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Which video card to buy?
I have been trying to hold off on upgrading my dual 8800 GTX 1Gb cards for as long as possible. I have had them for 4+ years now and have had zero complaints other than the extraordinary amount of heat they produce. I put some Zalman after market heat sinks on them and that helped a bit, until Starcraft 2 came out. Now they get so bloody hot I had to get a box fan and stick it in the side of my case.
I have contemplated liquid cooling, but they are expensive and I know I am not the type of person to regularly maintain the liquid cooling system after the first couple of months. So I figure its just plain time to upgrade them. The original build had an AMD FX-62 which has recently been overhauled.
Current config :
Windows 7 Ultimate
Asus P6T X58 Motherboard
Intel core i7 960 Bloomfield with Zalmann cooler
8 Gb Corsair XMS 3 (PC3 10666)
Dual 8800 GTX 1 Gb cards with Zalmann aftermarket heat-sink
Zephyr 1000w Modular power supply
I want to go with either :
But I am not sure which is better. The Geforce has faster/better GDDR5, but the Radeon has like 4 times as many stream processors (and cheaper).
What do you think Quizzical? Or anyone for that matter.
Comments
Both good cards and only $40 apart.... just flip a coin! I'm a Radeon guy going back many years now but I always support the underdogs of any market.
Go with nVidia - I have been doing alot of research and overwhelmingly the experts are favoring the gtx 400's
Both cards are nice. I've seen them both in action and they both run games very well. I would go with the nvidia cards just because I've never really been a fan of Radeons, but I guess it's just up to what company you like more since both cards are basically the same price.
The 480 guzzles power (120W more than the 5870), although with a 1KW PSU you will be fine. It is very hot so if case cooling is an issue go with the 5870. I personaly due to those two reasons would go with the 5870.
On the other hand you have an SLI compatable board you could go for 2 460's (1gb), which would be more powerful than either card and cost you around $460.
My motherboard supports either NVIDIA 3-way SLI or ATI Quad-core CrossFireX. I have seriously contemplated just buying 3 low to mid grade cards just to see if it stacks up to 1 uber card or not. I prefer buying the nicer card now and then slapping a 2nd one in later.
you have an intel chipset (x58) so i dont think your board supports SLI, i could be mistaken though, it has been awhile since i looked into which boards support that feature.
anyways, i would say get the 5870, i dont know which reviewers you were talking about being "overwhelmingly" in favor of the 400 series, yes the newer 460s are half decent however as far as 5870 vs 480 goes, the 5870 takes the cake...and the pie
as far as performance they are almost the same, except the 480 takes up a lot more power and runs way hotter, and costs more.
there really is no contest imo, and it is mostly nvidia fanboys that refuse to look at the facts that the 5870 is the better buy atm...
now, if you are willing to wait till the end of the year, AMD should have the 6800 series out and there were leaked benchmarks that show quite a bit jump forward from the 5870, i believe i saw the benchmarks at tech-forums.net
insta edit: as far as multi gpu setups go, yes, they are nice, however i guarantee you, with both ATI and nvidia, there will be times where you find one of the latest and greatest games that do not support crossfire and may not for a month or so, i like my 4850 crossfire setup, however next build ill be doing a single GPU high end setup.
if you are confident in a multi-gpu setup nvidia and ati are pretty neck and neck right now, there are reviews saying the 5770s in xfire are the best, some say the 460s in xfire are the best. i believe you should just do the research (guru3d is one of the best sites imo for in depth benchmarks) and do the math, find the best price to performance ratio, find the most efficient card, etc etc etc
Well if you are going for a nice card I would definitely recommend the ATI HD 5870, the card is cheaper, it will save you money on power consumption and run cooler in your case. The only decent Fermi card is the 460 so far, the rest are not on par with the 5800 series.
I do not know what the "experts" are smoking that Ozivois is talking about.
Check Newegg.com prices, the HD 5870 is more close to the price of the GTX 470 than the GTX 480.
Least expensive name brands [worth considering for purchase]:
GTX 470 [by ASUS]: $295
HD 5870 [by HIS]: $350
GTX 480 [by Gigabyte]: $450
5870 compared to 470 : http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/162?vs=160
5870 compared to 480 : http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/162?vs=158
Note: The HD 5870, in almost all games, outperforms the GTX 470 and uses less electricity and runs cooler.
EDIT: Added one word for clarity and links are hot now.
