Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Oh, God. WAT DO.

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Comments

  • CatamountCatamount Member Posts: 773

    Really, with the Radeon HD 6800 series out, there's not much reason to get a Geforce GTX460.

    First, a 6850 is $20 cheaper than that 1GB 460.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

     

    Secondly, it's 15% faster:

    http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-review/1

     

    Even without the combo deal, it's a better card to get. I'm not sure you need a 650W PSU, either, not unless you plan on heavy overclocking. Even if you got into Crossfire with 6850s, Guru3d's review suggests that each one only draws about 120W of power, so two of them would only draw 240W. I don't think you need anything near 400W for the rest of the system, given that with a 95W CPU, you'd only be drawing about 340W. A 500W PSU seems like it would do just fine, even for two of them in Crossfire.

    Given that fact, you could save yourself another $30 by getting this PSU instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151094

     

    Edit: swapped out the Corsair 500W for a Seasonic 520W

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    Originally posted by DanMcC

    It's nothing amazing. But definitly better than what I currently have. And yes, I plan on using 6.0GB/s and CrossFire later on. — So I guess what I'm really asking is: should I upgrade my CPU or GPU first? Will I have more than I need? — Keep in mind I have a bunch of untouched games sitting on my desk because I don't have the firepower to run them.

    AMD's modern chipsets have SATA 3, so you might as well get a motherboard with it even if you aren't going to need it later.  SATA 3 is really only for solid state drives, though--and mostly only future SSDs, at that, as there's only one on the market now that can take advantage of SATA 3 bandwidth.

    If you want to go CrossFire, then you'd better get hardware that supports it.  First of all, if the motherboard you've picked supports CrossFire at all, it will only be in a rudimentary form, as the second PCI Express slot only has x8 bandwidth.  To really support CrossFire properly, you'd want an 890FX chipset, which means a considerably more expensive motherboard.  Something like this would work; note that it's a combo deal with the processor you picked:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.537713

    At minimum, you'd want two PCI Express slots with x8 bandwidth.  You could try to go with something cheap with that, like this:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157198

    That really isn't the best brand, though.

    Second, if you want to use CrossFire, you'd need AMD video cards.  The equivalent for Nvidia cards is SLI.  AMD chipsets don't support SLI, and Nvidia has shut down their chipset design division, so you'd have to get some really old Nvidia chipset.

    Catamount suggests a Radeon HD 6850, which is cheaper than a GeForce GTX 460 and about as fast.  It might be 15% faster than the 768 MB version, but it certainly isn't 15% faster than the 1 GB version.  You pretty much lose the price advantage of the 6850 due to combo deals, but it will still use less power.  And as an AMD card, it will also support CrossFire if you want to go that route.

    Third, I'd advise against CrossFire (or SLI) in the first place for most people.  I say it's better to get the level of performance up front in a single card than to plan on adding a second card later.  This goes slightly over your stated budget, but you could go with this:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.514534

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102909

    That way, you'd have a significantly faster video card up front.  Then you could skip CrossFire later and get a cheaper motherboard that doesn't support it:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.537750

    Note that that's a processor/motherboard combo deal.  It's a good motherboard with all of the modern features you might want except that it only supports one video card.  Well, I guess you could plausibly want to go for an enormous processor overclock, and shouldn't on that motherboard.  I'm assuming you don't care about integrated graphics, since you're getting a discrete video card anyway.

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • VidirVidir Member UncommonPosts: 963

    Originally posted by Catamount

    Really, with the Radeon HD 6800 series out, there's not much reason to get a Geforce GTX460.

    First, a 6850 is $20 cheaper than that 1GB 460.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

     

    Secondly, it's 15% faster:

    http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-review/1

     

    Even without the combo deal, it's a better card to get. I'm not sure you need a 650W PSU, either, not unless you plan on heavy overclocking. Even if you got into Crossfire with 6850s, Guru3d's review suggests that each one only draws about 120W of power, so two of them would only draw 240W. I don't think you need anything near 400W for the rest of the system, given that with a 95W CPU, you'd only be drawing about 340W. A 500W PSU seems like it would do just fine, even for two of them in Crossfire.

    Given that fact, you could save yourself another $30 by getting this PSU instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151094

     

    Edit: swapped out the Corsair 500W for a Seasonic 520W

     From what I have seen at stores nvidia 460 cards are about 20% cheeper than ati 6850 and due to most test better card in most

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    Originally posted by Vidir

     From what I have seen at stores nvidia 460 cards are about 20% cheeper than ati 6850 and due to most test better card in most

    MSRP is $170 on a GeForce GTX 460 with 768 MB of video memory, $180 on a Radeon HD 6850, and $200 on a GeForce GTX 460 with 1 GB of video memory.  A Radeon HD 6850 performs comparably to a GTX 460 with 1 GB, and both are significantly faster than the GTX 460 with 768 MB.  The problem with the latter isn't so much less video memory as that a memory channel is disabled as well as 1/4 of the ROPs.  Having 3/4 of the ROP power and 3/4 of the memory bandwidth means you lose maybe 10% of the performance, in addition to having less video memory.

