# 6950 CrossFire vs single GTX 580 - your pick?



## niemion (Dec 25, 2010)

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.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## NdMk2o1o (Dec 25, 2010)

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.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## phanbuey (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## micropage7 (Dec 25, 2010)

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.


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## wahdangun (Dec 25, 2010)

go for CF


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## PopcornMachine (Dec 25, 2010)

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.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 25, 2010)

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... 



PopcornMachine said:


> 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.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## afw (Dec 25, 2010)

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 ...


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 25, 2010)

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)


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## Over_Lord (Dec 25, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 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.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 25, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 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?


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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...


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## Dave65 (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 25, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 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


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## DarkOCean (Dec 25, 2010)

Go for cf 6950 their cf scaling is amazing.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## IggSter (Dec 25, 2010)

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.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 25, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 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.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 25, 2010)

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


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## niemion (Dec 26, 2010)

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.


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## sneekypeet (Dec 26, 2010)

I hope there is a PSU upgrade coming with these cards


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 26, 2010)

agreed that CM psu wont cut it will probably crash and burn if you tried to run a fully loaded xfire system on it hell probably would survive the 580 and i7 since they will pull around 500w alone full load on both easily


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## niemion (Dec 26, 2010)

Sure sure, PSU upgrade either way. This one is just a spare part from my closet.

Total system power consumption will probably be around 200w (idle), 600w (load) drawn from the wall, right? I'm thinking about a Corsair AX 750 or 850.


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## cheezburger (Dec 27, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 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



a 6950 cf are NEVER be in same category as  dual gtx 570 and neither  6970 cf can put tiny scratch on gtx 580 sli .  6970 is weaker than gtx 570 in dx9/dx10/dx11 heavy tessellation and aa/af/msaa and ONLY tight up with gtx series in super ridiculous high resolution with the benefit of ram size(back to good old day 2900xt 1gb vs 8800gts 320mb ) of cause unless you never see the benchmark from tom's hardware/anandtech/guru 3d OTHER THAN WIZARD's own bench. a 6970 is only marginally better than 5870 and 6950 is only 8% better than 6870. i really don't like the point that  people like to compare a mid range camery(6970/6950) to a high end ferrari(gtx 580/570)....of cause on wizard's bench things just look a bit different from general audience...

i know some of you will bring those crappy bench that try to define how good those amd card compete to nv card but non of them are really neutralized opinion that would probably misguiding general consumer to believe these cheap ass amd card are much better. that is reason why tom's hardware banned tpu's non-neutral fanboi benchmark. 

to op: unless you'll be benefit from multi gpu setup i would suggest you go for gtx 580 than go for 6950 cf. 


(ops...i forgot tpu is a amd fanbase and i may get my self banned again from this post )


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## Mussels (Dec 27, 2010)

cheezburger said:


> (ops...i forgot tpu is a amd fanbase and i may get my self banned again from this post )



no, TPU is an 'anti troll' fanbase and you'll get yourself banned for trolling.


If you wish to make an argument, do so politely without silly comments designed to offend anybody - they dont help you make your case at all, and just make you look like a child (and thus you get ignored)


and so you know, you realise toms is one of the most biased websites around... they had a few big scandals where they were paid to make intel seem faster than AMD, to the point they were the only ones showing hyperthreading to be a performance boost and not a loss in programs of that era, and they had a nice big AMD vs intel test with live webcam feeds where the intel system died and shutdown, yet its scores still kept updating to beat the AMD system even when you could see it was offline/in the BIOS?


if you want to comment about certain benchmarks being biased, at least show proof they are. so far you've just whined.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 27, 2010)

cheezburger said:


> a 6950 cf are NEVER be in same category as  dual gtx 570 and neither  6970 cf can put tiny scratch on gtx 580 sli .  6970 is weaker than gtx 570 in dx9/dx10/dx11 heavy tessellation and aa/af/msaa and ONLY tight up with gtx series in super ridiculous high resolution with the benefit of ram size(back to good old day 2900xt 1gb vs 8800gts 320mb ) of cause unless you never see the benchmark from tom's hardware/anandtech/guru 3d OTHER THAN WIZARD's own bench. a 6970 is only marginally better than 5870 and 6950 is only 8% better than 6870. i really don't like the point that  people like to compare a mid range camery(6970/6950) to a high end ferrari(gtx 580/570)....of cause on wizard's bench things just look a bit different from general audience...
> 
> i know some of you will bring those crappy bench that try to define how good those amd card compete to nv card but non of them are really neutralized opinion that would probably misguiding general consumer to believe these cheap ass amd card are much better. that is reason why tom's hardware banned tpu's non-neutral fanboi benchmark.
> 
> ...



really cause me and red machine have identicle rigs up to date drivers and my single 6970 wastes his 580 in DX11 games just cause a review says this or that dosent make it gospel true but fact is i have 6970 xfire and fact is i match 580 sli numbers in alot of games that are DX11. another fact i paid less to do so in the end it dosent matter that much people will buy what they buy but the cold hard fact is 6950s can now be unlocked to 6970s with a simple bios flash within windows itself and in that sense $600 6850s will slaughter a 580 at $500 price point

granted this is on AMD cpus its already been established on Intel rigs the 580 in single card mode performs better

but in Alien Vs Predator  Heaven Bench etc on a 965be with 1333 cl7 ram single 6970 stock vs single 580 stock i came out on top again and again. Now if someone wants to donate me an Intel rig ill test that and watch the 580 pull ahead.

but from what i remember in legit reviews andantech 6900 cards in dual card config ran neck and neck with the 580s 

my review of the 6900s i posted awhile back  Crazyeyesreaper 6970 series review
various DX11 performance round ups from the net

















my DX11 Metro test 1920x1200 AAA 16x AF tess on DoF off




Alien vs predator maxed




Just Cause 4xAA max settings 1920x1200






If these arent enough i can grab more i mean theres alot of reviews out there i can keep grabbing bench marks but i reall dont give a shit about DX9 or DX10 performance when those games run at 200-300fps examples Unreal Engine 3 based titles and the like the fact i can now run Metro 2033 at 55fps avg 30min with all settings including Depth of Field turned on im happy if someone has 570 sli or 580 theyll get near the same performance and be just a damn happy.

Also if the forum is so AMD biased and it grinds your gears so much why not go to some other forum. 

and for there record if i had the cash id buy an Intel core i7 rig right now

but fact is 580 sli might win in general by a few FPS but in no way is it worth the price 2x 6950s is $600 on newegg flash the bios you have 2x 6970s for $150 less 580 sli sits at $1000 = performance $400 less thats just a cold hard cash difference

also im gonna go out on a limb and guess the next response is that all the info ive provided in its retarded non punctuated form will be deemed biased and made up of magical fairy pixie dust made from the bones of children from Ethiopia right?


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## gaximodo (Dec 27, 2010)

I wish I waited for gtx570/580 instead of going 5850 cf, missed so much on NV's driver when I had my 275 SLI setup. As for the op, I'd go with single 580 or 570/560 SLI. Stay away from prototype generations like the GTX4XX and 6XXX series.


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## afw (Dec 27, 2010)

The 6950 crossfire option seems the best after this -->  AMD Radeon HD 6950 can be unlocked to HD 6970

580 SLI performance for $600  ... and save more than $400 ... or you can get another 6950 and tri-fire  ( and still save $100+ )


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## cheezburger (Dec 27, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> really cause me and red machine have identicle rigs up to date drivers and my single 6970 wastes his 580 in DX11 games just cause a review says this or that dosent make it gospel true but fact is i have 6970 xfire and fact is i match 580 sli numbers in alot of games that are DX11. another fact i paid less to do so in the end it dosent matter that much people will buy what they buy but the cold hard fact is 6950s can now be unlocked to 6970s with a simple bios flash within windows itself and in that sense $600 6850s will slaughter a 580 at $500 price point
> 
> granted this is on AMD cpus its already been established on Intel rigs the 580 in single card mode performs better
> 
> ...



just cause 2 and avp are both heavily pro amd game, why dont you test game like civilization/lost planet/splinter cell/dirt 2 and vontage

plus i got different result between 6970 vs gtx 580..
















even under such pro-amd bench i still dont see how 6970 beats gtx 580 and your bench setup is questionable...


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## afw (Dec 27, 2010)

cheezburger said:


> just cause 2 and avp are both heavily pro amd game, why dont you test game like civilization/lost planet/splinter cell/dirt 2 and vontage
> 
> plus i got different result between 6970 vs gtx 580..
> 
> ...



Here's what wizzard got

gtx 580 SLI - 22% faster than 5970 






6950 Crossfire - 20% Faster than 5970






So I think its safe to say 6970 crossfire is similar to 580SLI performance (may differ in some games - pro nVidia/AMD) ... but here we are speaking of 19+ (games and benchmarks) tests .. so i guess they even out ...

EDIT : I forgot to mention the power consumption ... 





source
GTX 580 SLI Power consumption


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 27, 2010)

afw said:


> The 6950 crossfire option seems the best after this -->  AMD Radeon HD 6950 can be unlocked to HD 6970
> 
> 580 SLI performance for $600  ... and save more than $400 ... or you can get another 6950 and tri-fire  ( and still save $100+ )



Yeah this thread question pretty much moot now


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 27, 2010)

Just cause 2 ... a heavily amd biased game are you on fucking crack it makes use of Nvidia CUDA tech for the god damn water shaders damn. what a load of shit

Splinter Cell is a shitty game ubisoft didnt even support ATI gpus at launch aka 5870 performing worse at 800x600 then a damn 9800gt at 1920x1200.

Lost Planet is also an Nvidia centric game

Metro2033 is Nvidia centric what with Physx support tacked on

Alien Vs Predator oh wait wasnt this a game that Nvidias superior tessellation performance use to rape AMD gpus... oh yea thats right they all trade blows thus EQUAL footing depending on what games

theres Far Cry 2 a game Nvidia constantly dominated

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/powercolor_hd6970_crossfire_review/7

you can swap out reviews all day they trade blows back and forth and performance is so god damn close the extra $400 price tag still makes nvidia look retarded at this point.

Eventually the 580 will drop in price and things will settle like they usually do.

For every Win for AMD theres a Win for Nvidia. Its not bias its the way the world works Nvidias TWIMTBP program ensures that users of Nvidia cards get a good gaming experience if amd wasnt so damn cheap and beefed there program up we would see the same on the other end. To be blunt tho are you gonna sit there and tell me you would pay $400 more for 5fps in the games that need it?

i look at it cash wise $600 for 6950 xfire $500-550 for the GTX 580 $1000-1100 for sli 580s performance difference 5-8% for a large chunk of change which  imho is just ridiculous if a 580 was at the $420 price point that would make sense price to performance wise maybe $440 but $500-550 no way

still whats most hilarious is telling me Just Cause 2 is an AMD pro game that makes me    

Metro 2033 also pro Nvidia Alien vs Predator untill the 6900 cards nvidia destoryed AMDs offerings. the fact all those games run and 2 out 3 scale well  metro at 69% dof off 96% dof on AvP at 89% and just cause 2 at a pathetic 33% it again swings back an forth.  

580 sli wins in Call of Prypit which is a pro amd game im not gonna cry foul over it Nvidias cards now run that game better worth $400 more fuck no 157 for the 580 sli vs 149 on the 6970s not worth a $400 price tag. I can continue all day with logic if you want


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## Wrigleyvillain (Dec 27, 2010)

Strange eye man speaketh truth


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 27, 2010)

whats worse is im obviously amd biased *sarcasm* if i had the cash id be on intel cpu running dual 6970s would the 580s win in that situation damn right they would but god damn what a giant waste of cash to get there... hell even now ill freely admit 2x 6900s on my AMD cpu is a complete friggin waste.. im pissing away 40% of the performance i paid for.... due to cpu bottleneck oh well. People will live in there own little world i just want the best performance for my dollar. and right now im kicking myself in the nuts do to the fact the 6950s are flashable to 6970s... thats $140 i wish i had right now


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## fusionblu (Dec 27, 2010)

Would have to be two 6950s in crossfire. My reason would be this article:
http://www.techpowerup.com/137140/AMD-Radeon-HD-6950-Can-be-Unlocked-to-HD-6970.html


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## Cratzky (Dec 27, 2010)

niemion said:


> i7 950 @ 4GHz, Rampage III Extreme, 6GB RAM
> 24" monitor @ 1920x1200
> 
> Alright, looks like it's really 6950 CF for me then.
> ...



