6950 to 7850

[tigersty1e]

I've got my 6950 unlocked and clocked to 920/1375.

I'd like to hear from you people who've upgraded from a 6950/70 to 7850.

I'm not sure if it would be worth it. From doing the analysis, clock for clock, the 6950 and 7850 are the same (very close). So it would be like being able to take my 6950 up to 1200 core.

 

[Jaydip]

I recently bought a 7950 for my brother who was on 6950.Now it seems the price premium was not worth it.It would be an even more disappointment for u.

 

[blastingcap]

It would be a mostly pointless sidegrade unless you needed the extra VRAM, which according to your sig, you don't, or if you wanted to save a little electricity.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

IMO it is an upgrade once both are overclocked, but not a very big one, you will get near 580 performance after overclocking. 7870 oc or 7950 oc will be better

 

[Snowshredder102]

IMO it is an upgrade once both are overclocked, but not a very big one, you will get near 580 performance after overclocking. 7870 oc or 7950 oc will be better

A sidegrade at best, a 7870 is just a wee bit faster than a 7850 when both are overclocked. You'll see probably about a 15% increase in performance, and even a little bit less if you unlocked that 6950 to a 6970. Basically you'd be throwing away money. The only real upgrade to a 6950 would be a GTX 680 or a HD 7970.

 

[Don Karnage]

Sidegrade. If you have a 6950 you want to upgrade to a 7950

 

[RavenSEAL]

No.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Wrong.

An oced 7850 is at par with an oced 580.

A 6970 is about 15% faster than a 6950.
A 580 is about 15% faster than a 6970.

An oced 580 is about 10-15% faster than a stock 580.

A stock 6950 is if:

100

Then
6970 115
580 Approx 132
580 oced Approx 145-150

So going from a 2gb stock 6950 to a highly oced 7850 is nearly a 50% performance increase. It is like going to a stock 7950 which is nearly 50% faster.

6xxx don't scale well with overclock, even if it is unlocked (higher clocks doesn't increase performance by much in this series), you are at most at 6970 stock performance despite a high overclock because of poor scaling. So going from 115 to 145+ is 30/115 so about 25% increase in performance.

No matter how unlocked/overclocked/both your 6950 2gb is, going to a 580 OC or 7850 OC will give you at least 20-30%+ performance increase and this will only increase further when games support more tesselation.

Going to an oc 7870 will increase the difference from an oced 7850 by nearly 10% more, so this means 35-45% performance increase.

An oced 7850 beats a stock 7950. And a stock 7950 is at least a 30-40% improvement of unlocked 6950.

However, it will vary with each game. But you will get slightly better playable settings or noticeably better gameplay, perhaps not both.

But you will consistently see a difference of 15-25% avg FPS increase in the worst cases and up to about 50%+ in good cases with average being around 25-30% or so.

And minimum FPS will probably see an even better benefit.

However, I will only recommend this upgrade if you are with Sandy or Ivy and not with previous CPUs nor with AMD.

Difference btw a stock 6950 and stock 580. If you want to compare 6970 which you have similar performance to, then compare the 6970 to 580 OC or near 7950 stock which is close to the performance you would actually get.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/517?vs=510
Avg performance difference is 20-50%+ which is what you are looking at.

Now, if we compare 6970 level performance to stock 7950 or within 5% of it: then:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=540
The difference is too much to be believed. You may not see so much difference but this is beyond 50%.

I promise you a 20-40% increase in performance across the board.

 

[DominionSeraph]

So it would be like being able to take my 6950 up to 1200 core.

It's behind the 6970 so it's more like taking it up to 1050MHz.

 

[blastingcap]

http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/AMD/HD_7850_HD_7870/29.html

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-radeon-hd-7850-and-7870-review/23

Let's not get carried away with how fast an oc'd 7850 is. Depending on the program/game and resolution it may do quite well, but if you overvolted an unlocked 6950 and maxed its oc the same way that you did a 7850, the 7850's advantage would not be big enough to be worth the upgrade cost, imho.

 

[Snowshredder102]

I promise you a 20-40% increase in performance across the board.

What a vague estimate there, if it is in the 20% then it's not even worth the time of day to buy a new card. The 40% depends on the game as well as the individuals card to overclock. Would not recommend to get a 7850 unless you have some cash to burn, then again if you have cash to burn just get a 7950, or 7970.

 

[railven]

What a vague estimate there, if it is in the 20% then it's not even worth the time of day to buy a new card. The 40% depends on the game as well as the individuals card to overclock. Would not recommend to get a 7850 unless you have some cash to burn, then again if you have cash to burn just get a 7950, or 7970.

I agree with your opener, but after getting my ass handed to me - I'll let you know, he's got solid math behind his claim

haha.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

20-40% is mostly game dependent, not oc dependent i assume a 30% oc and 6950 doesnt scale with oc nor does it oc much

And 20% is like a given in the worst situation, in an average or median case it will be 35-50%+

 

[blastingcap]

20-40% is mostly game dependent, not oc dependent i assume a 30% oc and 6950 doesnt scale with oc nor does it oc much

And 20% is like a given in the worst situation, in an average or median case it will be 35-50%+

I've read your comments with some amusement because it is inconsistent with what I've seen elsewhere. Let's take an unlocked 6950 for instance. It's basically a 6970 with possibly less oc'ing headroom, but let's assume for the moment that it has similar headroom.

See this: http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-6970-directcu-ii-review/20

19.3% overclock on the core gave 16.3% increase to framerate. It's not perfect scaling but it's not horrible like when you said the 6950 doesn't scale with oc or oc much. (I am looking at the 2560x1600 results to assure that things are GPU limited... I am also assuming for the moment that the memory with oc isn't slowing down the card.)

So compare an overclocked 7850 to a 6970 + 16.3% performance and you will see that the performance delta between an unlocked, ov+oc 6950 and a 7850 with ov+oc is not really enough to justify the cost imho.

 

[jacktesterson]

I'd say you would get a good 25-35% boost in majority of games (or higher) if you O/C the 7850 to 1200/1450 or higher. I am also not sure about the performance of a O/C'd 6950, so estimating here.

Decide if thats worth it. My 7850 is performing around 7950 levels.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. Adding a 2nd 6950 would probably be a better bang for buck.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Most 6970s don't even overclock 10% and the performance delta is even less. He should try overclocking his card to inform better. If he reaches within 10% of a 580 then that may not be worth it but if he is at least 20% far despite all his efforts then it might be some upgrade. That is why I say 7870 because the extra 10% actually makes it a worth it upgrade except not at $100 extra. If you want a big upgrade go for a 7950 but it depends on how fast your current card is. 7950 will be worth it no matter how high ur current gpu ocs. A 7970 oc is a night and day upgrade or almost in recent respect

 

[Concillian]

Most 6970s don't even overclock 10% and the performance delta is even less. He should try overclocking his card to inform better.

He is unlocked and overclocked. He says right in the OP that he's unlocked and at 920 / 1375

Do people not read the OP anymore?


So 5% OC of a 6970 compared to a 7850 at 1150-1200 (~35% OC)

Add ~5% to 6970 and ~30% to a 7850 in bench:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/509?vs=549

Now OP can make a decision based on data, not speculation.

6970 vs. 7850 seem to be roughly on par, so roughly a 20-25% increase in FPS when comparing his OCed card to an OCed 7850. Worth it? That depends completely on the OP's opinion.

 

[Snowshredder102]

Worth it? That depends completely on the OP's opinion.

You're right the value is of the eye's of the beholder. My concern is some people are hyping up the 7850 based on their bias. Unless the OP is on the edge of having acceptable/unacceptable frames he will be disappointed. The problem with this is even if the 7850 is a little bit faster and gives him the edge for acceptable frames, he will have the same exact problem in the near future with graphics advancements. That's why sidegrades are so unpopular unless it's due to power draw or Nvidia/AMD fan boys.

 

[toyota]

wow this generation of cards are so overpriced that you have to oc them to try and justify an upgrade at the same price point as last gen.

 

[Spikesoldier]

get a second 6950 and cf

 

[Zebo]

This is why amd cards are so over priced. A 7950 @ 250 would be woth upgrade otherwise amd gives u nothing between gens....at least 680 buyera got 35% for same 500 they spent before.whats amd give you for same 250

Nothing

 

[Zebo]

7950 should be 250
7870 220
7850 170

For sensible pricing and to get 69/68xx users to upgrade

 

[Jaydip]

I don't think 7950 is dropping @ 250 price-point anytime soon.

 

[tigersty1e]

This is why amd cards are so over priced. A 7950 @ 250 would be woth upgrade otherwise amd gives u nothing between gens....at least 680 buyera got 35% for same 500 they spent before.whats amd give you for same 250

Nothing

It's not just AMD. It's Nvidia too. Cards are just overpriced at the moment. And your logic is flawed because the 580 was overpriced to begin with.

But on the flipside, my card is still worth ~200.

If I can unload at 200, then $50 more bucks for the 7850 is worth it to me.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

It's not just AMD. It's Nvidia too. Cards are just overpriced at the moment. And your logic is flawed because the 580 was overpriced to begin with.

But on the flipside, my card is still worth ~200.

If I can unload at 200, then $50 more bucks for the 7850 is worth it to me.

25% more money for 20-25% isn't really all that interesting, especially if you bought the 6950 for $250-280, you're losing perf/price going to a cheaper node.