MSI Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC - hd6950 or gtx 560 ti 448 cores?

[Xolotl_72]

I have been waiting to buy a new card for a while now and today I decided not to wait for the new AMD chips anymore.

Intead I am deciding between two cards now, the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC and the GTX 560 Ti variant of it with 448 cores.


I am ordering in europe so prices are slightly outrageous either way.
The 6950 throws me back roughly 245 euro, the 560 about 265 euro.
The current price for the GTX 560 is actually around 285 euro but I got a little lucky, probably a pricing mistake or an attempt to confuse the competition, anyway I placed the order for that price at the right moment before they put it back up with the rest.

I am not sure if prices will go down much lower than 265 euro soon though, it is doubtful I suppose. The 560 also comes with Arkham city which does make the deal more attractive to me.


But what is your opinion? Wait to see if prices drop further for the new 560's? I really could use the GPU upgrade right now.

 

[Xolotl_72]

prices are falling a little bit. think I will hold off on it for a while and check how the prices develop.

still interested in opinions though

 

[monsta]

Go for the new model 560ti 448, if it comes with Arkham city thats a really good deal , you will also be able to enjoy the Physx in the game with the 560ti. I don't see the prices going down anytime soon, the newer cards won't be out till next year and no date is confirmed.
Go ahead and get the 560ti 448, it has great performance and they overclock quite well.

 

[17seconds]

Stick with that MSI 560 Ti 448 cores Twin Frozr. At stock speeds it matches a 6970, plus the free game, plus Physx, plus better drivers..... etc., etc.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_560_Ti_448_Cores_Twin_Frozr_III/27.html

 

[ilysaml]

Stick with that MSI 560 Ti 448 cores Twin Frozr. At stock speeds it matches a 6970, plus the free game, plus Physx, plus better drivers..... etc., etc.

Wrong, the GTX 560Ti 448 doesn't match HD 6970 and it has a little performance gain over the HD 6950.

EDIT: HD 6970>GTX 570>GTX 560ti 448> HD 6950> GTX 560ti, it's been AMD.

 

[refillable]

Doesn't 6950 comes with Dirt3 Bundled? I think you should get 6950 if there is Dirt3. If there is no then you get 560Ti 448 core edition. I don't think 560Ti 448 cores edition will have the same performance with 6970 or 570. So I don't think getting 560Ti 448 cores is a first option.

Out of topic. Have you notice in the picture above that 1GB 6950 is faster than 2GB? I was wrong then. I thought 2GB of VRAM would increase the performance.

 

[refillable]

570 wins in almost every benchmark vs the 6970, but imo they trade blows.
The 448 core 560 is between the 6950/570
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/306?vs=292

Not really. Check again

 

[ilysaml]

Out of topic. Have you notice in the picture above that 1GB 6950 is faster than 2GB? I was wrong then. I thought 2GB of VRAM would increase the performance.

True. When the additional memory doesn’t make a difference, it reduces performance slightly, a phenomenon already observed with the 1 GB and 2 GB versions of the Radeon HD 6950.

 

[ilysaml]

Not really. Check again

+1
It's been AMD now all the way since they enhanced the latest drivers, they had a similar results in the past but with the new drivers the HD 6970 took the lead over the GTX 570.

 

[17seconds]

Wrong, the GTX 560Ti 448 doesn't match HD 6970 and it has a little performance gain over the HD 6950.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/G/J/316819/original/Avg.png

EDIT: HD 6970>GTX 570>GTX 560ti 448> HD 6950> GTX 560ti, it's been AMD.

That Tom's review is the only one on the web that showed modest performance for the 448 core card. Everyone else puts it right behind the GTX 570, just like the TechPowerUp chart shows.

I also wonder where you are getting your information about magic AMD drivers that suddenly cause the 6970 to leapfrog over the GTX 570. To my knowledge, no one has bothered to re-do their complete benchmark suite for either card in the past week or two. On the contrary, all the latest news has been about AMD drivers failing on the new game releases.

