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Hi guys.
I have been reading through lots of forum topics in these forums trying to learn all i can about graphics cards.
I just got a $150 voucher for a computer store here in perth (PLE computers) and have narrowed my options down to 2.
the GTX460
http://ple.com.au/ViewItem.aspx?InventoryItemID=606218
and the HD6870
http://ple.com.au/ViewItem.aspx?InventoryItemID=601930
I had my heart on the GTX 460 until i got an email from the store saying the HD6870 has better performance for a better price.
I could really do with some input from people who know their stuff about this topic.
(Also if you see any other cards cheaper and better from that store please let me know.)
Thanks in advance
-Alk
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I would honestly pick the gtx over the ati card any day. Ati cards may have better performance as a card but their drivers are terrible. I HATE ati drivers. Riddled with bugs everywhere. Save yourself some headache and go with nvidia.
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6870 is "faster", but as above said ATI drivers a horrid, and i think going the safe route with the 460 is well worth the 8%~ performance gain you'd get over the ati card.
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ati actually really has a good timing sometimes. i personally would choose the 6870 over the 460 too. had a similar case when the 5870 was released and i initially planned to get the latest nvidia card at that time 
never regreted that choice so far and from what i know the 6870 would be a great choice too
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6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past.
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Thanks for such fast replies guys!
Are both fine for overclocking later on if i choose to go down that path?
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On May 23 2011 17:16 Alkadizar wrote:
Thanks for such fast replies guys!
Are both fine for overclocking later on if i choose to go down that path?
Both cards only have stock heatsinks so overclocking potential may not be that great on either card.
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On May 23 2011 17:08 skyR wrote:
6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past.
And having had a horrible experience with ATI in the past isn't a good enough reason to recommend the NVidia card?
I have had quite a few ATI cards and I must say my GTX 295 was so much more stable, no driver crashes and such.
I would gladly sacrifice some preformance for stability anyday becouse there is no worse thing then PC crashes.
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Hmm, I'm in a similar situation.
What about GTX 560 Ti vs 6950 (1GB)? I was told that the 560 Ti is a much better option, would anyone care to shed some light on it?
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Whatever you do, please, just PLEASE, do NOT take the ATI card. Their drivers are TEERRRIIBBLEEEE. I'm about to go emo because of them so save your soul and go for Nvidia.
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I find it funny how many people are saying AMD/ATI drivers are terrible. While this was the case years ago, they have stepped up their game. Their drivers aren't any better or worse than NVIDIA's. In fact, CF scaling is slightly better than SLI (not that this applies to you, since you're not going dual GPU)! And stability is no problem either.
Anyway, either will work just great. I'm inclined to recommend the AMD option because I've been using an 4890 since it has been released without a single problem. But really, go with the cheaper one that is available to you.
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On May 23 2011 17:08 skyR wrote:
6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past.
This.
If I had to choose between the two, I'd get a 6870.
I've never had problems with ATI drivers. And when choosing between items in similar price ranges, I always look @ the benchmarks because statistics > brandism.
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5930 Posts
AMD taking over ATi pretty much fixed their driver issues to the point that they're just as bad as nVidia's drivers. The user interface in Forceware is better, you get proper 3D Vision, and PhysX (which no one uses) and that's about it - the distance in driver quality is no where near what it used to be.
The only places AMD lags behind nVidia is in their professional cards and OpenGL performance. None of this concerns end users unless you use Linux and even then the open source drivers for AMD cards are still capable and are apparently better than nVidia's open source drivers.
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On May 23 2011 17:30 Zalman wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 17:08 skyR wrote:
6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past. And having had a horrible experience with ATI in the past isn't a good enough reason to recommend the NVidia card? I have had quite a few ATI cards and I must say my GTX 295 was so much more stable, no driver crashes and such. I would gladly sacrifice some preformance for stability anyday becouse there is no worse thing then PC crashes.
Recommending based on past personal experience is not a good reason. Nvidia also had problems in the past (their driver recall last year come to mind.) and you're one of the lucky ones that didn't come across these problems.
