Radeon 6870 vs GTX 560

[0veruler]

Howdy, I have decent experience in building computers, I'm a college student in the IT field and I'm gunning for my first full build!
I am aiming for this to be a gaming computer, and want to spend under 200 for the graphics card. Unfortunately here at tom's hardware these two have tied!
I'm really torn between the two and figured this is a matter of preference, but just what do you experienced types believe to be the better card?
I can get the Radeon for slightly cheaper (170 after MIR)
as opposed to the GTX (175 after MIR)
The GTX has better scores in benchmarking and Framerates, but from what I've seen looking over forums more often then not people tend to pick Radeon!

Any insight on this would be great!
Thanks in advance!

The rest of my build will go something along the lines of an i5-2400 cpu, I'd like to get a full tower case.. 8gb of ram a SSD and probably a Gigabyte board

I'm almost considering giving in and spending the extra 50-60 buck to get a Radeon 6950..

 

[sunnk]

just see the bench marks hd 6870 vs 560.if u can afford go ahead with the hd 6950 2gb or msi 560ti twinfozer.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4344/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-top-to-bottom-overclock/4

 

[refillable]

I will go for radeon, look at this review .

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-560-amp-edition-gtx-560-directcu-ii-top,2944.html

I will get HD 6870 because it is cheaper and has the same FPS rate, and more efficient

 

[sunnk]

yeah the radeon will be cheaper and better in performance of gaming and the fps is almost same as the refillable said listen to him and me and go for the hd 6870 and that 50-60 bucks keep it with you when the new cards will arrive then buy a new one but for now the hd 6870 is the best choice can run skyrim very well at 1080p.

 

[0veruler]

Great thanks for the quick replys!
The skyrim bit was much appreciated haha

One last bit I didn't mention, I will be trying to run this off a 26" TV
Its dimensions are somwhere in the 13XX by 8XX somewhere in there, will there be any issue you there? Probably hooking it up via HDMI

 

[17seconds]

The 560 overclocks like crazy, while the 6870 is well known to have little or no head room for overclocking. Getting the 560 is a no-brainer.

Also, Skyrim runs better on Nvidia cards:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/21/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim_performance_iq_review/7

 

[0veruler]

Always glad to hear the other side of things!
Would you choose the 560 even if it wasn't used for overclocking?

(while I've been playing with computers my whole life, I'm not yet confident enough to go overclocking everything and will come down the line.)

Assuming I will get into it down the road, I think if I were to go with Nvidia, I would probably just fork over the extra cash for the Ti, thoughts on that?

 

[17seconds]

You can always get one of the factory overclocked cards and not have to worry about overclocking yourself.

If it's between a stock clocked 560 vs. 6870, the performance will be very close and depend on the games you are playing.

The 560 Ti is a very worthy consideration to put you up towards the upper echelon of graphics cards. A factory overclocked 560 Ti can do just about anything you want.

 

[m4nc1n1]

I have 2 HD5770's and looking to upgrade also.
So would you still recommend 1 560Ti or 1 6870?

Also which one would be more powerful AND quieter?
(I think the 5770's are too loud, but it could just be XFX)

 

[0veruler]

Best answer selected by 0veruler.

 

[nyhcbri]

i saw this thread and i would like to ask a little advice for myself. i to am playing swtor,wow,
and various rts games and i leave mostly all graphic settings a very low especially in swtor just to play.
im looking to make my first graphic card purchase since my 9800 pro all in wonder back in 2004. anyway that system
is long gone and i have been using integrated mb graphics ever since. my system:

-ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO/U3S6 AM3 AMD 785G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
-SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire
ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply
-G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
-x2 in raid1 Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives
-windows 7 home 64 bit
im not partial to radeon or nvidia if one is better at same price point than thats for me. im looking to be under $200.
i usually try to get the model right where the price breaks off by about 100$ when buying components, for example
i dont mind going up 20 or 30 bucks for better components but wont go 100 more because its brand new and more of
an enthusiast item.

 

[0veruler]

Now thats something I could help you out with! haha

I spend a lot of time comparing and the price breaking point (for Radeon's that is) is between the new 7850 and 7870..

This is between 250 and 350, I know you wanted around 200 which theres plenty to offer if you don't want to go up to 250 but I thought I'd let you know where that "big price break" is, I look for it myself

in any case I think both of those cards, from what I've seen, can grind through anything that's out right now, maybe not ultra settings but anything beats built in graphics! lol

As for Nvidia cards the price differences are a lot more rigid you can look into that yourself if you'd like but hopefully this helped your initial search

Also you are going to have to wait for a while on the 7850's newegg has been out of the "major contenders" for awhile now but it doesnt hurt to look and be prepared when they are restocked

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey