I'm about to buy one from US websites (a lot cheaper than in EU). Anyone of you guys own one and by which manufacturer? Was about to go for the Sapphire. These 6000 series have improved video transcoding acceleration (please reply if you did some video rendering with any 6000), which interests me the most (besides gaming).
Or it is better to just pay extra $20-30 and buy 6870 which in most cases has a core speed only 7-9% faster and doesn't sound like it's that much faster.
P.S. Don't recommend NVIDIA, don't like em.
I've got an XFX 6870 and it's certainly worth the extra cost. The only problem you're going to have is the fact that AMD still haven't made a stable driver that supports the new 6000 series after 2 months. I've had lots of bad experiences with Sapphire cards exploding/falling to pieces/burning in the past so I'd stay away from them if I were you, go for XFX, Gigabyte or ASUS.
' Wrote:I've got an XFX 6870 and it's certainly worth the extra cost. The only problem you're going to have is the fact that AMD still haven't made a stable driver that supports the new 6000 series after 2 months. I've had lots of bad experiences with Sapphire cards exploding/falling to pieces/burning in the past so I'd stay away from them if I were you, go for XFX, Gigabyte or ASUS.
Hm. Damn you!:)You made me question my choice now. Asus and Gigabyte enter the contest again.
I've had Sapphire; last three cards, never went dead on me. But I do believe of your experiences of course.
Heh, could be I was just unlucky but I can't help but remain doubtful when it comes to Sapphire products.
' Wrote:I've got an XFX 6870 and it's certainly worth the extra cost. The only problem you're going to have is the fact that AMD still haven't made a stable driver that supports the new 6000 series after 2 months. I've had lots of bad experiences with Sapphire cards exploding/falling to pieces/burning in the past so I'd stay away from them if I were you, go for XFX, Gigabyte or ASUS.
I had a Sapphire X1650 for four years and I never had any issues with it, neither with my current AGP ATI HD 3850. (except that on my 3850 anything related to video is borked, because a component isn't working but that's on every 3850, ingame cinematics lag like never before and HD videos are stuttering, so don't buy any HD 3850, but graphics wise the perfs are awesome.) You're just doing it wrong or your the ventilation of your computer case is terrible.
I always use Sapphire, they are good but I also had one burning issue with a 4870x2.
I got a Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 recently, works pretty good, but I don't have much knowledge about graphics cards so I can't comment on whether it's worth the few extra dollars.
And please don't jinx me by telling me horror stories about sapphire cards burning and what not. I've had enough graphics card issues to last a life time, I think. <_<
Edit: Just be aware, the 6870 card is huge. Make sure it fits in your case before you get it, and ensure your power supply has two 6 pin power cords for it. It only just fits inside my case, and it takes up two slots at the back.
I ended up with 6850 Sapphire after all. Had no bad experiences with their previous cards and also I noticed that on website sales, the most comments are given to Sapphire products with a average rate of 4 stars (NewEgg.com).
Anyway, one particular 6870, which is $20-30 more expensive than this 6850, is built by, at least to me, an unknown manufacturer--Powercolor, so I didn't wanna take any chances. Other manufacturer's cards are a lot more uneconomical.
Will be shipped to me by no later than 26th of January. Yay!
(along with six-core thuban, also ordered in US for JUST $179). All I need now is new PSU with 600W which I'll buy locally, sadly.
Americans surely know how to sell to themselves a lot more cheaper products which are, in other parts of the world, up to 30-40% more expensive. Who says that Americans are stupid?
I'm interested into buying some stuff to, so PM me with the cost of shipping when you receive your stufz, k?:D
Good choice. I went with the HIS brand 6850 just last week, just because HIS has been known to be a little bit better about cooling and customer service.