Moral Dilemma...Or Is It?

[Terronium 12]

Pardon the double post, but This is what I'm about to pull the trigger on.

 

[gazz9496]

i think you should look at the reviews again, on some games a single 4870 did just as well as the x2 if not better and games that did support the x2 were better but not be the margins we'd all like.

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/157123-hd-6870-unigine-heaven-post-your-score-2.html

is a thread about 6870's and some others 6850's and some nvidia cards where you can see some quite different results posted from members with the same card showing that some are getting alot more out of the cards than others are, the differences can be pretty large which is kinda surprising.

best of luck with whatever you choose.

 

[Terronium 12]

That benchmark raped my 4870 in DX10. Why would you show that to me?

Lol.

 

[sygnus21]

That benchmark raped my 4870 in DX10. Why would you show that to me?

Lol.

Good question since Unigine Heaven is a DirectX11 benchmarking tool. So yeah, your 4870 getting "raped" is not surprising since the 4000 series cards are DX10/10.1

BTW the 5000 & 6000 series ATI/AMD cards are DX11

And I rather enjoy my 6950. Here's my scores - http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-...ine-heaven-post-your-score-4.html#post1351044

 

[Terronium 12]

That benchmark raped my 4870 in DX10. Why would you show that to me?

Lol.

Good question since Unigine Heaven is a DirectX11 benchmarking tool. So yeah, your 4870 getting "raped" is not surprising since the 4000 series cards are DX10/10.1

BTW the 5000 & 6000 series ATI/AMD cards are DX11

And I rather enjoy my 6950. Here's my scores - http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-...ine-heaven-post-your-score-4.html#post1351044

I really don't like you much right now.

I'm practically right back to the 'home stretch' again; which card do I go with, etc. If I end up winning this auction for a $96 X2 I'm out of luck.

 

[sygnus21]

It a tough decision but there is some good advice here, especially smarteyeball's thoughts on crossfire. I too feel like crossfire is broken, but the difference between me and smarteyeball is that he actually had crossfire setup.

Anyway good luck in whatever direction you choose.

Peace

 

[Terronium 12]

Well I didn't win the X2, lost it by fifty-freaking-cents.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Well I didn't win the X2, lost it by fifty-freaking-cents.

Ebay...gotta love it:banghead:

 

[Terronium 12]

Ebay...gotta love it:banghead:

Exactly. At least, come tomorrow, I can pick up a refurbished X2. Or maybe I'll go with a 2GB 6950...I have absolutely no idea at this point. For me it's a freakin' toss-up.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Maybe a better way to go about this....What is your budget?

The updated tom's hardware here Best Graphics Cards For The Money: May 2011 : May Updates

 

[Terronium 12]

Maybe a better way to go about this....What is your budget?

The updated tom's hardware here Best Graphics Cards For The Money: May 2011 : May Updates

Anything up to, but not exceeding, the price of a 2GB 6950. I can spend more but I won't...at least not until I start the full overhaul and Southern Islands is on the market.

I was going to (and still might) pick up the X2 simply because I'd be adding on to what's already in my aging rig. I was also going to pick up two 5770's, but was advised to do otherwise. Now there's the 6850 in my face. I'll read a bit on that when I get back from the store, but if there's any more input to be heard...please, I'm all ears.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

With that budget just get the 6950, might save you from having to upgrade to the 7xxx, It will save you from the aggravation of Ebay, it will save you from the problems with crossfire. Hold on to the 4870 for a backup or give it to someone(everybody needs some karma). Besides after the 6950 the prices start to get really high/diminishing returns to boot.

 

[Terronium 12]

Done.

I really want to thank everyone for the various amounts of input and helping to make a final decision. Oh, and on an aside, this is going to turn in to a review thread once I get the card on either Thursday or Friday.

----

Different question same subject: Have any of you ever purchased any piece of PC hardware for personal collection value? I've wanted an X6800 (and an E8600 as well) and the X2 since both were released, respectively. And considering I hand my older hardware down to my folks and replace it with theirs (which is running even older hardware) nothing would go to waste. And I could have a bit of fun benching the 4870, X2, 6950, and whatever Southern I. card I end up getting.

 

[Terronium 12]

Pardon the double post again, but since my card has been declined (likely to be resolved in a few hours once I can pay it off) I was thinking...what about a GTX 480?

It's definitely not going to deter my decision at this point unless it's worth it, so it's more of a forethought. Opinions?

EDIT: Nevermind that. I confused the 480 with the 460, and I'm not paying $390+ for that.

