The purpose of this blog is to educate fellow TL members regarding the discrete GPU market and help all SC2 players who are looking to upgrade their GPUs make an informed decision.
Let me start off this blog by stating that I have bought many GPUs from both ATI and Nvidia in the past, I claim loyalty to neither company; I have always bought what offered the best price/performance ratio, richness of features, along with consideration of some other factors (heat output, power requirement, etc). I love competition, I want both ATI and Nvidia to do well so that prices can be kept low and rapid innovation can be ensured.
With that said, I bought into the Radeon 9xxx series against the Nvidia FX5xxx series back in the day (my 9800 pro was light years better than the FX5800/5900 series), then I went with a Geforce 6800 against the Radeon 8xx series (the Radeon 8xx series had neither true HDR nor SM3.0 support). Next, I went with a Geforce 7900GS against the Radeon 1950 PRO, simply due to the fact that both were great cards but the 7900GS had a slightly lower heat output/power requirement, meaning I was able to overclock it further. I went with the Green Team again for the next generation of video cards, I bought a Geforce 8800GT which was in every way superior to the shitty Radeon 2xxx series, even 4 years later the 8800GT still offers very respectable frame rates in most games. As a testament to the success of the Geforce 8800 G80 architecture, the Geforce 9xxx series was simply a shrunken die based on the same architecture, but it was still vastly superior vs the Radeon 3xxx series. I bought a 9800GTX because the ATI messed up the 3xxx once again (the 9800GTX raped the Radeon 3870 in just about every benchmark).
Things looked grim for ATI at this point, but ATI was bought by AMD and finally got their shit together; the Radeon 4xxx series was a tremendous success on ATI's part in comparison to the GT200 series from Nvidia. Offering better power efficiency, lower power draw, higher overclockability, better driver support and features (DX 10.1 vs only DX10 for Nvidia, which improved frame rates considerably in DX10 games), and most importantly, better price/performance ratio. Notably, the GTX280/285 did marginally beat the Radeon 4xxx in term of raw performance, but those cards were so ridiculously overpriced at the time ($500 ~ $600 CAD) that I didn't even bother, I simply spent an extra $30 to buy a better GPU cooler and overclocked my Radeon 4890 to GTX280 specifications for about $200 less ($290 for the card + $30 for the GPU heatsink).
Finally, in the current state of affairs, ATI is looking to drive Nvidia out of the discrete GPU market all together with the release of the Radeon 5xxx series. Partly due to their own engineering success after joining AMD and partly due to the massive fuck-up by Nvidia with the GTX480/Fermi cards, the 5xxx series has driven Nvidia out of the high-end GPU market all together since October of last year (the Radeon 5xxx series was released back in Sept. 2009, but availability did not improve until Oct/Nov of 2009). This time, not only did the Radeon 5850/5870 completely destroy the GTX280/285 cards, but the Red Team did so at lower cost of manufacturing, lower power consumption, better overclockability, AND eyefinity/DirectX 11 support; higher-end Nvidia cards were simply made obsolete right after the release of the Radeon 5xxx cards. At this point, I disapproved immensely of Nvidia's coporate practice; because the GT200 series were now obsolete, Nvidia created an artificial supply shortagein hope of conning naive mainstream customers to keep buying its aging cards. Sadly and apparently, it still works.
Nvidia was SUPPOSED to release the GTX4xxx series 8-9 months ago to compete with the Radeon 5xxx series, but due to hideous yield problems at TSMC and the terrible architecture of the GTX4xxx series, they still have not released a fully functional GTX4xx series card to date. The Geforce GTX480 "available" (you have to pay a $50-$100 premium above it's MSRP to get these cards) right now is a castrated version of the intended Fermi card. As a result, ATI posted a profitable Q4 2009 quarter quarter due to its monopoly on DX11 GPUs, selling millions of cards in a matter of months. Nvidia took a HUGE risk by buying 5000 risk silicon wafers last year in hope of speeding up its GTX4xx cards, but sadly it did not pay off. In fact, yield and engineering problems are so revolting and unfixable that Nvidia had to fake fermi cards to keep investors happy, got dumped by various coporate deals, and had to yet again, castrate its high-end Tesla compute cards which historically offers the highest margins.
I almost lost hope at this point for the Green Team, I had hoped the release of the Fermi cards would be the great success it was hyped up to be and in turn drive down the prices of the Radeon 5xxx series. I currently own a 5850, was hoping to get another one for crossfirex but due to the failures of Nvidia, I still have to wait because the prices on the 5850 cards have been increasing for the past few months A testament of how much fail there is to be found within Fermi. Even after releasing GTX480 demo cards to mostly pro-nvidia review sites (who cherry-picks benchmarks and skew settings to favour Nvidia cards), the reviews still mostly agree that the fermi cards are huge disappointments. On average, despite being 6-7 months late to the market the GTX480 is only 5-15% faster than the 5870 and 15-30% slower than the Radeon 5970 in the vast majority of benchmarks, but at a 15-30% higher cost while sucking up almost twice as much power and heating up to almost 100C degrees. Admittedly, the 5970 is a dual-GPU card, but that fact does not matter at this point because despite being a dual-GPU card, it uses LESS power than the GTX480 and runs much cooler than the GTX480, meaning you can overclock it higher to get even more performance. And oh yah, with the ridiculous power consumption and heat problems of the GTX480, don't expect Nvidia to release a dual-GPU version of the GTX4xxx series um, ever.
But you might ask, if Nvidia can recover from the massive failures of the FX5xxx series and ATI could bounce back from the shitty Radeon 2xxx and 3xxx series, surely Nvidia can recover from the disastrous GTX4xxx series right? Well, if the 5970 wasn't the nail in the coffin, then this surely must be it. ATI has taped out its next-gen graphic cards, meaning new cards will hit market in roughly 6-8 months time before Nvidia can even release its full line of GTX4xxx cards.