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5
SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
I provided a link here as well
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/289344/HD-6870-leak-30-increase-is-plausible.html
EDIT: Not sure why the link was not live the first time I tried to post it. It is live now
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5
SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
It's an apples-to-oranges comparison with shaders these days, I'm afraid. What each company calls a "shader" isn't the same thing, nor is it capable of the same workload. Point in case - for all it's other faults, the GTX480 beats out the 5870 quite consistantly, despite having fewer "shaders".
But as already mentioned, the GTX480 brings with it a pretty significant noise and heat baggage. A well-ventilated case can offset some of that, but not entirely - you WILL hear the card, especially since the rest of your system will give the cards lots of information to work with.
Honestly, unless you're particularly loyal to Nvidia, ATI's offferings are a lot more compelling these days.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
So your current configuration is what you already have, and you're only looking to upgrade the video card, right?
What monitor resolution do you use? If it's not something larger than 1920x1200, then you can save money and get a 1 GB card rather than 2 GB. If you are using something larger, than 2 GB is probably the right idea.
My recommendation is probably neither of those cards.
I was going to warn you about the reference cooler on the GeForce GTX 480, as it simply can't handle the card. GTX 480s with the reference cooler get dangerously hot under normal gaming loads. The Zotac Amp edition that you've picked out is the only non-reference air cooler that I'm aware of. It's able to handle the cards just fine. But you'd better have room for a three-slot cooler and a ton of airflow to get the 300 W from the card out of the case if you want to go that route. If you do, then you should be fine.
The point of the GTX 480 that you've linked is that it comes bundled with a Razer DeathAdder mouse. If you want the mouse, that's fine. But don't pay an extra $45 for a mouse that you won't use. You can get the same card without the mouse here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500166
On the Radeon HD 5870 side, if you want a 5870, I'd get a cheaper one. You can get even premium cards like these for $400:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102872
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127509
The 5870s aren't that hard to cool, so even the reference coolers on them are just fine. The Sapphire Vapor-X will keep the card very cool, while also staying quiet. My guess would be that the MSI Lightning II is a cheaper version of their Lightning Edition. The 15-phase power supply was rather overkill unless you wanted to overclock it with liquid nitrogen. Regardless, it should be a pretty good card, too. Both are a full $120 cheaper than the 5870 that you linked.
If you do need 2 GB of video memory, then you can get it with the Vapor-X cooler here for $460:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102893
I wouldn't pay an extra $60 over that for the Asus Matrix unless you really want the fancy lights or some such.
As for performance, a GeForce GTX 480 tends to outperform a Radeon HD 5870 if both are at stock speeds by around 10%. It varies by game, so there are some games where a GTX 480 will win by a much bigger margin, and some where it will get crushed by the 5870.
The GTX 480 has an official TDP of 250 W, but that's a lie. An honest TDP would put it around 300 W. The Radeon HD 5870 has a TDP of 188 W. The 2 GB versions are somewhere around 210 W. The GTX 480 also uses more power at idle, though I don't recall how much more. If you attach a second monitor, the GTX 480 uses well over 100 W at idle (yes, idle), while the Radeon HD 5870 is around 50 W at idle. So expect to have to pay extra for power if you get the GTX 480, too.
Another option would be waiting a couple of months and getting a Radeon HD 6870, which will likely outperform both cards handily. It will probably only be reference coolers at launch, but AMD put some pretty good reference coolers on their cards this generation. The upcoming Southern Islands cards will probably be the first cards branded as AMD Radeon rather than ATI Radeon, and AMD surely wants to make a good first impression in this regard, so I really can't see them going cheap on reference coolers for the 6870.
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I have a couple of other comments about your build. First, I wouldn't trust a power supply that HEC never sent to reputable review sites. It's not like HEC has a sterling reputation that they can live off of. Someone mentioned Jonny Guru above. I'd also look for reviews from Hardware Secrets.
Next, you've got mismatched memory channels. Bloomfield processors come with a three channel memory controller. Your amount of system memory should therefore be three times a power of two. 8/3 is not a power of two. Most likely, you've got four 2 GB modules. You could actually boost your memory bandwidth by removing one, and making sure the other three are distributed such that it's one in each memory channel. For many programs, the extra memory bandwidth would make no difference, but there are some where you'd see a (probably small) performance boost.
I appreciate all your input. Thanks Quiz on the informative reply and memory module tip
I think I may wait for that 6870. I have been impressed with the latest generation of Radeons since AMD took over.
I'd recommend a 4870 unless you have a huge monitor, best bang for your buck, and cards bigger than that aren't even utilised fully yet, waiting till ati's 6870 might be worth it .