    There aren't discounts on the Radeon HD 6850 from that price yet, as the cards just launched last week and e-tailrs want to make sure that they can keep them in stock.  There are some discounts on the GTX 460 here and there, as they aren't a very good deal at MSRP anymore, and stores that have them want to make sure that they can get rid of them.

    Note that a Radeon HD 6850 also uses significantly less power than a GTX 460, and hence puts out considerably less heat.  The GTX 460 is the top bin of the GPU, while the Radeon HD 6850 is the bottom bin, so most 6850s will have quite a bit of overclocking headroom.  A lot of GTX 460s have overclocking headroom, too, but this will vary greatly, and a lot of the headroom is eaten up by factory overclocks.

    There are some reviews that compared a GTX 460 with a huge factory overclock to a Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 at stock speeds.  Nvidia tried to push this by sending an EVGA GTX 460 FTW 1 GB with about a 26% factory overclock and saying, you should include this in the 6850 and 6870 reviews.  Sites that did include this and compare it to a 6850 and 6870 at stock speeds in the initial 6850/6870 review are not reputable video card review sites.

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • VidirVidir Member UncommonPosts: 963

    Originally posted by Quizzical

    Originally posted by Vidir

     From what I have seen at stores nvidia 460 cards are about 20% cheeper than ati 6850 and due to most test better card in most

    MSRP is $170 on a GeForce GTX 460 with 768 MB of video memory, $180 on a Radeon HD 6850, and $200 on a GeForce GTX 460 with 1 GB of video memory.  A Radeon HD 6850 performs comparably to a GTX 460 with 1 GB, and both are significantly faster than the GTX 460 with 768 MB.  The problem with the latter isn't so much less video memory as that a memory channel is disabled as well as 1/4 of the ROPs.  Having 3/4 of the ROP power and 3/4 of the memory bandwidth means you lose maybe 10% of the performance, in addition to having less video memory.

    There aren't discounts on the Radeon HD 6850 from that price yet, as the cards just launched last week and e-tailrs want to make sure that they can keep them in stock.  There are some discounts on the GTX 460 here and there, as they aren't a very good deal at MSRP anymore, and stores that have them want to make sure that they can get rid of them.

    Note that a Radeon HD 6850 also uses significantly less power than a GTX 460, and hence puts out considerably less heat.  The GTX 460 is the top bin of the GPU, while the Radeon HD 6850 is the bottom bin, so most 6850s will have quite a bit of overclocking headroom.  A lot of GTX 460s have overclocking headroom, too, but this will vary greatly, and a lot of the headroom is eaten up by factory overclocks.

    There are some reviews that compared a GTX 460 with a huge factory overclock to a Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 at stock speeds.  Nvidia tried to push this by sending an EVGA GTX 460 FTW 1 GB with about a 26% factory overclock and saying, you should include this in the 6850 and 6870 reviews.  Sites that did include this and compare it to a 6850 and 6870 at stock speeds in the initial 6850/6870 review are not reputable video card review sites.

     Well 6850 is new on the marcet and price is not realy set yet, but today is my son's birthday and he did want new graphic card for his birthday and i bought gigabite460 card with 1gig memory ,I did however check price for ati cards as well since I dont realy care much if it is ati or nvidia, and cheepest 6850 I could find in stores to buy over desk today was more than 20% more expencive than nvidias card,so that was main reason I bought 460 card.Then on the other hand I remember having problems with ati cards in the past with drivers and so,but as I mentioned it was in the past,I would have no problem trying ati's cards If I got those to less price than nvidias,yes less price for same reason as people only buy amd cpu run computers if they get those for much less price than intel. I myself have one computer with amd cpu in it and it is fine it did cost 40% less than comparable intel stuff. I love amd/ati since they forse intel/nvidia to deliver more to resonable price,but I allways rather have intel and nvidia stuff inside my gaming computers:-))))

  • CatamountCatamount Member Posts: 773

    Quizzical, look at the review I posted. The 6850 beats the 460 1GB version In every game except for Far Cry 2 (which is not typical of the market as a whole for its favoring of Nvidia), not the 768mb version, the 1GB version. In four out of the six games where the 6850 beats the 460 1GB (which it does in 6 out of 7), it does so by 10-20%. Clearly this card is faster than the Geforce GTX460. I may not be stunningly faster in all cases, but it is at least faster, in all cases (save the on classic outlier).

