Choosing a new gpu..little help?

[Kamikazi5983]

ok so right now im gamin with a dell 630i. i have dual 9800 gts with a e8400 3.0 ghz and i believe a Pce 2.0 motherboard. my psu is a stock 750w with 4, 12v rails at 18a per rail. well watching E3 on ign this weekend (some wickedd games coming out by the way) and i kinda wanted to be prepared for the new games like crysis whitch is in freakin 3d and on dx 11. originally i was guna get a gtx 280 but just saw their lastest and greatest gtx 4 series. im looking to run the next generation games on pretty close to maxx graphics. if i get a gtx 485 would u expect to run these games well? will there be a huge difference than my cards now? will the card be compatible with my computer now? should i upgrade my cpu as well? is there goin to be too much heat?...i would wait till the games finally come and see the top cards that are out then but i wana get some help paying for my new cards by selling these and im afraid there retail will drop =(..ny help is awesome thx

 

[JofaMang]

Yes, a GTX 485 (if and when it is released) would most likely play every game well, and most titles in the forseeable future. We are talking about the very strongest single GPU card in existence.

There will be a huge difference between a GTX 480(5) and sli 9800gts, provided you have the CPU power to not limit the GPU. I think an e8400 dual core at 3.0ghz would probably limit the GPU's abilities.

If you are not interested in upgrading your CPU, than a GTX460/465 might be more up your alley, though I wouldn't know the overall power comparison between sli 9800s and a 460/5. Regardless, 4xx cards are DX11, and your current setup is not.

 

[Kamikazi5983]

so if i upgraded my cards i wouldnt necessarily be able to run
dx 11?...wat cpu would i need to take advantage of a gtx 485?

 

[JofaMang]

No, that is not what I am saying.

There are two contributing factors to your gaming performance: CPU and GPU. When one of these two factors is slower than the other, the slower one will decide your actual Frames per second. By having a restrictive CPU, there are diiminishing returns on stronger GPUs, and vise-versa. An e8400 is an older dual core, in a world of much faster and efficient quads/hexa cores.

I would personally not invest so much in a GPU without at least a quad-core processor running at over 3.0ghz, or a stock clock i7 (even the cheapest i7s can max most any single card without needing an Overclock)

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles//GTX%20480%20%20Radeon%205970%20CPU%20Bottleneck/P1.html

 

[Kamikazi5983]

ohh thx gotcha. soo if im guna upgrade to a gtx 480(5) i should prolly upgrade my cpu and mobo. ny idea how much dough im coughin up for the two. prolly decent ones that can handle a gtx 480(5) and in sli too for future upgrades??

 

[JofaMang]

Look up your CPU support list on your mobo. If there are decent quadcores that can go in that are still available, that may be the cheapest way up.

If not, you should be looking at a quad i5 or i7 setup, which may also require new ram (if I am right in assuming you are using DDR2 right now) so the entry price could range from about 400ish for Cpu-mobo-ram (i5 w/ 4gb ram and an sli motherboard) to 550-600ish (i7 w/ 6gb ram and an sli motherboard).

These are not the prices of the best parts, but a quick Newegg.com scan of the very cheapest components. You may be able to save some coin finding deals (like microcentre's cheap instore i7 quads) so don't take these quotes as law.

I didn't mention an AMD option, as you seem pretty intent on Nvidia/SLi, and not many AMD motherboards support SLi.

 

[Kamikazi5983]

ha uhh ya this article explains the reason of my loyalty to nvidia..http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3029/amd_vs_nvidia_are_they_even_playing_the_same_game/index.html...however i guess you cant beat a good price these days man. im not familiar with ati radeon cards or non intel cards. so i guess the question is whats a similar set up to an i7 920-930 and a gtx 285?

 

[Kamikazi5983]

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3029/amd_vs_nvidia_are_they_even_playing_the_same_game/index.html

 

[Kamikazi5983]

thats the article its kinda interesting. however i have also heard problems with ati software so..

 

[JofaMang]

If you want to compare an i7/nvidia gaming setup to an AMD/ati gaming platform, the results depend on the setup.

Single GPU- not much difference between the two, price performance advantage definitely goes to AMD.

Multiple GPUs - The i7s do a better job in management multiple card setups, and they will generally scale better (added cards increase performance more) when compared to an AMD setup. i5 performs very similar, if only a little bit better than AMD set ups in this regard. There is not a lot of info out there to say if AMD's new hexacores help to close this gap.

As for ATi vs Nvidia.... there is enough resource material out there for you to make your own decisions, but generally they are priced to match their performance:
5970 > 480 > 5870 > 470 > 5850 > 465 > 5830 > 5770 as far as performance goes, and their prices match this order exactly, though there is some debate about the best overall buy for the price.

The bonus is that an i5 or i7 motherboard that does sli will also do crossfire (multiple ATI cards). The same cannot be said about any AMD motherboards that I am aware of (though admit not having done any specific research on the matter).

 

[JofaMang]

thats the article its kinda interesting. however i have also heard problems with ati software so..

Years ago, ATI drivers were notoriously bad. This has not been true for a really long time, though many who felt burned by ATI way back when still like to whine about it as a source of pride in being an nvidia fanboy. Anyone who has built and worked with many systems using both cards (as I can proudly say I have and still do) will tell you that 99% of driver issues are based on user error, not the company that released them.

