AMD Radeon HD 6970 & HD 6950 Review - PAGE 7

quote hiigaran

well considering that the 580 is the only card that beat the 70 (ignoring the ARES), id say that the price of the card makes it quite worth its price.

brilliant review.

quote Gravity

Well at least the wait is over.
Nice detailed review, great extensiveness.

Thanx

somehow i dont think you were all that impressed.

I was very impressed with the review for sure, a lot of data for me to crunch/compare with. I was not that impressed with the cards themselves. It's as if nVIDIA was tipped on ATI specs and clotheslined them. I'm even suspective of slightly higher then recent ATI clocks as a subtle response, if not even more with the month extra delay. Also was very tired last night, just like now actually.

quote sarang

from a stability point of view do you think that people migrate to the 570 instead of taking this new 6970 up?

Drivers often end up being left up to user experience, I have a friend using 9800GT's that refuses to update drivers after having personal trouble getting SLI stable after each update. When I actually did the latest driver update it went fine but they'll always have that memory that it was unstable and difficult.

For ATI some users complain of impossible instability as well, not sure what that's about as I haven't had issues but I'm sure there are those who can't figure them out and give up. I know that for some games like BC2 they've had struggles getting CF stable in the past which is stressful.

To call it a question of stability is a bit extreme/unnecessary, both cards operate out of the box. They play games and they both have their own set of issues in the software support right now and will progress to resolve them. Nothing is perfect but it's always a little better than the last time the companies released a product.

i dont think i have ever owned an ati card so i cant speak from personal experience, but the feeling i get is that one of the key differences between ati and nvidia is that the former has very buggy drivers that typically take a while to resolve. i still hear people complaining about drivers probs on the 5970, but never on nvidia cards. is this true?

from a stability point of view do you think that people migrate to the 570 instead of taking this new 6970 up?

well considering that the 580 is the only card that beat the 70 (ignoring the ARES), id say that the price of the card makes it quite worth its price.

brilliant review.

quote Gravity

Well at least the wait is over.
Nice detailed review, great extensiveness.

Thanx

somehow i dont think you were all that impressed.

ATI's reply to the GTX 570/580 was swift and above my expectations.

Great card, great review.

SQUEEEEEEEEEE

Anywho... no amazing performance here, and not expected. But it is great to see them competing in the high end again. The performance/mm^2 of die space is incredible compared to nvidia . The gtx 580 is 520mm^2 and the 6970 is 389mm^2. Overclocking looks pretty bad, much like the 6800 series, not liking the high stock clocks.

quote Ohmycaptain

I have a 6870 and I'm going to crossfire them, but now I'm not sure if it's worth getting a 6970 for $370 and selling my 6870 for about $210, and just keeping one 6970, or just spend another $240 on a second 6870.


What do you guys think? Is the extra $140 worth it for 2 6870's?

Personally in that scenario I would get a HD 6970 because it has similar performance, a lower power requirement and would be cheaper after you sell your card.

I have a 6870 and I'm going to crossfire them, but now I'm not sure if it's worth getting a 6970 for $370 and selling my 6870 for about $210, and just keeping one 6970, or just spend another $240 on a second 6870.


What do you guys think? Is the extra $140 worth it for 2 6870's?

Well at least the wait is over.
Nice detailed review, great extensiveness.

Thanx

YESSSSS!!!! I've been waiting to see this for a while now.