ATI HD 5870 NOW!!! or nVidia "something" Later?

[CabbageGT]

Hello

Like many, I just built a new i7 system.

I7 920
Gigabyte X58 Extreme
6Gb OCZ Platinum 1866mhz+
Win7
Antec 1200
LG SuperMulti
CoolerMaster V8
TAGAN PipeRock 900w
WD VelociRaptor

Now at the time I was rounding up all my parts, there was no mention of Dx11, and as far as im awair, the card to buy was the GTX295.

So after building the new rig, I was putting my second 8800gt in and because of the zalman coolers Ive put on them I can no longer get them both in due to the layout of the new MoBo. So im not that much better off with this new setup... I was planning to buy the GTX295 anyway, but now I dont know wether to wait

Im an nVidia Fan, I like the ideas they have like PhysX and cuda and some other.. stuff.... Not that Ive realy benefited from these Features. I can bet that ATI have there own similar features that mirror what nVidia have too, But I dont know what they are!!

The board will take CrossFire and SLI

But Im undecided wether or not ATI is just a bad Idea. Both AMD and ATI always strike me as the budget players. there stuff is good, but Intel and nVidia are better quality and more reliable..... Im not saying thats true... Its just the way it comes across to me.

For some reason I think if nVidia bring something out. its gonna wipe the floor clean with that 5870.... But I basically want the equivelant 8800GT of the new Day

Also Is it me, or have we not got that far since the 8series, My 8800 will run fallout3 on high at 1920x1080 with decent frames, and so will a GTX260 with alittle increase...
I havent realy seen a hugh difference in preformance, nothing that realy justifies the High costs of a newish card

So do I bide my time untill nVidia bring out.... "something"! Or is ATI the new way forward, OR... Is Dx11 gonna be another flop, and im best off getting a new Dx10 card instead like the GTX295.... souldnt rule out ATI's equivelant.... HD4890 or something


What would You do?...

 

[OvrClkr]

I would wait, specially with a budget like that... Don't bother with a 295 when you can get a 5870 on e-bay for more or less the same price.

If you cannot wait then I would jump on e-bay and start bidding.... Yesterday a 5870 sold for 409.99$$....Hope this helps....

 

[MiamiU]

There are so many things you talk about that are simply wrong... Your perception of AMD/ATI and Nvidia are so off from reality its hard to choose where to start.

First of all, try to erase from your mind your view on technology based on marketing schemes and just evaluate the facts. I'll answer a few of your questions and i'm sure others will come and answer the ones i don't.

AMD is not a "budget" company, its pricing to performance ratio is usually better than Nvidia (most noticeable on the High end gpus). Nvidia isn't more reliable than AMD, it all depends on the 3rd party company that's manufacturing the card.

GTX 295 > HD 4890, you are comparing a double GPU card (gtx295) with a single GPU card (4890) with a price difference of about $320 if not more.

DX11 has already proved itself to have tremendous advantages to that of DX10, and its moving along much faster then DX10 did when it first came out.

Nvidia is not gonna wipe the floor with AMD anytime soon.

When you say "i'm a Nvidia Fan" it sounds like even after you learn the facts you wont be buying anything but Nvidia. AMD and Nvidia fanboys are stubborn and exaggerate what they hear. If you are not having major performance issues with games at the moment, just wait it out. Upgrading for the sake of upgrading might leave you with buyers' remorse.

 

[capt_taco]

Only question here is whether you want to get max performance out of your system NOW, or wait and slightly better performance 6 months from now. And you know what? You'll be facing the same exact question 6 months from now too, and 6 months after that.

It's a constant with gaming computers, and it doesn't really have anything to do with ATI vs. Nvidia. One company comes out with the top card, the other leapfrogs them a few months later, and you repeat that process until you're sick of it. There's nothing "wrong" with ATI; the better manufacturer mostly just depends on where in the product cycle you come in.

 

[turboflame]

nVidia are better quality and more reliable...

I'll just leave this here.