So my question is, WHY ARE PEOPLE STUPID ENOUGH TO CONTINUE TO PURCHASE NVIDIA CARDS at this point in time? Simple. Nvidia has been lying to analysts, shareholders and Green Team fan boys alike ever since Q1 of 2009 dumping massive amounts of money into its PR games rather than ditching the Fermi cards all together to work on a new architecture, and coupled with the success of the Geforce 8xxx and 9xxx series I can only assume that Nvidia fan-boys still trust in the Nvidia "brand name", however laughable it has become in 2009/2010.
I'm not very good with this kinda stuff but i would like some help here. I have a 2-3 year old comp which came with a nvidia geforce 7100, now i dont really know what this means but i would like to know what should i upgrade to in order to play sc2 on at least medium quality without any lag? (currently i am experiencing video lag with all graphic setting on low )
On May 08 2010 04:06 ZidaneTribal wrote: I'm not very good with this kinda stuff but i would like some help here. I have a 2-3 year old comp which came with a nvidia geforce 7100, now i dont really know what this means but i would like to know what should i upgrade to in order to play sc2 on at least medium quality without any lag? (currently i am experiencing video lag with all graphic setting on low )
It'd be more helpful if you could post your system specifications, just go into Start Menu - > Run - > Type in "dxdiag" to look up your CPU, RAM, GPU, etc. info.
I'll assume you have a E5xxx series or Athlon X2 series CPU from 2-3 years ago, which is sufficient for playing SC2 on medium settings. Your bottleneck however is your Geforce 7100, which is an integrated GPU that was never meant for gaming.
Your best bet would be to get a Radeon 4850 which run for around ~$90 which could play SC2 on high/ultra settings, and anything from a Radeon 4670/4770 ($35 - $50) will run SC2 on medium-high settings with minimal lag (stay away from the Geforce GT210/220, those are terrible cards). Before you buy a new video card, make sure to check your power supply (PSU) to see if it will support the new GPUs.
Quoting Charlie from semmi accurate is quoting a ATI fanatic. Seriously hes a rumor mill equivalent to quoting faud from fudzilla except he actually has a mind to tectonically knowledge so he doesn't seem like a rabid fanatic.
Also the GTX470 is a better deal in terms of performance per start cost. the 470 handles AntiA much better then 5850 can along with having much stronger performance in DX11 titles it's a more future proof item.
Also if you're cross firing to SLI, SLI has a scaling between 70-98% while ATI has scaling if you're not counting the instances where you loose fps 30-70%
SLI vs crossfiring scaling is so shitty that the cost of a GTX480 per performance vs a 5870 crossfire puts the GTX 480 a ways ahead.
You gloss over how the GTX480 handles DX11 better and high levels of AA a ton better then a 5870 can.
At sub 200 price a 5770 is ideal then it gets muky where you are and what can you get where the GTS250 vs 4850 etc.
In the US it pretty much goes
GTS250 vs 4850 1 gig version w.e you can get cheapest
5770 the 4870 and 260 are EOL are are costly as hell to find
470 vs 5850 the price diff may cause people to choose one over the other but the 470 is more future proof then a 5850 so i'd go with a 470
5870 vs 480, the 5870 price/performance is much better then a 480
5850 vs 470 crossfire/sli 470 sli it's a stronger more future proof package
5970 overpriced under-performing crap even a 5850 crossfire beats it, only thing it saves you is a slot on your mobo and maybe a few dollar in a year on your electric bill.
5870 crossfire vs 480 sli, i'd go with 480 sli better scaling more consistent performance also at that price why are you not going super high end
On May 08 2010 04:30 semantics wrote: Quoting Charlie from semmi accurate is quoting a ATI fanatic. Seriously hes a rumor mill equivalent to quoting faud from fudzilla except he actually has a mind to tectonically knowledge so he doesn't seem like a rabid fanatic.
Also the GTX470 is a better deal in terms of performance per start cost. the 470 handles AntiA much better then 5850 can along with having much stronger performance in DX11 titles it's a more future proof item.
Also if you're cross firing to SLI, SLI has a scaling between 70-98% while ATI has scaling if you're not counting the instances where you loose fps 30-70%
SLI vs crossfiring scaling is so shitty that the cost of a GTX480 per performance vs a 5870 crossfire puts the GTX 480 a ways ahead.
You gloss over how the GTX480 handles DX11 better and high levels of AA a ton better then a 5870 can.
At sub 200 price a 5770 is ideal then it gets muky where you are and what can you get where the GTS250 vs 4850 etc.
In the US it pretty much goes
GTS250 vs 4850 1 gig version w.e you can get cheapest
5770 the 4870 and 260 are EOL are are costly as hell to find
470 vs 5850 the price diff may cause people to choose one over the other but the 470 is more future proof then a 5850 so i'd go with a 470
5870 vs 480, the 5870 price/performance is much better then a 480
5850 vs 470 crossfire/sli 470 sli it's a stronger more future proof package
5970 overpriced under-performing crap even a 5850 crossfire beats it, only thing it saves you is a slot on your mobo and maybe a few dollar in a year on your electric bill.
5870 crossfire vs 480 sli, i'd go with 480 sli better scaling more consistent performance also at that price why are you not going super high end
Please back up your highly opinionated and unsubstantiated claims with benchmarks like I have, then we'll talk.
If you were to argue the merits of the GT200 series then you might have a case, but arguing for the GTX4xx series against the 5xxx clearly shows you've bought into Nvidia marketing and knows next to nothing regarding the GPU industry.
But then again, judging from the abundance of grammatical and spelling errors in your post, I shouldn't be too harsh on a 10 year old.
People who are looking to buy mid-range cards shouldn't really care about this at all, though. Prices vary often with deals and mail-in rebates and shit, and the only reliable sources for determining whether one card is better than another are benchmarks directly comparing the two. You can't ever just recommend to someone, "the 5xxx series is better than the GT200 series" because, while it may more often be the case that ATI provides better price/performance in those lines, it can still vary - depending on the prices of the retailer, the specific model from each series you're considering, the manufacturers' ability to install their own goddamn heatsinks correctly, etc.
I mean I totally agree that ATI is outperforming nvidia at the moment, but I would say to someone looking for a cheap new GPU for SC2 that they should research benchmarks themselves rather than just blindly preferring one company over another.
(also BTW the 3D graphics industry always prefers nvidia cards because the drivers they write have better support for 3D modeling applications... to answer in part why people still buy nvidia)
On May 08 2010 04:30 semantics wrote: Quoting Charlie from semmi accurate is quoting a ATI fanatic. Seriously hes a rumor mill equivalent to quoting faud from fudzilla except he actually has a mind to tectonically knowledge so he doesn't seem like a rabid fanatic.
Also the GTX470 is a better deal in terms of performance per start cost. the 470 handles AntiA much better then 5850 can along with having much stronger performance in DX11 titles it's a more future proof item.
Also if you're cross firing to SLI, SLI has a scaling between 70-98% while ATI has scaling if you're not counting the instances where you loose fps 30-70%
SLI vs crossfiring scaling is so shitty that the cost of a GTX480 per performance vs a 5870 crossfire puts the GTX 480 a ways ahead.
You gloss over how the GTX480 handles DX11 better and high levels of AA a ton better then a 5870 can.
At sub 200 price a 5770 is ideal then it gets muky where you are and what can you get where the GTS250 vs 4850 etc.
In the US it pretty much goes
GTS250 vs 4850 1 gig version w.e you can get cheapest
5770 the 4870 and 260 are EOL are are costly as hell to find
470 vs 5850 the price diff may cause people to choose one over the other but the 470 is more future proof then a 5850 so i'd go with a 470
5870 vs 480, the 5870 price/performance is much better then a 480
5850 vs 470 crossfire/sli 470 sli it's a stronger more future proof package
5970 overpriced under-performing crap even a 5850 crossfire beats it, only thing it saves you is a slot on your mobo and maybe a few dollar in a year on your electric bill.
5870 crossfire vs 480 sli, i'd go with 480 sli better scaling more consistent performance also at that price why are you not going super high end
Please back up your highly opinionated and unsubstantiated claims with benchmarks like I have, then we'll talk.
If you were to argue the merits of the GT200 series then you might have a case, but arguing for the GTX4xx series against the 5xxx clearly shows you've bought into Nvidia marketing and knows next to nothing regarding the GPU industry.
But then again, judging from the abundance of grammatical and spelling errors in your post, I shouldn't be too harsh on a 10 year old.
Nice to see who is the fanboy here, is it the one listing his opinion, well no because both of us are doing it, how about the one who sees someone disagree and instead of reaffirming his points he makes a personal attack.Considering your shoved your opinion and used a bias history to sell ATI and ATI all the way and then acted like it's neutral party...
Maybe not in canada but you can get a 5850 for 300 and a 470 for 350, if you're going for a card for DX11 why not go with the 470 which produces more consistent results then a 5850 under dx11 along with under AA
If i was going crossfire vs sli, sli all the way much stronger performance per dollar in the US see how you miss that mr canada. Hell i could go what you get in Mexico then it would def be your way as if you bought a GTX 480 in mexico vs a 5870 it would be something like 550 bucks for the 5870 in US currency then about 750+ bucks for the GTX480 yeah shit those prices not everywhere is the same, too bad most the teamliquid is in the US
I said US get that across your head.
The GTX260 275 4870 4890 are pointless arguments even if you can find you your probably going to find one used, if you find it new it's probably going to be like 200+ dollar well over it's worth. If you want to argue how the 4870 has one of the best AA system in place for it's time well that's true, if you want a 4870 vs a 260 a 4870 would be better in performance, but too shitting bad those are EOL they aren't on the market anymore zeesh the 5770 is the only thing in the market at that price range.
If you want to talk US about the 4850 vs GTS 250 it's about what you can find cheaper a GTS 250 is a bit stronger then a 4850 so if the 4850 is 10+ dollars cheaper probably go with that else go with a GTS 250
Also shut up about that 5-15% crap.
On avg the 470 pulls 10.35% more fps then a 5850 which is only 7.35% under a 5870 on avg the 480 pulls 15.49% more fps then a 5870 Under settings that matter the AA and AF enabled settings
What are you going to do talk about power requirements and usage perhaps just a few dollars at the end of the year's bill, the fact is unless you game everyday for 4+ hours at which point your electric bill will automatically be high you're only adding a few dollars to your electric bill in the US esp if you live in a mid western state, also under normal usage the 480 470 doesn't use too much more power then a 5870 or a 5850, any result concerning furmark for the 5870 and 5850 is bull as it has a voltage protection system in place that will cap it under an application such as that you have to use another source to show power difference.
On May 08 2010 04:30 semantics wrote: Quoting Charlie from semmi accurate is quoting a ATI fanatic. Seriously hes a rumor mill equivalent to quoting faud from fudzilla except he actually has a mind to tectonically knowledge so he doesn't seem like a rabid fanatic.
Also the GTX470 is a better deal in terms of performance per start cost. the 470 handles AntiA much better then 5850 can along with having much stronger performance in DX11 titles it's a more future proof item.
Also if you're cross firing to SLI, SLI has a scaling between 70-98% while ATI has scaling if you're not counting the instances where you loose fps 30-70%
SLI vs crossfiring scaling is so shitty that the cost of a GTX480 per performance vs a 5870 crossfire puts the GTX 480 a ways ahead.
