6870 vs 6950/6970

Manakore

Manakore

New Member
Is a 6870 GPU sufficient for high end gaming? Such as SC2, crysis, crysis 2 and so on? Can I max out my graphic settings?

Or would a 6950 or 6970 be a better investment?

How large of a difference is there between 1GB and 2GB for a GPU?

I know this may seem like an abundance of questions, but it is my first pc build afterall. I greatly appriciate any helpful feedback. You guys never let me down!

The MB I plan on using is GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD and the processor is the AMD x6 1090t black edition.
 
Well the 6870 is considered to be a mid range GPU, but hardware is developing much faster than the games for it are. The 6870 will play most games maxed out, or at least close to it. It depends much more on your resolution. If you're at less than 1920x1080 then a 6870 is a great choice. At that resolution or higher and you may want to consider one of the 69XX cards. The amount of ram on the card only comes into play at very high resolutions like 2560x1600 and in games that are poorly optimized (GTA4 comes to mind). In most cases 1Gb will be plenty, but the 69XX series includes 2 because it helps when playing games with eyefinity.

When it comes down to picking a final card, just get whatever is best that you can afford. The 6950 is very strong at its price point, and a lot of the 2Gb versions are capable of unlocking into full blown 6970s. Its not a guarantee, but it might be worth considering.
 
Thanks, I've noticed that the 6950's are maybe 50 dollars more expensive but not unreasonably more expensive than the 6870's so I'll have to look into that more.

Which brands would you recommend?
 
Manakore said:
Thanks, I've noticed that the 6950's are maybe 50 dollars more expensive but not unreasonably more expensive than the 6870's so I'll have to look into that more.

Which brands would you recommend?
Click to expand...

Sapphire, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, XFX. Other brands are fine if you can get them cheaper, just be weary of warranties. Check what they say about OC'ing.
 
If you have the budget then go for a 6950 you will not be dissapointed...I choose the 2GB model because it allowed me to bump the graphics right up to maxed out on GTA IV without sacrificing other settings as it used about 1.4Gb of Vram.

But you could always go with the 1Gb version of the 6950.

Whatever you choose out of those you listed should be more than enough to max any game out there currently.
 
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