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On May 23 2011 17:54 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 17:30 Zalman wrote:On May 23 2011 17:08 skyR wrote:
6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past. And having had a horrible experience with ATI in the past isn't a good enough reason to recommend the NVidia card? I have had quite a few ATI cards and I must say my GTX 295 was so much more stable, no driver crashes and such. I would gladly sacrifice some preformance for stability anyday becouse there is no worse thing then PC crashes. Recommending based on past personal experience is not a good reason. Nvidia also had problems in the past (their driver recall last year come to mind.) and you're one of the lucky ones that didn't come across these problems.
Don't forget the debacle of the DA2 release, where you needed a minimum of SLI 460's with a custom SLI profile or a 480 to turn DX11 on and get above slideshow if you had nvidia, although I think AMD had a hand in that since they were the graphics partner.
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On May 23 2011 17:54 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 17:30 Zalman wrote:On May 23 2011 17:08 skyR wrote:
6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past. And having had a horrible experience with ATI in the past isn't a good enough reason to recommend the NVidia card? I have had quite a few ATI cards and I must say my GTX 295 was so much more stable, no driver crashes and such. I would gladly sacrifice some preformance for stability anyday becouse there is no worse thing then PC crashes. Recommending based on past personal experience is not a good reason. Nvidia also had problems in the past (their driver recall last year come to mind.) and you're one of the lucky ones that didn't come across these problems.
personaly I would rather take a recomendation from someone with experience with something then someone that just read somewhere on the internet what as better.
Back on topic. The rare times i have had driver crashes on my Nvidia cards the screen just went black for a few sec and the Nvidia thing tells me it has reset the graphic driver and then I can keep playing like nothing happned.
When the same happned with my ATI card it did the same except the game I had running just stayed black and I had to alt+f4 it and restart, is this somethign ATI has since fixed or is it still an issue?
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On May 23 2011 20:44 Zalman wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 17:54 skyR wrote:On May 23 2011 17:30 Zalman wrote:On May 23 2011 17:08 skyR wrote:
6870 is better and less expensive. Anyone saying get the GTX 460 is clearly Nvidia bias either through blind fanboyism or bad experience with ATI in the past. And having had a horrible experience with ATI in the past isn't a good enough reason to recommend the NVidia card? I have had quite a few ATI cards and I must say my GTX 295 was so much more stable, no driver crashes and such. I would gladly sacrifice some preformance for stability anyday becouse there is no worse thing then PC crashes. Recommending based on past personal experience is not a good reason. Nvidia also had problems in the past (their driver recall last year come to mind.) and you're one of the lucky ones that didn't come across these problems. personaly I would rather take a recomendation from someone with experience with something then someone that just read somewhere on the internet what as better. Back on topic. The rare times i have had driver crashes on my Nvidia cards the screen just went black for a few sec and the Nvidia thing tells me it has reset the graphic driver and then I can keep playing like nothing happned. When the same happned with my ATI card it did the same except the game I had running just stayed black and I had to alt+f4 it and restart, is this somethign ATI has since fixed or is it still an issue?
Uhm, personal experience from someone on the internet is, from an objective point of view, at best equally anecdotal to an online review site. If you use good review sites, it's more so.
As for how well things work when they aren't working properly, that's not exactly what you should be looking for in any hardware.
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was in a similar situation just now.
the 460 is a overclocked version and is def a nice card but imho quite overpriced. you can get cheaper 460s just sadly not at that shop.
the 6870 does have more power no question. but it has the reference cooling design which is known to be very loud.
also XFX seems to be not the nicest company when it comes to RMA/warranty issues.only heared bad things about their service but its possible that this is limited to europe. while EVGA has its interesting step up programm (http://www.evga.com/support/stepup/).
so unless you wanna use their stepup programm ( im not sure how it works in this case since the card at the shop is more expensive then other stronger cards at their site) or really cant stand some fan noise the 6870 is the far better deal bringing more power at less cost to the table.
and ignore the nvidia vs ati debates and fanboy answers. fact is both companys hugely fucked up in the past and both will fuck up again in the future. right now they both have great cards esp in that price segment and only the deal should decide over what you buy.
On May 23 2011 17:19 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 17:16 Alkadizar wrote:
Thanks for such fast replies guys!
Are both fine for overclocking later on if i choose to go down that path?
Both cards only have stock heatsinks so overclocking potential may not be that great on either card.
the reference heatsinks on the 460s are quite decent while the ones one the 6870 are known to run very loud. and the 460 in general has very good overclocking potential. its said that you can get evry chip to 850mhz and most hit 900 with some more voltage. at that point a 460gtx can beat a 470gtx.
