Building PC for friend... need help choosing GPU!

spirit

spirit

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Hi all. I'm in the process of building a PC for a friend and he plays games on his PC such as Dirt 3 and Microsoft Flight Simulator X at high resolutions (1920x1080), and he also does some video editing on Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 and some photo editing on Photoshop Extended CS5, I've got everything settled for this build apart from the GPU - not sure what would be good for him. Ideally looking to spend £170-£250ish on the graphics card (he wants high-end), and I'm stuck between the XFX Radeon 6950 and the MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II (these are both around the £180-190 mark) and the XFX Radeon 6970 and the MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozr III (both £250). Which one of these cards you reckon would be good for gaming and video editing? He also wants to watch Blu-Rays on his PC too so I have also included a blu-ray drive in the PC and will need a card good enough to play them back. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.
 
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Between the 6950 and 560ti, the 6950 usually beats it, but not by much. Get the 2Gb model of either.

Between the 6970 and 570, they're pretty neck-to-neck. But the 6970 has 2gb of Vram compared to the 1.25 in the 570 which would help at high resolutions. (unless you can squeeze the budget for a EVGA 2.5GB 570.)
 
claptonman said:
Between the 6950 and 560ti, the 6950 usually beats it, but not by much. Get the 2Gb model of either.
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I would try and get a 2GB model of either due to the high resolution gaming, but I guess if he wants the card for less than £200 then I'll sell him a 2GB 6950 in his PC, he has no preference over either.

claptonman said:
Between the 6970 and 570, they're pretty neck-to-neck. But the 6970 has 2gb of Vram compared to the 1.25 in the 570 which would help at high resolutions. (unless you can squeeze the budget for a EVGA 2.5GB 570.)
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Yes I was thinking the same as you regarding the 6970 and the 570, with the 6970 slightly winning over with the extra 896MB RAM. As they are pretty much neck-to-neck, which one would you go for? Which one has the most stable drivers? I've had problems with NVIDIA's 285 drivers recently but 295 seems to be better, but I've never really used AMD before so I can't comment on them. Thanks.
 
Well, the one I would go for would be the 570, since I did choose it!

I chose the 570 over the 6970 due to better drivers. (AMD over Nvidia, the 285 drivers were fine for me.) And due to the fact that Nvidia is better for linux and Battlefield 3. AMD cards get killed with the extra AA.
 
So you chose the 570 over the 6970 (sorry didn't see it in your sig!), would you choose a 560 Ti over a 6950 for the same reason? I want to make sure I get him the right card for what he wants. Would CUDA make the 560 Ti and 570 better for video encoding/rendering than the 6950 or 6970?
 
vistakid10 said:
So you chose the 570 over the 6970 (sorry didn't see it in your sig!), would you choose a 560 Ti over a 6950 for the same reason? I want to make sure I get him the right card for what he wants. Would CUDA make the 560 Ti and 570 better for video encoding/rendering than the 6950 or 6970?
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I would, yes. The difference between the 560ti and 6950 is a few fps, which is not much. And the 560tis are a little cheaper, run cooler, and are better overclockers. (if that matters)

The graphics card would have nothing to do with video encoding or rendering, unless you're talking about 3D modeling. It would be better money spent in the CPU and RAM area if your friend does a lot of video rendering.
 
claptonman said:
I would, yes. The difference between the 560ti and 6950 is a few fps, which is not much. And the 560tis are a little cheaper, run cooler, and are better overclockers. (if that matters)
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Right ok will definitely be a card to consider then. I must say I used an MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II for another build back in November and I was very impressed with it, so I may be inclined to use one again.

claptonman said:
The graphics card would have nothing to do with video encoding or rendering, unless you're talking about 3D modeling. It would be better money spent in the CPU and RAM area if your friend does a lot of video rendering.
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Gone for a 2500K and 12GBs of G.Skill RipJaws DDR3 1600MHz RAM here, that should be fine. I think that paired with a 570 or a 6970 will be great but likely he's going to want either the 560 Ti or the 6950 because of cost.
 
claptonman...your wrong about the gpu not having anything to do with video rendering....adobe premiere uses cuda for this if you have a nvidia card. it does it through the murcury playback engine...

to the original poster: the nvidia graphics card WILL make a difference in encoding and video editing if your friend is using Adobe premiere cs5.5. it supports cuda, and i was using it before i sold my 2 x gtx 470's. premiere has "gpu sniffer, and there is an actual script that is within adobe premiere to detect nvidia gpu's so it can render on the fly when you add effects so you can watch them in the preview, as well as encode the effects in the final production. if i were you i would go with the gtx 560 ti...if you can swing it, get the 448 version, if not then the regualr ti will be fine. if you need any help with setting up adobe premiere to use the gpu to render just private message me and ill get you all set up...
 
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kdfresh09 said:
to the original poster: the nvidia graphics card WILL make a difference in encoding and video editing if your friend is using Adobe premiere cs5.5. it supports cuda, and i was using it before i sold my 2 x gtx 470's. premiere has "gpu sniffer, and there is an actual script that is within adobe premiere to detect nvidia gpu's so it can render on the fly when you add effects so you can watch them in the preview, as well as encode the effects in the final production.
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I thought this as well. We'll see what he wants but after reading this and confirming my thoughts I am thinking that an NVIDIA card would probably be best for him. I'll find out what his budget is but a GTX 560 Ti is probably going to be what I put in his system.

kdfresh09 said:
if you need any help with setting up adobe premiere to use the gpu to render just private message me and ill get you all set up...
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Excellent! Will appreciate the help should I use the NVIDIA cards. :)
 
Stay away from the gtx 570 get a gtx560ti, and use that extra money to get the soc version so your friend doesnt have to OC.
 
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