4890 CF to single 6970 - Worth it?

[Mekoa]

Hello,

After reading various posts here and there, I'm in a bit of a quandry as to whether its worth buying a 6970 (probably MSI or XFX reference) to replace my 4890's or wait for new tech (6990?) or even look at nVidia. Budget is probably £300.

I'm not a huge bencher, but I do prefer my games to run at maximum settings where possible (I play everything at 1920x1200 on an LG 24"). I also run WCG pretty much 24x7 on my main box (current setup in sig).

Questions regarding this being thusly.

1) Will i see a performance increase from 4890CF to single 6970? I only really play WoW, SC2 at the moment, but Rift, SWToR and D3 will be on my to do list, plus any decent FPS that are up and coming.
2) Is D3D11 worth the upgrade alone for the native DirectX processing?
3) Based on my spec being pure AMD, is nVidia an option? E.g. the 560Ti or 570? I may eventually buy another card if I go Radeon.
4) Power usage - 40nm tech single card should use considerably less than 2 4890's on 65nm (I think) ? Have to save the pennies somewhere...

Any information at all is appreciated.

Cheers,
Mekoa.

[zalbard]

6950 unlocked to 6970 is a great price/performance option.
DirectX 11 is nice, more and more games support it (most upcoming shooters, WoW, possibly D3).
Nvidia is an option. GTX570 is a nice card. A few things to watch out for, though: some people get black screens / lockups with Fermi cards, and GTX570 has a weak PWM which causes some cards to randomly die.
GTX560 also isn't bad. All Fermi cards overclock very well. You have to watch out for the problems mentioned above, though.
And yes, you'll save some power either way.

[darckhart]

1) yes you will. but mostly you will see it in the eyecandy settings you can now enable. will your gameplay experience change drastically? with your current games, doubtful.

2) dx11 is fun and all, but imo most games havent done anything "WOW AWESOME" with it yet. you might want to google up rift and 69xx series dx11 alpha problem though.

3) yes, nv is an option. just because you built your platform one way or another doesn't suddenly stop you from using cards from either camp. (unless you sli, in which case you'd have to check if your mobo supports sli.) the 570s dying is mostly from people not leaving their cards at stock volts and speeds. unless you want to kick up your eyecandy or AA settings, a 560 will be plenty for all games you mentioned.

4) yes, these newer cards use considerably less power. a stock gtx580 is rated at 244W. i think a 6970 is a tad bit more, but nothing so drastic as to dissaude you from anything, although you do run wcg 24/7....

[Alex-Ro]

6970 consumes less than a 580 ffs =))

[Mekoa]

Sounds like I have a fair few options and the 560 Ti might be a good choice. Need to float around and hopefully get an offer or two here or there. Rift isnt entirely on my "I must play this till my eyes bleed" list, so the alpha issues might not present a deciding factor for me.

24/7 WCG is a bit of a drain on power I know, but if a single current generation card uses less than 2 4890's, Its win win for me.

Re nVidia, I wasnt sure if there was any benefit to having a pure AMD system over combined e.g. drivers, hardware compatibility etc.

[FlawleZ]

A GTX 560 would only sometimes be faster than 4890 CF. Only really the Nvidia biased games like Far Cry 2. A 6970 would make more sense as it should see improvements 100% of the time, use significantly less power, and have much more Vram to boot.

[Irocing]

A GTX 560 would only sometimes be faster than 4890 CF. Only really the Nvidia biased games like Far Cry 2. A 6970 would make more sense as it should see improvements 100% of the time, use significantly less power, and have much more Vram to boot.

Hi,

And two 6970s in CF later going to probably be somewhere along
the lines of a 6990 when it comes out.
If 6990 to far out of reach pricewise going one 6970 and as prices fall
double up on another one.
As much as hate going back to CF.
Performance to cost as long as they sync well.

Single 6970 overclocked pretty potent and then when crossfired
be good as to future proving.

Just like two 5870 equal to a 5970.

Later

[Mekoa]

A GTX 560 would only sometimes be faster than 4890 CF. Only really the Nvidia biased games like Far Cry 2. A 6970 would make more sense as it should see improvements 100% of the time, use significantly less power, and have much more Vram to boot.

I was ideally looking for a 6970, however there are 2GB versions of the GTX560 (not many I might add).

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/72gb-...x-dvi-hdmi-vga

[darckhart]

@meoka
oh hey i totally did not mean to dissuade you from 6970 at all. i just wanted to say that you're not tied down to one camp or the other. and since you were looking for a single card solution with the games you mentioned, i was just throwing out the 560 as a sufficient card since it oc's very well.

@alex-ro
hm irl 6970 is less? but from most of the articles i google, i see it's rated at 250W. for example, check occlub, anandtech, gpureview.

[eXa]

Neither wow nor SC2 taxes the gpu that much. You should be able to max all the settings even with the 4890 setup. For wow a ssd would probably be a bigger upgrade (not just loading dungeons and the like, but in actual gameplay)

[zalbard]

@alex-ro
hm irl 6970 is less? but from most of the articles i google, i see it's rated at 250W. for example, check occlub, anandtech, gpureview.

It is less. See the actual power consumption numbers.
It's consuming a lot less both in idle and under load.

[Neova]

You should just perform this simple test:

Run BF:BC2 or your favorite 3D shooter game in your max res with 8xAA and see how much vram it uses. If it goes over 1 GB, then you should consider upgrading. If not, the just wait a tad longer for the 6990 and 595 GTX to see if you can wait for a bigger bang.

WOW or SC2 just won't tax your gpu as much as your cpu.

[Razrback16]

As far as performance, I had 4890 CF before my 5870 -- my single 5870 is maybe 5% to 10% faster than 4890 CF was, so you'll definitely see an upgrade, it just won't be incredibly huge. I only upgraded to the 5870 because I melted one of the voltage regulators on one of my 4890s, otherwise I would still be running 4890 CF. Run it as long as you are getting decent performance in your games.

[InCredible]

i can look at this in both lights...on one hand if your gpus are doing fine in the games you play...no reason to upgrade just yet..however on the other hand you can sell your gpu's and get 2/3 the money for the 6970..so you wouldn't have to come out of pocket very much.
Also in games that dont scale well no worry. also get new features less power consumption and heat...i guess it really depends on do you have the extra money? would it hurt you by spending it? ..if you have it then yes overall its worth it..but i wouldn't go broke for a week to grab one if your setup is working fine for you.

[AlleyViper]

Might not be the best solution tdp-wise, but at the price of a hd6970 you might consider two hd6850s or even 70s.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=302