    If we tossed out the outlier and then extrapolated, one could say the 6850 should be 10%-20% faster than the 1GB 460 in 2/3 of titles.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    Originally posted by Vidir

     Well 6850 is new on the marcet and price is not realy set yet, but today is my son's birthday and he did want new graphic card for his birthday and i bought gigabite460 card with 1gig memory ,I did however check price for ati cards as well since I dont realy care much if it is ati or nvidia, and cheepest 6850 I could find in stores to buy over desk today was more than 20% more expencive than nvidias card,so that was main reason I bought 460 card.Then on the other hand I remember having problems with ati cards in the past with drivers and so,but as I mentioned it was in the past,I would have no problem trying ati's cards If I got those to less price than nvidias,yes less price for same reason as people only buy amd cpu run computers if they get those for much less price than intel. I myself have one computer with amd cpu in it and it is fine it did cost 40% less than comparable intel stuff. I love amd/ati since they forse intel/nvidia to deliver more to resonable price,but I allways rather have intel and nvidia stuff inside my gaming computers:-))))

    Nonsense.  There is a standard price and $180 is it.  AMD is selling massive quantities of the GPU chips, at prices such that if everyone later in the chain takes their standard markup, the cards end up selling to the end user for $180.  They're widely available at that price, with New Egg having several in stock for $180 plus shipping, and Amazon having several in stock for $180 with free shipping.  If you only checked brick and mortar stores, then of course you can't find them at the normal price.  If you got a GeForce GTX 460 1 GB for $150, then good for you, but it's hard to find them new at that price.

    -----

    You can make a decent case that a Radeon HD 6850 is a little faster on average than a GeForce GTX 460 1 GB.  But it's not 15-20% faster on average.  For the same price, I'd certainly rather have the Radeon HD 6850, though as much for the lower power consumption and new features as the slightly better performance.  But if the GTX 460 1 GB is $30 cheaper, I'd regard that as a better deal.

  • CatamountCatamount Member Posts: 773

    Well the 10%-20% boost solidly showed up in 2/3 of the reviewed titles on that site, and it was a pretty good mix of games. Throwing out the FC2 outlier, even you wanted an actual mean average you could just multiply 10% and 20% by .67, at which point you could fairly accurately say the 6850 is ~7-13% faster overall than the Geforce 460 1GB. If you wanted an even simpler figure, you could just take the middle of those two numbers and say 10% faster across the board. I personally think it's probably more representative to just use the 10-20% number, with the caveat that only most games will show that level of increase.

    If 460s were $150, that would make 6850s 20% more expensive, so they wouldn't be a great option then. If the 460 was $165 and up, then the 6850 would overtake it again in value. At present, 1GB 460s are going on Newegg for no cheaper than $180 after rebates, and no cheaper than $200 before rebates.

     

    As an aside on value, the XFX Black Edition 6850 is looking to pack absolutely absurd overclocking capabilities, and for not much more money than the regular 6850. The one review I read on the topic managed to get an overclock fo 1025mhz on the core (vs 750 normally). That card is really going to be a good deal for those looking to get good performance on a budget.

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347

    On the XFX web site, it looks like they've only got one 6850.  This is it:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150505

    http://www.amazon.com/XFX-6850-775M-Graphics-HD685XZNFC/dp/B0047ZH7FU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1288488266&sr=8-1

    http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=6817311&sku=P450-6850&srkey=xfx%206850

    Do note that they're $20 more than some other 6850s.  People who go out of their way to buy an XFX card usually do so for the warranty service.

    I think it's a mistake to buy one assuming it's going to give you a good overclock, unless the stock 6850 voltage is less than the stock 6870 voltage, and you get a 6850 that will let you run it at the 6870 voltage.  I don't know which 6850s let you adjust the voltage.

  • swing848swing848 Member UncommonPosts: 292

    MSI has just released a version of Afterburner for their HD6850 video cards.  Make sure the GPU and RAM have good cooling if you want to try for high overclocks.

    http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1036356238

    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

  • CatamountCatamount Member Posts: 773

    The implication of the wording Sapphire is using to describe their new version of the TriXX software is that it can alter voltages on any 6800 series card. That's the software that was used in the review I read to supply more voltage to the XFX Black Edition card.

    These guys here managed to get the card to 940mhz without altering voltages. The guys who managed to overclock the card further are here, though I'm not sure what unit of measure was being used to measure the cards voltage (the beta version of TriXX seems to express voltage poorly). I'm assuming going from "1150" to "1300" means going from 1.15v to 1.3v

Sign In or Register to comment.