Upgrading (?) from 2x SLI GTX 260 (Core 216) to 1x GTX 470

[DarkDvr]

Well, I've decided that GTX 470 works better for me than 5870 (price) and 5850.
Now, the question is what kind of a difference would I see if I were to switch:

Current: 2x SLI GTX260 (EVGA core 216)
New: 1x GTX 470 (EVGA core @ 625MHz)
Quality: 1920x1200, AA on (4 or 8).

Specifically, difference I'm looking for is performance in DX10 (I don't care for DX11 so much atm) in games like Metro 2033 and Bad Company 2.

Thank you for your opinions

 

[Bluescreendeath]

It would be a downgrade. Two GTX260s perform equal to a GTX480.

 

[shadow187]

You could get an HD5850 and OC it easily past a GTX470. Then there's an HD5770 crossfire which would beat both configurations..

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, if price a concern you can just OC an HD5850. If you bump up the core voltage it can get a huge overclock(40-50%) which should put it past the performance of a stock GTX 480.

 

[jonnyboyC]

I feel that these claims of overclocking are somewhat redundent as you can overclock, fermi cards very well which pretty much cancel out that argument, as for performance to your old 260 you'll probably, see a performance loss as others suggested, you'd need a 5970 to see a performance increase from a single card

 

[jyjjy]

They would only cancel out the argument if the other cards OC to the same degree. As I stated the card OCs 40-50%. An OC for most cards(including the fermi ones) falls in the 10-20% area. A fully OCed HD5850 will be faster than an OCed GTX 470 and cost $50 less. If you OC an HD5870 or GTX 480 they WILL be slightly better than an OCed HD5850 but not to a degree that's anywhere worth the extra $100-150 imo.

 

[notty22]

Please link me to 5850 reviews where they get this 50%, your exaggerating.
Canucks just did a review where they posted 7 of the o/c's for 5870's and none of those were over 1000 mhz.

Most 5850's clock to 5870 speeds.


Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB Toxic Edition Review http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/29112-sapphire-radeon-hd-5850-1gb-toxic-edition-review-22.html
Final Overclocks:

Core: 877Mhz
Memory: 4988Mhz (QDR)


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850_iCooler_V_Turbo/32.html

The overclocks of our card are 880 MHz core (15% overclock) and 1280 MHz Memory (14% overclock). It is nice to see that our card managed to surpass the HD 5870 reference clock speeds, but since the number of shaders has also been reduced in the HD 5850, there is still a little bit more clock required to reach HD 5870 performance levels. Nevertheless, these numbers are proof that if you are willing to do some manual overclocking, you could reach performance levels of the next bigger, more expensive, product.

 

[jonnyboyC]

They would only cancel out the argument if the other cards OC to the same degree. As I stated the card OCs 40-50%. An OC for most cards(including the fermi ones) falls in the 10-20% area. A fully OCed HD5850 will be faster than an OCed GTX 470 and cost $50 less. If you OC an HD5870 or GTX 480 they WILL be slightly better than an OCed HD5850 but not to a degree that's anywhere worth the extra $100-150 imo.

i could say a 5570 could overclock to 5970, but i need some something to back that up with, i know the 5xxx series is good at overclocking probably slightly better then the fermi's but 50% is quite the stretch most cpus can't overclock by another 50% so show me some proof

 

[jyjjy]

http://www.overclock.net/ati/598392-hd58-series-1ghz-core-thread.html

 

[Mousemonkey]

http://www.overclock.net/ati/598392-hd58-series-1ghz-core-thread.html

Some interesting temperatures being shown in some of those screenshots.

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, they run quite cool even with the voltage bumped up. BTW it's the reference board you want to be sure you can increase the voltage for speeds over 1ghz. A lot of the boards with custom PCBs seem to have left out the option.