 

[gazz9496]

i didn't mean to upset you with the benchmark stuff but it was valid to let you see the differences you can gain by moving up the card ranges.

the nvidia offerings at the same price point of the 6950 2gb are very good and worth considering but seeing as i'm an ati user i lean towards them, not to mention at higher resolutions and more aa the ati does a little bit better

i generally don't throw away old hardware, i usually save it for a rainy day...like this last month as my new comp had a hissy fit and fried half the bits so i wasn't totally gutted as i had my old system still in a case and working, but there does come a point when even old hardware needs to be shelved, i wouldn't hold onto a single core cpu for example or ddr1 ram those i would almost definetly bin or box up and forget.

what i have found myself doing the last 2 years is building a home server with alot of spares nothing really old but i have upgrade cycles quite regularly...i work in IT so parts are cheap for me, this has allowed me to get a fairly decent home server to which i run 5 pc's from media streaming and shared storage and all that fun stuff.

 

[Terronium 12]

i didn't mean to upset you with the benchmark stuff but it was valid to let you see the differences you can gain by moving up the card ranges.

the nvidia offerings at the same price point of the 6950 2gb are very good and worth considering but seeing as i'm an ati user i lean towards them, not to mention at higher resolutions and more aa the ati does a little bit better

i generally don't throw away old hardware, i usually save it for a rainy day...like this last month as my new comp had a hissy fit and fried half the bits so i wasn't totally gutted as i had my old system still in a case and working, but there does come a point when even old hardware needs to be shelved, i wouldn't hold onto a single core cpu for example or ddr1 ram those i would almost definetly bin or box up and forget.

what i have found myself doing the last 2 years is building a home server with alot of spares nothing really old but i have upgrade cycles quite regularly...i work in IT so parts are cheap for me, this has allowed me to get a fairly decent home server to which i run 5 pc's from media streaming and shared storage and all that fun stuff.

Oh no, you didn't upset me at all. You may have hurt my 4870's feelings with that benchmark though.

As I've been saying, I greatly appreciate all of the input that lead me to my final decision. If it's still around I'll pick up an X2 and put it one of my other rigs (like the one my aunt uses that's still S939!)...but before then I'll bench the crap out of it. Until then (if it's to happen) I will thoroughly enjoy my 6950, that I'm going to flash the crap out of.

 

[Terronium 12]

I may have spoken too soon.

Everything is fine with my credit card, but with bills on the horizon I can't part with almost $300...so I'm just going with the X2. I'll worry about everything else when it comes time for the overhaul.

Unless someone wants to chime in (I'll give it until 12AM before pulling the trigger) and suggest something a little bit better that has as much of a punch that the X2 and my 4870 will have, at least on paper. I'm literally going for absolute bang for the buck now - can't spend any more than $200.

 

[Terronium 12]

New day, new dilemma.

My X2 arrived yesterday evening - hooray, right? Wrong. I take out the 4870 and plug in the X2 and it goes through the motions just fine (I didn't wipe the drivers beforehand as it totally slipped my mind), I uninstall the drivers, restart, and proceed to reinstall 11.5 all over again, and I restart...once again. Windows hangs for several minutes and reverts to a BSOD with 'atikmpag.sys' being the culprit. Now I know that's a driver-related issue as I've gone through it before, so I think "No big deal." and, needless to say, it's become quite the big deal. It runs just fine without any drivers installed, and runs just fine in Safe Mode. I even tried going through the process in my XP partition and all that results in is a black screen with a blinking insertion point after a few minutes (with or without the drivers, Safe Mode is fine) and some time later the fan ramps up to what sounds like 100% and I lose the signal going to my monitor. Someone care to steer me in the right direction because it seems after all I've been through to get this damned card, someone doesn't want me to enjoy it. I'm using it right now in Safe Mode, W7.

On a lighter note, Jesus Christ does this thing get hot! i can fry an egg on it...probably.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Since the drivers are the same it shouldn't make any difference...except for, ie when I replaced my 4890 with the 5850 it would boot just fine, but couldn't run any games....turns out catalyst was clocking the card at the old cards settings...

So try going into catalyst....performance...AMD overdrive...hit the defaults button....

If that fails sounds like someone palmed off a bad card on you....

 

[Terronium 12]

How am I supposed to do that when it won't even boot in to Windows? Tried opening Catalyst in Safe Mode after I just installed the drivers (and booting failed, again) and I get a prompt exclaiming no AMD drivers are installed.

EDIT: Went back to the 4870 and am going to replace this one with another which I'm practically forcing the seller to properly test before shipping.