You gloss over how the GTX480 handles DX11 better and high levels of AA a ton better then a 5870 can.
At sub 200 price a 5770 is ideal then it gets muky where you are and what can you get where the GTS250 vs 4850 etc.
In the US it pretty much goes
GTS250 vs 4850 1 gig version w.e you can get cheapest
5770 the 4870 and 260 are EOL are are costly as hell to find
470 vs 5850 the price diff may cause people to choose one over the other but the 470 is more future proof then a 5850 so i'd go with a 470
5870 vs 480, the 5870 price/performance is much better then a 480
5850 vs 470 crossfire/sli 470 sli it's a stronger more future proof package
5970 overpriced under-performing crap even a 5850 crossfire beats it, only thing it saves you is a slot on your mobo and maybe a few dollar in a year on your electric bill.
5870 crossfire vs 480 sli, i'd go with 480 sli better scaling more consistent performance also at that price why are you not going super high end
Please back up your highly opinionated and unsubstantiated claims with benchmarks like I have, then we'll talk.
If you were to argue the merits of the GT200 series then you might have a case, but arguing for the GTX4xx series against the 5xxx clearly shows you've bought into Nvidia marketing and knows next to nothing regarding the GPU industry.
But then again, judging from the abundance of grammatical and spelling errors in your post, I shouldn't be too harsh on a 10 year old.
Nice to see who is the fanboy here, is it the one listing his opinion, well no because both of us are doing it, how about the one who sees someone disagree and instead of reaffirming his points he makes a personal attack.Considering your shoved your opinion and used a bias history to sell ATI and ATI all the way and then acted like it's neutral party...
Maybe not in canada but you can get a 5850 for 300 and a 470 for 350, if you're going for a card for DX11 why not go with the 470 which produces more consistent results then a 5850 under dx11 along with under AA
If i was going crossfire vs sli, sli all the way much stronger performance per dollar in the US see how you miss that mr canada. Hell i could go what you get in Mexico then it would def be your way as if you bought a GTX 480 in mexico vs a 5870 it would be something like 550 bucks for the 5870 in US currency then about 750+ bucks for the GTX480 yeah shit those prices not everywhere is the same, too bad most the teamliquid is in the US
I said US get that across your head.
The GTX260 275 4870 4890 are pointless arguments even if you can find you your probably going to find one used, if you find it new it's probably going to be like 200+ dollar well over it's worth. If you want to argue how the 4870 has one of the best AA system in place for it's time well that's true, if you want a 4870 vs a 260 a 4870 would be better in performance, but too shitting bad those are EOL they aren't on the market anymore zeesh the 5770 is the only thing in the market at that price range.
If you want to talk US about the 4850 vs GTS 250 it's about what you can find cheaper a GTS 250 is a bit stronger then a 4850 so if the 4850 is 10+ dollars cheaper probably go with that else go with a GTS 250
Also shut up about that 5-15% crap.
On avg the 470 pulls 10.35% more fps then a 5850 which is only 7.35% under a 5870 on avg the 480 pulls 15.49% more fps then a 5870 Under settings that matter the AA and AF enabled settings
What are you going to do talk about power requirements and usage perhaps just a few dollars at the end of the year's bill, the fact is unless you game everyday for 4+ hours at which point your electric bill will automatically be high you're only adding a few dollars to your electric bill in the US esp if you live in a mid western state, also under normal usage the 480 470 doesn't use too much more power then a 5870 or a 5850, any result concerning furmark for the 5870 and 5850 is bull as it has a voltage protection system in place that will cap it under an application such as that you have to use another source to show power difference.
You see bias in my history since you've bought into the Fermi marketing shenanigans so I pity you (or you're just a blind Nvidia fanboy), but clearly, in my history of ATI of Nvidia I stayed quite neutral. Let me remind you:
Next, I went with a Geforce 7900GS against the Radeon 1950 PRO
I went with the Green Team again for the next generation of video cards, I bought a Geforce 8800GT which was in every way superior to the shitty Radeon 2xxx series, even 4 years later the 8800GT still offers very respectable frame rates in most games. As a testament to the success of the Geforce 8800 G80 architecture, the Geforce 9xxx series was simply a shrunken die based on the same architecture, but it was still vastly superior vs the Radeon 3xxx series. I bought a 9800GTX because the ATI messed up the 3xxx once again (the 9800GTX raped the Radeon 3870 in just about every benchmark).
The last 6 graphic cards I have owned, 3 were Nvidia cards. Go reread my opening paragraphs before you label me an ATI fanboy.
As for Fermi, there have been countless GTX4xxx series vs 5xxx series debates, so I'll just very quickly point out why your fanboyism blinds you based on your own understanding.
Even with the heavily pro-nvidia sites' results averaged into the chart you posted which presents a best case scenario for the GTX4xxx series (Hardware Canucks is a joke, has been licking Nvidia balls since the beginning, same story applies to a lesser extent for Guru3D and tweaktown), the GTX470 is only 9.49% faster than the HD5850, while costing 16.67% ($350 vs $300, USD) more, uses much more power, and outputs ridiculous amounts of heat. Things get even worse for GTX480 vs Radeon 5870, according to your chart the GTX480 is only 9.3% faster but costs a whopping 25% ($499 vs $399) more. In addition, the GTX470/480 have never dropped below $350/$500 respectively, while many people bought their HD5850/5870 on sale for ~$270/$370 (At the time of writing, NCIX.com is offering the XFX 5850 for $270 CAD for Mother's Day).