 

[jonnyboyC]

http://www.overclock.net/ati/598392-hd58-series-1ghz-core-thread.html

thanks

but at the same time little navigation looking over at the nvidia section of the forum you see people hitting mid 800's on their 470 which is still

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/731077-finally-hit-900-core-gtx470.html

obviously excluding the 900mhz which isn't the norm, right below he comments how he hit 835mhz, which is still a 37.5% overclock, so yes the 5850 can overclock better, but not too much better,

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, I had heard the GTX 470 OCs well but didn't know 800mhz was typical with the voltage raised. I'd probably still go for the HD5850 at $50 less and lower temps but both are good choices.

 

[notty22]

http://www.overclock.net/ati/598392-hd58-series-1ghz-core-thread.html

They need to rename the thread the 900 mhz club , would be a little more accurate. Almost everyone, hard freezes near 1000 and thats at 1.35
I would say, what the review sites show 885 is accurate for max stable o/c, 5850.

I ran furmark not even on extreme mode and it hard froze heres a photo from my camera its not even that hot when it froze up.

I cant get to 1GHZ..Crysis and 3DMARK06 get funny with me at 950. So I backed it down to 930. Running 1299v so far.

I guess I have either found my cards limit...or its these wonderful 9.12 drivers lol. Oh and as you will see, I am using a Sapphire card.

Same thing mine does it dont last long then just artifacts and freezes up.

Hmm furmark crashes me to and no matter how much volts i send to it. Right now im running 900mhz/1250mhz on 1.100 i dropped the voltages and it was 5mins stable in furmark. I might start useing gputool and atitool to stress test see if i can get to 1000mhz or more.

A 20% o/c is awesome, I'm not disputing that.

 

[jyjjy]

Almost everyone is 4 people? You purposely went through an 11 page thread to pick out the handful of people that couldn't get it over 1ghz and present that as the norm? That's also just one thread there, you can find tons of others there and on other sites by people who easily got over 1ghz if you were to look(but then you could also find them in thread and you chose to pick out the small minority having issues.)
And almost all the reviews are based upon stock volts and yes, 885mhz sounds about right for that.

 

[Lmeow]

Now, back on track...

As BSOD said, a GTX 470 would be a downgrade. Two GTX 260 Core 216s in SLI perform faster than two HD 4870s in CFX (Core 216 is a bit faster than regular HD 4870), which performs around the same as the HD 4870X2, which is slightly faster than an HD 5870, which is a bit slower than a GTX 480, but faster than a GTX 470. If you want to upgrade, you'll only see an improvement (in terms of single cards) with the HD 5970, GTX 295 or GTX 480, but none are really worth the money for the performance gains you'll see. I suppose you'd see a massive increase in performance with the HD 5970, nearly double, but I don't really think it's worth it at $700.

 

[jonnyboyC]

yeah i would definitely say that 5850 and it's big brother have some overclocking muscle,

we can just look at it being optimistically you know build each other up kinda deal haha, both are overclocking champs, usually the 5850 comes out on top, and of course their are some instances where one comes out on top, or you have the duddes that just blow, but overall, either card is a pretty good bargain especially compared to last generation, or those before it

 

[DarkDvr]

Now, back on track...

As BSOD said, a GTX 470 would be a downgrade. Two GTX 260 Core 216s in SLI perform faster than two HD 4870s in CFX (Core 216 is a bit faster than regular HD 4870), which performs around the same as the HD 4870X2, which is slightly faster than an HD 5870, which is a bit slower than a GTX 480, but faster than a GTX 470. If you want to upgrade, you'll only see an improvement (in terms of single cards) with the HD 5970, GTX 295 or GTX 480, but none are really worth the money for the performance gains you'll see. I suppose you'd see a massive increase in performance with the HD 5970, nearly double, but I don't really think it's worth it at $700.

Thanks!
Too bad this thread is moving to a complete offtopic about OCing the cards.
Based on feedback here, I decided to stay with 2x gtx260 and wait for a 5970 performance in a $400 range. With current speed of events, it'll probably be pretty soon.

 

[shadow187]

The HD6K series should be out decently soon (Late Q3/Early Q4), so you might find some good performance there.