 

[maximiza]

Well I will put it this way, I have been using 2 7800GTX in SLI for many years, this 5870 really got my jusices flowing, I am waiting for my auto notify to be received, I am finally upgrading to ATI.

 

[OvrClkr]

I'll just leave this here.

http://i36.tinypic.com/6srx4m.jpg

Your chart does not show the 4870x2, which is by far the most unrealiable ATI card to date

 

[OvrClkr]

Take a peek :

http://www.*****/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/23415-sapphire-radeon-hd-5870-1gb-gddr5-review-12.html

 

[jennyh]

It also doesn't show the gtx295 though. Dual gpu cards are always a lot worse in terms of failure rates.

 

[drkailinium]

from listening to Nvidia's boasts about their card Im not sure whether it may require a new platform so I would go for the 5870 especially since no one has any clue how long it will take for the Nvidia generation to come out.

 

[OvrClkr]

It also doesn't show the gtx295 though. Dual gpu cards are always a lot worse in terms of failure rates.

I agree, but the 295 did not have near the same overheating issues as the 4870x2. I built 2 PC's last year, both with 4870x2's (Sapphire) and they both had to be RMAed after a 4-5 month period. I could understand 1 of them failing but both?

 

[CabbageGT]

Awesome answers, was not expecting that tbh....

to be fair Im being very Ignorant agains ATI, as I havent followed them for some time...

Basically Ive owned a Nvidia card for only 2 years and Im impressed obviously, Ive got nothing agains ATI at all, infact ive owned Card from them in the past, and there solid.... But when using each card, I focus on that company only, so Im alittle behind with my ATI-knowledge.

I have been reading about both cards recently(295/5870) and I feel the beter card is the 5870. Mainly the power consumption. I dont realy want a dual card ether... Due to the heat... Could be wrong again.... but I was under the impression that quad SLI/QuadFire?!?!? (not sure on the terms) Wasnt that good, and 3-way was just as good... and again, when I first tryed SLI it wasnt that good, Only main difference was higher fraims at Higher Res - due to more memory

Some of you may be ATI fans here and are just defending them, I was in favour of Nvidia when I wrote the post, but tbh im being swayed towards ATI now.

Also Like I said, It comes across to me like Ati/Amd are the cheap offer... dont get me wrong, I use there products all the time...When im on a budget. Infact im admiring the low costs at the moment while planning another cheap build.

Is crossfire better or equal...or worse. and would it realy be worth it "now"

By the way... Some of my comments arent ment to come across as though I know what im saying.... the more Like questions

Thanks Again for putting me straight, much appreciated

Rgds...Cabbage

 

[CabbageGT]

OK...

Ive done some reading up on ATIs site, because im clearly bias to Nvidia, mainly because of my lack of knowladge!

I may have missed something in the last few years, as Far as I know...Knew it, crossfire was 2 gpus of the same, and CrossfireX was 2 multi Gpus of the same... like Quad Sli... But on the website, CrossfireX is just labled as Multiple cards..... Abit confussing to me, Because with Nvidia, Sli and 3-way and quad, all require extra "tools" in order to function, Like compatibility with certain motherboards, and different Bridge conectors..... But there is only a chart for ATI confirming compatibility...LOTS of compatibility, even unIdentical cards using a bridge, would this be ATIs version of the underdog card being used for something else(e.g. PhysX) or are they genuinely capable of running side-by-side like normal Sli/crossfire?

I must appologies for my indecisiveness. It was only last night I was praising Nvidia, and now Im looking beyond all the crap on the front of the box. I dont need Steam?!?!/cuda or physX... I just dont want to be without it.

Another thing I wanted to say.... When I got the 8800gt. I think the 4970 was the best card at the time, with a teraflop and a milloin of this and that, but Nvidia had the 280 I think(Not exactaly sure of this) And I remember wondering why Nvidia was only Just behind with half the spec that the ATI card boasted, bearing in mind the power consumption and heat... If they had decent cooling for that thing, and upped what ever It was clearly lacking... I just didnt get it.... Why was I deciding over the 8800 and the 3870, the 3870 had double the specs or the 8800, but it wasnt faster at all...

