470 vs 5850

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Eg Lawns

Eg Lawns

Distinguished
Apr 10, 2010
170
0
18,680
Hello everyone. Building and new computer $1100 budget. Now I can't decide between the 470 and 5850. I know the 470 draws more power then the 5850, and runs hotter. But at a different angle it runs better in some of the benchmarks. Now I ask which one should I get? And WHY?
 
Solution
WR2
M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard looks like an excellent AM3 motherboard. However it does not support SLI - just Crossfire.

There is the Asus M4N98TD EVO AM3 nForce 980a SLI motherboard. It's recently released but I couldn't seem to find any independent reviews out on this board yet.

Have you thought about a Core i7 750 and P55 socket 1156 Crossfire/SLI motherboard? When overclocked it can closely match the OC'd Phenom II X4 955 BE performance.
You can find motherboards like MSI P55-GD65 that have many excellent reviews. (look under the awards tab).
MSI P55-GD65 1156 P55 $140 a/r
Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz $200

The rest of your list looks good.
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1333 1.5V RAM...
Sort by date Sort by votes
jryan388

jryan388

Distinguished
Nov 1, 2009
1,342
0
19,460
What games and what resolution. If you want DirectX 11 or really want to crank up the Anti Aliasing, the 470 is for you. Otherwise, get the 5850. It's cheaper, nearly as fast, overclocks great, and uses much less power.
They're both great cards, but personally I would get the 470 over the 5850 even if I wasn't playing DX11 or 8xAA.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eg Lawns

Eg Lawns

Distinguished
Apr 10, 2010
170
0
18,680
Resolution 1200x800 for now, in a month its going to be 1900x1200. Yes to DirectX 11 and yes anti aliasing is awesome. I was concerned with the heating of the 470 compared to the 5850. I personally also want the 470 because it is newer, and benchmarks are amazing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jryan388

jryan388

Distinguished
Nov 1, 2009
1,342
0
19,460
If you have a good case, you don't need to worry. Also, make sure that you have a good enough power supply (The card uses about 200 watts, 35 amps on the +12v rail).
If you've got the money, gtx 470 ftw.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
jyjjy

jyjjy

Splendid
Feb 27, 2006
9,877
1
31,960
At current prices I'd just get an HD5850 and OC the hell out of it. If their prices were the same then the GTX 470 would be more interesting.
Keep in mind the possibility of crossfire/SLI in the future. To handle 2 GTX 470s you will need a rather impressive/expensive PSU and good airflow.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
blu3flannel

blu3flannel

Distinguished
Jan 25, 2010
230
0
18,690
Just curious, what is your whole setup? Also, another thing to consider would be that the Catalyst drivers for the ATI cards have matured to max (to some extent) the capability of the cards, while the Nvidia drivers are just starting to accommodate their newly released cards. So if you give the Nvidia drivers a couple or so months, they'll surely increase the overall performance.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

Titan
BANNED
Oct 30, 2004
32,255
14
99,960


As you climb in performance, the price per frame always increases due to the law of diminishing returns.....in the 470's case, it does pretty good. The following is the average cost per frame in 9 benchmarks from THG / Hardware Canucks sites running DX11 games at 1920 x 1200 and high settings:

ATI 5970 11.93
nVidi 480 10.01
nVidia 470 9.08
ATI 5870 10.59
ATI 5850 9.04

Note that the 5850 and the 470 are both within about 1/2 % of one another on a price / performance basis. Out of those tests, the 470 took the checkered flag on 8 outta 9.

Can confirm that twin 470's run just fine in an Antec 1200 w/ CP-850 PSU ... $230 for the combo .... your case / psu choices are $50 cheaper but 750 watts is a bit low for twin cards + overclocking if you are considering SLI / XFire in the future.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.359977

The 932 full tower w/ a Corsair HX850 ($330ish) would be an equivalent choice to the Antec combo but the HAF 922 mid tower will fit everything you listed .... If you go mid tower, I'd still stick with an HX850 tho.....other 850 watt choices would be the Antec SG-850 and the XFX 850W Black Edition 10.0 .... all 4 of these PSU's garnered a 10 performance rating at jonnyguru.com

Again with dollars per frame within 4 cents of one another, it's hard to argue against either choice .... I certainly couldn't say either one is a bad choice. The 5xxx series cards have eyefinity, are more power efficient and run cooler but the 4xx cards offer up 3D, PhysX, CUDA (which is big benefit w/ Adobe products).


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
WR2

WR2

Polypheme
Nov 18, 2005
27,923
6
61,960

Power and case choice are good options for 2x 470 SLI.
What motherboards are you looking at? Choosing one with some extra space between the PCI-e x16 slots can also improve cooling performance as against the GTX 470s sitting back-to-back.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
WR2

WR2

Polypheme
Nov 18, 2005
27,923
6
61,960
The GTX 470 is showing some good numbers for DX11 and eye-candy which is a good sign when you're thinking about future games.
I've never been impressed by the 'fastest' claims. I want to see which one is 'not slower' in the minimum frame rate.
To me it looked like the GTX 470 edged out the 5850 when AA/AF, SSAO & Tessellation quality settings were turned up.
Thats a good thing for gamers who like the 'eye-candy' settings.
GTX480-46.jpg
GTX480-38.jpg

GTX480-78.jpg


It's interesting to read what AnandTech says about minimum frame rates here.

Overclocking is looking pretty good too.




 
Upvote 0 Downvote
WR2

WR2

Polypheme
Nov 18, 2005
27,923
6
61,960
M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard looks like an excellent AM3 motherboard. However it does not support SLI - just Crossfire.

There is the Asus M4N98TD EVO AM3 nForce 980a SLI motherboard. It's recently released but I couldn't seem to find any independent reviews out on this board yet.

Have you thought about a Core i7 750 and P55 socket 1156 Crossfire/SLI motherboard? When overclocked it can closely match the OC'd Phenom II X4 955 BE performance.
You can find motherboards like MSI P55-GD65 that have many excellent reviews. (look under the awards tab).
MSI P55-GD65 1156 P55 $140 a/r
Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz $200

The rest of your list looks good.
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1333 1.5V RAM
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 i5/i7/AM3 CPU cooler
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE CPU
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 case
CORSAIR 750TX PSU






 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom