830 -> 6850
5850 -> 6870
 -> 6950 (class by itself)
5870 -> 6970
5970 -> 6990 (as yet unreleased)

In most benchmarks (not all) the 6950 even beats out the 5870.  Not by much and not always, but yes. Given the extra benefits of the 6950 I'd happily call it a wash.  If that is "Marketing BS", then so be it.

[Spite]

They are talking about the core being the same.  Does anything list the actual RAM specs?

Yes, the second page of that link has a chart of some of the various 6000 line GPU's.  For the 6950, 1 or 2 GB GDDR5 RAM both at 5000Mhz on a 256 bit bus.  Not sure if that's exactly what you are looking for.

Ultimately though, if you wish to unlock a 6950 to a 6970, the 2GB version is the only option as it is essentially a 6970 with BIOS limitations in place.

[Krusty]

I can't find a single benchmark to back up that claim.  They don't even seem to be close.  Perhaps you could share one.  Or perhaps you have the 5850, 6850 and 6950 confused?

5830 -> 6850
5850 -> 6870
 -> 6950 (class by itself)
5870 -> 6970
5970 -> 6990 (as yet unreleased)

In most benchmarks (not all) the 6950 even beats out the 5870.  Not by much and not always, but yes. Given the extra benefits of the 6950 I'd happily call it a wash.  If that is "Marketing BS", then so be it.

First: I must say "sorry" -- as I was talking about the 5870 vs the 6950 as in that original post I was replying to. I simply mis-typed it (again, sorry for confusion).

I wouldn't believe those benchmarks entirely... The chips are almost the same from what I've read, because the design they intended wasn't ready.

You look at the pure raw computing power of the cards (not the in-game benchmarks) and the 5870 noticably outperforms the 6950:

Card: 5870 | 6950
Core: 850 | 800
Memory: 2400 | 2500
memory bandwidth GB/sec: 153.6 | 160
Shader operations/sec: 1,360,000 | 1,126,400
Pixel fill rate MPix/s: 27,200 | 25,600
Texture fill rate MTex/sec: 68,000 | 70,400



They trade off in a few areas, but the areas the 5870 has over the 6950 are by a much larger lead than vice versa. At least with the 5870 you are getting a tried and true gaming card with tested and known performance capabilities and driver stability.

So you're going to pay more for a new label with a larger number on it, not get any performance on top of the older card, and have to worry about drivers issues the whole time?

Meh... Pass!


P.S. the way I heard it, a better comparison would be:
5850 -> 6950
5870 -> 6970

[SectorNine50]

The card manufacturers have been aiming for efficiency over power recently, from what I'm reading.  Since the advent of consoles, games have not been pushing graphics as far (except for games like Crysis) since most companies make their engines capable of running on both console and PC (thanks to Direct X Box).

The 6-series cards are also aimed at using the Direct X 11 technology better, ie. the tessellation cores were changed around a bit.  Older games will not take advantage of this, but brand new DX11 games will.

If you like less heat and less power usage (I think only like 62 watt difference though), the 6-series cards will be your preference.  But real-life benchmarks tend to show both cards are very comparable to each other with the 6-series cards just barely beating out the 5'ers.

[Skuzzy]

Yes, the second page of that link has a chart of some of the various 6000 line GPU's.  For the 6950, 1 or 2 GB GDDR5 RAM both at 5000Mhz on a 256 bit bus.  Not sure if that's exactly what you are looking for.

Ultimately though, if you wish to unlock a 6950 to a 6970, the 2GB version is the only option as it is essentially a 6970 with BIOS limitations in place.

Nope.  The clock rate can be the same, regardless of the RAM specs.  The clock rate is not indicative of the actual data rate.  The speed of the RAM, itself, will dictate the actual data rates.

What you are getting fed, is called "Marketing data".

[SectorNine50]

Nope.  The clock rate can be the same, regardless of the RAM specs.  The clock rate is not indicative of the actual data rate.  The speed of the RAM, itself, will dictate the actual data rates.

What you are getting fed, is called "Marketing data".

