Graphics 560 or 6870

I'm really sorry if this has already been done to death....but need some help in which one should I buy for my mate:

1GB EVGA GeForce GTX 560 SC NVIDIA Graphics Card - £143 on scan

or

XFX HD 6870 Black Edition AMD Radeon Graphics Card - 1GB - £140 on scan

Or maybe something completely different?

He will be paring up with Saspo's I7 920 - my mate has never owned a PC and I have helped him on a few things to get him started - he won't be able to upgrade for a long time and really wants to play BF3 on hopefully max setting, and get into other PC games of course. His res is 1600 x 1050.

Cheers All.

 

I would get the 560ti, i just got one and i love.

 

would love to get the ti but too expensive....

 

As the 560ti is ~£40 more than either of those choices, the 560 should be a better choice as it is a newer card. I've heard the gigabyte 560 is the best.

 

Opps, i got my PNY 560ti for £143 for Yoyotech about 2 months ago, didnt notice them going up in price some much. 560 is still an epic little card for the cash

 

Yeah £140ish for a 560 is a steal, very good price. I'd be more inclined to get the Nvidia card for tessellation... do ATI have a gimmick for their cards?

 

Run three monitors off one card an get a displayport.

 

Would always be inclined to recommend the 560 here. A Ti if you can afford the extra budget stretch. Does your mate have a budget limit here? Guessing about £140-150 if you're looking at this end of the spectrum.

 

I'm all for the 560.

 

The problem with the GTX560 and the HD6870 is that the HD6850 while slightly slower is cheaper by a good measure. And at best you'll get around 20% with either card, but the price difference is glaring.

Of course I'd go with the HD6870 but remember that AMD drivers are still really wonky from time to time.

 

HD 6870, it beats the 560 by 5% in memory bandwidth, it beats the 560 by 11% textile rate and pixel rate. That's at stock speed. http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/help-me-choose/Pages/help-me-choose.aspx?F1=4&F2=3&F3=3

"Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit."

Both will handle the new level of graphics well and even better if overclocked. If he's new he can overclock the card(if amd)in the cataclyst control center using the automatic overclocking option. Not sure if Nvidia has the same deal with overclocking made simple.

 

If it's non-TI GTX560 vs. 6870, then it's 6870 all the way. If nothing but for the power consumption. Tesselation? Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff since when has it meant anything but 'meh' painted on a giant white wall in red and gold stripes.

 

Power consuption on the 6870 is 150 from what i've read. The 560 ti uses about 30Watts more.


http://www.hwcompare.com/11005/geforce-gtx-560-vs-radeon-hd-6870/

I live here lol ^

 

Performance per watt would have been a better choice of words.

 

I wasn't putting you down or anything, just giving numbers out. Turns out there free *.*

 

So are smiles and hugs =)

 

Shits and giggles are too

 

xD

lol very good

 

I've got the 6870, I would happily recommend it, especially as it can output to up to four monitors from one card. However, if you only have one or two monitors then the above will help you decide. Multiple monitors was the winner for me.

 

What about a nice, cheap GTX460. Basically the same card as the GTX560 yet should be ~ £30 cheaper. Clock for clock there will be nothing in it (quite literally). Yes the GTX560 will clock a bit further but the difference will hardly be noticable in game.