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get the 6870, dont listen to this bad driver crap, the 6000 series have great drivers
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I have two AMD 6870s in crossfire and I have never had any driver issues, I don't know where everyone keeps getting this notion from.
The 5000 series must have been pretty bad, lol.
After switching from Nvidia to my AMD 6000 series cards, I never noticed any real difference in driver quality, downloaded drivers, and it runs. Only thing that freaked my out was the CCC is way different looking than the Nvidia control panel. @_@.
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On May 23 2011 21:28 UisTehSux wrote:
I have two AMD 6870s in crossfire and I have never had any driver issues, I don't know where everyone keeps getting this notion from.
The 5000 series must have been pretty bad, lol.
Driver issues kinda come in phases, they've both had bad drivers at different times. Add in brand loyalty and "a friend of a friend" stories and all of a sudden you can hear pretty much anything about any card.
Fact, though. I haven't heard of AMD doing anything as pathetic as Nvidia's slow as hell response to the Dragon Age 2 situation recently. "Oh we're releasing a flagship card in just over a month, why bother fixing our driver support for this AAA title for our current lineup?"
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Thank you all so much for such prompt and useful replies.
BeMannerDuPenner you should have a job doing this stuff
well i think the choice is much clearer in my mind now. 6870 sounds like my cup of tea.
Cheers
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On May 23 2011 21:40 Alkadizar wrote:Thank you all so much for such prompt and useful replies. BeMannerDuPenner you should have a job doing this stuff well i think the choice is much clearer in my mind now. 6870 sounds like my cup of tea. Cheers
haha thx, glad i could help 
its just that i was in a very similar situation last week when i had to decide what to buy with a 100-150€ budget. and when i buy something i really dig deep into the market cause i want to spend my money well and find it really interesting anyways.
btw was a decision between a 460 and a 6870 in the end as well.was a OC 460 for 110€ vs a 150€ 6870 so i went with the 460 in my case :>
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i bought an xfx power supply and tried to register it on their site for the 5 year warranty (as opposed to the two year.) neither the product code or the part code worked. thanks a bunch xfx
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So i did some more looking into the 6870 and it says 500W PSU required.
I currently have a 350W one powering nothing out of the ordinary.
Will i have to buy a new PSU to keep it all running safely?
(I am trying to keep cost to a mimum to prevent Wife Agro)
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On May 25 2011 13:15 Alkadizar wrote:
So i did some more looking into the 6870 and it says 500W PSU required.
I currently have a 350W one powering nothing out of the ordinary.
Will i have to buy a new PSU to keep it all running safely?
(I am trying to keep cost to a mimum to prevent Wife Agro)
Most likely you will, because the 350W you're using is probably shit. What's the model?
However, the estimated power needed that the GPU manufacturer puts on the box is always an over the top estimate to compensate for combinations of shit PSU's and overall weird system configurations, since users do the damnedest things.
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The model was nothing special from memory. just the cheapest replacement of the 350W that blew up before it 
( I can be a bit of a bush mechanic when it comes to these things. )
Oh well. looks like i will have to give a lot of neck massages to keep the wife happy while i tell her about the cost...
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On May 25 2011 13:24 Alkadizar wrote:The model was nothing special from memory. just the cheapest replacement of the 350W that blew up before it ( I can be a bit of a bush mechanic when it comes to these things. ) Oh well. looks like i will have to give a lot of neck massages to keep the wife happy while i tell her about the cost...
There's some perfectly good options like the XFX Core 450W or Antec Neo Eco 430 that should run it fine for a pretty reasonable price.
If it's any consolation, last year I had to pitch a full new system when my PSU blew up the anti-social way and took everything else out. If my wife wasn't in IT, I would probably have ended up with a third of the budget I did...
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Yuck, what other retailers are available in your area?
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austin.net.au
are a small walk from work so that's another option
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On May 23 2011 17:51 Womwomwom wrote:The only places AMD lags behind nVidia is in their professional cards and OpenGL performance. None of this concerns end users unless you use Linux and even then the open source drivers for AMD cards are still capable and are apparently better than nVidia's open source drivers.
because the closed source nvidia drivers for linux just work fine. no need to use the opensourced ones.
the proprietary AMD driver suck donkey balls and the open source driver only support half the graphics cards and half the instructions ... no proper 3d etcetc. so in linux nvidia >>>>>>>> amd/ati
i'm a heavy linux user and i can only recommend to buy nvidia graphics cards - obviously for linux, but also for windows and gaming.
they just work more stable and tend to make less problems.