Did you know that the 580 totally smokes any dual gpu configuration in sc2? why do you think the 5970 gets owned by a 5850 in starcraft2?

For your info: a strong single GPU configuration is _always_ better then a dual gpu configuration due to compatbility etc.
Also, you will get less performance in WoW for example using 2cards.
Power consumption will go up, heat output will go up, noise levels will go up using more then 1 card.
1 strong graphics card is always the best. Because when thats not enough anymore, u add another one .
Buying 2cards directly is pretty dumb. What do you do when u realize u cant play the game you want because it does not support multi-gpu ? what do you do when the performance isnt enough with those 2 cards? you gotta ask youself these questions.


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## cheezburger (Dec 27, 2010)

afw said:


> EDIT : I forgot to mention the power consumption ...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



are you sure a quad fire 6950 ONLY consume 329watts in total system consumption while a single card already took 158watt? plus 158 watt is totally underrating for card like 6950...(supposedly to be a 6870's rating) and you're compare a tri sli gtx 580 to a 2 way cf 6950 and call it a win? wow......


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## claylomax (Dec 27, 2010)

To the OP. Now that the 6950 can be unlocked to a 6970, your choice is easy http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=137140


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## afw (Dec 27, 2010)

cheezburger said:


> are you sure a quad fire 6950 ONLY consume 329watts in total system consumption while a single card already took 158watt? plus 158 watt is totally underrating for card like 6950...(supposedly to be a 6870's rating) and you're compare a tri sli gtx 580 to a 2 way cf 6950 and call it a win? wow......



First of all its not quad-fire ... its cross-fire ... 

Secondly about the power consumption ... Im not comparing it with a tri-sli GTX580 the second link I have posted in the previous post gives the power consumption of 2 GTX580s ... I was actually trying to point out that it takes 80W less than the 570s ...

Quoting from the source links I have given in my previous post

*HD 6950 Crossfire* (1st Link)


> System in IDLE = 184W
> System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 473W
> Difference (GPU load) = 289W
> Add average IDLE wattage ~ 40W
> Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 329 Watts



*GTX 580 SLI* (2nd Link)


> System in IDLE = 237W
> System Wattage with GPUs in FULL Stress = 719W
> Difference (GPU load) = 482W
> Add average IDLE wattage ~ 20W x2
> Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 522 Watts



Almost 200W difference between the 2 setups 

BTW Please note that if the cards are unlocked to 6970s they'd consume more power ... 

Wizzards review (6950) shows similar results...  with Power-control set to *+20* the card consumes 182W (With slider at zero I presume it'll be lower) ... and 69xx series has a slightly different architecture IIRC ... so that may be the reason the power consumption of the 6950 is similar to 6870 ... I dont really know ...

Finally ... I'm no fanboy ... I own a GTX260 ... Both nVidia and AMD have there pros and cons ... although th 69xx series arent the cards that we expected them to be , they're still powerful at the price point ... but I still like to see them sell $300 6970s and $250 6950s ...


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## sttubs (Dec 27, 2010)

I only look at the games I play & the resolution I run when I'm looking at benchmarks of the games vs the cards performance. It doesn't matter if one card plays every other game better or not it's what pertains to my interests that is important.


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## cheezburger (Dec 27, 2010)

anyway i would say gtx 580 is better than dual gpu crossfire as you would have to deal with driver issue and micro-shuttering and even lower minimum frame rate than single card due to data latency between crossfire/sli bridge.

to op: unless you'd ready for more buggy gaming experience with crappy driver&micro-shuttering + bigger power supply i'm suggesting you just get a single gpu card and gtx 580 is ftw! do not confuse by those fanboi's post because multi gpu ain't very good configuration for simple gaming. 5970 and 4870x2 were all well known to have micro shuttering and since crossfire/sli are worse scaling than dual gpu card they have even more problem that you may have to spend most of your time debug the amd driver...


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## erocker (Dec 27, 2010)

cheezburger said:


> anyway i would say gtx 580 is better than dual gpu crossfire as you would have to deal with driver issue and micro-shuttering and even lower minimum frame rate than single card due to data latency between crossfire/sli bridge.
> 
> to op: unless you'd ready for more buggy gaming experience with crappy driver&micro-shuttering + bigger power supply i'm suggesting you just get a single gpu card and gtx 580 is ftw! do not confuse by those fanboi's post because multi gpu ain't very good configuration for simple gaming. 5970 and 4870x2 were all well known to have micro shuttering and since crossfire/sli are worse scaling than dual gpu card they have even more problem that you may have to spend most of your time debug the amd driver...



