GTX 560 or HD 6959?

[Rhinox]

Hi, I'm in the process of upgrading my PC and I decided about most of components (i7-2600k, Sabertooth P67, Corsair XMS3 2x4GB) except for graphic card. Is there some benchamark/test of various graphic cards, tested with LockOn/DCS? I did not find anything, so I'm looking for advice here.

 

I narrowed candidates down to cards with these GPU:

 

1. NVidia GTX 560

2. AMD/ATI HD 6950

 

They both cost about the same (~220€ here). Generally their performance should be about the same too (in some HW-tests GTX560 has marginal lead), but as I said, I did not find any test comparing them in LO/DCS, and that might be different story. Nearly all tests I found are now done in dx10/dx11 (and drivers are optimised for dx10/dx11 too), while LO/DCS is afaik dx9.0 based. Quite naturally I want to get most for the money spent. Here are pro's and con's I have found:

 

HD6950:

+ can be unlocked/upgraded to HD 6970 by flushing bios

+ more memory (2GB)

(+ maybe no more "shadow cloud bug"?)

- higher power consumptioin

- longer (larger)

 

GTX560:

+ better overclocking ability

+ shorter, fits easier into smaller cases

+ lower power consumption

- less memory (1GB)

- "cloud shadow bug" (I had it on all NVidia cards)

- "fraps causing massive fps drop" bug

 

Are there any other things I should consider? Which of these two cards would you recommend as more suitable for LO/DCS?

Edited April 22, 2011 by Rhinox

[EtherealN]

There are 2GB variants of the 560. Palit and some others have such products on offer.

 

I personally haven't tried the AMD alternative, but I am very very happy with my 560 - though I am considering to switch to a 2GB variant of it and use the current card as a dedi for the second monitor. I do have the general impression that nVidia drivers are more solid, but not having tested the AMD cards I really can't give a good verdict on that. In the end I suspect that the selection will come down to personal preference, taste and general fanboyisms (I am an nVidia fanboy and will admit that openly, though that does mean you should take what I say about AMD with grains of salt :P ).

Edited April 22, 2011 by EtherealN

[KillaALF]

Both of these cards will work nicely for LO/DCS. The cloud shadow bug from LO/BS is not card specific however, you will have that on any card you get. Good news is that it is gone in DCS A-10, so here's hoping that it will be patched out of BS, too. For LO I think you will just have to live with it, I don't think it'll ever be fixed.

[Duke]

I've had both and I would go with the Nvidia card, the drivers and constant driver support from Nvidia are far superior to ATI's plus SLI scaling is much better than XFire.

I've honestly tried to switch to ATI twice over the years in the brief times they've held the lead in the GPU races and regretted it both times and lost $$$ by having to sell low and switch back to Nvidia.

[Malefic Rage]

I'm generally an ATI/AMD user myself (although I have used the occasional NVIDIA card) and I've never had any issues with the ATI Radeons or their driver suite. As you mentioned, both cards cost and perform roughly on par with one another so as already mentioned the choice comes down to personal taste as each will fulfil the role adequately. I believe however, that it is the Radeon 6950 that consumes less power.

 

Anandtech

[hassata]

more than 3 monitors, I would go with ati. very happy with my 4750x2.

[celticcoho]

more than 3 monitors, I would go with ati. very happy with my 4750x2.

 

I agree also:thumbup:

[Succellus]

I am NVIDIA, but i tend to agree with 4 monitors is more pratical with ATI unfortunatly.

Even if i do not have 4 thats what i see writen by many, even if not many even have 3 monitors.