GTX260 vs. GTX470 vs. ATI HD5670 - help me choose

[maflynn]

Hey guys, I'm struggling to find a decent replacement for my HD5670 graphics card. I'm happy with the windows performance, not sure if it means anything but the windows experience index pegs this card at 7.0 but it has no support for linux. Fedora boots up, but no hardware acceleration (no proprietary drivers) and ubuntu doesn't even boot up. I'm not really a gamer, but the prospect of playng a game sooner or later (particularly FPSs) is possible. Since I'm limiting my choice to nvidia since they have better linux drivers and support I know my options are limited as well.

I have three cards on my short list, but feel free to recommend anything else.
GTX250
GTX260
GTX470

The 470 is really out of my price range, though I could sacrifice to buy it. It has directx 11 support and looks like it may exceed the HD5670 card. OSX support is probabily nil, and to date support for this for linux is questionable at best, though given nvidia's commitment to linux, I do believe it will occur. I kind of think this puppy is over-kill for my stated needs, though directx11 is probably a big plus

I have an antec 300 case, so ventilation shouldn't be a problem with the GTX470, though I'd like to keep the ambient noice down a bit and don't want to turn my computer into a heat pump, i.e., heating up my office

The GTX260 is my next choice and one that I'm probably leaning to, its within my budget, but to be honest, I have no idea how it stacks up, that is, will the windows performance index show a poorer score, would other benchmarks show it being a substandard card. Would playing a game or interacting with windows be noticeably slower

The low end is the 250 card, I'm pretty sure, I'll not get that.

there's also the GTX275 and 280/285 but we're getting into the price point of the fermi boards at that point.

Here's my particulars down below to help with my decision:

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: This week
BUDGET RANGE: 150 - 300
USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Windows, Linux support a must, some game plaing, perhaps OSX compatibility if I opt to build a hackintosh
CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: HD5670, PSU: Earthwatts 650
OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: core i-7, on a P6T Asus motherboard, with 6 gig of ram
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg, amazon, tigerdirect, microcenter
PARTS PREFERENCES: nvidia
OVERCLOCKING: No and no SLI
MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1200
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I'm worried by selecting the wrong board, I'll actually be spending more money on a slower graphics card, so I want something equal or faster to the HD5670

 

[weehamish]

Get a 5850 or the 470, more so a 5850 since you have a 650 PSU, it should run all games on max maybe not AA at full but everything else.

Its also a few quid cheaper then the 470 and best for cash card atm.

 

[maflynn]

But that's an ATI card is it not? ATI has poor linux drivers and while they may be beating nvidia on performance metrics, at some points, I cannot consider it primarily because I'm looking for better linux support.

Thanks anyways.
Mike

 

[weehamish]

Well the 285 and 470 are around the same as the 5850, the 470 is better then the 285 since DX 11 and the new drivers have made it a much better card in some games.

 

[maflynn]

Thanks for the answer. Do you know how the 260 compares to my current HD5670 - slower/faster/same?

I'm leaning towards that puppy as it seems to be the right balance of price/performance. My owner concern is that it will be noticeably slower then my current HD5670

Regards
Mike

 

[Herr_Koos]

See this article:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics-card-radeon,review-31911.html

The GTX260 is rated well above the 5670 performance-wise, but is an older card so it loses out in terms of features.

 

[maflynn]

See this article:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics-card-radeon,review-31911.html

The GTX260 is rated well above the 5670 performance-wise, but is an older card so it loses out in terms of features.

Thanks for the link. Feature wise, yeah that's a bit of a concern but I think overall, I'm more interested in providing compatibility with Linux and potentially OSX, a-la hackintosh and then gaming. Based on some feedback on insanely mac, it appears the 260 is capable of running osx, and I know that its linux capable, so being that its as fast if not faster then the 5670 means I'll throw in my order to newegg today

Thanks
Mike

 

[maflynn]

Best answer selected by maflynn.

 

[sabot00]

But that's an ATI card is it not? ATI has poor linux drivers and while they may be beating nvidia on performance metrics, at some points, I cannot consider it primarily because I'm looking for better linux support.

Thanks anyways.
Mike

What will you be doing in Linux? It hardly has demanding games.
Ubuntu supports my 4670 and 5650 just fine so I don't really know what your saying.

Windows won't rate any of those cards substandard, and they certainly can drive windows without lag.
If you want a DX11 version of the GTX 260 then ATI's 5770 is a good alternative (linux doesn't use DirectX though).

 

[maflynn]

What will you be doing in Linux? It hardly has demanding games.
Ubuntu supports my 4670 and 5650 just fine so I don't really know what your saying.

Ubunutu doesn't boot with the 5670 and based on their user forums, its not an unusual problem.

I'm not using anything demanding at this point since I cannot even get ubuntu installed with the 5670. I faired better with fedora, but there's 0 proprietary drivers for the 5670 so I'm getting no 3d abilities. For instance, I cannot even choose compiz since I have the generic default driver.