Gaming rig for 65k · DIGIT-ARC

C

1. What is the purpose of the computer? (Note: If you are planning to say multimedia, you will have to be more specific as all types of systems are capable of doing that)
A: Gaming

2. Are you open to alternate ideas/products giving similar better performance but offering more VFM/ sellers? If not- why?
A: Yes

3. What is your MAX budget?
A: 65k

4. Planning to overclock?
A: No

5. Which OS are you planning to use?
A: Windows 7 64 bit

6. How much hard drive space is needed?
A: 1 TB

7. What resolution will the screen run at & whats the size of the screen you want? If you already want have one and want to use it, mention its resolution and size.
A: 1980 x 1020

8. How would you rate your hardware knowledge from the count of 1-10? (1 being the lowest, 5 being you are somewhat in sync with the current performers and 10 being the highest)
A: 3

9. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
A: no

10. When are you planning to buy the system?
A: next month

11. Are you one of the types looking out for "future proof" configurations?
A: yes

12. Are there going to be any components that you don't want to include in this new rig? If yes, do mention.
A: speakers, keyboard, mouse, ups

13. Which city do you live in and are you open to buying from shops from other city/states?
A: pune, yes

14. Mention any other points if deemed necessary
A: I came upon the following rig while searching
i5 2500k - 11650
P8P67 pro - 12000
Gtx570 - 20000
G-SKILL[ Trident ] PC3-12800 / DDR3 1600 Mhz/cl-8-8-8-24 (2Gx2) - 3000
Seasonic S12D 750 - 5500
Benq G2222HDL LED - 8850
NZXT Gamma - 2100
Seagate 1 TB 7200.12 - 2700
LG 22X Sata DVD - 850
I wont overclock but might add a card later for SLI

Total - approx 65000

Also is it possible to get these items in pune?
TIA

the setup you mentioned is A rated
i dont think i can suggest anything better than that
and regarding availability, if you cant find these parts in pune, then you can order them online
better way........

first of all multi gpu setup requires a good spacious case.
i recommend a 6970 if going for a multi gpu setup.

@ chetan1989

If you won't overclock, then why spend on a p67 board and k series processor?
So why pay extra?

Get a non k processor like i5 2500 or i7 2600 along with an h67 board within 6k. This way , you can bring the costs down as you won't be using the hardware in the way they are meant to be used i.e ix 2x00k + p67 board (meant for enthusiasts and overclockers).

The gtx 570 is more than enough for fullhd. Here i would like to suggest nvidia only because amd 69xx series is having a performance hit with the p67 platform even in single gpu setups. More so in multigpu setups. So stick with gtx 570 over a 6970. Check here for proof.

Check this thread as well.

^actually batman we need a nice board for sli or crossfire too.
especially since sli wont work on h67.

C

But will I be able to do SLI on a H67 mobo that's why I went for k series and p67? is it possible to do SLI on H67?

^NO.........!

p67 + nf200 is the best option out there for multigpu setups.

C

@jashwanker so shud I go for gtx 570 against 6970 as told by vickybat?

^^ I gave you the links. Using the 2nd slot i.e x8 or x4 is where the performance hit is noticiable.

Read and decide buddy. :smile:

chetan1989 said:
@jashwanker so shud I go for gtx 570 against 6970 as told by vickybat?

Jaskanwar

and its 6950 vs 570 in single card mode.

and i am seeing x8 mode. as x4 cant be done in sli and of course you wont do it in single gpu setup.

stalker-
*www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-8.html

crysis -
*www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-5.html

almost same loss in scaling.

coming to others -

aliens vs predators -
*www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-4.html

again almost same scaling.

just cause 2 -
*www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-7.html

again almost same scaling

F1 2010 takes a hit.
*www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-6.html

and i am seeing x8 mode. as x4 cant be done in sli and of course you wont do it in single gpu setup.

no worries

so i still recommend a 6970 as crossfire scaling is just too impressive this gen.

