6970 2gb's in Crossfire

Elimination

Currently i've got a GTX 560 ti (just one.) but i now have more than 2 monitors, which this wont do. Plus i find the 1gb of video ram is also not enough for higher resolutions, it starts to hit a wall.

Sooo, I am selling off my 560 and turning back to the red team which i was before the 560 (And my current new setup.). I am going to be picking up a single 6970 in a week and then a second one later on a couple weeks later. What I want to know is what kind of power supply would be sufficient for 2 6970 2gb's in crossfire?

For reference my current setup is this:

AMD Phenom II 1090t x6 OC'd moderately to 3.6 ghz, 4 ghz on its turbo core.
2 Hitachi Desktar 7200 RPM Hard Drives @ 750gb's each.
12 GB's DDR3 1600 (Mushkin Advanced.)
Case is a NZXT Phantom full tower (So plenty of room, no problems there.)
Motherboard is rather irrelevant, but its a crossfire only board, which is why i didn't just get a second 560 ti. Besides, i like the looks of the 6970's a lot more anyhow.

Currently my power supply is an Antec 650 watt 80plus bonze certified. Which i know is not enough for the two 6970's.

Browsing on the net i've read that 750 watt of a decent brand and certification will be satisfactory for the 2 6970's, but I just want to check in here to see if that is true. I don't want to go buy some insane 1200 watter or something when I probably don't have to.

minor incident

For the record, I currently run 2 6950s on a 750watt PSU. I used to have a 700watt one that also did the trick.

750 watts on a solid 80+ certified PSU should work, but I wouldn't feel bad bumping up to 850 if you really want. I think anything above that would be totally unnecessary, though admittedly badass.

Synthesis

I'm running two GTX 480s in SLI. Recently, Nvidia offered multi-monitor support while keeping SLI, which was nice (and long overdue, I guess).

However, I've never done Crossfire. I completely intended to back when I have an X1900XT, of all things, but that never came to anything. Sorry.

Elimination

minor incident wrote:

For the record, I currently run 2 6950s on a 750watt PSU. I used to have a 700watt one that also did the trick.

750 watts on a solid 80+ certified PSU should work, but I wouldn't feel bad bumping up to 850 if you really want. I think anything above that would be totally unnecessary, though admittedly badass.

How do the 6950's in crossfire perform? I was even thinking of going for those instead. Originally i was going to grab 2 of those and "unlock" them but heard now adays thats a bit of a crapshoot and the newer 6950's can't be unlocked a lot of the time. It looks like 2 6950's consume significantly less power than the 6970's, and offer extremely good performance when crossfired for their price point.

minor incident

Elimination wrote:

minor incident wrote:

For the record, I currently run 2 6950s on a 750watt PSU. I used to have a 700watt one that also did the trick.

750 watts on a solid 80+ certified PSU should work, but I wouldn't feel bad bumping up to 850 if you really want. I think anything above that would be totally unnecessary, though admittedly badass.

How do the 6950's in crossfire perform? I was even thinking of going for those instead. Originally i was going to grab 2 of those and "unlock" them but heard now adays thats a bit of a crapshoot and the newer 6950's can't be unlocked a lot of the time. It looks like 2 6950's consume significantly less power than the 6970's, and offer extremely good performance when crossfired for their price point.

Well, you'll save yourself like 60-100 bucks between the two, depending on the models you go for. I can tell you that I haven't yet encountered a game that I can't run on max settings with an average of 60 FPS or so. Lately I've been playing Dead Island, Fallout:NV, Just Cause 2, Battlefield BC 2, and RAGE. Most of those games (and just about everything really, outside of Crysis/Metro/etc) typically run at well over 100 FPS.

At first I was actually thinking of returning them in favor of 2 6970s because I had more cash than expected for my recent build, but after thinking it over, I just can't justify it when nothing really comes close to sweating these two cards at the moment. Also, heat is great with these cards. They run cool and are insanely quiet, considering the significant power they're pushing.

Edit: Oh, and I hear the unlock is about 50/50 on the ones that it does work on (reference designs only, is my understanding), but luckily they're nearly impossible to totally brick. Most of them that I've seen around are newer non-reference designs (like my Sapphires) that don't have the dual BIOS switch of the reference design, which is required for the unlock.

