7850 vs 6950 ?

[MPX309]

Ok the time is coming close to get my card and I did have my heart set on a 6850 Sapphire but I see the 6950 is £15 more, and was just wondering if it's worth spending the extra £15? 

I mean common sense tells me it is. . . But still thought I'd ask

 

CPU is a i5 2300, monitor will be 1920 x 1080 at 60 hz 

 

EDIT: Wrote the wrong cards originally in title.

[tp95112]

Definitly the 6950 is alot better in performance but make sure you have enough power

[G.Freeman]

HD 7850 is more or less the same as HD 6950 but with more Tessellation DX11 performance but for the right price I would have gone with for the HD 6950 because you are not losing or gaining much performance but you will save money.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/36269-amd-radeon-hd-7850-vs-6850-vs-5850-clocks/?page=4

http://www.hwcompare.com/12077/radeon-hd-6950-vs-radeon-hd-7850/

[joelthezombie15]

why are you getting such old cards? why not wait for the 700 series to come out and get a 660ti because the price will be reduced. 

[G.Freeman]

why are you getting such old cards? why not wait for the 700 series to come out and get a 660ti because the price will be reduced. 

Why get ripped of on a brand new 7xx series card that's going to be way overpriced at launch and years after LOL.

[joelthezombie15]

Why get ripped of on a brand new 7xx series card that's going to be way overpriced at launch and years after LOL.

i said wait for 700 series and get a 600 series. because the 600 series will have a reduced price.

[G.Freeman]

i said wait for 700 series and get a 600 series. because the 600 series will have a reduced price.

It does not work that way and never has. 6xx series will not drop in price. GTX 660ti is the crappiest card to get out of the bunch because it memory bandwidth crippled so high IQ is not available without crippling framrates.

[joelthezombie15]

It does not work that way and never has. 6xx series will not drop in price.

bet you there will be some kind of sale atleast.

 

i would just wait and see. and if im wrong theres no harm done.

[G.Freeman]

bet you there will be some kind of sale atleast.

 

i would just wait and see. and if im wrong theres no harm done.

The cards have already dropped as low as the will go. You get Metro LL and that's as good as it will get to be honest.

[joelthezombie15]

The cards have already dropped as low as the will go.

unless there is a sale on newegg or something. theres sales all the time. and for all you know they could have something like a 700 series sale or something. 

[WitzTech]

The 6950 would be the way to go if you were dead set against a 7850 or 7870.  One word why you shouldn't bother with 6xxx series: Drivers.

 

I went from a 6950 (2 gig) to a 7950, and MAN, did drivers make all the difference (6950 was bought this time last year, the 7950 was bought this January).  If you are looking at the two cards being compared at launch, then the difference between the two isn't very big, especially when compared to cost.  HOWEVER, AMD's drivers for 7xxx have gotten so good that I would reckon a 7850 1 gig card could out perform a 6950 with 2 gigs of VRAM.

 

Sometimes just looking at the model names isn't enough to determine the best choice.  

 

 

Edit: awkward phrasing

[G.Freeman]

The 6950 would be the way to go if you were dead set against a 7850 or 7870.  One word why: Drivers.

 

I went from a 6950 to a 7950, and MAN, did drivers make all the difference (6950 was bought this time last year, the 7950 was bought this January).  If you are looking at the two cards being compared at launch, then the difference between the two isn't very big, especially when compared to cost.  HOWEVER, AMD's drivers for 7xxx have gotten so good that I would reckon a 7850 1 gig card could out perform a 6950 with 2 gigs of VRAM.

 

Sometimes just looking at the model names isn't enough to determine the best choice.

Cite sources please. If I am correct and I may not be but I do believe that the 6xxx and 7xxx series use the same driver. There's nothing wrong with the AMD Radeon HD 6xxx series at all. Vram does not make a card faster LOl anyway.

[G.Freeman]

unless there is a sale on newegg or something. theres sales all the time. and for all you know they could have something like a 700 series sale or something. 

There could be a sale at any time this is not determined by nvidia this is a vendor thing. Mark my words there will definably not be a sale on the GTX 7xx series cards for a long time. nvidia will gouge people for the first year before they drop prices. You can always count on nvidia for one thing ans that is high prices this has always been the way it is and it will not stop.

[joelthezombie15]

There could be a sale at any time this is not determined by nvidia this is a vendor thing. Mark my words there will definably not be a sale on the GTX 7xx series cards for a long time. nvidia will gouge people for the first year before they drop prices.

ya but also there could be a sale that nvidia wants for it. its all speculation of course.

[G.Freeman]

ya but also there could be a sale that nvidia wants for it. its all speculation of course.

