HD 6970 - To keep or not to keep?

qubit · Dec 5, 2011

renozi said:
lol i'm a fanboy of both camps... is that possible?

It is, but it's a very twisted and very deviant relationship.

Are you gonna put them in CrossSLI-X? :laugh:

DrunkenMafia · Dec 5, 2011

Keep it and crossfire it. BF3 looks soooooo friggin good with everything on ultra and 100fps!!!!

Your psu is good, you already have an SSD so go for it!!

Over_Lord · Dec 5, 2011

which reminds me, when is the friggin AMD presentation on HD7000 already!

radrok · Dec 5, 2011

Should be soon enough but I'd say don't expect high end parts before the new year :|

renozi · Dec 6, 2011

Okay, so due to popular demand I will be keeping the 6970 and am going to install it right now. Wish me luck!

renozi · Dec 6, 2011

Okay new problem. Every time I run BF3 multiplayer it crashes on me within 5 minutes of playing and tells me I don't have enough memory. It ran fine with 2GB on the xfx 6970. Why is it crashing now that I have x-fire? I haven't increased the image quality settings at all.

FreedomEclipse · Dec 6, 2011

what drivers are you using?

20mmrain · Dec 6, 2011

I would say if your not going for record breaking benches and all you do is game..... then I would say Keep it. To the guy who said it won't give you much more performance obviously is not someone who has ever run Xfire or SLI before.
Xfire or SLI has become very nicely optimized over the years.....For example when I owned two HD6950's I would on a regular basis see an extra 80% to 85% performance increase.... with some games peaking over 95% (Granted not constant) I am also getting the same results with two GTX 580's.
Now if you were adding a 3rd card the optimization's are not as good same with a fourth card. But as of right now 2 cards seem to be the sweat spot in terms of performance.
Go for it.....plus if you get these two cards and you change your mind later then you could just sell them for 70% the cost of the new cards and upgrade.

Okay new problem. Every time I run BF3 multiplayer it crashes on me within 5 minutes of playing and tells me I don't have enough memory. It ran fine with 1.5GB on the xfx 6970. Why is it crashing now that I have x-fire? I haven't increased the image quality settings at all.

What driver versions are you using? Is everything plugged in correctly? Is your PSU strong enough to not cause instability? Did you clean your old drivers and then re-install ?(Sometimes when switching from 1 card to 2 cards it can cause instability unless you re-install drivers) Are there any AMD/ATI profiles out for this? Which card is the Master card??? The 6950 Flashed to 6970 or 6970 you could always try switching the positions (With 5000 series this was an issue from time to time not saying it is with 6000 series but still worth a shot) One other thought you don't have multiple Fan control/Overclocking utilities up like MSI AB and CCC if so try closing one (I have seen stranger things happen) Try stuff like l suggested above check all the basics

FreedomEclipse · Dec 6, 2011

20mmrain said:
Is your PSU strong enough to not cause instability?

His PSU is fine as its a top tier 850w one. It should be fine so long as he dont have like 20-30 hard drives hooked up to it

More wattage doesnt hurt when running such a high performance setup.

I would think its more to do with drivers more then anything else. AMD drivers for BF3 to date have been anything short of appalling.

Im still running 11.9's because anything above that just makes my game crash 8.5 times out 10.

though I havent tried their 11.11c's mind you. but they were more for skyrim then anything else.

kciaccio · Dec 6, 2011

BrooksyX said:
I voted in the poll but I prefer a third option. Send 6970 to brooksyx for free because his 6870 sucks in eyefinity.

Really? I thought the 6870 card was ideal for Eyefinity. What version do you have?

20mmrain · Dec 6, 2011

FreedomEclipse said:
His PSU is fine as its a top tier 850w one. It should be fine so long as he dont have like 20-30 hard drives hooked up to it

More wattage doesnt hurt when running such a high performance setup.

I would think its more to do with drivers more then anything else. AMD drivers for BF3 to date have been anything short of appalling.

Im still running 11.9's because anything above that just makes my game crash 8.5 times out 10.

though I havent tried their 11.11c's mind you. but they were more for skyrim then anything else.

I am not saying everything I listed above is the answer.... I just see people have things like this happen to them all the time and worry before they check the basics.... that is why I am just asking. Plus I didn't look to see what PSU he has... people forget to update their system specs all them time so I stopped looking at them.
But the driver issue your right is most likely the problem. Re-installing the drivers when switching from one card to two can have positive effects.... again not saying its the definitive problem.... just asking him to investigate. Also this always happens you try to give advice here.... giving several options to look at (Not saying anyone thing is the issue for sure just suggesting) and then someone comes along and says "No your wrong check this" come on man....I never once said that was the problem for sure. :toast:

yogurt_21 · Dec 6, 2011

keep it, crossfire it, skip the HD 7XXX series and then re-evaluate after the 8XXX series comes out.

