Radeon HD6950 Gigabyte or MSI?

[Florin]

Hi everybody. This is my first post and let me introduce myself:
Florin Safner, 59 y/o, born in East Europe and live in Venezuela since 1981, graphic designer (www.retouchyourpics.com), love classic and pop music, movies and FISHING
Well, I'm building a new system and I have a doubt which GPU should I use. I already bought 2 different models, the MSI ATI Radeon HD6950 2 GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/2x Mini DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card R6950 TWIN FROZR II/OC and the GIGABYTE ATI Radeon HD6950 1 GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card GV-R695OC-1GD.
The doubt is this one: Gigabyte has a faster OCed core clock, 870 MHz but only 1Gb DDR5 memory. The MSI has 2Gb DDR5 memory but is OCed only till 810 MHz. Gigabyte display output is 2560 x 1600, MSI' is 1920 x 1200. Which one should you prefer?
My work consists in retouching all sizes of files, small or big size. Past days a received some .tiff images of 600-700Mb each and Photoshop CS5 needs a good harware to move this stuff.
My other parts are:
1. Mothreboard: ASUS M5A99X Evo (it's great, a friend of mine just built a new system with a x8 cores FX Bulldozer 3.4GHz and the mobo pushed it easy to 4GHz via auto overclock into the bios).
2. AMD Phenom x4 975 3,6 GHz with a Zalman CNPS9700 LED cooler.
3. 16 Gb DDR3 1666 Corsair Vengeance low profile
4. Thermaltake Thoughpower XT 775W PSU
5. WD Caviar 1,5 Tb, 6GB/s, 64 Mb cache hard drive
6. LG Bluray/DVD/CD burner
7. MGE Viper XG aluminium case
8. Samsung LCD 23" LCD monitor.
All the parts are still in the boxes. I'm thinking to mount them during the next weekend. All I need is to have a better idea about which one of the video cards is better. I paid for the MSI in Amazon some $306 and the Gigabyte some $260.
My system is not for gaiming but hard hraphics.
Best regards,
Florin

 

[ice-cold]

Radeon HD6950

 

[Florin]

wake up man, both are Radeon 6950

 

[MartinChrisA]

I have the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II 2gb O/C, and am VERY pleased with it. I didn't bother unlocking the shaders, because from what I read, it was a minimal gain.

Long story short, my system specs are as follows:
i5-2500k o/c to 4.5ghz
8 gb 1600 ram
60gb SSD
750 corsair psu

I did overclock my card a bit more. Went from core clock 810mhz to 860mhz & Memory clock of 1250mhz to 1360. My temps are never above 59c no matter what I'm doing.

I run Battlefield 3 in Ultra, with max AA at 47fps average. I can run in high or medium a little faster, but, I love pushing the graphics, and I can't tell the difference between 47 - 65(maybe it's just me).

I play Star Wars: The Old Republic at 106fps avg as well..

I'm very happy with the card, and I will probably buy another one for the other PC as they went on sale at Frys for $289, with a $30 rebate.

I would think that the 1gb model wouldn't be able to do what the 2gb model does, but maybe I'm wrong...

Hope this helps!

-Chris

 

[TyrAntilles]

1 Gb vs 2 Gb

2 Gb of RAM will help only if you intend to play in very high resolutions, but in actual games not even there it doesn't make too much of a difference.

About the cards, I personally think Gigabyte would be a bit better, but they tend to be a bit more expensive too (MSI is very good as well) and indeed, both are 6950 so it shouldn't be too much of a difference.

I shouldn't talk though, with my 4670...


"My work consists in retouching all sizes of files, small or big size. Past days a received some .tiff images of 600-700Mb each and Photoshop CS5 needs a good harware to move this stuff."
If you are looking for a professional card you should look for AMD FirePro or FireGL card, since 6950 is a gaming card: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/fire/certified/Pages/certified-applications.aspx
Or, if you need to load / save fast large .tiff images, you better get a fast SSD instead.

 

[Florin]

Hi there and thank you all for answering my questions.
I did the Widows Experience test with the Gigabyte and pass it with the max 7.9 average. That's fine. Has nice colors and I think I'll stay with it. In fact I bought 2 cards because I'll sell one of them. The MSI Froze will arrive the next week, it's still in customs. I was looking for a mid-high range card, up to $300.
I mounted the system this weekend and it's going stable so far. The mobo's bios pushed the 3.6Ghz Phenom II x4 750 to 3.943Ghz and the memos to 1460Mhz.
I'm very deceived with a brand new HHD, WD Caviar Green 1.5Tb 6Gb/s 64Mb cache (model WDC WD15EARS-00Z5B1 ATA Device, Firmware Revision 80.00A80) 6GB per second? What a bad joke
It's a piece of junk, do not buy this. The transfer rate is only 25-30Mb/s!! Believe this or not but it's true. Tried to make all the tunnings but nothing works. I'll buy a SSD dive when the prices will be better.
Thank you again for yoyr threads,
Florin