Elimination

minor incident wrote:

Elimination wrote:

minor incident wrote:

For the record, I currently run 2 6950s on a 750watt PSU. I used to have a 700watt one that also did the trick.

750 watts on a solid 80+ certified PSU should work, but I wouldn't feel bad bumping up to 850 if you really want. I think anything above that would be totally unnecessary, though admittedly badass.

How do the 6950's in crossfire perform? I was even thinking of going for those instead. Originally i was going to grab 2 of those and "unlock" them but heard now adays thats a bit of a crapshoot and the newer 6950's can't be unlocked a lot of the time. It looks like 2 6950's consume significantly less power than the 6970's, and offer extremely good performance when crossfired for their price point.

Well, you'll save yourself like 60-100 bucks between the two, depending on the models you go for. I can tell you that I haven't yet encountered a game that I can't run on max settings with an average of 60 FPS or so. Lately I've been playing Dead Island, Fallout:NV, Just Cause 2, Battlefield BC 2, and RAGE. Most of those games (and just about everything really, outside of Crysis/Metro/etc) typically run at well over 100 FPS.

At first I was actually thinking of returning them in favor of 2 6970s because I had more cash than expected for my recent build, but after thinking it over, I just can't justify it when nothing really comes close to sweating these two cards at the moment. Also, heat is great with these cards. They run cool and are insanely quiet, considering the significant power they're pushing.

Edit: Oh, and I hear the unlock is about 50/50 on the ones that it does work on (reference designs only, is my understanding), but luckily they're nearly impossible to totally brick. Most of them that I've seen around are newer non-reference designs (like my Sapphires) that don't have the dual BIOS switch of the reference design, which is required for the unlock.

Well i just found some sapphires on Newegg that specifically advertise having a dual bios switch to "allow users to experiment with alternative bios" lol. They are about $269 Canadian which is a lot cheaper than the 6970's. And they have dual fan coolers which looks like a nice addition. Save myself a lot of money this way too. Thanks for the info.

For reference the card i am looking at is: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945

Stormwatcher

I love AMD GPUs and Intel CPUs.

I have a 6870 and it's awesome.

Elimination

Well i'm using an AMD CPU because i prefer them to the Intel's for their superior memory controllers and stability, but to each their own.

Anyways, I ended up getting 2 Diamond Radeon 6950's. Ordered them this morning, here's hoping it kicks as much ass as I am hoping.

Now just need to sell off the GTX 560 ti I've got extra now.

cardboard delusions

Is there a big difference between the 5870s and 6970s? I thought benchmarks showed them being faster? Also, NewEgg is completely out of stock on all 5870s, can I crossfire mine with another ATI card?

Alecthar

cardboard delusions wrote:

Is there a big difference between the 5870s and 6970s? I thought benchmarks showed them being faster? Also, NewEgg is completely out of stock on all 5870s, can I crossfire mine with another ATI card?

The 6950 is a more powerful card than the 5870, and the 6970 is a slight step up from there.

On the other hand, the 5870 is still a very competent card. If you can't find a 5870, you can CF with another 5800 series card, like a 5850. I'd also check the used market. eBay's always an option. Alternately, computer enthusiast forums like [H]ardForum, eVGA's forums, or Overclock.net all have forum-based marketplaces where you can purchase parts from other users, most of whom do a better job taking care of stuff like that than most people do.

Elimination

I dont think the normal 5870's are even being manufactured anymore with the new cards out. So thats probably why they are out of stock everywhere. Also the 69XX cards are pretty significantly faster than the 5870's. Not sure where you heard the 5870's were faster, but thats incorrect. The 69XX's also have double the video ram (With the exception of the 1gb 6950's, but who buys those anyways?)

Elimination

Well I ordered in my first 6950, and it just arrived. It is COMPLETELY different than what was pictured on newegg. The Diamond one I bought on Newegg showed a dual fan cooler and a red plastic shroud sort of thing. The one I recieved was a reference model with a black plastic shroud, a nice black metal back plate, and a single fan push style cooler (Pushes air through the shroud and out the back of the case.). It also has the dual bios switch on it. I am not sure how this happened, but whatever.

