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Thread: NVIDIA or AMD graphics card

  1. #1
    Ap0calyps3's Avatar
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    Default NVIDIA or AMD graphics card

    My budget: None

    Taking out of life-savings: up to R3000

    Dilemma: Stick with nvidia, or go amd

    Choices:
    EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB Price:R2611
    or
    Club3D Radeon HD 6950 2GB Price: R2782

    Now, I currently have an EVGA Nvidia geforce 9600gt ko card, never gave any problems. And might even still be able to run games in the future, but slowly over the past few years, I'm choosing lower and lower settings. It helps to not have a full HD screen, Res of 1680x1050.

    Im looking at buying soon. Any reason I should go with the slightly more expensive amd card that has 2gb(im looking at getting a new screen, hd this time, ie 1920x1080 so the extra ram of the 6950 will help for high quality games.)

    Im just concerned about the club3d, anyone have opinions of the brand, its not that its an unknown brand, its just that i havnt had any contact with anyone who owns one. Id be happy to settle with the evga, as personal experience shows its excellent quality

    Also, any suggestions to go for other cards? The prices of those cards are really my max/ceiling.
    Thanks

  2. #2

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    Go with what ever you are happy with, fanboism is over rated... http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...560-ti-review/

  3. #3

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    Say the names "NVidia" and "ATi" 3 times each.
    Whichever one makes you feel shinier than the other, get that one.

    Seriously, nothing wrong with either of those cards.

  4. #4
    m3n4ce's Avatar
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    The best would be to do some homework around the performance differences.
    I have always been a Nvidia Fan, but AMD is Just as good, better in some aspects.

    Look at features vs speed vs ram vs price.
    e.g. The AMD has more RAM, but the NVidia has proper PhysX Support.

    As for the Branding, I cant say much around the Club3D but eVGA has a very good name and as far as I understand brilliant after sales support.

    just my 5c

  5. #5
    Techno-Hippy MissM's Avatar
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    I have a Club3D HD5770. Had it for over a year now and haven't had any problems with it

  6. #6

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    I was in exactly the same situation as you man.

    Did a whole bunch of searching (Pricecheck.co.za helped to be honest) before arriving at this solution:

    I got a VTX ATI Radeon 6970 for R2954

    It's just a teeny bit more expensive than a 6950 AND...
    VTX (if you are unsure about the brand) is a rebranded Powercolor product.

    PS: Card works like a charm!
    PPS: I used to have an NVidia MSI 8800gt <<<Nothing against NVidia, awesome product, just too hot and noisy

  7. #7
    DenSweeP's Avatar
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    Nobody can give you a right or wrong answer here. Both cards are decent on their own right and I don't think you'd be disappointed with either. Me, I like my ATI/AMD cards, but have absolutely nothing against Nvidia either. Should you go the Nvidia route, you can keep that 9600 and use it as a physX card! In fact, you could even do that even if your primary card is a ATI as far as I know.

    I say determine what the absolute most you can spend and get the biggest card you can.

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ap0calyps3 View Post
    My budget: None

    Taking out of life-savings: up to R3000

    Dilemma: Stick with nvidia, or go amd

    Choices:
    EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1024MB Price:R2611
    or
    Club3D Radeon HD 6950 2GB Price: R2782

    Now, I currently have an EVGA Nvidia geforce 9600gt ko card, never gave any problems. And might even still be able to run games in the future, but slowly over the past few years, I'm choosing lower and lower settings. It helps to not have a full HD screen, Res of 1680x1050.

    Im looking at buying soon. Any reason I should go with the slightly more expensive amd card that has 2gb(im looking at getting a new screen, hd this time, ie 1920x1080 so the extra ram of the 6950 will help for high quality games.)

    Im just concerned about the club3d, anyone have opinions of the brand, its not that its an unknown brand, its just that i havnt had any contact with anyone who owns one. Id be happy to settle with the evga, as personal experience shows its excellent quality

    Also, any suggestions to go for other cards? The prices of those cards are really my max/ceiling.
    Thanks

    Both are excellent cards for the money realistically they're good for a number of years still.

    However they being what they are, there's a more than fair chance that prices may drop further if you're willing to wait another season (that being two or so months). I've always advocated patience and keeping an eye out for that odd special bargain / once-off sale where you can score a still decent card for a lot less.

    That said though on the technical front: The GTX 560 Ti can be had for a lot less than ZAR2800 but of course at the standard factory clocks but the word on the street is that it's apparently quite an over-clockable beast and a lot of value can be "unlocked" if you're willing to do so. That said at standard OEM speeds it's not too shabby at all.
    Let us not be deluded here, at standard clock rates (not over-clocked) the GTX 560 Ti is about as quick as the much respected Radeon 5870 2GB. Which is NOT something to be sneezed at. Not at all.

    The only thing negative thing I have against the the GTX 560 Ti is the huge variety of different clock-speeds and memory speeds that are all sold as much the same thing namely: GTX 560 Ti.
    So you have to be careful about which variant you do buy and ensure through research and careful shopping that it's a good mixture of high-speed rated RAMS and upper-binned GPU chips that's actually tangibly faster than the bog standard one. For an example from the same maker (Gigabyte):

    There's the more standard clock Gigabyte one: http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/pro...ducts_id=54356
    Then on the other side of the spectrum there's the Gigabyte Windforce GTX 560 Ti: http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/pro...ducts_id=54848

    As you can see there' is a "slight" variation in pricing.

    and all and everything in between like (for comparison) a more standard OEM variant: EVGA (http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/pro...ducts_id=56341)

    Whereas with the Radeon HD6950: There's really only one variant at one clock speed and compared to the 560 Ti, the 6950 2GB is performance comparable more to over-clocked variants of the 560Ti than the standard clock-speed variants.

    Plus if you keep an eye out, and get the HD6950 2GB version,
    (http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/pro...ducts_id=56590), you can apparently upgrade the BIOS with an HD6970 BIOS and gain ... oh 90% the performance of the HD6970 as the GPU chip is identical but the RAM is clocked slightly slower:
    Google: BIOS upgrade HD6950 to HD6970
    (Tech powerup is a good site)


    Secondarily the only other issue I see with moving to ATi (AMD whateva) is changing all your drivers from nVidia to AMD/ATi... the time when I made the migration was with WIndows XP x64 (SP1) and in changing my video card I had to basically re-install windows ... twice. Including all games .. Twice. I don't know how it is with Windows 7 / Vista (spit) these days but be aware you might need to prepare for a complete system re-install if you go from nVidia to AMD/ATi or even if you jump so many generations from the nVidia NV90 series chips to the Fermi / GF114 chips.
    Last edited by EffKay; 24-06-2011 at 01:28 PM.

  9. #9
    speedz's Avatar
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    saw this 560 ti on carbonite at R2500 incl delivery

    Gainward GTX 560 Ti Phantom Edition 1024MB

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by EffKay View Post
    you can apparently upgrade the BIOS with an HD6970 BIOS and gain ... oh 90% the performance of the HD6970 as the GPU chip is identical but the RAM is clocked slightly slower:
    Google: BIOS upgrade HD6950 to HD6970

    Yes can be done

    But you had best know what your doing and be willing to risk the fact if the card fails and is damaged down the line you will lose your warranty, so just keep that in mind.

    I'd go for the 6950, its a brilliant card with an excellent price, you will not be dissapointed at all
    "Oh jirre Bakgat nou wat?"

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