Comparison - Opinions on better card?

Sean1082 · 06 May 2011

Which is a better card for performance in games such as GTA, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and the upcoming Battlefield 3, for example.

I have done some research on shader clocks which the EVGA posted below contains. I am still a little lost on whether this, plus the specs on the EVGA will give a larger performance boost over the Radeon which is also posted below.

I would prefer no biased opinions, thanks a bunch!

Newegg.ca - MSI R6970 Lightning Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Newegg.ca - EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Nemix · 07 May 2011

I really comes down to personal preference and your whole system setup. Looking at benchmarks they're both very close. You can always overclock the ATI card to match up with the NVIDIA SuperClocked card cause the cooler on the ATI card looks like it cools better with less noise.

If you have two or more monitors and want Eyefinity than ATI would probably be better for your setup as it has 2GB V-Ram thus better for higher resolution multiple monitors. If you only use one monitor and don't care about Eyefinity multi-monitor setup (don't plan to get more monitors in the future) then NVIDIA offers PhysX (with certain games) and Cuda (for applications acceleration) plus it comes pre-overclocked.

Also, depending on your motherboard if you plan on getting a Crossfire or SLI setup (two of the same videocards) in the future then I'd go with the NVIDIA card because the blower style cooler works better with multi-videocard setups.

Hope this helps.

Wallonn7 · 07 May 2011

Nemix77 said:

I really comes down to personal preference and your whole system setup. Looking at benchmarks they're both very close. You can always overclock the ATI card to match up with the NVIDIA SuperClocked card cause the cooler on the ATI card looks like it cools better with less noise.

If you have two or more monitors and want Eyefinity than ATI would probably be better for your setup as it has 2GB V-Ram thus better for higher resolution multiple monitors. If you only use one monitor and don't care about Eyefinity multi-monitor setup (don't plan to get more monitors in the future) then NVIDIA offers PhysX (with certain games) and Cuda (for applications acceleration) plus it comes pre-overclocked.

Also, depending on your motherboard if you plan on getting a Crossfire or SLI setup (two of the same videocards) in the future then I'd go with the NVIDIA card because the blower style cooler works better with multi-videocard setups.

Hope this helps.

Nice answer!

I would only add:

Sean1082 be sure to see if your power supply stand the stride. See the system requirements below:

EVGA GeForce GTX 570 Superclocked
Minimum of a 550 power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 38 Amps.)
Two available 6-pin PCI-E power dongles

MSI Lightning Radeon HD 6970

PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
550 Watt or greater power supply with one 150W 8-pin PCI Express® power connector and one 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connector recommended
Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to AMD Certified Power Supplies for a list of Certified products
Minimum 1GB of system memory
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive, a keyboard, a mouse, and a display
DVD playback requires DVD drive and a DVD
Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive and a Blu-ray disc
For an AMD CrossFireX™ system, a second AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series Graphics card, an AMD CrossFireX™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFireX™ Bridge Interconnect cable is required
Use of 3 or more displays with AMD Eyefinity technology requires a DisplayPort-capable panel or an AMD Eyefinity validated dongle. See AMD Eyefinity Validated Dongles for a list of validated DisplayPort dongles.

Sean1082 · 07 May 2011

Thanks a lot for the replies. Judging by this, I'll more than likely go with the MSI. Although, I don't use two monitors to extend my gaming view, I do have a second monitor to display extras such as temps, skype calls, and what not.

As for dual graphics cards, I don't plan on it. And as for my PSU, I will be more than fine with the 800W I will be ordering.

Thanks again! :)

Wallonn7 · 07 May 2011

You're welcome!

If the question that generated the opening of this thread has been answered conclusively, I ask you to click the triangle in the top right of this post and type "mark as solved". And every time you judge that any of the members of this forum has provided a satisfactory help to you, just click in scales on the side of the triangle and say why.

Britton30 · 07 May 2011

If I were you Sean1082 check on MSI's support structure first. I had one and switched to another from ASUS with the same graphics chip. MSI does have a nice program, Afterburner, which I think you may use to overclock with.

Comparison - Opinions on better card?

Comparison - Opinions on better card?

My 2¢ Worth