As for your last argument for "power consumption doesn't matter", well, it exposes your ignorance and blind fanboyism even more. Firstly, not only are you paying more on electricity bills every year with a more power hungry card, you failed to consider the fact that more power consumption = more heat output, which in turn equals less overclockability. Just do a google search on the amazing overclockability of the 5850/5870 cards (My HIS 5850 is running at a ~ 23% overclock on the stock air cooler, at 875mhz/1250mhz at STOCK 1.088v voltage @ 85C load with 40% fan, which makes it considerably faster than a stock GTX470). Can the GTX470 be overclocked as well? Certainly, but it won't hit anywhere near a ~23% overclock with the 95C + temperatures that it runs on under load. Additionally, the hotter a piece of hardware runs, the shorter its life span, meaning the resale value of a GTX470/480 will be significantly lower than a HD5850/5870.
Furthermore, you failed to realize that with a higher power requirement, quite a few people would be forced to upgrade their existing power supply. I run my overclocked 5850 on a 485W power supply (Enermax 485W), which is not sufficient to run a GTX470. That's another $80-120 in added cost for a new power supply that you wouldn't otherwise need for a good portion of consumers.
Lastly, I'll leave you with a very simple thought that you again failed to consider. The GTX480 was in very short supply, just as how the Radeon 5xxx series had supply problems due to very high demand. The Radeon 5xxx shipped over 300, 000 units between Sept. - Nov. of 2009, averaging 100, 000 cards per month. Nvidia, again at a best case scenario, has only shipped "tens of thousands of cards" according to Nvidia's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang's claim. Guess what? The GTX4xx series are no longer out of stock less than a month after the its launch on newegg.com and other EU sites even after shipping merely "tens of thousands of cards", so what does that say about the demand for these cards?
I eat fanboys like you for breakfast all day, now run along and follow the GPU scene for 8 years as I have then try posting again; perhaps you won't fail as hard then.
I eat fanboys like you for breakfast all day, now run along and follow the GPU scene for 8 years as I have then try posting again; perhaps you won't fail as hard then.
lolling in my seat. here's how normal people do it:
1) Get a budget 2) Look at reviews for FPS in games I play 3) Buy best bang-for-buck card ??? 4) Profit
also,
I run my overclocked 5850 on a 485W power supply (Enermax 485W), which is not sufficient to run a GTX470.
Yep, 344 > 485. Wait, what?
Additionally, the hotter a piece of hardware runs, the shorter its life span, meaning the resale value of a GTX470/480 will be significantly lower than a HD5850/5870.
Yep, 3 degree difference between a 5870 and a 480. Each degree must equal hundreds of dollars of lost retail value, obviously.
Things get even worse for GTX480 vs Radeon 5870, according to your chart the GTX480 is only 9.3% faster but costs a whopping 25% ($499 vs $399)
I eat fanboys like you for breakfast all day, now run along and follow the GPU scene for 8 years as I have then try posting again; perhaps you won't fail as hard then.
lolling in my seat. here's how normal people do it:
1) Get a budget 2) Look at reviews for FPS in games I play 3) Buy best bang-for-buck card ??? 4) Profit
Additionally, the hotter a piece of hardware runs, the shorter its life span, meaning the resale value of a GTX470/480 will be significantly lower than a HD5850/5870.
Yep, 3 degree difference between a 5870 and a 480. Each degree must equal hundreds of dollars of lost retail value, obviously.
On May 08 2010 03:05 SoManyDeadLings wrote: ... I claim loyalty to neither company; ... ... So my question is, WHY ARE PEOPLE STUPID ENOUGH TO CONTINUE TO PURCHASE NVIDIA CARDS ...
*cough* BS *cough*
I also have purchased various models from both companies. As a consultant in the systems administration field I have also supported consumer, small business, and enterprise machines running both nVidia, as well as ATI cards, both high end (read: gaming) as well as common consumer and integrated products.
I AM BIASED. I have had problems on top of problems with ATI drivers. Both past, as well as current retail offerings. The first *major* issue I've seen with nVidia drivers is the bug that caused fan speed control to not work properly. After years of bad ATI drivers, I wasn't shocked.
I for one, will never buy ATI.
It's tragic too... I really like AMD, but I will continue to recommend nVidia, and suggest avoiding ATI to anyone that might listen...
First of all, buying from both companies does not make you an unbiased reviewer (and neither does citing reviews for that matter). No matter how you look at your 'unbiased' review, it is still biased. What you basically did was make a blanket statement that can prove to be true 70-80% of the time!
I mean you think the HD 4XXX series ran cooler and sucked less power? Are you kidding me? The HD 4870 sucks up much more power than the GTX 260 at both idle and load, and it runs fairly hot (though, to be honest, heat and noise are negligible when non-reference coolers come out, which is when you should buy the cards anyways). I mean yeah, the HD 4XXX were great gpus, but to say that they were much better than the GF200 is quite an overstatement.
Yeah, I'm going to agree that ATi offers better performance in many price points at the moment (though I must emphasize that ATi does not win in all price areas). However, I'm tired of seeing all of these shitty arguments about how power consumption makes the GTX 4xx series a terrible card. When you look at the power consumption, a bit higher but you also get DX11, and much better AA/SLi scaling. The argument is really getting old. If you are buying an enthusiast card, you should be able to pay the enthusiast price. Those cards aren't targeted towards nonenthusiasts!
As for temperature and noise, I would never buy reference models anyways. Quality nonreference designs are worth the $10-30 extra investment anyways...
ATi did come out with more amazingly efficient cards by amping up their production, but in terms of performance, none of the ATi cards can hold a candle to the GTX 4xx when AA and DX11 are applied. (also PhysX, laugh all you want, but there are so many games that utilize it, it's probably worth the extra investment at this time).
Now as for the cards themselves, there are 2 Nvidia cards I think everybody should consider. 1. GTS 250: I'm not sure about European prices, but the GTS 250 is around the same price as the HD 4850 right now, and about $20-30 cheaper than the HD 5750. It outperforms both of those cards in many benchmarks, and is decently power efficient. Call it a rehash all you want, but it provides decent performance, so I don't see why it gets more credit. 2. GTX 470: Right, Fermi *rolls eyes*. Honestly, If the HD 5850 is going to stay at $320 (which it is at), I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to choose the 5850 over it. If you aren't going to apply AA to your games and play at high resolutions, the GTX 470 is the better choice. (if not, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUYING $200+ CARDS ANYWAYS?) The non reference coolers are already popping out (Palit, Galaxy already have pics up, go google!), and the GTX 470 at $350 can provide the performance of an HD 5870 (when it doesn't it performs above the HD 5850), and it's only going to get better as the Nvidia drivers improve. Don't buy the reference model though.
And there is also the GF104 which is coming out (supposedly competitive with 5850, 5830, 5770). Personally I'm looking out for the GTX 460 (or whatever it's called).
Look the thermography images, numbers just don't show the truth.
And what about the other cards? Will they also melt a hole in my wall? Let's play a game.
One of these cards is a brand new GTX 470 under load. The other is a card that has been in the market for years and has seen considerable retail success despite its heat output. Can you tell me which one is which? Bonus for finding out what the other card is - hint, you can find it on the site you linked.
If all you care about is raw performance, the Fermi cards are extremely good. This real issue with the Fermi cards, as said by basically everyone, is heat, power consumption, and noise.
FragKrag, nVidia went all out on the stock cooling so any non reference cooler the guys at Sapphire produce is not really going to help cool the thing down drastically...hell Furmark (yes I know, realistically a game will not push your video card as hard) pushes the card to over 80 degrees even with a prototype Thermalright Spitfire on it. You're going to need aftermarket cooling unless you live in a freezer.
Thermalright Spitfire is massive as fuck:
The thing with me is that I feel really, really uncomfortable having anything in my case run over 70 degrees (on load). If you don't mind the high temperatures, noise, and energy consumption, I agree with FragKrag that the GTX470 is a pretty good performance card for the price. Personally, I wouldn't even bother with the Fermi cards unless I'm willing to pay for the aftermarket cooling as well as a case with extremely good airflow.
Atm ATI is better for the price but Nvidia has better tesselation (not that any games significantly feature this yet), and are absolute folding beasts. My thoughts are that Nvidia cards will burn out faster because of the high heat and power consumption but graphics cards are pretty hardy in general so you'll probably upgrade before that's significant.
Wouldn't buy either until the next gen of cards anyway (ATI already working on new cards), first gen is always pretty crappy, I'll wait till the next gen to pass judgement on Nvidia's new architecture.
On May 08 2010 23:29 Lazerbeems wrote: If all you care about is raw performance, the Fermi cards are extremely good. This real issue with the Fermi cards, as said by basically everyone, is heat, power consumption, and noise.
FragKrag, nVidia went all out on the stock cooling so any non reference cooler the guys at Sapphire produce is not really going to help cool the thing down drastically...hell Furmark (yes I know, realistically a game will not push your video card as hard) pushes the card to over 80 degrees even with a prototype Thermalright Spitfire on it. You're going to need aftermarket cooling unless you live in a freezer.
The thing with me is that I feel really, really uncomfortable having anything in my case run over 70 degrees (on load). If you don't mind the high temperatures, noise, and energy consumption, I agree with FragKrag that the GTX470 is a pretty good performance card for the price. Personally, I wouldn't even bother with the Fermi cards unless I'm willing to pay for the aftermarket cooling as well as a case with extremely good airflow.
Over 70C? Every single performance card on the market tops 70C... I think even the HD 5770 tops it. If you don't want anything above 70C, you have to go for water cooling to get any decent performance card.
And clearly you have not seen the reference models that push the GTX 470 temps down 10-20C Nvidia may have went all out with the GTX 480, but they didn't with the GTX 470, and I'm sure that both can be easily cooled to around 80C with decent non reference.
From Tom's Hardware
It isn't very noticeable, but the Fermi is better at tessellation in the games that actually use it.
Look at how even 32X AA cannot even push the fps down 10 fps! The cards are amazing performers!
Again Boblion, it's not like 90C + temperatures are anything new to any of us! I commend ATi for being able to make its cards so efficient, but that doesn't mean I'll crucify Nvidia for concentrating on performance.
On May 08 2010 23:29 Lazerbeems wrote: If all you care about is raw performance, the Fermi cards are extremely good. This real issue with the Fermi cards, as said by basically everyone, is heat, power consumption, and noise.
FragKrag, nVidia went all out on the stock cooling so any non reference cooler the guys at Sapphire produce is not really going to help cool the thing down drastically...hell Furmark (yes I know, realistically a game will not push your video card as hard) pushes the card to over 80 degrees even with a prototype Thermalright Spitfire on it. You're going to need aftermarket cooling unless you live in a freezer.
The thing with me is that I feel really, really uncomfortable having anything in my case run over 70 degrees (on load). If you don't mind the high temperatures, noise, and energy consumption, I agree with FragKrag that the GTX470 is a pretty good performance card for the price. Personally, I wouldn't even bother with the Fermi cards unless I'm willing to pay for the aftermarket cooling as well as a case with extremely good airflow.
Over 70C? Every single performance card on the market tops 70C... I think even the HD 5770 tops it. If you don't want anything above 70C, you have to go for water cooling to get any decent performance card.
And clearly you have not seen the reference models that push the GTX 470 temps down 10-20C Nvidia may have went all out with the GTX 480, but they didn't with the GTX 470, and I'm sure that both can be easily cooled to around 80C with decent non reference.
