AMD Radeon 6950 or nVidia GTX 570?

[eko]

First of all, hello Linus, I am big fan of you videos on YouTube, on both channels LinusTechTips and NCIX... So I want to buy new graphics card... I run one monitor, 22", 1680 x 1050, so no SLI or Crossfire just one single GPU... I am between HD6950 and GTX 570... If I go with HD6950 I'll try to unlock it to HD6970, so it would be huge bang for the buck, and I could by myself some SS Ikari... :D

I was looking at these two:
- ASUS AMD Radeon HD 6950
or
- ASUS nVidia GTX 570 DirectCU II

My rig is:

Core2Quad Q9550 @2.83, OC in plan (to 3.5Ghz or 4Ghz, I will try to find stable configuration)
Asus P5Q Deluxe
Geil Black Dragon 4 x 2GB DDR2 RAM
Gainward 9800GT Golden Sample 1GB
Western Digital Velociraptor 150GB; Harvest G. 1TB
Cooler Master Silent Pro M700
Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU cooler
Samsung SyncMaster T220 22"

Thank you Linus, cheers!!!

Phillip

[FlyingFish]

At that resolution either one would be fine and would max out most games.

If you're not planning on getting a bigger monitor, the GTX 560 would be a better option for you. It's still going to max out most games at that resolution and you save money that you can spend on other toys.

[Supergrover]

Be aware that the DCII coolers have a bit of a issue with rattle noise from the shroud, I know mine went away after I removed the sink and retimed it and tweaked the shroud from against the edge of the sink.
That said my first 6970cdII didnt have this issue but I know Ari's both did also. As well as a few other ppl on the net.

That said both the 6950 and 570 are great cards, but doubt you will have much luck unlocking the 6950 unless you get one used.

[SKYMTL]

GTX 570 = HD 6970 give or take a few percent.

[Drumroll]

Also Asus direct CUII is FAT