Here's a tidbit from HardOCP's Battlefield 3 performance review:
"Throughout all of our testing it was apparent that the NVIDIA GPU based video cards were providing better performance and more enjoyable gameplay than the AMD GPU based video cards. There were no instances that we found where any AMD card provided better gameplay performance than it's NVIDIA counterpart. We also experienced an issue which we believe to be driver related with all AMD video cards. We experienced an extremely noticeable lag any time there was a large amount of debris flying around, explosions from missiles, grenades or vehicles, or buildings in the environment being destroyed. This was not present on any of the NV based GPUs."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/22/battlefield_3_multiplayer_performance_iq_review/6

And this one for Skyrim:
"We witnessed the very best performance with a pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580s installed and operating in SLI mode. After that, the single GeForce GTX 580 was the best performer, followed by the GeForce GTX 570. AMD video cards have some performance issues in Skyrim, and we do hope that AMD can improve this with driver updates. It would be difficult to recommend an AMD video card to any gamer looking to upgrade his or her computer in order to play Skyrim. For this game at least, NVIDIA-GPU based current generation video cards is where it's at, whether you are packing a 30" monitor running at 2560x1600, a 1080p panel, or a multi-monitor gaming solution, they are simply faster."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/21/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim_performance_iq_review/7

 

[Sunfighterlc]

*shrug* All these cards are so close together, its a pure crapshoot. Any one of them can be a "bad" card and a "great" card. A good example of this is the 448 reviews out lately. Toms hardware had the worst 448. Zotac isnt known for High End IMHO.

The MSI PE seems to be the one to get. Its seen the highest overclocks and the best quality IMHO. Had I known that earlier I would of spent the 20 bucks more for the MSI vs the FTW edition.

Ive now seen 2 places with 1Ghz OCs on the MSI 448s. 1Ghz on a GF110 is very good.

Source 1: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4455/msi_gtx_560_ti_448_1280mb_twin_frozr_iii_power_edition_video_card_overclocked/index1.html

Source 2: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/msi_gtx560ti_448_-_overclock_part_2/1

 

[Xolotl_72]

thanks for the replies guys.

I am set for the 560 now, I might send it back if AMD drops their prices but I think the deal I got is OK, probably not seeing much lower prices for this model anytime soon.

@ refillable: The thing is, I am not really interested in Dirt3, Arkham city is a nice bonus for me though.

 

[ilysaml]

That Tom's review is the only one on the web that showed modest performance for the 448 core card. Everyone else puts it right behind the GTX 570, just like the TechPowerUp chart shows.

I'm shy to say you're wrong again, but give a look below and stop being a nVidia fan for a moment;

Sounds like not Toms only who reviewed the 448 cores.

I also wonder where you are getting your information about magic AMD drivers that suddenly cause the 6970 to leapfrog over the GTX 570. To my knowledge, no one has bothered to re-do their complete benchmark suite for either card in the past week or two. On the contrary, all the latest news has been about AMD drivers failing on the new game releases.

I guess i proved my theory above, no argument here and i know you only get your sources from Hardcop which sounds to be favoring nVidia a lot, but anyway the GTX 570 was never above the HD 6970 they always traded blow, i admit GTX 570 had a better perfromance in 1680x resolution and below...

ONLY

From most reviewers,
From bit-tech.net

Still, we can’t judge a product based on what we hoped it would be, only on what it actually is, so does it compete effectively with the GTX 570 1.3GB? The two cards traded blows all the way through our games testing suite, with neither being able to pull out a commanding lead.

From techspot.com

The Radeon HD 6970 was at best found to be 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 570, while there were instances where it was also 20% slower.

From hardwarecanucks.com

Things become a bit less cut and dry when the higher-end Cayman board is compared directly against the GTX 570. At lower resolutions NVIDIA’s card is able to pull away and at 1920 with AA enabled it really becomes a toss-up between the two cards.

From techpowerup.com

Unfortunately AMD's Radeon HD 6970 can not meet that price target. With performance comparable to GeForce GTX 570

From tomshardware.com

As for the Radeon HD 6970, it should be selling for $20 more than a GTX 570. Based on its display outputs alone, that makes AMD’s card worth the Andrew Jackson to me, personally. Otherwise, the two cards trade blows, with the GTX 570 faring better at 1680x1050 as AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 retains more of its performance at 2560x1600.

Even at the past they stated they have a similar performance, i still have benchmarks from them clearing out the wins of the HD 6970, give a look at anadtech first charts in GPU 2011 sections.
We all know that AMD cards are falling down when comparing in TWIMTBP games, but again it sounds like it's no more happening with the latest drivers and you can see that from the Metro 2033 charts and Crysis 2.
From my own experience, techpowerup has been providing wrong info for a while no need to mention it right now it's useless.