If we're talking about pushing your card through the component killer Furmark, not everything goes past 70 degrees in a case. All performance cards will, obviously, pass that on an open bench test, which most reviewers do, but I'm talking about temperatures within a case.
*If you're playing with these $400 cards, I assume you're not leaving the fan speed on simply auto and actually know the very basics of playing with computer hardware. Let's be realistic about the results here.
I wouldn't know about the cooling on the GTX470 since I've never actually seen one in person but I've played around the GTX480 and jesus christ don't touch the card after playing with Furmark.
So I take it that from the lack of replies that I've made my point.
The 5850/GTX470 are "superior" because they are "cheaper", "cooler", draw "less power".
Justifying the existence and purchase of the 5870 is just as hard as justifying the existence and purchase of a GTX 480. The 5870 is only marginally faster than a 5850, the 480 is only marginally faster than the 5870.
Spending hundreds of dollars more for 10-20fps - when you already are working some of the fastest cards on the market - is quite simply retarded.
You can justify buying a 5850 because it has the best bang for buck on the market.
You can justify buying a GTX 470 because its only marginally more expensive than a 5850, while offering superior performance in DX11 applications. The heat and power issues are non existent with the 470 and are only a product of fanboyisms - it runs only as hot as the 4xxx series which were a commercial success, you can easily run a powerful 470 based system on a quality 400-500 watt PSU.
You wanted to provide solid advice to the community? Here it is.
For high resolution, high fps, intensive applications:
20FPS is hardly marginal as the difference between 20 to 40FPS is painfully obvious. The HD 5870 at $400 is a perfectly justifiable card (though the 2GB version at $500 is a complete waste), and the GTX 480 is obviously about $50ish more than it should be.
While it is true you can overclock a 5850 to a 5870's levels (and above), the 5870 is still the superior piece of hardware. The 5850 is hardly worth its price right now (especially since the GTX 470 has some amazing combos on Newegg for new system builders), and I would say the 5870 is the better buy.
On May 08 2010 03:05 SoManyDeadLings wrote: ... I claim loyalty to neither company; ... ... So my question is, WHY ARE PEOPLE STUPID ENOUGH TO CONTINUE TO PURCHASE NVIDIA CARDS ...
*cough* BS *cough*
I also have purchased various models from both companies. As a consultant in the systems administration field I have also supported consumer, small business, and enterprise machines running both nVidia, as well as ATI cards, both high end (read: gaming) as well as common consumer and integrated products.
I AM BIASED. I have had problems on top of problems with ATI drivers. Both past, as well as current retail offerings. The first *major* issue I've seen with nVidia drivers is the bug that caused fan speed control to not work properly. After years of bad ATI drivers, I wasn't shocked.
I for one, will never buy ATI.
It's tragic too... I really like AMD, but I will continue to recommend nVidia, and suggest avoiding ATI to anyone that might listen...
Easy, you only quoted half of my sentence, therefore making the comparison invalid.
The finished setence reads, "WHY ARE PEOPLE STUPID ENOUGH TO CONTINUE TO PURCHASE NVIDIA CARDS AT THIS CURRENT POINT IN TIME?"
Meaning right now, ATI cards are better, so stay away from Nvidia. Simple as that.
i think both companies are great at what they do. personally, i would purchase an nvidia because there are more games supported by their drivers and i play a wide variety of games (ati driver support is kind of slow). if you watercool the gpus like i do, you can get amazing temperatures and amazing overclocks... my two 275 gtx are overclock way above a stock 285gtx, which prolly outperforms a 480gtx fps wise.
On May 09 2010 11:20 JustOnePost wrote: How is that even a point?
20FPS is hardly marginal as the difference between 20 to 40FPS is painfully obvious. The HD 5870 at $400 is a perfectly justifiable card (though the 2GB version at $500 is a complete waste), and the GTX 480 is obviously about $50ish more than it should be.
While it is true you can overclock a 5850 to a 5870's levels (and above), the 5870 is still the superior piece of hardware. The 5850 is hardly worth its price right now (especially since the GTX 470 has some amazing combos on Newegg for new system builders), and I would say the 5870 is the better buy.
There is only one game in the market that will completely kill your system and that is Metro 2033. And nothing but the 5970 and 480 will actually properly run that game at max settings.
The graphics for games isn't skyrocketing like it was in the past. Most games these days are just console ports and are thus quite conservative about any graphical advancement.
Unless you're playing at really, really high resolutions, the 5850 or 470 is more than adequate. At 1080P, you can run Just Cause 2 extremely smoothly with either card by just turning off high resolution shadows off. I don't know about the States but the 5870 is still around $100 more than the 5850 in Australia and that's definitely not justifiable for such a small performance increase considering the 5850 will adequately run the vast majority of games in the market.
On May 09 2010 11:20 JustOnePost wrote: How is that even a point?
20FPS is hardly marginal as the difference between 20 to 40FPS is painfully obvious. The HD 5870 at $400 is a perfectly justifiable card (though the 2GB version at $500 is a complete waste), and the GTX 480 is obviously about $50ish more than it should be.
While it is true you can overclock a 5850 to a 5870's levels (and above), the 5870 is still the superior piece of hardware. The 5850 is hardly worth its price right now (especially since the GTX 470 has some amazing combos on Newegg for new system builders), and I would say the 5870 is the better buy.
20 to 40fps is a massive jump, but these cards don't run at 20fps. especially for starcraft 2, you're looking at anywhere from 80-100fps on the 5850 alone. Whats the point in investing $100 more for 120fps? 100 - let alone 80 or even 60, is fast and smooth for just about anybody. You're just wasting money at this point for the sake of, what, having a bigger e-peen?
On May 09 2010 11:20 JustOnePost wrote: How is that even a point?
