Wait for the Radeon HD 7xxx series or get the HD Radeon 6950 2GB?

[Atham]

Hello TechSpotians,

I have been thinking about gettin myself an upgrade for my PC. You may have seen many of my threads, and may have called me quick at changing my mind *looks at Leeky*
As the title states I would like to get myself a hd 6950 2GB. I have read something up on the future hd 7xxx series, and articles said that they would have more processing power and etc...
I have heard that AMD might be releasing some of the hd 7xxx series Q4 2011 and start mass manufacturing in Q2 2012. But as AMD starts the production of the office cards first and then up to the high end cards it might take a while.

So my question is, will it be worth the time to wait for the hd 7xxx series or just get the hd 6950?

Thanks

EDIT: I don't think it is known if the 7xxx series will support CrossFire with the 6xxx series, but I heard that you can CF a 5xxx series with a 6xxx series. Is that true?

 

[GeforcerFX]

i would get the 6950, thats a very powerful crd as of now with great driver support, even though the 7xxx series is coming out it usually takes like 2 -3 months for decent driver support and longer sometimes with crossfire support in games. as for the crossfire question, u can crossfire cards from the same generation so 5xxx series only crossfires with 5xxxseries and the same for 6xxx, my friend has a 4870x2 and was starting to lag a bit in BC2 so i got him a 4890 and we put those in crossfire, works much better. But yeah i would get the 6950 now and like u said the nice 7xxx series prob won;t be out til after CES in early 2012

 

[Atham]

Okay. Thanks. I was thinking about going with the hd 6950, and now that someone else has said it, then I am certain now.

 

[GeforcerFX]

glad to help, if u can shell out more i would even suggest the 6970 my friend has 2 of them and they are pure beast.

 

[Igneus the Bold]

glad to help, if u can shell out more i would even suggest the 6970 my friend has 2 of them and they are pure beast.

Agreed. My friend is running two lesser cards from that series and they run everything at the highest settings beautifully, AA included.

Questions for yourself:
Are you shopping for present and future gaming, or just present? If the former, up to what amount of years?

 

[Atham]

About up to 2-4 years.
I will be using the FX 8150, the Gigapyte 990FXA-UD5, Corsair GS800, Corsair 8GB Ram 1600MHz Vengeance CL9, NOCTURA NH U9B SE2, Eurocase ML 9801 X2 cooling. Maybe I will crossfire the 6950,

The 6970 is just a waste of money, in my opinion. You can unlock the 6950 (which I will not be doing). I will overclock the card. The 6950 will be the MSI twin frozr iii OC'd. With overclocking that I can reach 5500MHz or even more if I uncheck something in the BIOS. Would that last for 3 years?

 

[Igneus the Bold]

About up to 2-4 years. The 6970 is just a waste of money. I will overclock the card. The 6950 will be the MSI twin frozr iii OC'd. With overclocking that I can reach 5500MHz or even more.

I cannot recall which cards my friend has. I am near positive they are from the 6800 area. I am going to say 6870? I know he doesn't overclock either. You'll definitely save money if you play your cards right, and performance won't be an issue at all. Go for it and let us know how it turns out!

 

[Atham]

But will it be good for about 3 years?

 

[Igneus the Bold]

But will it be good for about 3 years?

I thinks so, unless you are looking to play The Witcher 3 with Uber GOOBER Sampling at more than 20fps. You can spend a lot on those premium prices for what you won't need for three to five years, or you can get what you need now for cheaper, and upgrade in three to five years for cheaper. Think about the dynamic.

 

[GeforcerFX]

well lets see that a decent clocked memeor ona pretty god board, with a very powerful video card (i say anything from the 68xx or 69xx is really powerful) and a upcoming 8core bulldozer CPu well depending on how the bulldozers perform that could last a long time, especially if u add another 6950 later on, and that board supports quad crossfire, so u can just keep adding cards for the most post, hoping that they add better crossfire support.

 

[Atham]

No the board doesn't support quad CF. it supports 3 way CF apparently. I made a thread here.

 

[GeforcerFX]

why would a board with 5 PCIe slots only support 3 way Crossfire, my friends has 5 and he can do quad crossfire, i ran tri crossfire on my 3870x2 system but now i have quad.

 

[klepto12]

imo save your money and wait for the newer cards because more than likely they will be twice as fast as the 6xxx series and will last far longer if your fine with what you have now just wait i promise you will be happier overall if you wait.

 

[BMfan]

imo save your money and wait for the newer cards because more than likely they will be twice as fast as the 6xxx series and will last far longer if your fine with what you have now just wait i promise you will be happier overall if you wait.

I wonder how many people said that before every release of a new series.

I say if you have the money now and you plan to CF(or not) then get the card.You could always sell it later to help buy a newer 7000 series card if it's worth it.

 

[klepto12]

I wonder how many people said that before every release of a new series.

I say if you have the money now and you plan to CF(or not) then get the card.You could always sell it later to help buy a newer 7000 series card if it's worth it.

buying a high end card right before a new series release is kinda dumb imo save your cash and wait for 7xxx series every 2 years cards double in power so think about that.

 

[Atham]

Well, I currently have an IGP. So if I get all of the parts I need: Mobo, CPU, CPU cooler, case PSU and etc, I will not be able to have a GPU to run my PC on.