Best price/performance ratio

You can spend 20$ more and buy the 2gb version of the 6950 and update the soft to be similar to the 6970. That voids your warranty by the way so it is on your own risk, but the card to broke down because of that is very rare.

Yes you can bios flash the HD 6950 to a 6970, but like he said its voids your warranty.

If you opt out of that the HD 6950 is better than the GTX 560.

With the Dual-BIOS, there is essentially zero risk in flashing the 6950, you should also be able to flash the back to 6950 ones if the process fails for warranty.

^At 1080P, the 6950 is actually a better card than the 560 ATM, performance is a tad better and two in CF comes VERY close too dual 570s.

So if I were to go for the 6950 2gb, which of the brands is the better buy? And that is a small if. I'm building my first computer so I don't really want to void any warranties right away. However, it is a nice option to have down the line.

For unlocking you should look for a reference design (the one with a fan at the end ang red stripes on the side), being reference, the only difference is pretty much the sticker so get the cheapest one.

However I *think* the ASUS DirectCU unlocks as well, the cooler should be quite a bit better than the reference.

If you buy from newegg read the reviews at each card and see if people managed to unlock them. If you can find one that has a custom cooler and not the reference one that can be unlocked then buy it. Brands like Asus, evga, gigabyte, sapphire, xfx, msi are good brands.

This should settle your mind:

Guru3D uses the following games in their test suite, COD-MW, Bad Company 2, Dirt 2, Far Cry 2, Metro 2033, Dawn of Discovery, Crysis Warhead. Total fps (summing fps in each game @ 1920 x 1200) for the various options (single card / SL or CF) are tabulated below along with the cost per frame in brackets [ single card - CF or SLI):

6850 (371/634) [$0.42 - $0.49]
6950 (479/751) [$0.51 - $0.65]
560 Ti (455/792) [$0.53 - $0.61]
6970 (526/825) [$0.64 - $0.81]
560 Ti - 900 Mhz (495/862) [$0.43 - $0.50]
570 (524/873) [$0.64 - $0.77]
580 (616/953) [$0.81 - $1.05]
6990 (762/903) [$0.95 - $1.61]
590 (881/982) [$0.79 - $1.43]

Notice how the cost per frame rises as performance increases....and the noticeable drop at the 560 Ti (900 Mhz)

$235 - $20 MIR = $215 GIGABYTE GV-N560OC-1GI GeForce GTX 560 Ti (900 MHz)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Wow that's a great chart! Thanks for showing me that. I also like how you recommend the gigabyte 560 because I have just started looking at them. I was looking at the soc 1ghz, but the one you posted looks a lot better due to the price. Is that one able to be overclocked to 1ghz?

The 6950 1GB over at TPU doesnt seem to agree lol


The 900mhz 560 does look nice however, and it should do 1Ghz. With more effort of course, as the SOC does have a better cooler.

6950 usually beats 560, only if 560 is OCed it beats 6950, also, as mentioned above, you can flash 6950, but only 2GB versions, so it'll perform like a 6970 with lower clocks, but not all 6950s can be flashed *MSI and ASUS* and not all void the warranty.. probably GIGABYTE *idk about the others*, also non-reference models CAN be flashed and you can find some for 220$, while the only 560s that are worth buying are over 260$ *MSI, GIGABYTE, ASUS*, 6950 also beats 560 in OC comparision *OC vs OC*, but as i already said it can be "flashed" so it'll perform 2-3% worse than 6970 *because of lower clocks*, but that can be improved and mostly the fastest 560 has no chance against 6970, also 6950 performs better on bigger screens/ multiple monitors, temperature and noise levels are by both cards the same, but GIGABYTE SOC *560* has the quietest and coolest coolers *beats others by only few C and dBa*, in CF/SLI comparision 6950 beats the 560 hands down and is head to head with more expensive 570 *when unlocked 580*, but nVidia SLi is a bit more supported, has a bit less issues and has PhysX