6950 CrossFire vs single GTX 580 - your pick?

[niemion]

ASUS Radeon HD 6950 CrossFire

I'm 1+ for 6950 CrossFire. Where I live this option is right now 8% more than a single GTX 580.

[crazyeyesreaper]

if you can deal with needed driver updates for xfire support then go for 6950s if you hate upgrading drivers get the 580

i would also have to ask what the rest of your system specs are because if your on an AMD system get the single 580 because it wont be able to properly push 2x 6900 cards

[NdMk2o1o]

what represents the best performance? if thats your question then its the 6950 crossfire, though if the 580 is cheaper it would be my preferred option as it's not too far behind and its a single GPU solution and it will give you near enough the same performance without the hassle of a dual GPU setup.

[crazyeyesreaper]

any resolution below 1920x1200 the 580 is the better deal overclocked it will match the 6950s xfire scaling gets better as the resolution goes up

[phanbuey]

dont forget power supply... the 6950's will need a bigger unit, and the noise will be a ton more too. I would go with the 6950's tho, ultimately they will give the best performance, by a decent margin

[micropage7]

based on what system you gonna run, crossfire would be effective on higher res but need much power than single 580, if you have 1 6950 i guess its nice to have another then crossfire it.

[wahdangun]

go for CF

[PopcornMachine]

Considering I already have one 6950, it would be crossfire for me!

Not sure I'm going to need more than this card though. I'ts pretty nice.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Well single card is always generally preferable but with the scaling on the 6800 series combined with the fairly significant lower price I say definitely the 6850's. I suppose I should note I just bought two myself...

Originally Posted by PopcornMachine

Considering I already have one 6950, it would be crossfire for me!

Not sure I'm going to need more than this card though. I'ts pretty nice.

Yeah unless you are gaming at 2560x1600 and love eye candy you definitely don't need two 69xx cards.

[crazyeyesreaper]

lol post is for dual 6950s wrigley lol 2x 6950s = same price as a gtx 580

in terms of performance if hes at 1920x1200 he should with the newer drivers AND if hes on an intel core i5 or i7 be about 35% faster with the dual cards any lower resolution the 580 keeps up and if hes on an AMD rig again dual cards of the 6900s are a waste there i should know i own 2 x 6970s

[afw]

6850 Crossfire is another option ... its a little faster than a GTX580 (similar to 5970) ... uses almost the same amount of power ... and is more than $150 cheaper ...

[Wrigleyvillain]

Oops lol. Yeah well then then next question is what res are you gaming at and/or do you really need that much power (i.e. 2 x 6950)

[thunderising]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

if you can deal with needed driver updates for xfire support then go for 6950s if you hate upgrading drivers get the 580

i would also have to ask what the rest of your system specs are because if your on an AMD system get the single 580 because it wont be able to properly push 2x 6900 cards

+ 1 for HD6950, with the initial driver set, aka 10.12a first release for HD6900, AMD manaed upto 200% performance over a single card, that's 2x scaling, which is nothing short of commendable.

In 3-4 months, we can expect even better support and compatibility with games, if not enhanced scaling.

[crazyeyesreaper]

no i think you missed my point thunder

if hes on an AMD rig go single 580 no matter what

if hes on an i7 then 6950s are worth while otherwise dont waste the money

6900 series scaling on AMD is closer to 45-55% at best i7 scaling is 80% -90% in most tests

[Wrigleyvillain]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

6900 series scaling on AMD is closer to 45-55% at best i7 scaling is 80% -90% in most tests

Did not know so CPU dependent. Same for 6800 series I presume?

[crazyeyesreaper]

nope 6800s scale fine way better then the 5800s just seems that what cadaveca pointed out was fairly sorta accurate after 1600 shaders amd dosent have the grunt to feed them so 960x2 is fine 1120 is fine its not a huge deal but for me 1536 x 2 = well double what the cpu can feed its why most games i play only show 30-40% usage on both gpus...

[Dave65]

I switched from 5870s crossfire for a single 580 and could not be happier so i checked the 580

[Wrigleyvillain]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

nope 6800s scale fine way better then the 5800s

Ya I know that's why i went 6850 instead of buying another 5850. I was asking about scaling in terms of 6900 vs 6800. Figure it's similar if not equal but haven't chekced the numbers for myself. I'm not really a numbers kinda guy ;P

[DarkOCean]

Go for cf 6950 their cf scaling is amazing.

[crazyeyesreaper]

scaling on 6800 on i7 is around 70-80% scaling on 6900s if on i7 is around 70-100% depending on the game or senario

[IggSter]

580 definately...

Quieter, less power, less heat and the most important in my mind - you can add a 2nd. If you go down the crossfire road you are limited with your upgrade options.

My view is always buy the best single card you can afford.

[crazyeyesreaper]

in daul card configs 6950s are on part with dual 570s and dual 6970s are on par with dual 580s so grabbing 2 580s is far more expensive for comparable performance as the 2 6950s if overclocked will be only 5%-8% slower then dual 580s at a near $400 cheaper comparatively. That said depending on Resolution and CPU id say 580 as well but if on i7 and at 1920x1200 or 1080p then dual 6950s

[Wrigleyvillain]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

scaling on 6800 on i7 is around 70-80% scaling on 6900s if on i7 is around 70-100% depending on the game or senario

Ok so 69xx is a bit better scaling-wise but the whole 6xxx series is the best yet on the market in terms of getting the most out of your second card. I thought I saw a post here that the average 6850 was 87% but even topping out at 80 is great.

Thanks.

[crazyeyesreaper]

well depends on what games you average

but on i7 scaling is great regarless AMD and Nvidia dual card configs scale about the same now

even the 5800 scale good on i7 but yea 6800s scale better and 6900 its just driver flukes single cards seem underpowered dual cards scale better then 100% which makes no sense

that said id really need to know his full system specs but more often then not a single 580 would be better overall if he dosent feel like changing drivers often as the performance will be good in almost every situation where as any dual card setup there hit or miss depending on target

example Bad Company 2 Multi player Crossfire scaling for me at least is 8-18% single player its 40-60% obviously thats some huge discrepency and something to keep in mind

[niemion]

i7 950 @ 4GHz, Rampage III Extreme, 6GB RAM
24" monitor @ 1920x1200

Alright, looks like it's really 6950 CF for me then.

I mostly game Starcraft 2 for the moment. Do you know of any reviews comparing 6950 vs 580? What I'm really looking for is worst case scenarios, that is 2 x 200 supply battles and even 6 x 200 supply battles. Reviewers typically monitor FPS in standard games which is pretty close to worthless. Now what is worth to know is how low the FPS can drop, 20 vs 30 is a biggie.