6970 CF vs single GTX 570

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englandr753

englandr753

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Sep 4, 2007
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Here's my situation,

I have the following hardware:

1090T cpu OC @ 3.8
ASUS Crosshair IV mobo
8G Gskill Trident ram
1000 watt Corsair psu


Obviously I can only use one nvidia card so I'm looking at this being my last upgrade possibly for 5 years. I had actually went and purchased a single EVGA GTX 570 but it was a dead card. I took it back to my local retailer and got a refund until I decide what direction to go. I know the 6970 trades blows with the 570 in diff benchmarks but I would think that if I can get my hands on a cheaper 6970 down the road I would have a better upgrade option going that route having a CF mobo.


That local retailer didn't have the XFX brand in yet so I'm holding off until it comes in so I would like to hear some of you guys input.

I know its best to get the single most powerful card out and forget about the CF option but tbh I may not have the funds at that time to sink in a 500.00 video card and would need to look at a 150.00 card to CF instead.

Besides, I bought this power supply to do a triple SLI setup with my old 8800GTX ACS3 cards a while back but the heat was so bad I would sweat if I played more than 10 minutes, lol. I would like to utilize the psu and the CF mobo later so I'm definitely leaning toward the 6970's.

Let the opinions begin...
 
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englandr753

englandr753

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One more thing. I do have a 9800GT and a 8800GTX ACS3 card that I could use with the GTX 570 as a physx card if someone has any articles on getting that setup on an ATI CF mobo to work. I don't see that being as good as a 2nd 6970 later in most cases but I'm all ears to the opinions anyway...
 
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Tamz_msc

Tamz_msc

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Hmmm.... How does CrossFire perform with an AMD CPU? I don't think that it'll be as high as the reviews suggest because they were done on X58 based Intel platforms.

@OP, even a pair of 6950s in crossfire should be enough for 5 years I think.
 
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ares1214

ares1214

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Dec 15, 2009
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I doubt a 1090T at 3.8 GHz would hold back either setup much or at all.
 
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englandr753

englandr753

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It would probably be more like 3-4 years without much concern for extra performance I would guess. I'm basing that on my experience with my 8800GTX ACS3 cards and honestly its been almost 4 years and I can still play what I want so far at decent frame rates and thats on a single card on my current system so I could see possibly getting 5 years of doable game play with a CF setup.

I may be wanting something else pretty bad by then but if I had to make it work it should be doable.

I'm guessing it will be 5 years before I can invest in more hardware because we are expecting a 2nd child and the wifey will be staying home and I will be losing her income. Luckily I'm restarting my computer repair business and can make up the difference minus the childcare expense we pay now and her fuel cost and food eating out on the go. Plus I will be brown bagging everyday now.

Who knows, it may not be as tight as I'm thinking but most likely it will be.

Theres probably not anything out there right now that will last a full 5 years without feeling the need to upgrade in that time period.

I appreciate the opinions so far guys. It's along the lines of what I was thinking. I just wanted to her some knowledgeable opinions to confirm my mindset.

Great stuff!
 
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mrjericho1991

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gtx 570sli is way to go for 5 years,however nothing is future proof,just like people say,its just that.2 years ago people said 8800gt sli will be best bet for next 3 years investment,but now 8800gt sli cannot run modern games good,it even struggles in getting 25+ fps in metro 2033 at all high with zero aa at 1650 x 1080,so as said nothing will be future proof for next 5 years,only two gpus are future proof,gtx 580sli or hd 5970 xfire,nothing will be more better than that,i suggest you to buy just 2 mid range gpus and get them in sli or xfire,possibly gts 450sli or hd 5770xfire.they will do fine for next 2 years,until dx12 comes out.
 
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B

bystander

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Reviews show the 570 and 6970's as trading blows in performance. Unless you really want PhysX, the obvious choice is the 6970 route.

From experience, the new AMD cards give you a lot higher AA quality on games that aren't overly demanding due to supersampling AA, and morphilogical AA on the games that don't support AA at all.

In some games, the difference is amazing (Dragon Age Origins for example).
 
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bystander

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The big difference is when you use Supersampling AA. With it enabled, all the jaggies and wierd shimmering around the jaggies of armor textures go away. It's quite distracting in this game, but 4x Supersampling fixes it. You probably could use 8x with crossfire. With a single card I could almost use x8, but was just note quite enough power.

Oh, just so you know, there is a 3rd party program for Nvidia, called Nvidia inspector, that can let you use Supersampling, but it is not as good as AMD's officially supported version. However, if you did go down the 570 path, you will want to use it.
 
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englandr753

englandr753

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I wish there was an option to give everyone a best answer, lol. Good opinions so far.

I was also thinking about the idea of holding off as I really don't have any real problems gaming with my current hardware (yet). I'm guessing the only real hardware releases anticipated right now would be a dual 6950 or 6850 gpu but I dont think I would be interested in that.

Any other releases speculated as of yet worth holding out a few more months?...
 
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