(and yes, i used both, some time ago and recently, but now im sticking with intel/nvidia and never will go back)
@PSU question:
50$ seems kinda much for an 430W PSU and it only has 1 6pin PCIe connector. so depending on the card you inted to buy, this my not be sufficent, i tend to use the PSU connectors instead of adapters. (i trust them "more" ^^)
so maybe you should look for another PSU
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Might want to wait for one of our PSU gurus, I don't really recognize those brands, but the OEM's on some of them might be decent. I'm not personally a fan of Thermaltake, they're really hit or miss, I had one go catastrophic on my PC.
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That Thermaltake only provides 23a (probably not but that's what the label says) so it's probably no better than what is currently powering your configuration.
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Canada620 Posts
On May 23 2011 17:43 Dezzeh wrote:
I find it funny how many people are saying AMD/ATI drivers are terrible. While this was the case years ago, they have stepped up their game. Their drivers aren't any better or worse than NVIDIA's. In fact, CF scaling is slightly better than SLI (not that this applies to you, since you're not going dual GPU)! And stability is no problem either.
Anyway, either will work just great. I'm inclined to recommend the AMD option because I've been using an 4890 since it has been released without a single problem. But really, go with the cheaper one that is available to you.
If stuff supports it sure.
I run crossfired 6870's and I hate them. Given the option again I'd switch to nvidia any day of the week. I used to have a 4870 and loved that card, the performance was amazing for the time so when I rebuilt I stayed with ati and have had nothing but headaches.
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I had the same concern about ATI drivers when I chose a card. Someone, maybe SkyR, talked me into buying the Asus HD 6850. Great card. Zero driver problems. First card from Newegg had to be RMAd but that could happen with any card. Replacement card works beautifully. Have FPS capped at 75 on ultra settings with moderate AA at 1440x900. FPS stays at 72 and never drops in 1v1 or 2v2 play. Havent tried 3v3 or 4v4. If i did i would just take AA off. This is all without any GPU overclock, and with my i5 2500k clocked to 4.5 ghz.
All of this to say, if the 6870 is cheaper... get it.
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currently i have the 6870 and im fine with it. no problems whatsoever. i dont know where all those complains about driver problems come from - i cant support them.
i run 2 screens on it: a 19'' widescreen with 1440*900 and a 24'' widescreen in 1920*1080. cant report any problems or errors. i can play next to every game on max on the 24'' while watching movies or streams on the second screen.
i want to add that im neither ati nor nvidia biased as i switch between both brands from time to time (had a nvidia before the 6870 and was fine with it too).
dont want to tell you which to buy, just to describe my experience.
you have to decide yourself which suites you best!
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6870 is cheaper and performs better than 460. Many people just hang onto the past saying terrible drivers or follow suit without having any experience.
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6870 for sure, much better price/performance wise. I use an ATI card and I don't have any complaints about the drivers. To be perfectly honest, I heard that NVIDIA drivers are just as bad if not worse.
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On May 25 2011 19:57 writer22816 wrote:
6870 for sure, much better price/performance wise. I use an ATI card and I don't have any complaints about the drivers. To be perfectly honest, I heard that NVIDIA drivers are just as bad if not worse.
AMD and Nvidia both tend to have their moments with drivers, I wouldn't try to say either is "the worst", as with all things GPU, it's too specific to when you ask about what game and what configuration.
You can find true horror stories for both, but you'll still buy a GPU, so the best bet is to get the one that does the best job for what you want that's inside your budget.
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There is one difference between ATI and Nvidia concerning drivers: image quality
note: the following applies to enthusiasts only, if you are not always shooting for max IQ, if you do not know what supersampling, downsampling and all that stuff is, if you are not buying high end cards - it does not matter to you. It's still worth to be mentioned in this driver debate.
Nvidia offers you a way to disable any kind of driver level interference with AF quality, ATI does not. The HQ setting is untouchable by ATI, the best they can offer is at the same level as the Q setting for Nvidia. For most people that does not matter, but for some it does. Some people even call it cheating by ATI, because many review sites use the standard settings in the driver, which means that ATI is benchmarked with a slightly worse IQ which results in a minor performance boost(not even 5%). Nvidia also has the advantage of third party tools, which again is only important for enthusiasts.
