They might send you back a GTX 560


If it is dying, you may not be able to flash it at all. i don't know the details of your warranty, but you can't RMA it with a different BIOS or with aftermarket cooling.

Look at the performance charts. Where do you see the HD 6950 sitting performance-wise? The XFX is not reference and i don't believe it can be unlocked to a HD 6970.

What about the regular GTX 560 Ti? It should be around $200; maybe less, but not as much as an upgrade as the 448 core version

950 mhz isn't abusing the card?! I thought only GTX 560 Ti's got to 920 mhz tops. GTX 460 maxes out around 820 mhz I thought.

Go with the reference GTX 560 Ti 448 (EVGA).The 25$ premium isn't worth it imho.

The 6950 is interesting but I compared it to the GTX 560 Ti 448 using AnandTech Bench and the GTX 560 was faster overall; in some cases substantially so.

The 6950 is nice in that it has 2gb of vram and it consumes a little less power.

I've actually developed an nVidia brand preference. I like their drivers better than AMD.

I'm going to see what's available tonight in the new sale at NCIX.

They offered me the Direct CU II card for $244.

I might just get a vanilla GTX 560. They are $150. I don't game much any more and $240 is really stretching my budget.

With proper cooling people have been hitting 1000mhz and above on the GTX 460. I have an MSI Cyclone cooler on mine and it does a good job despite being loud under full load.

Since when is overclocking "abuse"? I kept my voltages reasonable. I did not overvolt the card. I would never do that to a GPU.

I've been barely using my card for months now and tons of other people are having the same issues as me. It's a defect in the cards.

i hoped you also looked at my benches
- the GTX 560 Ti 448c FTW trades blows with and often beats the HD 6970.

i would not recommend a HD 6950 flash to HD 6970 even if you can do it. My cousin brought his PC over today and the sole issue was that one of the HD 6950s could not longer run at HD 6970 speeds; he is going to sell his system and i did a quick diagnosis. He is lucky that the HD 6950 is fine at stock speeds again after being flashed.

A plain GTX 560 will not be much of an upgrade over your GTX 460.

What about a *regular* GTX 560 Ti?

The GTX 560 Ti is 10% faster than the vanilla 560. 10% more than $150 is around $165, yet they charge about $200 for the Ti cards.

I'm all about bang for the buck when it comes to my hardware.

They will post the sale soon at NCIX. I probably won't have time to ask you all for advice on what I can get because if it's a hot deal it will sell out quickly if I don't get one fast.

Well my advice for what would make you happy as an upgrade and still not be way out of budget is still a stock GTX 560 Ti 448c. If you are looking for an AMD card, the HD 6950.

Good luck on the sale tomorrow.

Thanks for that.

The sale is *tonight*.

I will report back with what I get, if anything even crops up.

There will be another sale this weekend that I might wait for, or else I'll even jump on a newegg shell shocker.

i'll keep my eyes open for you also