Is the 5000 series a big preformance increase from the 4000 series, or is it all to do with reducing waist/heat/power usage. Ive only got a 900w psu... but im sure it would be happyer running x2 5870's than x2 4870's... This is one of the little things I used to represent with ATI cards, huge power consumption. thats because of the 2900 and a review I read, and the 3000 series was just a less hungry 2000 series.

Thanks again.... Ridicule me all you want, It can only do me good to know where im going wrong!

 

[spider83]

58XX isn't a huge jump over 48XX in terms of raw performance. Its a noticable improvement, especially at higher res, and DX11 is where the real advantage comes from. Maybe its 15-20% faster ? (rough guestimate)

The thing that the 5000 cards have that Nvidia cannot match as of now is Eyefinity...which is the only reason I went with a 5870 instead of a GTX 295. Once I get this stuff hooked up, I can play my games like this:

Nvidia just doesn't have an answer to that yet, and you can bet they never will for $400

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Dude, youre too late, hes already read the benches and facts.
Saying the 5870 isnt a jump shows that you havnt done what the OP has, look around, something I suggest you do

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

"Maybe its 15-20% faster ? (rough guestimate) "

The 5870 is faster 30+% and more than the 285, let alone the 4890, so alot more

 

[wh3resmycar]

nVidia "something" Later

by the time nvidia comes up with that "something later", amd might be cooking something as well.

point is if you want to take the waiting route, you'll end up waiting and waiting and waiting and so forth.

 

[CabbageGT]

Right.... Put aside that im an Nvidia fan(only because im using them now) Its seems that the 5870 is everything Im actually looking for, And realy im being quite unreal and... well.... Greedy! Im after the 8800gt of this generation... And its not like the 5870 is gonna be the best for long... 5870 X2/5890 or whatever there gonna call it will be the High end/enthusiasts Right?

So if Nvidia bring something out, what are the chances that its gonna be Mega? its gonna be a small margin beter prehapse, but im not gonna notice the difference other than the hole in my pocket

Im not an enthusiast, So settleing for a -5-10% difference and saving a ton will suit me fine.

If theres no word from Nvidia befor the 28th. Ill settle for the 5870, chances are Ill be getting another afew months later for crossfire

I should have lernt from when I made my first build, I waited so long for the price to drop, that new tech had arrived... So I ended up waiting for the price of the new tech to fall....I actually ended up with a x800 xt, which was awesome.

Im loving the eyefinity bit.

Thanks for you Help, Support and info, much appreciated

Rgds.......Cabbage

 

[Techno-boy]

Quality does not always have to do with brands of video cards but it has to do more with what components do the manufacturer use for the video cards such as all solid aluminium capacitors, 2 oz coppers PCB, good Mosfets, heat resisting power phases etc.

This is why some manufacturers like Gigabyte would offer something like Ultra Durable VGA with the best components for the video card so it would be more reliable and produce lesser heat so you can overclock more.

And perhaps later, ASUS might even have something like Xtreme Design VGA which would also be good quality and more reliable video cards out there.

Also, both NVIDIA and ATI are suffering from delayment of their DX 11 40nm GPU cards because of TSMC's 40nm yield issue and TSMC is still trying to fix this problem for the moment. Despite that TSMC announced that they did fixed this problem back in May 2009 but this problem still persist.

PS: I don't even guarantee that NVIDIA is going to release their GT300 video cards right after TSMC had fixed the 40nm yield issue in around Christmas so don't expect that it might happen very soon.

 

[jennyh]

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that 'fermi' is going to be some awesome gaming card that blows the ATI 5870 away. Nvidia would love you to keep believing that, but try to remember that even if fermi is released 6 months later, it was still being designed at the same point last year.

Late? Yes. That doesn't give it any chance of being better however... it's just later and as good as it was always going to be.