Apart from that both drivers work equally well, both have their issues sometimes.
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Generally best not to muddy the water with facts. It's kind of like the people who ask if they should go multi-GPU. If they need to ask, the answer is incredibly likely to be "no".
Inundate people with too much information, and they may end up spending more on something they'll never actually learn to use.
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Getting back to the driver issues: there were indeed some Ati specific driver issues regarding Starcraft, for instance a display bug with protoss pylons that took months to get fixed and some people are still experiencing mouse lag in the upper right screen corner. Then again, I've been running Starcraft on my mobile HD5650 without the mouse issues and the display bug wasn't that big of a deal, same with my HD4870 which I recently switched for an nvidia 560 ti, that did not have a single problem with SC2 yet.
Still, I'd recommend the HD6870 as well: I never experienced any major driver issues with Ati, same with nvidia, but in this case, the 6870 will be the faster one in Starcraft 2 (provided you don't use Anti-Aliasing, which I wouldn't recommend on both cards anyways, since they lack the power to keep decent framerates for SC2 at higher resolutions with AA enabled)
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I currently have a 560 EVGA superclocked. don't regret it one bit... I view it as the best bang for your buck card with minimal hassel...
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I had a gtx 460 as a replacement for a 5770 that i bought which went back to the shop 3 times. It just wouldn't work properly no matter what i tried (including flashing the BIOS) and I have 3 friends with the 5770 who have all had problems with it. Whether or not the 6000 series are any better I don't know but I know I won't be buying ATI again. I also knew virtually nothing about graphics cards before i got my new one so the nvidia fanboyism doesn't apply here.
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On May 23 2011 17:33 KOVU wrote:
Hmm, I'm in a similar situation.
What about GTX 560 Ti vs 6950 (1GB)? I was told that the 560 Ti is a much better option, would anyone care to shed some light on it?
6950 has slightly better performance generally but are louder than 560Ti. Blizzard games tend to favour nvidia cards tho so a 560ti might very well outperform the 6950 in sc2. I have a Gigabyte 560ti OC myself and it's really silent and I haven't had any issues with it but there has been problems with cards that aren't stable at the factory oc. However, most of the people having issues are people that have crappy power supplies.
I wouldn't care that much about "driver issues", both of them come up with terrible drivers at times, just recently a bunch of 590 GTX burned up in testlabs becouse of driver issues.
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On May 26 2011 06:25 Umilard wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 17:33 KOVU wrote:
Hmm, I'm in a similar situation.
What about GTX 560 Ti vs 6950 (1GB)? I was told that the 560 Ti is a much better option, would anyone care to shed some light on it? 6950 has slightly better performance generally but are louder than 560Ti. Blizzard games tend to favour nvidia cards tho so a 560ti might very well outperform the 6950 in sc2. I have a Gigabyte 560ti OC myself and it's really silent and I haven't had any issues with it but there has been problems with cards that aren't stable at the factory oc. However, most of the people having issues are people that have crappy power supplies. I wouldn't care that much about "driver issues", both of them come up with terrible drivers at times, just recently a bunch of 590 GTX burned up in testlabs becouse of driver issues.
I would agree with this, Blizzard games tend to be more stable on NVIDIA, I never had any ATI card personally , atm using GTX 470, gonna upgrade to 470xSLI soon since i dont think 560 ti will overrun 2x470 sli, that my actual opinion, havent checked that yet.
Hm, but again why you buying 460 instead of 560 ti, since 560 costs like 40$ more, am i right ?
EDIT: Thats if you can add money on top of your voucher.
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On May 26 2011 06:37 Greem wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2011 06:25 Umilard wrote:On May 23 2011 17:33 KOVU wrote:
Hmm, I'm in a similar situation.
