560 Ti or HD 6950?

Ok so, apparently my family feels like being extra generous this Christmas. I got a call yesterday from my mom, basically telling me she's willing to spend up to $250 on a gift for me.


My 9800gt REALLY needs an upgrade, and now I can't decide between these 2 cards:


Zotac AMP! GTX 560 Ti 1GB OC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500196


Gigabyte HD 6950 1GB OC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125385


From what I've seen, the 6950 performs slightly better than the 560 Ti. But I'd still like to hear what you guys have to say. I also do a lot of video editing if that makes any difference.

I can never decide between these two cards. On the one hand, the 6950 does outperform the GTX 560 TI by a small margin in some games and by a larger margin in others. The GTX 560 TI only pulls ahead in Civilizations 5 and HAWX (for whatever reason these two games just work better with Nvidia cards).


On the other hand though, the 560 TI isn't too far behind the 6950 and will have better drivers.


As far as video editing goes...it really depends on what programs you're using.


If it were me, I'd probably end up going with the 6950 just because it performs better in games that I will actually end up playing. That's just me though. It really depends on what games you're going to be using and what programs you're going to be using for video editing.


Btw, here's a nice reference for comparison:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/330?vs=331

raw data processing, the 6950 will be better... however i doubt you will doing GPU based computing....

as vortex said, the 6950 does perform slightly better. the cooler on it is also better.


however i got to say... that 560ti looks damn sexy >_>

Yeah I think I'll go for the 6950, just gotta make sure it's going to fit in my case first lol.


@Ztrain - lol I was thinking the same thing

To be honest right now if you can hold out there should be the new AMD HD 7000 series dropping early Q1 next year.

Yeah, that's true. If you've waited this long, then you might just want to wait a little longer because the new cards should be coming out fairly soon.

Hopkiller said:

To be honest right now if you can hold out there should be the new AMD HD 7000 series dropping early Q1 next year.

i thought it was Q2....

also, i have heard that the cards will all be pci-e 3.0

ztrain said:

i thought it was Q2....

also, i have heard that the cards will all be pci-e 3.0

Probably, but will they even be able to saturate the PCI-E 2.0 bandwidth, because current cards aren't even doing that. PCI-E 3.0 won't even work until Ivy Bridge comes out anyway.

It actually might be worth it to get one of these depending on the price point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUqXApSXh9c

GTX 560 Ti, or wait for HD7000.

560ti indeed.


Those small fuckers packs ALOT of power for the price

If you do get a GTX 560 TI, then get one of the new ones with the GF110 core.

6950 gets the vote from me. It's nonsense when people say "AMD drivers are crap". They're really not, AMDs drivers are great, only when you crossfire do you start to get a few problems.

Boov said:

6950 gets the vote from me. It's nonsense when people say "AMD drivers are crap". They're really not, AMDs drivers are great, only when you crossfire do you start to get a few problems.


I'd have to agree with that. I had a couple of 6850s in crossfire and they had some problems, especially with BFBC2, and I even got some BSODs. Sure it could be only because they were in crossfire, but I have cards in SLI right now and I haven't experienced any problems with them. That's why I like Nvidia's drivers a lot more. They're much more stable no matter what kind of configuration you're using.


*****Edit*****

So I've been looking at the new GTX 560 TI 448 cores and it looks like they're pretty damn impressive. They're pretty comparable to the GTX 570s and they consistently beat the 6950. They also beat the 6970 in some cases. The only thing is, it looks like retailers are currently selling them for around $300.

Vortex said:

If you do get a GTX 560 TI, then get one of the new ones with the GF110 core.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-560-ti-448-core-benchmark,3082-4.html


Benchmarks for the GTX 560Ti 448


I would still wait for the new 7000 series to come out because then they will lower the 6950

just want to point out that i have two 4890's in xfire.

never had a crossfire problem that has caused a bsod or anything...

the only thing that may be considered a problem was with BFBC2... where certain textures (like sky box and water) would not show up... however this was fixed within a day of the problem first occurring to me.

Double post sorry.

ztrain said:

just want to point out that i have two 4890's in xfire.

never had a crossfire problem that has caused a bsod or anything...

the only thing that may be considered a problem was with BFBC2... where certain textures (like sky box and water) would not show up... however this was fixed within a day of the problem first occurring to me.

Most of the time it's fine. But I take it you've never played Rage, BF3, or skyrim.

Those three releases still don't work properly on my crossfired 6950s. Although it's party the game devs fault, especially Rage.

Fuck waiting, I'm never advising anyone do that for any hardware.


Everyone that advises it must have forgotten about bulldozer.


Buy what you want now and stop regretting it because else comes out, it's stupid, besides, he's on a 9800GT for Christs sake, I don't see how it matters if something new comes out or not when what's out now is worlds better than what he's using right now.

Rabu Rabu said:

Fuck waiting, I'm never advising anyone do that for any hardware.


Everyone that advises it must have forgotten about bulldozer.


Buy what you want now and stop regretting it because else comes out, it's stupid, besides, he's on a 9800GT for Christs sake, I don't see how it matters if something new comes out or not when what's out now is worlds better than what he's using right now.


^This