20FPS is hardly marginal as the difference between 20 to 40FPS is painfully obvious. The HD 5870 at $400 is a perfectly justifiable card (though the 2GB version at $500 is a complete waste), and the GTX 480 is obviously about $50ish more than it should be.
While it is true you can overclock a 5850 to a 5870's levels (and above), the 5870 is still the superior piece of hardware. The 5850 is hardly worth its price right now (especially since the GTX 470 has some amazing combos on Newegg for new system builders), and I would say the 5870 is the better buy.
20 to 40fps is a massive jump, but these cards don't run at 20fps. especially for starcraft 2, you're looking at anywhere from 80-100fps on the 5850 alone. Whats the point in investing $100 more for 120fps? 100 - let alone 80 or even 60, is fast and smooth for just about anybody. You're just wasting money at this point for the sake of, what, having a bigger e-peen?
having a bigger e-peen is very detrimental. women love huge e-peens.
On May 09 2010 11:20 JustOnePost wrote: How is that even a point?
20FPS is hardly marginal as the difference between 20 to 40FPS is painfully obvious. The HD 5870 at $400 is a perfectly justifiable card (though the 2GB version at $500 is a complete waste), and the GTX 480 is obviously about $50ish more than it should be.
While it is true you can overclock a 5850 to a 5870's levels (and above), the 5870 is still the superior piece of hardware. The 5850 is hardly worth its price right now (especially since the GTX 470 has some amazing combos on Newegg for new system builders), and I would say the 5870 is the better buy.
20 to 40fps is a massive jump, but these cards don't run at 20fps. especially for starcraft 2, you're looking at anywhere from 80-100fps on the 5850 alone. Whats the point in investing $100 more for 120fps? 100 - let alone 80 or even 60, is fast and smooth for just about anybody. You're just wasting money at this point for the sake of, what, having a bigger e-peen?
having a bigger e-peen is very detrimental. women love huge e-peens.
Haha:
* Having a bigger e-peen is very detrimental * Women love huge e-peens.
Therefore being loved by hot and slutty women is very detrimental?
I am looking to buy a video card right now, like today. I am running Windows 7 on a 2.3 GHz dual core processor, and my budget is at most $150. What card would be recommended?
I'm a believer in cards that are running at low temps and low volume(fan sound). I simply love the toxic and vapor-x solutions for the ATI series by sapphire. They cool the chips so much more than the reference design which in turn causes the fans to run at lower RPM. they do cost a bit more but I find them a solid buy. I haven't really looked into aftermarket coolers for GPUs but there might be something out there to match them for the price.
On May 22 2010 06:17 FragKrag wrote: ATi HD 5770 @ around $145 for the 512MB powercolor version
Nvidia GTS 250 @ around $115 for the 1GB version.
5770 512 is a weak buy also shipping would put him over anyways, so i would either spring for the extra 10 20 bucks to get the 1 gig version of 5770 or just get the GTS 250 for much cheaper.
Yeah the 5770 is a bit too pricy. The GTS 250 looks nice, but OP's post convinced me to try ATI since I never have before. I wonder what he would recommend.
The 1GB version offers no performance benefits over the 512MB version until it gets to resolutions above 1920x1080.
The GTS 250 is actually the best card for around $100 at the moment. The HD 5750 is far too expensive for what it offers, and the HD 4850 sucks up too much power + runs hotter for around the same performance.
If you want overclocking performance (it doesn't even help that much most of the time), you should go with the HD 4770.
Also, that is an extremely mild overclock. Every GPU on the market should be able to overclock a measly 45mhz (even a GTX 480). I mean with that overclock you're seeing 3-4 FPS at max.
If you want an awesome overclock, take a look at the ASUS 5850. Base clock is normally 725mhz or 765mhz, but with ASUS quality, you can reach 900mhz easily.
Edit: You should also note that the overclocking capabilities of the chips differ. Every chip is actually different, and will have different limits to overclocking. Some people get lucky and some get unlucky.
On May 22 2010 10:04 FragKrag wrote: If you want overclocking performance (it doesn't even help that much most of the time), you should go with the HD 4770.
Also, that is an extremely mild overclock. Every GPU on the market should be able to overclock a measly 45mhz (even a GTX 480). I mean with that overclock you're seeing 3-4 FPS at max.
If you want an awesome overclock, take a look at the ASUS 5850. Base clock is normally 725mhz or 765mhz, but with ASUS quality, you can reach 900mhz easily.
Edit: You should also note that the overclocking capabilities of the chips differ. Every chip is actually different, and will have different limits to overclocking. Some people get lucky and some get unlucky.
No, I'm not wanting to overclock anything, i was merely commenting on the card's cooling performance.
That doesn't demonstrate anything about the cooling performance. 40mhz won't make your card overheat, and it's much better to have the GTS 250 which doesn't need that elaborate cooler in the first place
EPT
A testament of how much fail there is to be found within Fermi. Even after releasing GTX480 demo cards to mostly pro-nvidia review sites (who cherry-picks benchmarks and skew settings to favour Nvidia cards), the reviews still mostly agree that the fermi cards are huge disappointments. On average, despite being 6-7 months late to the market the GTX480 is only 5-15% faster than the 5870 and 15-30% slower than the Radeon 5970 in the vast majority of benchmarks, but at a 15-30% higher cost while sucking up almost twice as much power and heating up to almost 100C degrees. Admittedly, the 5970 is a dual-GPU card, but that fact does not matter at this point because despite being a dual-GPU card, it uses LESS power than the GTX480 and runs much cooler than the GTX480, meaning you can overclock it higher to get even more performance. And oh yah, with the ridiculous power consumption and heat problems of the GTX480, don't expect Nvidia to release a dual-GPU version of the GTX4xxx series um, ever.
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From Tom's Hardware
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