What about GTX 560 Ti vs 6950 (1GB)? I was told that the 560 Ti is a much better option, would anyone care to shed some light on it? 6950 has slightly better performance generally but are louder than 560Ti. Blizzard games tend to favour nvidia cards tho so a 560ti might very well outperform the 6950 in sc2. I have a Gigabyte 560ti OC myself and it's really silent and I haven't had any issues with it but there has been problems with cards that aren't stable at the factory oc. However, most of the people having issues are people that have crappy power supplies. I wouldn't care that much about "driver issues", both of them come up with terrible drivers at times, just recently a bunch of 590 GTX burned up in testlabs becouse of driver issues. I would agree with this, Blizzard games tend to have more stable on NVIDIA, I don't never had any ATI card personally , atm using GTX 470, gonna upgrade to 470xSLI soon since i dont think 560 ti will overrun 2x470 sli, that my actual opinion, havent checked that yet. Hm, but again why you buying 460 instead of 560 ti, since 560 costs like 40$ more, am i right ?
No, the 560 won't do better than SLI 470's in games with SLI profiles. Do your research about SLI scaling in games you play before comitting, SLI can be a headache. Also, check that you have a hell of a PSU before you upgrade to that jet engine simulator next to your desk. It'll be hot and loud.
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On May 26 2011 06:41 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2011 06:37 Greem wrote:On May 26 2011 06:25 Umilard wrote:On May 23 2011 17:33 KOVU wrote:
Hmm, I'm in a similar situation.
What about GTX 560 Ti vs 6950 (1GB)? I was told that the 560 Ti is a much better option, would anyone care to shed some light on it? 6950 has slightly better performance generally but are louder than 560Ti. Blizzard games tend to favour nvidia cards tho so a 560ti might very well outperform the 6950 in sc2. I have a Gigabyte 560ti OC myself and it's really silent and I haven't had any issues with it but there has been problems with cards that aren't stable at the factory oc. However, most of the people having issues are people that have crappy power supplies. I wouldn't care that much about "driver issues", both of them come up with terrible drivers at times, just recently a bunch of 590 GTX burned up in testlabs becouse of driver issues. I would agree with this, Blizzard games tend to have more stable on NVIDIA, I don't never had any ATI card personally , atm using GTX 470, gonna upgrade to 470xSLI soon since i dont think 560 ti will overrun 2x470 sli, that my actual opinion, havent checked that yet. Hm, but again why you buying 460 instead of 560 ti, since 560 costs like 40$ more, am i right ? No, the 560 won't do better than SLI 470's in games with SLI profiles. Do your research about SLI scaling in games you play before comitting, SLI can be a headache. Also, check that you have a hell of a PSU before you upgrade to that jet engine simulator next to your desk. It'll be hot and loud.
Thx for advice, i do have good 1k PSU, noice isn't really an issue either. But ill take precaution and do the extensive research before commiting to it, single 470 is doing amazing for me right now.
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On May 26 2011 06:37 Greem wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2011 06:25 Umilard wrote:On May 23 2011 17:33 KOVU wrote:
Hmm, I'm in a similar situation.
What about GTX 560 Ti vs 6950 (1GB)? I was told that the 560 Ti is a much better option, would anyone care to shed some light on it? 6950 has slightly better performance generally but are louder than 560Ti. Blizzard games tend to favour nvidia cards tho so a 560ti might very well outperform the 6950 in sc2. I have a Gigabyte 560ti OC myself and it's really silent and I haven't had any issues with it but there has been problems with cards that aren't stable at the factory oc. However, most of the people having issues are people that have crappy power supplies. I wouldn't care that much about "driver issues", both of them come up with terrible drivers at times, just recently a bunch of 590 GTX burned up in testlabs becouse of driver issues. I would agree with this, Blizzard games tend to be more stable on NVIDIA, I never had any ATI card personally , atm using GTX 470, gonna upgrade to 470xSLI soon since i dont think 560 ti will overrun 2x470 sli, that my actual opinion, havent checked that yet. Hm, but again why you buying 460 instead of 560 ti, since 560 costs like 40$ more, am i right ? EDIT: Thats if you can add money on top of your voucher.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4344/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-top-to-bottom-overclock
It is actually 70$ more expensive.
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running a 6870 right now, works great, no problems.
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I have the 6870 for about 5 months and I think it's great. I haven't had any problems with their drivers at all (have updated 4 times within a few months with no problems. I use Win7pro64bit.) Use it with MSI Afterburner for customize fan speed and it's great. My GPU temperatures never go above 65C at about 43% fan speed with ambient room temperature in low 20's. (With Starcraft 2 -- all low settings, it's in the mid 50C at lower fan speed of course)
I would definitely get 6870 over 460. But haven't said that I saw that I could have gotten the 6950 for the same price 4-5 months later ... (sigh)
6950>560ti>6870>460
Get whichever you like, you can't really lose...just look for good deals over a few weeks if time permits.