Care to elaborate a little more on this?  I was under the impression that if the memory is running at 5000Mhz, that it sent a bit at the top and bottom of each frequency wave, wouldn't that mean that you could calculate the bandwidth using that?  Are you talking about CAS timings?

[Skuzzy]

The clock rate defines the highest possible data rate, but that is all.  The data rate is fixed by all the timings on the RAM.  The clock does not carry the data.  That is carried on data lines to/from the RAM.

It is not just CAS.  There are several different timing settings involved in GDDR5 memory.  They all impact the data rates.

[Krusty]

The card manufacturers have been aiming for efficiency over power recently, from what I'm reading. 

[snip]

If you like less heat and less power usage (I think only like 62 watt difference though), the 6-series cards will be your preference.

Funny... because the 5870 uses about 180 Watts, and the 6950 uses 200 Watts.


Also, I don't buy your argument about consoles. They are totally separate markets, in all honesty. Consoles are so integrated that the underlying architecture may share some similarities, but they aren't going to be using ATI 6950 chips in Playstation 3's (for example).

Not to mention, the chip alone is part of it, but the performance is dictated by the entire combination of components on that video card. The VRAM, the other components, etc. So, you can have different performance (in a PC) using the same core GPU on 2 different graphics cards -- one with 128-bit memory, one with 256-bit memory, or one with 1100MHz memory clock and one with 2400MHz memory clock. The core alone won't be the only deciding factor. It's the whole card.

[Masherbrum]

Something to keep in mind.  For very little more money over the 5870, you can get a 6950.  Newegg lists a cheap 220 dollar Saphire 5870, but preferring the warranty of XFX their 5870 lists at 250 dollars.  Their reference 6950 lists at 290 dollars and Saphire has one at 280 dollars.  XFX have other 6950's, but you might want the reference versions that have the fan on the right, not in the middle.

You might want this because the reference 6950 can be "unlocked" turning it into a full blown 6970 by following these instructions.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

If you are not planning 2 video cards, then I might question the need for an 850 watt PSU.  Perhaps some money could be freed up there.

So for around 280 bucks you can have a top of the line single GPU card and save 80 bucks or so.  But yes, depending on the 5870 you are looking at, it can be more money.

Just FYI.

The 5870 is the better card for Reaper's application, as you don't have to run the risk of voiding a Lifetime Warranty.    The 6950 uses less power, but is not as "high performance" in some areas as the 5870.    Why some are thinking the "69series" is "automatically better" is beyond me.  

The 850 is not much more than the 750 and it does give more "cushion" for future upgrades (Crossfire).  

Reaper that build looks good.    Stick with the 5870XFX, don't budge.  

[Reaper90]

If you are not planning 2 video cards, then I might question the need for an 850 watt PSU.  Perhaps some money could be freed up there.

The pattern of thought is this: Initially, there will be a single monitor. Eventually I plan on a triple monitor set-up, and the PSU is there in case a 2nd 5870 is needed in order to do 3 monitors maxed out detail at the highest possible FPS.

I have to say I'm pretty %$@* confused about the whole Radeon 5xxx and 6xxx naming issue and what card is better in what areas. I considered the 6970 to begin with because the reviews I had read had a common theme... for multiple monitors, a lot of people thought ATI needed more than 1GB of memory, and the 6970 delivered that with 2GB. The reality is 2X 5870's will outdo a single 6970.... so that is my "expansion plan" should I ever get to that point.....

I'm going with the 5870 because it is a known quantity. If it doesn't work out and I need more, look for a barely used 5870 in the classifieds! 

As far as a single 2TB HDD, the thought never crossed my mind to have more than one. I back up to an external flash drive..... I may look into this more.

Thanks for the input, guys, good discussion...... kepp it coming!

[eagl]

If you are considering multi-monitor setups and want to run antialiasing at those ultra high resolutions you get with multiple monitors, you really do want the vid cards with more memory.  HardOCP did some comparisons, both "highest playable settings" and "apples to apples" with various nvidia and AMD cards, and it was very clear from the results that the video cards are fast enough to push 3 monitors, but you MUST have a lot of memory on the cards if you want to use antialiasing.

