I'm looking around for graphics cards at newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...E&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=xfx+6950 There are so many to choose from, whats the difference between them all? I plan on enabling crossfire with them, here are my system specs as of now, am I good to go? OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601 Other OS Description Not Available OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name KEIEK-PC System Manufacturer Alienware System Model Area 51 System Type x64-based PC Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s) BIOS Version/Date Alienware A07, 4/6/2010 SMBIOS Version 2.5 Windows Directory C:\Windows System Directory C:\Windows\system32 Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514" User Name Keiek-PC\Keiek Time Zone Mountain Daylight Time Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB Total Physical Memory 5.99 GB Available Physical Memory 3.75 GB Total Virtual Memory 12.0 GB Available Virtual Memory 8.53 GB Page File Space 5.99 GB Alienware™ 1100 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply [Crossfire] Name ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x68B8), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible Adapter Description ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series Adapter RAM 1.00 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes) Driver Version 8.861.0.0 Resolution 1600 x 900 x 60 hertz [Crossfire] Name ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x68B8), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible Adapter Description ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series Adapter RAM 1.00 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes) Driver Version 8.861.0.0 Resolution 1920 x 1080 x 60 hertz
Are you only looking at XFX brand 6950's? Thats what your link brought up. You can break down all of the 6950's in to a few catagories: Reference design - Version 1 cards. made by amd, various vendors slap their own sticker on and sell them. They all look like a brick with a blower type fan at the far end that sucks air in, pushes it through a vapor chamber and exhausts out the back. These cards can be unlocked to 6970 specs and have a dual bios switch Non reference design - Basicly everything else made after the V1 cards. If the fan is in the middle, if it has dual fans and a fancy case / heatsink, it is a card made exclusivly by the vendor (xfx, msi, asus, etc) Some can be unlocked, most cant. within the non reference you have the 2gb model and 1gb model of 6950. If you game with AA turned on, or plan on using eyefinity, the 2gb model is a must have. otherwise the 1gb model is fine for most anything up to 1080p resolutions. other than that the only difference are going to be gpu and memory clock speeds. Different manufacturers use different components in making their card, so if you settle on a specific card, try to read as many reviews as you can about it. Thats how I originally settled on my 2 asus 5850 TOP cards. As you can see, some of the XFX 6950's are crap, and some are really good. pay attention to the reviews to avoid buying a card that will give you headaches. at any rate, you will love 2 6950's in crossfire, they are awesome.
I have a single msi twinfrozr 6950 and love it. The cooling is great and performs even better. I'd recommend it over the XFX because the twinfrozr 2 and 3 versions have no problems at all.