I managed to unlock the bios to 6970 speeds and this card is screaming fast. I noticed higher, more consistent frame rates than my 560 instantly on everything I tried. I am going to order in my second card in a few days. Only thing now is I am worried if I order the same card, it will in fact not be the same actual card I just recieved...which would bother me since I kind of want it to be the same one so I can have that perfectly matched pair and unlock the bios on them.

Also now need to figure out a power supply to get this all to work. I currently have a high quality 80+ Bronze Antec 650 watt. If i unlock both of the cards i'm going to need something beefier. I have no brand preference, but something reliable would be great. Also price not too crazy high would be fantastic. Any suggestions? I'm canadian as well just so you all know that US sites wont work for ordering anything.

Alecthar

Elimination wrote:

I dont think the normal 5870's are even being manufactured anymore with the new cards out. So thats probably why they are out of stock everywhere. Also the 69XX cards are pretty significantly faster than the 5870's. Not sure where you heard the 5870's were faster, but thats incorrect. The 69XX's also have double the video ram (With the exception of the 1gb 6950's, but who buys those anyways?)

Anyone who wants to save some money on their 6950 and isn't interested in running 3 monitors off a single card? The utility of 2GB of VRAM is pretty limited without the really high resolutions you see from using Eyefinity.

And describing the 6950 as significantly faster than a 5870 really depends on what your definition of significant is, and what your comparisons are. The VRAM limitations of a standard 5870 will make it less competitive at really high resolutions, but around 1080p, the FPS difference between the 5870 and the 6950 is generally in the single digits. Obviously that depends partly on the games you're benchmarking, but overall the 5870 hangs close to the 6950. I wouldn't call it a draw, but the 6950 doesn't really run away with the victory either.

As for a PSU: Anything ~750W that's good will work. Cheaper and non-modular: Antec HCG 750W, Corsair TX750, XFX Core Edition 750W. Modular: Corsair AX750, Seasonic X750, Rosewill's Lightning Series 800W, NZXT Hale90 750W.

Elimination

Alecthar wrote:

Elimination wrote:

I dont think the normal 5870's are even being manufactured anymore with the new cards out. So thats probably why they are out of stock everywhere. Also the 69XX cards are pretty significantly faster than the 5870's. Not sure where you heard the 5870's were faster, but thats incorrect. The 69XX's also have double the video ram (With the exception of the 1gb 6950's, but who buys those anyways?)

Anyone who wants to save some money on their 6950 and isn't interested in running 3 monitors off a single card? The utility of 2GB of VRAM is pretty limited without the really high resolutions you see from using Eyefinity.

And describing the 6950 as significantly faster than a 5870 really depends on what your definition of significant is, and what your comparisons are. The VRAM limitations of a standard 5870 will make it less competitive at really high resolutions, but around 1080p, the FPS difference between the 5870 and the 6950 is generally in the single digits. Obviously that depends partly on the games you're benchmarking, but overall the 5870 hangs close to the 6950. I wouldn't call it a draw, but the 6950 doesn't really run away with the victory either.

As for a PSU: Anything ~750W that's good will work. Cheaper and non-modular: Antec HCG 750W, Corsair TX750, XFX Core Edition 750W. Modular: Corsair AX750, Seasonic X750, Rosewill's Lightning Series 800W, NZXT Hale90 750W.

It's the price difference between the 1gb and 2gb cards, is why i say "who buys those anyway?" the price difference is like $15-$20, sometimes theres no difference at all. In the case of my 2gb Diamond 6950's they were the same price as many of the 1gb 6950's. And I could unlock it to 6970, which I did. So I think my point is pretty good actually. It really is more of a "which is the better value?" and the choice is pretty clear cut.

Also, what I see you mentioned a Rosewill PSU in there. I saw a 750 watt 80+ bronze one for a pretty good price. I have zero experience with Rosewill PSU's. All I know is they make pretty good cases and stuff for very low prices. Are the PSU's fairly decent? I usually go with Antec or Corsair since I have had good experiences with them.

