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Another GTX470 or HD5870 question

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Hi.

Though I'm sure many of you are tired of this question I have to ask, I'm getting a new PC tomorrow (Monday) because I'm donating my current PC to my brother's school, since they are in need of computers. As such I'm getting the parts and building a new PC tomorrow and I'm undecided about what graphic card I should pick, a 5870 or a 470.

I'm not a fan of either AMD or nVidia, I like to pick up the card that has the best quality around. My PC will be centered on games but also on other tasks like 3D Terrain Generating (Going to buy Terragen). Here where I live the 470s cards have gone down in price and are now about $50 cheaper than a 5870 and while at first I was going for a 5870 this drop of prices made me reconsider things. I've been reading things around the net and there's talks the latest drivers are starting to unlock some of the potential of the 470s and making it comparable to a 5870.

So I ask, are the differences in games between both cards huge or are they negligible? I'm looking more at a card that holds on its own over a few years than raw power but having both would be nice, so if the 470 with the latest drivers has a tiny game performance difference against the 5870 I might get the 470 due to its technology that doesn't seem well-explored by the drivers yet. I've been reading here and all around the net on reviews and opinions but I'm still pretty much undecided, so I would like a confirmation from those who know, what's the best investment in terms of the future and game performance, the 470 or the 5870? Like I said, I don't mind negligible differences.

Thanks all and sorry for asking a question that's likely been asked tons of times before.

More about : gtx470 hd5870 question

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Maziar said:
Hello and welcome to the forums :) 
HD 5870 performs better;however,the difference isn't huge


Thanks for the answer!

How much would you say the difference would be, more than 5%? Since the rig I'll get will be an i7 860 which I intend to OC, how does the heat generated by the card comes into effect into a well-ventilated case?

Thanks again!
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Graphics card Authority

Actually:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gigabyte...

The GTX 470 beats the 5870 at 1650x1050 res, matches it at 1920x1200 res, and loses to it at 2560x1600 res thanks to the new drivers.

Also, the GTX 470 still has a good 10-20% advantage with heavy tessellation (the main feature of DX11), like in future games.

The GTX 470 overclocks very well, 150-200MHz is pretty common without voltage increase as opposed to the 5870's 150 MHz wall. With voltage increases both can go a bit higher, but few 5870s will ever get a full 200-250 MHz overclock, while the GTX 470 seems to be hitting 200-250 MHz overclocks pretty consistently when volts are changed. The GTX 4xx series also gains more performance per clock of an overclock than the 5870, meaning a GTX 470 gains more performance than a 5870 when both are overclocked by 100 MHz.

However, the GTX 470 is a bit noisier, especially at higher fan speeds, it runs a little hotter and the fan speeds need to be increased more, and it uses a bit more power. All of these are things you need to be able to handle, but if you have a decent PSU and case then you will be fine.

You get all this for ~$50 less than the 5870.

I actually want to do some OC on the gfx card, whatever one I get. From all I've read an OCed 5870 cannot be matched by an OCed GTX470 (correct me if I'm wrong here, my hardware knowledge isn't what it used to be), but will a slight OC on the GTX470, without upping the voltages give the 470 enough to go head-to-head with a stock 5870?

Noise isn't something that truly bothers me. My PSU will be a Corsair HX-750W and my case an Antec 902 with every fan mounted. Going for a fan controller as well, perhaps a NZXT Sentry 2.

Thanks for all the replies, guys.
Graphics card Authority

A stock GTX 470 goes head to head with a stock 5870. Clock the GTX 470 to 750 MHz core, and the memory to 1350-1400 MHz, an overclock that I have yet to see fail at stock voltage, and you will be on par or faster than a 5870 clocked to 1GHz, which is about the max you can safely do on a 5870. You can go higher with the GTX 470 but I wouldn't recommend anything over 800 MHz core and 1400 MHz memory because of the heat that would produce and the law of diminishing returns.

Well if you can deal with all those fans then you should be alright. I would recommend watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y52CvOVmNtA&feature=rela...

Notice that at about 72% fan speed, which is reasonable, it isn't too bad. You shouldn't ever need to go to 100% unless you want to hit 900 MHz on the core at some insane voltage which is pretty crazy, albeit I would love to try. :D 

Thanks for the replies!

The thing about these cards is that reviews of it vary wildly all over the place which can make anyone really confused.

