Stock Radeon 6870, Sapphire or Asus?

[tinywolves]

Purshased your typical AMD Radeon 6870, was told it's better to stick with stock and OC on my own but the Sapphire cards have a good rating on newegg, same with Asus.
Suggestions? stick with stock or?
I will be buying a case with good ventilation so I'm not worried about overheating.

 

[photonboy]

There VERY LITTLE overhead for overclocking.

I do NOT agree that it's better to overclock yourself. Overclocked cards often have better heatsinks such as the Vapor-X technology by Sapphire.

I just don't think it's worth manually overclocking to get only a 3% stable overclock.

UPDATE:
I was about to say the HD6870 is a great card (and it is). However, I just went back and spent some time looking at the latest cards. I high recommend this:

NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-gf114,2845-15.html

*NOTES:
1. It was quieter than other cards in its class
2. It was back and forth between it and the 6870 for games
3. SCALING is better if you think you'll buy another card in the future
4. NVidia is better at driver updates
5. Tesselation is better on NVidia DX11 cards
6. CUDA support
7. PhysX support

Hands down, this is the card I'd buy today. It just didn't exist last year when I bought mine. Obviously they've sorted out the heat issues.

 

[Geeksquad417]

Was actually about to say the EXACT same thing Photon. The 6850 is a great card, it's just not as good as the 560. Get a 560, asus and sapphire should both have models out on Newegg right about now.

 

[tinywolves]

There VERY LITTLE overhead for overclocking.

I do NOT agree that it's better to overclock yourself. Overclocked cards often have better heatsinks such as the Vapor-X technology by Sapphire.

I just don't think it's worth manually overclocking to get only a 3% stable overclock.

UPDATE:
I was about to say the HD6870 is a great card (and it is). However, I just went back and spent some time looking at the latest cards. I high recommend this:

NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-gf114,2845-15.html

*NOTES:
1. It was quieter than other cards in its class
2. It was back and forth between it and the 6870 for games
3. SCALING is better if you think you'll buy another card in the future
4. NVidia is better at driver updates
5. Tesselation is better on NVidia DX11 cards
6. CUDA support
7. PhysX support

Hands down, this is the card I'd buy today. It just didn't exist last year when I bought mine. Obviously they've sorted out the heat issues.

But I'm running AMD phenom II x6, isn't radeon what I'm stuck with?

 

[photonboy]

You can buy ANY PCIe graphics card for ANY board with PCIe. It has nothing to do with what brand of CPU you have.

The only incompatibility issue is for multiple cards. Motherboards have FOUR options (see your motherboard manual):
1) No SLI/Crossfire at all
2) SLI only
3) Crossfire only
2) BOTH SLI and Crossfire

To be clear:
1) start with the GTX 560 Ti review on the main page. Read the review and then decide if another card is better
2) don't flash a 6950 to 6970. It may or may not have issues. The cooling is designed around it being a 6950, and parts also vary in quality so you could wreck your card. I've read the information on this.

 

[photonboy]

You do void your warranty.

 

[intelx]

flash it back, and no one knows that it ever happend.

 

[plznote]

Yes, the dual BIOS feature is very useful for overclocking.
But if you wanna get a 6950 get one fast as AMD is making the design different from 6970.

 

[photonboy]

"You should be aware that the retail 6970 card uses an 8-pin and a 6-pin connector for its auxiliary power whereas the 6950 only has a pair of 6-pin intakes, which might cause trouble under extreme loads.."

 

[jockey]

@ tinywolves,
Does your stock 6870 do what you want it to? Can you max out the settings on games without issues? If so, I would suggest you leave it stock. If not, play with it.

 

[HostileDonut]

I vote for the hd6950 unlocked to a hd6970. If the unlock doesn't work you can just flip a switch on the side and you have another hd6950 BIOS. It is like an extra life. (makes me think of a "1 up mushroom")

 

[photonboy]

Which is why you bump up the power +20% in AMD overdrive, which also leads to even greater results. I've not had a single problem with my flash. Personally I'm a VisionTek card. As long as you have a reference card and it will allow you to do it, there's no issue.

I'm not saying you CAN'T do it. I'm simply saying that you are significantly increasing the odds of a failure which could even kill the card.

And you can "bump up the power" but you're still using the available power connectors which may not provide enough at high loads and thus lead to instability.

Whatever, I'm done.

 

[HostileDonut]

If it doesn't work just flip the switch on the side and you have your old hd6950.

 

[photonboy]

"kill your card"
I meant killing it by forcing it to use more power than normal, not the act of flashing the BIOS.

 

[photonboy]

It may be "safe", but it does still increase the risk of damage or instability. There must be a reason that the normal version of the card has different power connections (more power available).

Anyway, I'm sure it will likely work for most people (not sure about the long-term issues).