seriously with that gpu setup you'll be set for quite some time and only have to worry about new game costs rather than "can my rig play this game at max?" 2 years from now and beyond

DarkOCean · Dec 6, 2011

1.You have 2500 @ 4,5ghz good enough and not bottlenecking two cards;
2.Your mobo have 2x8 pcie lanes for crossfire;
3.You already have one 6950 unlocked;
I'd day keep it and enjoy 6970 crossfire.

renozi · Dec 6, 2011

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm gonna switch the card positions first then try 11.9 drivers. I'm running 11.11 now and this didn't happen before. I completely uninstall the drivers before reinstalling them. Campaign works just fine but multiplayer crashes with running out of memory.

renozi · Dec 7, 2011

I tried swapping card positions. Still crashes.
I tried 11.9 drivers. Still crashes. I'm pretty sure it's a driver problem. What do I do now?

renozi · Dec 7, 2011

I disabled xfire and was able to play MP no problem. Definitely a driver problem.

renozi · Dec 7, 2011

I printscreened the crash.

LagunaX · Dec 7, 2011

Keep the 6970.
Reflash the 6950 back to the original bios and then an unlocked shader original bios and then sell it for over $200 on ebay before the 7 series comes out.
It will still overclock on stock volts to 6970 clocks - but the issue is there is the risk of damaging the ram of the card over the long term since the bios for the 6970 may not match the specs for the ram in your 6950.

Then when the 7 series comes out you can decide what you want to do - another 6790 might be the price of your sold 6950 - heck, I picked up a 6970 off ebay last week for $227 shipped (weekday auction) when 6950 2gb's were still going for $250+...

And for 1920 resolution, a single 6970 is fine - even MaximumPC says so in their latest issue on building a gaming PC for 1920x1200 res =)

renozi · Dec 7, 2011

I think drivers 11.11 CAP 2 fixed it. I was able to play a whole match without crashing!

renozi · Dec 7, 2011

Nevermind, it still crashes if I set to Ultra.

The Von Matrices · Dec 7, 2011

Could these crashes be an caused by the modded BIOS on the 6950? Have you tried using the stock BIOS on the 6950 when testing CrossfireX? The cards should still be compatible in CrossfireX even if they have different numbers of shaders. If it still crashes, you can eliminate the modded BIOS as the cause.

You could also try switching the cards' slots. I don't know why this would fix anything but it's worth a shot.

renozi · Dec 7, 2011

Since the 6950 has dual bios, I switched it to 6950 settings and ran xfire again. Still runs out of memory when on Ultra settings. I got it to crash while playing campaign this time. Maybe just a BF3 + drivers issue.

yogurt_21 · Dec 7, 2011

renozi said:
Since the 6950 has dual bios, I switched it to 6950 settings and ran xfire again. Still runs out of memory when on Ultra settings. I got it to crash while playing campaign this time. Maybe just a BF3 + drivers issue.

what about other games? should try another graphics intensive game to make sure it's not just BF3.

cadaveca · Dec 7, 2011

renozi said:
Since the 6950 has dual bios, I switched it to 6950 settings and ran xfire again. Still runs out of memory when on Ultra settings. I got it to crash while playing campaign this time. Maybe just a BF3 + drivers issue.

Did you disable page file? If so, try re-enabling it.

Gzero · Dec 7, 2011

It's a virtual address issue with BF3!

You need to do this apparently to get it to work:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2224117

Windows 7/Windows Vista
* In Windows 7/Vista go to Start menu. Go to Accessories. Locate the command prompt shortcut and hover mouse over it. Right Click on the shortcut then select Run as Administrator.
* In the command prompt type this exactly: bcdedit /set increaseuserva 2500. Then hit enter.
* Make sure you get a message back confirming the change was made. To verify the entry is there you can type just bcdedit, hit enter, and you should see the entry now listed.
* Then close the command prompt. You just told Vista to increase user virtual address (userva) space to 2500MB.
* Changes take effect on reboot but don't reboot yet.

SUMMARY
We extended the user virtual address space in XP, Vista and 7 to 2500MB, so now applications can utilize up to that much if they are set to be Large Address Aware. While some 32 bit games/applications are set, Empire is not.

2) Now reboot the PC because Windows needs to set the userva at 2500 which only happens after startup.

If you skip any step it will not work. When you have rebooted you should be good to go. Run the game as normal with the original game shortcut.

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HD 6970 - To keep or not to keep?

What should I do?

Keep HD6970

Sell HD6970

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

DrunkenMafia

Over_Lord

News Editor

radrok

renozi

renozi

FreedomEclipse

~Technological Technocrat~

20mmrain

FreedomEclipse

~Technological Technocrat~

kciaccio

New Member

20mmrain

yogurt_21

DarkOCean

renozi

renozi

renozi

renozi

Attachments

LagunaX

renozi

renozi

The Von Matrices

renozi

yogurt_21

cadaveca

My name is Dave

Gzero

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