C

Thanks for replying jaskanwar sorry for the name

I ws thinking whether I should buy 6950 and then unlock it to 6970? How good is 6950 unlocked vs 6970? Are they exactly similar in performance? and are there any harmful effects of unlocking?
And one more thing, I thought instead of buying p67 + i5 2500k ican buy i500 + h67 and spend the left money to buy gtx 580 but then i wont be able to xfire two 6970s in future. How will be two 6970s in Xfire vs single 580?

^^ Two 6970's are obviously faster than single gtx 580. You can sli two gtx 580's instead in the future.

Some members here have successfully unlocked their 6950 2gb. Its only possible if you buy the reference card and the one jaskanwar mentioned is a reference card.

If not into ocing, then you can definitely buy a non k cpu with h67 mobo.

C

How good is 6950 unlocked vs 6970?

And is there any chance of card getting kaput while unlocking? What if I am not successful in unlocking the card? :-(

chetan1989 said:
How good is 6950 unlocked vs 6970?

And is there any chance of card getting kaput while unlocking? What if I am not successful in unlocking the card?

the card wont go kaput since the bios can be reverted back...it acts as a safety feature

C

Some more queries
1. I am still confused between 6950 unlocked vs 6970

2. Also what about this mobo msi p67a-gd55 (rs. 9500). I can spend the left money on a non reference factory overclocked 6970 or buy a good cpu cooler (for trying OCing in future)
TIA

chetan1989 said:
Some more queries
1. I am still confused between 6950 unlocked vs 6970

2. Also what about this mobo msi p67a-gd55 (rs. 9500). I can spend the left money on a non reference factory overclocked 6970 or buy a good cpu cooler (for trying OCing in future)
TIA

1.Unlocked 6950 is no where close to 6970.

2.Msi p67a-gd55 is good too, Cpu cooler is not necessary for now since i5 2500k can reach 4.0GHz on stock cooler...

chetan1989 said:
Some more queries
1. I am still confused between 6950 unlocked vs 6970

2. Also what about this mobo msi p67a-gd55 (rs. 9500). I can spend the left money on a non reference factory overclocked 6970 or buy a good cpu cooler (for trying OCing in future)
TIA

agreed unlocked 6950 with clocks at 6970 levels perform same as 6970.

though chances of unlock and stable oc on the msi 6950 2gb reference are high. your choice but i still feel 6970 will be ideal choice.

why that msi? asus is best price performance ratio.

remember - first concentrate on components that are expensive and cant be brought again and again.

about non reference factory oced, any you were able to find? is MSI 6970 Lightening available?

mailme.manju said:
1.Unlocked 6950 is no where close to 6970.

2.Msi p67a-gd55 is good too, Cpu cooler is not necessary for now since i5 2500k can reach 4.0GHz on stock cooler...

wrong.

Jaskanwar Singh said:
agreed unlocked 6950 with clocks at 6970 levels perform same as 6970.

I guess everybody here is saying that unlocked 6950 does not perform close to a standard 6970. The performance is more or less the same as a standard 6950 after unlocking. Now i was looking at the specs of cayman pro and cayman xt i.e the 6950 and 6970 respectively. I came to know that the texture fill rate , pixel fillrate and memory bandwidth are higher in 6970 than a 6950. Now that is obvious that the xt has higher specs than the pro, mere unlocking of sp's does not take the 6950 to 6970's performance level.

See the specs for yourself:

Source

Let the actual users like rchi84 comment on this and actually tells us if they are getting a substantial performance increment after unlocking or not.

Jaskanwar Singh said:
wrong.

Well its actually right. Cilus had overclocked his 955be to 3.6 and 3.7ghz on stock cooler without breaking a sweat. These sandybridge cpu's can touch 4ghz on air owing to their exceptionally lower tdp even than the lynnfields. So its possible but always a custom cooler like hyper 212 plus is recommended for overclockers as a bare minimum.

^
AMD Radeon HD 6950 to HD 6970 Mod | techPowerUp

*img594.imageshack.us/img594/7779/perfb.gif

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

by rchi84 -

Hi guys

Ran some benchmarks. Vantage for some reason, doesn't like the OC and actually gives my card a lower score lol.

For 3d Mark 11, on stock 6950 clocks, I get a score around 4700 on performance preset. The thing holding my scores down, i suspect is my i5 2400 CPU.

On 6970 clocks, my score improves to 5100.

The problem is that I am running on catalyst 11.3 which futuremark hasn't approved yet, so i only get text results online.

ran the crysis benchmark. settings were 1920x1080, 8xAA, DX 10.

2 years ago, my friend's pc died when we tried this

this time, on stock 6950 clocks, i was getting around 37 FPS. On 6970 clocks, I was getting around 42 FPS.

I wish i had the money to buy crysis 2, but DX9 only is a major no-no

so yeah, as weird as it sounds, i might actually be running into CPU bottlenecks or maybe my card doesn't perform all that spectacularly when OCd. I'm sticking with stock clocks for now.

pretty happy either way

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/graphic-cards/138854-amd-radeon-hd-6950-unlocked-2.html#post1375543

vickybat said:
Well its actually right. Cilus had overclocked his 955be to 3.6 and 3.7ghz on stock cooler without breaking a sweat. These sandybridge cpu's can touch 4ghz on air owing to their exceptionally lower tdp even than the lynnfields. So its possible but always a custom cooler like hyper 212 plus is recommended for overclockers as a bare minimum.

i know of oc on sandybridge. i am talking of 6950 and 6970 performance. i bolded it :-D

^^ The increments were not that much substantial as said by rchi84 himself so he had to revert back to stock clocks. Now i am interested in some shader heavy games that depend on memory bandwidth as well. Call of duty4 simply responds to higher clocks and is pretty easy on the system.

I wonder how a stock 6970 performs in crysis with 8x aa,dx10 and fullhd? I guess it will give higher scores than modded 6950. What say?

Now a 6970 owner might answer this here if only we have anybody having a 6970 in this forum.

Another thing is just unlocking a 6950 does not give you more performance. It has to be overclocked to 6970 levels or more and on doing so, it exceeds its tdp limit and even of a 6970. Now that is not good in the long run i guess.

^there is performance increase to a good extent. maybe in some games not to completely 6970 levels but yes not far behind.

a unlocked 6950 shader only gives 95% 6970 performance. and its completely safe.
people mostly are running 100% stable at clocks of greater than 6970.

a newegg quotes on MSI R6950-2PM2D2GD5 -
*www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127555

Purchased this card in early April and immediately unlocked the 6970 shaders. Running at stock 6970 speeds (880/1375) with no problems. Performance and value are amazing. I am running Dragon Age 2 at 1920x1200, Direct X 11, Full AA and AF, Ultra High quality and averaging 40 FPS.

Can be easily unlocked to 6970 shaders (Google how to)
- My card overclocked and unlocked to 6970 shaders and 950MHz core and 1450MHz memory on stock 6970 voltages (1.175v)
- Plays any and every game I have thrown at it (Crysis, Crysis 2, GTA IV, Just Cause 2, Red Faction Guerilla, Metro 2033, etc.) flawlessly with maxed out graphics at 1920x1200 resolution on my system (see other thoughts). The only game that dropped down to ~30fps was GTA IV (horribly optimized console port) and Metro 2033 (which favors NVIDIA cards and is very taxing).
- Runs cool even with the stock cooler. I get temps of around 60C idle (auto fan...it runs at 30% on idle) and 70C load while playing Crysis (auto fan...it runs at 50% on load) while my ambient is ~25C. While the fan is UBER loud at 100% speeds, I have never reached that high on auto fan so it is relatively quiet.
- Drivers are ROCK stable...people need to stop complaining that AMD drivers suck b/c they DON'T!
- Crossfire it! :

ya a person has 6970.
here is he -akshayt
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/members/215.html

^^ Then i should pm him to post some scores here. Lets see if he responds or not. :smile:

If possible, you may too send him a pm. It will clear many doubts for future buyers who plan to unlock a 6950 2gb.

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100312SR Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
some sapphire feedback -

you can throw anything at it and it runs it a max .. I did the shader unlock to 6970 works great also ran it stable at 900/1400 with +20 PCS in CCC I know it can probably go higher but theres no need right now fan at 50 % is not that loud sounds like any other fan in my case and 50s all i needed to run at the overclock speeds above. scores 7.8 wei stock and 7.9 wei with just the max ccc settings of 840/1325 +20 PCS without msi afterburner being unlocked to do speeds mentioned above

vickybat said:
^^ Then i should pm him to post some scores here. Lets see if he responds or not.

If possible, you may too send him a pm. It will clear many doubts for future buyers who plan to unlock a 6950 2gb.

ok will send him a pm.

^^ Yes but need some comprehensive comparison. Lets see if our friend akshayt responds or not.

batman a problem -
akshayt has 2600k with 6970 and rchi has i5 2400.

^^ That won't be much of a concern though. i5 2400 won't be a bottleneck for any single gpu setup released thus far. At max the difference would be one fps or even less.

A

GTA IV (no tweaking, no patch)
1920x1080 Max everything in game, everything
Avg 64 FPS
Rarely dips below 60 FPS in the benchmark

Crysis 2
Playable at 19x10 no AA 16xAF MAX

NFS Shift Unleashed
19x10 MAX 4x AA, Avg 55-70 FPS

vickybat said:
The gtx 570 is more than enough for fullhd. Here i would like to suggest nvidia only because amd 69xx series is having a performance hit with the p67 platform even in single gpu setups. More so in multigpu setups. So stick with gtx 570 over a 6970. Check here for proof.

Nice article. But who the hell will use a single card in X8 or X4 mode?

vickybat said:
More so in multigpu setups.

Now regarding this. The thing is the P67 platform only has 16 PCIe lanes. Both Crossfire and SLI would be equally affected by this if you are planning to use 3 GPUs. This is the reason why we are seeing multiGPU supporting P67 boards coming up with nVidia NF200 bridge to increase the lanes. (which is perhaps helping AMD cards more than nVidia. lol. )

And hardly anything to worry about if you are planning to use two cards in X8-X8 whether SLI or CF on normal P67 mobos. (if you really want to get *that* picky, then look at P67 X8-X8 comparisons in the embedded images. HD 6950 2GB dual CF (98.78%) is actually less affected than GTX 570 SLI (95.75%) @ 2560x1600 4x AA)

*media.bestofmicro.com/F/N/286979/original/image023.png *media.bestofmicro.com/G/A/287002/original/image047.png
Baseline = X58 performance.

----

Now, here's the real thing in simple words for the OP.

HD 6950 2GB Crossfire (31.2k) = GTX 570 1.25GB SLI (39.6k) in performance. Despite being much cheaper and one tier below, HD 6950 2GB crossfire performs equal to GTX 570 SLI owing to its much large frame buffer and better scaling. (link1 link2)

Second, if you want to spend 21k on a single GPU and want to add one more in future, my choice will be HD 6970 2GB. Because if you'll add another one in future, it will be much much better than GTX 570 SLI.

HD 6970 2GB Crossfire (42k) is better than GTX 570 1.25GB SLI (39.6k) in performance.

As far as single card is concerned, HD 6970 2GB = GTX 570 1.25GB. Toss a coin and get any one.

HD 6950 2GB = 15.6k
GTX 570 1.25GB = 19.8k
HD 6970 2GB = 21k
GTX 580 = 28.5k (fastest single GPU card at the moment)

J

i wont advice gtx 570 as gtx 570 has also had problems with vrm and many cards died !

either get hd 6970 2gb...or spend more and get gtx 580.

around 20k, go for hd 6970 2gb only especially if u want to add one more gfx card in future !

C

Thanks a lot guyz for replying, cleared all of my doubts. I think I will stick to HD 6970 2 GB for now. And for mobo Asus P8P67 pro ;-)

Will be going next month to Mumbai to buy the rig (as it wont be possible to get these in Pune ) and will keep you guyz updated

ico said:
And hardly anything to worry about if you are planning to use two cards in X8-X8 whether SLI or CF on normal P67 mobos. (if you really want to get *that* picky, then look at P67 X8-X8 comparisons in the embedded images. HD 6950 2GB dual CF (98.78%) is actually less affected than GTX 570 SLI (95.75%) @ 2560x1600 4x AA)

Yes that is why is said p67+nf200 as an ideal platform. Again looking at the embedded images @ 2560x1600. the 6950 is tad below 570 at 4x aa. But that is too marginal to even consider and really doesn't matter. In real world , all these differences are hardly noticeable.