AMW1011, with the 750mhz core OC, are there any drastic changes in idle and load consumption and heat generated?
Graphics card Authority

SomPC said:
Thanks for the replies!

The thing about these cards is that reviews of it vary wildly all over the place which can make anyone really confused.

AMW1011, with the 750mhz core OC, are there any drastic changes in idle and load consumption and heat generated?


Yeah the article I posted is the only one I know of to run the newest drivers, so I would just stick with that.

Clock changes generate more heat and use more power, but nothing too drastic. I would expect setting the fan speed to 70-80% in a good case should tame those temps just fine, Hardware Canuks for a core OC pretty close to 750 MHz at 70% fan speed which is pretty damn quiet. At these speeds, I would suspect to see power consumption close to a GTX 480. If you have a good quality 650w PSU or better then you should be fine.

I am going to make an addendum to my previous comment. 700 MHz on the core is guaranteed without voltage change, but 750 MHz may not be, because all cards do not overclock equally. But a slight volt change is basically assured to get you there. I wouldn't worry about heat or power consumption, as long as you don't bump the voltage up too high you should be fine.
Graphics card Master

AMW1011 said:
Actually:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gigabyte...

The GTX 470 beats the 5870 at 1650x1050 res, matches it at 1920x1200 res, and loses to it at 2560x1600 res thanks to the new drivers.

Also, the GTX 470 still has a good 10-20% advantage with heavy tessellation (the main feature of DX11), like in future games.

The GTX 470 overclocks very well, 150-200MHz is pretty common without voltage increase as opposed to the 5870's 150 MHz wall. With voltage increases both can go a bit higher, but few 5870s will ever get a full 200-250 MHz overclock, while the GTX 470 seems to be hitting 200-250 MHz overclocks pretty consistently when volts are changed. The GTX 4xx series also gains more performance per clock of an overclock than the 5870, meaning a GTX 470 gains more performance than a 5870 when both are overclocked by 100 MHz.

However, the GTX 470 is a bit noisier, especially at higher fan speeds, it runs a little hotter and the fan speeds need to be increased more, and it uses a bit more power. All of these are things you need to be able to handle, but if you have a decent PSU and case then you will be fine.

You get all this for ~$50 less than the 5870.

hmm,Anandtech has a different idea,
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx...
"Moving on, we have the GTX 470 to discuss. It’s not NVIDIA’s headliner so it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. With a price right between the 5850 and 5870, it delivers performance right where you’d expect it to be. At 5-10% slower than the 5870 on average, it’s actually a straightforward value proposition: you get 90-95% of the performance for around 87% of the price. It’s not a huge bargain, but it’s competitively priced against the 5870. Against the 5850 this is less true where it’s a mere 2-8% faster"

But i agree that with heavy tessellation,GTX 470 would do better
Graphics card Authority

Maziar said:
hmm,Anandtech has a different idea,
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx...
"Moving on, we have the GTX 470 to discuss. It’s not NVIDIA’s headliner so it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. With a price right between the 5850 and 5870, it delivers performance right where you’d expect it to be. At 5-10% slower than the 5870 on average, it’s actually a straightforward value proposition: you get 90-95% of the performance for around 87% of the price. It’s not a huge bargain, but it’s competitively priced against the 5870. Against the 5850 this is less true where it’s a mere 2-8% faster"

But i agree that with heavy tessellation,GTX 470 would do better


Maziar, my article is using the new drivers that just came out, 197.41 to be specific. They closed the gap very nicely, I recommend you take a read it is pretty impressive.

Quote:
The new card looks good at the resolution of 1600x900 which is going to become a standard one for all inexpensive LCD monitors. It is an average 20% slower than its senior cousin but 6% ahead of the Radeon HD 5870, the gap being as large as 50% in certain tests...

The Full-HD mode (1920x1080) has become a de-facto standard and the GeForce GTX 470 feels less confident here than in the previous case. It is now an average 1% slower than the Radeon HD 5870...

...at 2560x1600. In six out of the 15 tests the GeForce GTX 470 is more than 15% slower than the Radeon HD 5870. In five more tests, the gap is 2 to 10%. In those tests that the GeForce GTX 470 wins, its advantage is no larger than 5%.


With the new drivers, the GTX 4xx series is much more compelling. Sorry, I should have made it more clear that the difference was related to the new drivers.
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