Nope. 6950's in CrossFire work great. Better performance than my single GTX580


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## wolf (Dec 27, 2010)

erocker said:


> Nope. 6950's in CrossFire work great. Better performance than my single GTX580



micro stuttering and other _realtively_ non issues aside, a single GPU is the more reliable of the two setups. you get what you paid for first time every time, rather than _potentially_ having to wait on drivers to take advantage of your second card. it's all if's and butt's.

the argument is great for both really, and I'd tend to agree the 6950's are the better deal this time around, but if you were to choose a GTX580 I can wholeheartedly agree with the logic behind that choice too.


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## cheezburger (Dec 27, 2010)

wolf said:


> micro stuttering and other _realtively_ non issues aside, a single GPU is the more reliable of the two setups. you get what you paid for first time every time, rather than _potentially_ having to wait on drivers to take advantage of your second card. it's all if's and butt's.
> 
> the argument is great for both really, and I'd tend to agree the 6950's are the better deal this time around, but if you were to choose a GTX580 I can wholeheartedly agree with the logic behind that choice too.



agree 

if you are a bench score runner that also care about the budget(even if daul 6950 did beat gtx 580 it would be close with in 10% gap but spending extra 100 bucks over gtx 580)...go for dual card setup and if you are just for gaming/CAD and do not want to spend valuable time debug the driver setting than go for gtx 580.

thus we're having 37 fanboi vote for irrational motive.....


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## Fourstaff (Dec 27, 2010)

Probably stated already: 

1. Get two 6950
2. Unlock to 69*7*0's
3. ????
4. Profit!


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## the54thvoid (Dec 27, 2010)

You can never remove the bias from these arguements but it all comes down to these things (unless you're a biased muppet).

* Absolute performance in your chosen application. 
* Cost of your chosen performance and can you really afford it.
* Noise.
* Heat and Power.
* Monitor or resolution preference.

I went from 2 x 5850's to a single gtx 580.  I had ocassional driver issues that caused hang ups at start up.  I had low minimum fps in some games ocassionally.  They were noisy at load and my 2nd got hot (antec p182 case at the time).

My 580 performs a tad lower 'in general'** (certainly performs worse than crossfired 69'anythings').  But for me the trade off was simple.  Crossfire and/or sli will always ocassionally cause system issues (my old gtx 295 did it too).  The 2GB on the 69 series will put paid to lots of the memory issues of 1gb crossfire cards so well done amd on that.
But, that being said, my GTX 580 gameplay is crystal smooth and _very very_ quiet.

My only sadness is that the HD 6970 didn't kick the ass i thought it might.

And one for the AMD boys out there.  Can i say the physx in Batman, although 'quite cool' (walking through smoke and kicking papers get boring mind) does sweet f*ck all to improve the game.  So don't buy Nvidia for the paltry offerings of Physx.

So, two 6950's or one 580?  It doesn't really matter.  Once in a while your x-fire set up will 'irritate' you but when you game at 2560x1200, maybe you'll have wanted those 6950's?  Either gfx solution you get will give you happiness.

I'd rather not go back to multi gpu set ups again.  There's always some part of some game that causes glitches or drops in fps.

** though in dx11 titles it beats the gameplay of my 5850's. (tesselation i guess).


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## erocker (Dec 27, 2010)

cheezburger said:


> thus we're having 37 fanboi vote for irrational motive.....



Not really. For a majority of people CrossFire works great. I wonder what your motivation is?


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## the54thvoid (Dec 27, 2010)

erocker said:


> Not really. For a majority of people CrossFire works great. I wonder what your motivation is?



Those that use the 'F' term tend to be one themselves.

It's like when folk say 'I'm not a racist but....'


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## erocker (Dec 27, 2010)

Okay, well these XXX card vs. XXX card threads need to stop. Instead of making these threads, do this:

1. Read reviews for the cards you are interested in.

2. Find what is in your budget.

3. Buy card.

It's really that simple.


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