I saw some GTX 570's on sale for $300 CDN. A 2xGTX 570 is a really sweet setup provided the rest of the PC can handle it.

(I sure wish NVidia would offer Optimus for the Desktop. Optimus can turn off addon graphics cards COMPLETELY when not in use and only use a low-power integrated graphics solution. Imagine if they did that for the CPU too so you could have a low-end AMD APU or Atom/GPU most of the time and have your Intel 6C/12T CPU and NVidia SLI setup start only when needed.. )

 

[tinywolves]

You can buy ANY PCIe graphics card for ANY board with PCIe. It has nothing to do with what brand of CPU you have.

The only incompatibility issue is for multiple cards. Motherboards have FOUR options (see your motherboard manual):
1) No SLI/Crossfire at all
2) SLI only
3) Crossfire only
2) BOTH SLI and Crossfire

To be clear:
1) start with the GTX 560 Ti review on the main page. Read the review and then decide if another card is better
2) don't flash a 6950 to 6970. It may or may not have issues. The cooling is designed around it being a 6950, and parts also vary in quality so you could wreck your card. I've read the information on this.

The motherboard I am looking at is the ASUS M4A89TD PRO, it's a cross fire board, no sci therefore no Nvidia, am I wrong?

I just want to to guild budgeting gaming pc, by budget I mean 1,200 -1,400 without monitor, keyboard, or any extras included.

 

[HostileDonut]

Do you want me to put together a $1200~1400 build for you and see what you think?

 

[tinywolves]

Do you want me to put together a $1200~1400 build for you and see what you think?

Sure, I am from Canada though so unfortunately I need to get what I can from NCIX, Canada's part retailer
Basically you're looking at parts being 50 to maybe 100 dollars more sometimes making it kinda rough...
And also I kind of want amd rather than intel, I feel like a change.

 

[jjb8675309]

I overclocked my 6870 to 1020 core and 1220 mem (probably could have gone a bit farther but thats as far as I have tested it thus far..., I thought that was pretty decent when everything was saying how little overclocking room it has, its basically a 6 series 5870 now...

 

[HostileDonut]

Sure, I am from Canada though so unfortunately I need to get what I can from NCIX, Canada's part retailer
Basically you're looking at parts being 50 to maybe 100 dollars more sometimes making it kinda rough...
And also I kind of want amd rather than intel, I feel like a change.

Can you order from Newegg.ca? If not, I will look at NCIX.

 

[HostileDonut]

Case: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=54712&vpn=CC600T&manufacture=Corsair

PSU: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=35156&vpn=CMPSU-850TX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1283

MoBo: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=36122&vpn=M4A79T%20DELUXE&manufacture=ASUS

Hard drive: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=31000&vpn=WD1001FALS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD

Disk Drive: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=47343&vpn=GH24LS50&manufacture=LG%20Electronics

CPU: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=52067&vpn=HDT90ZFBGRBOX&manufacture=AMD

GPU(s): http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=111128730&vpn=GV-R687OC-1GD&manufacture=Gigabyte In Crossfire.

RAM: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=53427&vpn=CMX8GX3M2A1333C9&manufacture=Corsair

Total is $1375.31. Right in budget. Tell me what you think, and remember the hd6870s are in crossfire.

 

[tinywolves]

Case: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=54712&vpn=CC600T&manufacture=Corsair

PSU: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=35156&vpn=CMPSU-850TX&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1283

MoBo: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=36122&vpn=M4A79T%20DELUXE&manufacture=ASUS

Hard drive: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=31000&vpn=WD1001FALS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD

Disk Drive: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=47343&vpn=GH24LS50&manufacture=LG%20Electronics

CPU: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=52067&vpn=HDT90ZFBGRBOX&manufacture=AMD

GPU(s): http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=111128730&vpn=GV-R687OC-1GD&manufacture=Gigabyte In Crossfire.

RAM: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=53427&vpn=CMX8GX3M2A1333C9&manufacture=Corsair

Total is $1375.31. Right in budget. Tell me what you think, and remember the hd6870s are in crossfire.

This is fine, essentially what I was looking at but a prettier case lol.

 

[HostileDonut]

Okay, sweet. By the way, that case is amazing. Great airflow, places to hide the cords for even better airflow, and a fan speed nob on the top to control the fan speed/noise. Also, it has many hard drive/SSD and disk drive bays.

 

[tinywolves]

Okay, sweet. By the way, that case is amazing. Great airflow, places to hide the cords for even better airflow, and a fan speed nob on the top to control the fan speed/noise. Also, it has many hard drive/SSD and disk drive bays.

But it's very plain. I'm not a fan of all the fancy lights but I want like one or two, or a clear side.

 

[HostileDonut]

The case looks very plain, but it is not really as plain as it looks. If you want flashy lights (I am not a fan of them) the Antec 1200 case is good.