I think AH looks a ton better with antialiasing, so if you're considering multiple monitors for gaming and want to be able to use antialiasing at high resolutions, you want more memory on the vid card even if that memory is a bit slower than the smaller memory versions.  The reason is that the cards are "fast enough" to push the pixels even with the slower memory, but antialiasing bogs down badly when you run out of memory.

Then again, if you're going to be using a single monitor, you won't be needing all that memory to run some pretty hefty antialiasing settings.  Just remember that AH runs great even without superfast video cards, so you'll probably have some extra GPU power you can use to improve the image quality by turning on antialiasing.

I assume you'll be using win7 64 bit?  I like win7 pro because it has a few additional features over home premium, and you can sometimes get the system builder OEM license for under $100.

The western digital caviar black hard drives are great drives.  The only other thing you could consider is getting a smallish SSD to use as a boot/system drive, in addition to the caviar black. 

Finally, if you can wait until April then the sandy bridge cpus and motherboards will be viable options again.  Those cpus are supposedly quite a bit nicer than the current generation, faster speeds and lower power consumption, at good price points.

[katanaso]

As far as a single 2TB HDD, the thought never crossed my mind to have more than one. I back up to an external flash drive..... I may look into this more.

The WD Drives allow use of an OEM version of Acronis True Image software, so you can do backups to a second drive in the form of image files.  It's a very nice feature.

I do a Full backup every week, then differentials nightly.  It's just better being safe with data.

Backing up key data to a Flash Drive is good though, so you're on the right track.

[Spite]

I'm going with the 5870 because it is a known quantity. If it doesn't work out and I need more, look for a barely used 5870 in the classifieds!  

Fair enough Reaper, and I too think the 5870 is a great card that you really can't go wrong with.  I was only trying to provide an alternative to consider.  Play close attention though to what eagl said in his post in regards to memory and Eyefinity.  It really is important.

The HardOCP Triple Monitor AMD vs NVIDEA review he refers to is this:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/11/amd_69706950_cfx_nvidia_580570_sli_review/

The larger framebuffer in multi-monitor Eyefinity rigs play a big part in being  able to drive those resolutions.  For Aces High soley it likely is not as big a factor as certainly people here do it with 5870's.

 

The 6950 uses less power, but is not as "high performance" in some areas as the 5870.    Why some are thinking the "69series" is "automatically better" is beyond me.  

I'm afraid you have that completely backwards.  The 6950 will use very slightly more power and will be more "high performance" in some areas.  As for your second statement, dunno, why do people make wild claims with no proof to back it up?

This is just one review.  You can't base anything on one review.  I can provide others if you like and they will all say essentially the same thing.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/38899-amd-radeon-hd-6970-hd-6950-review.html

So ... I've documented 43 tests.
6950 win = 30
5870 win = 13

Most 'wins" are marginal at best. 1 or 2 fps at the most, usually less.  Play close attention though to Heaven and Metro numbers.  They are not close, especially once high AA and Tesselation is factored in.  There are a number of advances in the 6900 series cards that leave the reviewers stating:

"Performance is well above that of the $270 GTX 470 and even AMD’s previous single GPU flagship –the HD 5870- struggles to keep pace; particularly when AA is enabled. To our way of thinking, this is the closest thing to perfection we have seen for a while."

And again, the 6950 is not the direct replacement for the 5870 the 6970 is.  That it's able to match and generally beat the 5870 is a telling statement to me.

It's easy to be dismissive of reviews, especially when they don't work in your favor.  

[cattb]

I know that a person cannot believe all the reviews and charts put out on web sites.
From my understanding the 5870 is between the 6950 and the 6870 performance wise. There is yet other things to consider, resolution, amount of AA used, if your gaming which game is being played, and more. The 6000 series cards have better scaling then the 5000 series when using two cards from what I have read.

I have been reading many reviews and it is almost mind boggling, all the charts,the differrent settings, and different games. Then trying figure if it is a honest review.

I am just posting what I have read and not trying to suggest to anyone buying a 6000 card or a 5000 card.