Absolutely not this is not how it works. nvidia has never done anything like that is the 8 years I have been buying GPUs.

[joelthezombie15]

Absolutely not this is not how it works. nvidia has never done anything like that is the 8 years I have been buying GPUs.

well you never know. but no matter what i say you are gonna insist you are right so ya.

[G.Freeman]

well you never know. but no matter what i say you are gonna insist you are right so ya.

I am just going on what historically nvidia has done.

[joelthezombie15]

I am just going on what historically nvidia has done.

okay and im saying they could change. you never know, i doubt they will but you never know

[WitzTech]

Cite sources please. If I am correct and I may not be but I do believe that the 6xxx and 7xxx series use the same driver. There's nothing wrong with the AMD Radeon HD 6xxx series at all. Vram does not make a card faster LOl anyway.

 

Now OP doesn't list the actual prices of the cards he's looking at, but Tom's hardware's performance index shows that unless that 6850 is less than a 7770 

 

How, I know OP is in the UK, but at least here in the US, a 6850 will set you back $150.  That is dangerously close to a 7850, which as shown in the chart below, is a much stronger performer (relatively speaking):

 

From Tom's hardware:

 

 

Here's Anandtech's comparison of a 6870 (all they had) and a 7850:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/778?vs=780

 

I couldn't find a 6950 in stock in any of my usual searches, so I can't really argue from a value perspective.  

 

In terms of drivers, this is what Legit Reviews said of the Never Settle drivers (the ones I am referring to): "AMD is also releasing the Catalyst 12.11 graphics card driver this week and this driver has some special sauce in it.  AMD is calling this the NEVER SETTLE Driver. AMD introduced Graphics Core Next (GCN) based products in December 2011 with the introduction of the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card."

 

And on the VRAM front; yes I know that more doesn't equal better, but if OP plans on using his card for a while he might as well plan for the future, as newer games are going to utilize more memory.

 

I'll conclude with Legit's conclusion, which is why I just can't recommend a 6xxx series card:

 

"When it comes to the AMD Catalyst 12.11 drivers we are impressed that AMD was able to get such a nice performance improvement across the board. AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) GPU architecture was introduced in December 2011, so we honestly figured that AMD had already wrangled all the performance the could from it. We were told from AMD that it took this long to really look at how the new architecture works and to fully utilize everything in there. The AMD Catalyst 12.11 driver gives a noticeable performance boost in the vast majority of the game titles that we tried it out. We have no complaints there and it doesn't appear that AMD is doing anything fishy to get the performance boost. We looked for image quality differences and renamed the executable file for 3DMark11 and other benchmarks. No differences were seen when looking for known exploit methods, but you never know. You'll be able to download these drivers later this week and try them out for yourself and we highly advise in doing so."

[G.Freeman]

okay and im saying they could change. you never know, i doubt they will but you never know

They won't and haven't. I will tell you whats going to happen "Mark My Words" this is the ahole whom will tell you the truth so remember these words in the coming from the keyboard of G.Freeman he said said it here. The GTX 7xx series will be a minor iteration of Kepler not a revolution and it will come at a price premium. This will be the same thing as GTX 4xx to GTX 5xx series which was small performance increments and steep price hikes.

[MPX309]

I'm from the UK. . . It'll either be Amazon, Ebuyer, or Scan . . . Newegg is out of the question . . . I''ve messed this up abit, I was supposed to type 7850 vs 6950, Sorry.

[G.Freeman]

Now OP doesn't list the actual prices of the cards he's looking at, but Tom's hardware's performance index shows that unless that 6850 is less than a 7770 

Well that graph is very vague were did the number derive from LOL ? The OP is looking at a 6950 not 6870.

[G.Freeman]

I'm from the UK. . . It'll either be Amazon, Ebuyer, or Scan . . . Newegg is out of the question . . . I''ve messed this up abit, I was supposed to type 7850 vs 6950, Sorry.

7850 vs 6950 s very close man I would have got the HD 6950 is I could have found one for a great deal but I found an HD 7850 for $150 so that's what I pick up. If I could have got an HD 6950 for cheaper that's what I would have bought.

[joelthezombie15]

They won't and haven't. I will tell you whats going to happen "Mark My Words" this is the ahole whom will tell you the truth so remember these words in the coming from the keyboard of G.Freeman he said said it here. The GTX 7xx series will be a minor iteration of Kepler not a revolution and it will come at a price premium. This will be the same thing as GTX 4xx to GTX 5xx series which was small performance increments and steep price hikes.

okay but what about the supposed 780? that is a gk110 iteration. 

[G.Freeman]

okay but what about the supposed 780? that is a gk110 iteration. 

It will be Titan LE for and steep price.