(This was my first real significant graphics card purchase and I'm very happy with it. ... look at the size of that thing! lol woohoo)
Edit: I like AMD ATI but don't dislike Nvidia (they power my laptop and maybe my netbook I think)
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Coming from an AMD fanboy of course Id recommended the AMD. Ive used nothing but AMD in the last 5 years and I havent had any problems, even with cards said to be riddled with bugs. For example, there was a big voltage drop issue in the 5700 series a while back. It got fixed and I had no idea it even existed until it got fixed (from reading online). and i have 4 of these (2x crossfire) and put another in a computer i just built for my dad.
having used other amd cards with no issues i dont see why you wouldnt get something with more power for cheaper just because there were some bugs a while back in thr companies history -- which were fixed and its not like its competitor has its own issues. being an amd fanboy i would argue that amds prices are much better which is why nvidia issues gimped cards (typically from its flagship cards) just to grab a piece of the market share. i think that should tell you something.
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my vote is for the 6870, Ive got a 6850 and it is amazing. my buddy has a 465gtx in his and though they are very similar in performance ik that mine handles extreme graphics in sc2 like its nothin. the ati drivers do have a few bugs, but they are very minor and defiantly shouldnt deter you from ati cards.
hope this helps
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Is the 6870 available in Best Buy? I need to get something to help my computer out b/c it uses in integrated graphics card and lags some when the armies get big, even on lowest settings.
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Most video cards are available at bestbuy.. if you're buying from best buy, you must have a prebuilt... in which case it isn't recommended to buy a 6870 unless you know for a fact that your power supply is capable of handling such a card.
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On June 03 2011 10:28 In)Spire wrote:
Is the 6870 available in Best Buy? I need to get something to help my computer out b/c it uses in integrated graphics card and lags some when the armies get big, even on lowest settings.
Best buy has ripoff prices. And what skyR said.
But yeah, you should have an ok selection there. Just avoid the GTX 465. Worst card choice available in the last 2 years or so, overall, not counting Nvidia SE cards.
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After you buy a real power supply, instead of that cell phone charger, sure, but your CPU will bottleneck the hell out of you.
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The 6870 uses around 125w (edit: 150w is overclocked variants) under load fyi. You have a 220w power supply which won't allow you to buy any graphics card above $100, you're limited to all the ones that do not require a 6pin PCIe connector (ex. Radeon 6670).
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On June 03 2011 10:44 skyR wrote:
The 6870 uses around 150w under load fyi. You have a 220w power supply which won't allow you to buy any graphics card above $100, you're limited to all the ones that do not require a 6pin PCIe connector (ex. Radeon 6670).
His CPU would bottleneck for 80% of games anyways.
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Ya.. you should just save up and build an entirely new computer. Upgrading a slim prebuilt isn't worth the effort, time, or money.
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For ~$400 you can get a better system, with a Sandy Bridge Pentium, H61 Board, 4GB DDR3 1333, and a low-middle range graphics card, with a reasonable PSU and cheap case. Mind you, we're not talking super high graphics and super high resolution, but certainly better than you have now.
That's assuming you're at least able to reuse optical and HDD. If not, add another ~$50-60
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If you're going to alt-tab out of SC2 a lot, go with Nvidia.
Doesn't work all that well with ATI drivers.
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Nvidia should be more reliable, but the ATI is definitely faster by a lot. I would just get the ATI 6870, you should not experience any severe problems. However, if the card was a 470 or 560 TI, I would choose those though it would still bit a bit slower.
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On June 03 2011 12:27 iTzAnglory wrote:
Nvidia should be more reliable, but the ATI is definitely faster by a lot. I would just get the ATI 6870, you should not experience any severe problems. However, if the card was a 470 or 560 TI, I would choose those though it would still bit a bit slower.
You're suggesting a whole lot of cards that would be bottlenecked out the ass by his CPU.
For Nvidia, reasonable resolution, and no OC, I wouldn't go above a GTS 450 with his setup. Regardless, he really just needs to upgrade the whole system, it'll be less headache, and not too terribly expensive to get better performance than he has now.