Alecthar

Rosewill has made some recent strides. Chances are the 750W unit you're looking at is one of their HIVE units, which are pretty good buys. The Corsair TX750 is only marginally more expensive, though, and overall it's a better supply.

As for the 6950 1GB, pricing matters, you're right, but getting a flash-able model is at best a crap shoot. 15-20 bucks isn't an insignificant amount of money, and if you save that much going with a card that, in a practical sense, is in no way worse than its 2GB version, I'd call that a win. Obviously, if there's no savings to be had, you might as well pick up the 2GB version, but there's a market for the 1GB version (which actually used to be reliably lower priced than the 2GB version).

Tef

I'm considering upgrading to crossfired 6950s and if I do, it'll be 1GB versions.

As alecthar said, being able to flash the bios is a gamble and just because you've had success doesn't make it the norm. I'm going to save $60 odd bucks and not fuck around with firmware flashes.

Elimination

Alecthar wrote:

Rosewill has made some recent strides. Chances are the 750W unit you're looking at is one of their HIVE units, which are pretty good buys. The Corsair TX750 is only marginally more expensive, though, and overall it's a better supply.

As for the 6950 1GB, pricing matters, you're right, but getting a flash-able model is at best a crap shoot. 15-20 bucks isn't an insignificant amount of money, and if you save that much going with a card that, in a practical sense, is in no way worse than its 2GB version, I'd call that a win. Obviously, if there's no savings to be had, you might as well pick up the 2GB version, but there's a market for the 1GB version (which actually used to be reliably lower priced than the 2GB version).

The PSU I was looking was indeed a HIVE. So they are decent?

Alecthar

Elimination wrote:

Alecthar wrote:

Rosewill has made some recent strides. Chances are the 750W unit you're looking at is one of their HIVE units, which are pretty good buys. The Corsair TX750 is only marginally more expensive, though, and overall it's a better supply.

As for the 6950 1GB, pricing matters, you're right, but getting a flash-able model is at best a crap shoot. 15-20 bucks isn't an insignificant amount of money, and if you save that much going with a card that, in a practical sense, is in no way worse than its 2GB version, I'd call that a win. Obviously, if there's no savings to be had, you might as well pick up the 2GB version, but there's a market for the 1GB version (which actually used to be reliably lower priced than the 2GB version).

The PSU I was looking was indeed a HIVE. So they are decent?

Yes, they're decent. Like I said, at Newegg the TX750 is only a bit more expensive ($5 last I checked) and is a better supply, but the HIVE is okay.

Elimination

Alecthar wrote:

Elimination wrote:

Alecthar wrote:

Rosewill has made some recent strides. Chances are the 750W unit you're looking at is one of their HIVE units, which are pretty good buys. The Corsair TX750 is only marginally more expensive, though, and overall it's a better supply.

As for the 6950 1GB, pricing matters, you're right, but getting a flash-able model is at best a crap shoot. 15-20 bucks isn't an insignificant amount of money, and if you save that much going with a card that, in a practical sense, is in no way worse than its 2GB version, I'd call that a win. Obviously, if there's no savings to be had, you might as well pick up the 2GB version, but there's a market for the 1GB version (which actually used to be reliably lower priced than the 2GB version).

The PSU I was looking was indeed a HIVE. So they are decent?

Yes, they're decent. Like I said, at Newegg the TX750 is only a bit more expensive ($5 last I checked) and is a better supply, but the HIVE is okay.

on newgg.ca i dont see one that is even close to as good of a deal as the HIVE. I think the US Newegg prices are a lot different.

cardboard delusions

Elimination wrote:

I dont think the normal 5870's are even being manufactured anymore with the new cards out. So thats probably why they are out of stock everywhere. Also the 69XX cards are pretty significantly faster than the 5870's. Not sure where you heard the 5870's were faster, but thats incorrect. The 69XX's also have double the video ram (With the exception of the 1gb 6950's, but who buys those anyways?)

Sorry for late reply, was away on vacation, I think I read that the 5870s were better than 6870s not 6970s. My bad. I got a great deal on a 5870 about a year ago and upgraded from a 4850 - seemed like a good deal since I sold the 4850 for $100 and picked up the 5870 for $180 after rebates. Might just try to sell the 5870 now to swing a 6970...