But its wise to buy a p67 board with the nf 200 chip to expand the lanes. Worthwhile for a multigpu setup.

A

GTX 570 is more VFM than 580 because it costs 50% more for 20% more performance.

6950 2gb OC or 6970 is the way to go.
6950 OC 2gb if you wish to CF

Chalo, since my name came up so many times, I thought of throwing my hat into the ring, again lol.

I've installed GTA4 and Crysis 2 on my PC since my last post and here are my observations.

On 6950 clocks, GTA 4 in game performance hovers around 35+ FPS. When I run it at 6970 clocks, I get around upper 40s. The game benchmark is useless as the game is never as smooth as the benchmark is.

Again, GTA4 is notoriously dependent on the number of cores and clock speed. GPU doesn't make all that much of a difference tbh. It's more CPU bound and a crappy port to boot

To know what I'm talking about, if you ever play it again, just keep driving straight for a while and suddenly turn the mouse wildly. The game goes into a microstutter horribly, no matter what the GPU.

Crysis 2, there seems to be some problem with FRAPS on my system and it doesn't log any results. However, I was able to get it up and running at Extreme preset on 1080p without any problems on 6950 and 6970 clocks. to my untrained eye, it looked like both were running over 40 FPS, but again, no Fraps to back me up.

on Metro 2033 (AAA 16xAF, Very High Quality, DOF OFF), on 6950 clocks, i tried the second level where you are in the tunnel with the hand rail. I was getting around 33 FPS. on 6970 clocks, the number increased to around 42 FPS.

The good thing about the reference cooler, is that if you leave it at 60% on load, I was registering a max of 70 degrees, in a room with 34 degrees ambient temps. As loud as my old 6600GT though, so not a big deal.

the 6970 clocks were also OCCT GPU Complexity 8 stable for half an hour, without any errors detected. on stock voltage.

it's a question of comfort. Metro is the only game where i can sometimes feel my card slowing on stock clocks. but all other games, it zips through at max settings without a problem.

Again, pick either the 560 or the 6950 and you can't go wrong. the same holds good for 6970 or the 570, as long as OCing is not involved.

Ocing wise, I feel the 560 and the 6970 respectively are safer bets.

and curiously, I noticed that running Crysis 2 at Extreme settings at 1080p, used up around 1.3GB of VRAM, while GTA4 on max everything used up around 1.2GB of VRAM.

rchi thanks for that. :-D

much needed.

@ rchi84

So its confirmed that in order to get closer to 6970, 6950(unlocked) has to be overclocked to 6970 stock levels.

Now why are you saying that 6970 and 560 are safer bets ocing wise? I mean i don't get it. Even if you overclock 560 and 6970, their power consumption and temperature levels will also go up. What makes the unlocked 6950 any different?

You say it passed all the stability tests and at stock clocks it performs close to a 6970. That means its not worthwhile to spend on a 6970 cause at just 15.6k, you get the msi reference 6950 which can be unlocked.

So why its an unsafe bet? I need some answers mate :smile:

.

A

I get around 60 fps in gta iv maxed out with no tweaking

What I meant was, if you are the type who likes to oc their video cards, you'll get a much better experience with the 560 which OCs very well and the 6970 which easily reaches 930 on the core.

My card could reach 900+ easily but I would have to feed it more volts. Theres a reason why the 6970s are better binned. I never feel comfortable adding volts to overclock. Pushing it as far as possible on stock volts is what I'm comfortable with.

570s are great cards but I have read quite a lot of reports where adding more volts has fried the vrms.

But I would like to repeat. Investing more than 25k on a gpu doesn't make sense when only a handful of games can actually make use of them. Its a sad state of affairs and reality of pc gaming.

^^

Okay got it mate. But if unlocked 6950 reaches 6970 performance by increasing clocks to 6970 levels without any added voltage, then its a good option isn't it? 6970 must be having a better vrm design which allows it to be oced more but 6950 2gb isn't a bad deal for the money you save.

HD 6950 1GB is real deal