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I have an ATI 5770 and have never so much as had even a trivial issue. I'd suggest the 6870.
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I have a 6870--it seemed that there were driver problems initially (or a misconfiguartion of a media player), but everything works flawlessly from SC2 to h.264 playback in Windows 7 x64 and 2.6.38-Arch. Everything's been fine even after a kernel update and recompiling the drivers.
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Go for the Nvidia, in my experience they last longer, and ATIs have given me some trouble in the past, also, GTX 460 has overclocking potential, just an FYI, dunno about the other one.
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I have the XFX 6870 and the card is a beast. Don't listen to all the horrid driver crap, they are fine! Overclocking is easy too with very good results. Don't listen to the haters...go with ATI. Also your going to need a better power supply....220watts wont cut it for really any aftermarket cards....
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On June 03 2011 13:16 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2011 12:27 iTzAnglory wrote:
Nvidia should be more reliable, but the ATI is definitely faster by a lot. I would just get the ATI 6870, you should not experience any severe problems. However, if the card was a 470 or 560 TI, I would choose those though it would still bit a bit slower. You're suggesting a whole lot of cards that would be bottlenecked out the ass by his CPU. For Nvidia, reasonable resolution, and no OC, I wouldn't go above a GTS 450 with his setup. Regardless, he really just needs to upgrade the whole system, it'll be less headache, and not too terribly expensive to get better performance than he has now.
I am not suggesting, just giving him a mere comparison of the cards and how I would have preferred it.
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On June 04 2011 12:22 iTzAnglory wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2011 13:16 JingleHell wrote:On June 03 2011 12:27 iTzAnglory wrote:
Nvidia should be more reliable, but the ATI is definitely faster by a lot. I would just get the ATI 6870, you should not experience any severe problems. However, if the card was a 470 or 560 TI, I would choose those though it would still bit a bit slower. You're suggesting a whole lot of cards that would be bottlenecked out the ass by his CPU. For Nvidia, reasonable resolution, and no OC, I wouldn't go above a GTS 450 with his setup. Regardless, he really just needs to upgrade the whole system, it'll be less headache, and not too terribly expensive to get better performance than he has now. I am not suggesting, just giving him a mere comparison of the cards and how I would have preferred it.
Fair enough. Lots of people are actually suggesting too much card though.
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is bumping allowed?
-bump-
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All recent discrete graphic cards are better than Intel's integrated graphics.
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If you do decide to go for something in the pricerange of a gts450, I'd consider a 6750. Same price point, but more impressive benchmarks, and less power usage (not that you're limited, but it's always nice)
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I'd go with the 6870. I have a 470GTX Superclock, and I adore it, but the 6870 is the clear favorite between the two. (And I am a die-hard Nvidia fan)
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Question: Kind of related to what we're talking about.
What's wrong with ATI? like specifics or an elaborate answer to why. The only problem I had was when my ATI X1600 pro fan burned out.
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There's nothing wrong with ATI. It's just personal preference.
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On July 31 2011 08:17 MiyaviTeddy wrote:
Question: Kind of related to what we're talking about.
What's wrong with ATI? like specifics or an elaborate answer to why. The only problem I had was when my ATI X1600 pro fan burned out.
Anybody who thinks one or the other brand has specific problems that the other doesn't is lying to themselves. I think the last time there was a specific problem was certain lower end 4xxx series cards that weren't really designed for high-end gaming having VREG's that couldn't handle FurMark Benchies, causing some damage, but this was fixed with drivers. Aside from that, both brands have their share of all of the issues that happen.
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And this whole time, I was under the impression that ATI cards are somewhat inferior to Nvidia in one way or another based on what everyone tells me personally.
I don't suppose you can also help explain me about Intel and AMD? I hear Intel is doing really well compare of AMD in terms of their CPUs.
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On July 31 2011 16:50 MiyaviTeddy wrote:
And this whole time, I was under the impression that ATI cards are somewhat inferior to Nvidia in one way or another based on what everyone tells me personally.
I don't suppose you can also help explain me about Intel and AMD? I hear Intel is doing really well compare of AMD in terms of their CPUs.
Right now there is a large descrepancy in processing power per clock cycle in favor of Intel. You get much more performance out of the new Sandy Bridge range of processors.
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Bot edit.
User was banned for this post.
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EPT