To address a few other points, the GTX 480 has six memory channels, while the Radeon HD 5870 has four. That's why the GTX 480 has more memory bandwidth. The Radeon HD 5870 clocks memory higher, so it's not a very big difference in total memory bandwidth. Nvidia's GDDR5 memory controllers are basically broken, and aren't able to run at the speeds that they ought to. The lowest bins of GDDR5 memory chips commercially available are 1 GHz, which is why the Radeon HD 5670 runs memory at 1 GHz. But Nvidia has yet to release a card capable of running GDDR5 memory at 1 GHz, because their memory controller is a disaster.
Nvidia has tried to cover this up by randomly saying that they're going to multiply all GDDR5 clock speeds by 2. GDDR5 memory sends four bits of data bit of bus with per clock cycle, while any other DDR (Double Data Rate) memory sends 2. It's long been common for companies to multiply by 2, and say, our memory is as fast as if it were at this clock speed but not DDR. AMD was first with GDDR5 by nearly two years, and tried to establish using the real clock speed as the standard. One could argue for multiplying by 4, and this is why AMD cards will say things like "1.2 GHz (4.8 GHz effective rate)". But multiplying by 2 makes no sense at all, except to make Nvidia's numbers look higher than AMD's numbers, but not by enough that it's obvious that they're incomparable.
The GF100-based cards can't come anywhere near the target core/shader clock speeds, either. Now, one could argue that clock speeds don't matter in themselves, but all that matters is the performance. But this is how Nvidia managed to make a GPU that is 60% bigger than AMD's Cypress and cards that probably cost about twice as much to build, but only wins on performance by about 10%. Nvidia can't even get enough properly working GF100 chips to fill the demand for $4000 Tesla cards and $5000 Quadro cards, and has to disable parts of the chip. And it's why AMD makes a fortune on every Cypress card they sell, while Nvidia would probably be losing money on GF100-based video cards if you don't regard the dies they use as cheap or "free", since they couldn't meet the Quadro or Tesla specs.
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As someone said above, a Radeon shader isn't at all comparable to a GeForce shader. Nvidia relies on fewer shaders clocked higher, while AMD relies on more shaders with a 5-wide SIMD architecture that means that a lot of them are idle. You can compare the numbers of shaders to compare one Radeon card to another going back to the Radeon HD 2000 generation, or one Nvidia card to another going back to the GeForce 8000 generation. Those only give you a rough ballpark estimate of performance, though. If you want to compare a Radeon to a GeForce, you can get a rough estimate by dividing the Radeon's number of shaders by four. That's only a rough estimate, though, and can easily be off by 30% or so, as performance also depends on clock speeds, memory bandwidth, ROP and TMU counts, and other things.
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CrossFire and SLI don't scale nearly as well as you might think from looking at benchmarks online. Yes, two identical cards will give you better performance than if you removed one of them. But 50 frames per second from two cards each doing 25 frames per second isn't nearly as good as 50 frames per second from a single card. Two cards independently doing frames but each taking twice as long to render a frame means that each frame takes longer to render, so there's a longer latency time between what you see on the screen and what the state of the game is like. It also makes the frame rate unsteady, as if the two cards complete a frame at the same time, both will count toward the nominal average frame rate, but one will be immediately discarded and never displayed. This is called "microstutter", and while people say that if you get a high enough frame rate, it isn't really noticeable, that's because the frame rate is high enough that removing one of the video cards from the system entirely also wouldn't be particularly noticeable. There's also the issue that some games simply don't scale very well (or at all) with multiple cards.
And that's just performance issues. Using multiple video cards means you have to get a more expensive motherboard, use more power, and have to be a lot more careful about overheating, as one card can easily block airflow to the other.
As I see it, there's no sense whatsoever in running an SLI/CrossFire setup on anything slower than a GeForce GTX 460 1 GB (if you're buying them today, that is). If you want two Radeon HD 5770s in CrossFire, for example, you'd be much better off getting a single Radeon HD 5870, and getting about the same nominal frame rates, but without all of the problems of CrossFire scaling. So yes, I think you're right to be looking at a single card.
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What you should get depends on your budget, the level of performance you want, whether you want any special features peculiar to one side or the other (any features like PhysX or Eyefinity that one side has and the other doesn't are useless to most people), and whether you have any real preferences between AMD and Nvidia. Personally, I'd much rather have the Radeon HD 5870, as reliability is very important to me, and I wouldn't want a 300 W card in my system. (What I actually have is a Radeon HD 5850; I'm pretty sure that both it and my Core i7-860 have a ton of overclocking headroom, but I leave them at stock speeds to be safer. And also importantly, I have a good power supply, a good UPS, and both on-site and off-site data backup. And I still have my previous computer as a backup.) But different people have different preferences, and what you should get depends on your preferences.