 

[Kamikazi5983]

k thx alott

 

[Mousemonkey]

Years ago, ATI drivers were notoriously bad. This has not been true for a really long time, though many who felt burned by ATI way back when still like to whine about it as a source of pride in being an nvidia fanboy. Anyone who has built and worked with many systems using both cards (as I can proudly say I have and still do) will tell you that 99% of driver issues are based on user error, not the company that released them.

Unless the OP was referring to this little debacle which AMD/ATi first tried to blame on user error. [:mousemonkey]

 

[JofaMang]

Unless the OP was referring to this little debacle which AMD/ATi first tried to blame on user error. [:mousemonkey]

True, at least Nvidia didn't try to blame the users when their drivers were burning up cards. I only mention that similar situation (bad drivers) because there is no empirical data on either event as for % of users effected. Both are only notorious due to the tech media coverage, and anecdotal evidence.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Anyone who has built and worked with many systems using both cards (as I can proudly say I have and still do) will tell you that 99% of driver issues are based on user error

Do you mean anecdotal evidence like that?

 

[JofaMang]

Correct.

I'm not denying any issues ever existed, just giving an example for nvidia, that with the anecdotal evidence available and the response from the tech media, one could make the same assumption of bad drivers, as has been done for ATI. On that note, I concede that I never witnessed an nvidia card burn up from those bad drivers, but I also never witnessed green screens or grey lines from a 5xxx card.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Well the most recent mention of ATi's broken drivers came from the developers of the VLC multimedia player and it gets a mention on several sites and whilst a fix is supposed to be coming in the 10.7 drivers why would they need to fix something that isn't broken?

http://www.legitreviews.com/news/8370/

http://www.pcper.com/index.php#NewsID-8958

http://www.ngohq.com/news/18071-vlcs-developer-attacks-ati-catalyst-driver.html

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/06/23/vlc-1-1-0-adds-gpu-acceleration/1

There was also a review a little while back on 3 and 4 way SLi/Crossfire which I thought was on Guru3D (but I can't find it anymore), where the reviewer couldn't get anymore than two ATi cards to work together and he blamed the drivers not the hardware. I shall continue to look for that article as when I have time and if I find it I'll post it here for you.

 

[JofaMang]

I am not disagreeing with you entirely, MM, but I do believe I have made a sound point in that merely saying "Ati has bad drivers" is not factual, as both companies have had their faults. I also strongly believe that drivers will ALWAYS be a work in a process (because they are) as such "broken" drivers may often just be part of the process of ironing out the kinks, and perhaps some people forget that. I take these glitches as part of the fabric of being an early adopter of technology. I don't consider it proof of any company's abilities or faults.

I wouldn't call nvidia drivers broken because they currently only support 4way sli in 3dmark vantage...

Anyhow, I found this recent review of crossfire and sli scaling via OCN news page a few days back, very interesting results (when I went looking for it last week I also thought it was guru3d, could be the same one you were thinking of?) Important to note (as mentioned in the introduction) that the ATI benching was done on 10.4, the current driver release at the time he had the cards, thus the same timeframe nvidia drivers were used. There have been quadfire improvements since then:
http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles//GTX%20480%20%20Radeon%205970%20CPU%20Bottleneck/P1.html

 

[hardwaretechy]

One degraded/unusable minor feature does not a broken driver make.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Well the comments made by that articles author in his summing up seem to lend credence to this comment made by the OP :-

however i have also heard problems with ati software so..

I would say that I have enjoyed working with nvidia cards a lot more than with ATI. In my opinion and according to my experience, nvidia drivers are much more mature, polished, and user friendly than ATI's. Both nvidia and ATI have game related bugs but nvidia is again superior in this regard. An example would be how several game menus lag ridiculously when AA is applied with 5970. Dirt 2 is an example

And whilst I don't do a lot of benchmarking nor do I run my own website I do happen to share that guys opinion on which drivers are easier to work with. The bit about Dirt 2's menu lag sticks out because didn't ATi get that title held back on the PC so that they could optimise their drivers as it was a bit of a showcase being the first major DX11 release and they made a bit of a hoo ha about having worked closely with the developers but not in a way that would nobble Nvidia cards in the same way that they felt Nvidia had nobbled their cards in that stupid Batman game.

 

[Mousemonkey]

One degraded/unusable minor feature does not a broken driver make.

That depends on how much you do or do not need that feature really, doesn't it?

 

[JofaMang]

Yes, you are correct, if one expects drivers to always be perfect, and for every feature and circumstance to be accounted for from the launch of the product with no room for error, then by that criteria both Nvidia and ATI have bad drivers. However, if one is to have an understanding of the nature of driver development (constant and neverending), they would have less lofty expectations.

 

[JofaMang]

And whilst I don't do a lot of benchmarking nor do I run my own website I do happen to share that guys opinion on which drivers are easier to work with. The bit about Dirt 2's menu lag sticks out because didn't ATi get that title held back on the PC so that they could optimise their drivers as it was a bit of a showcase being the first major DX11 release and they made a bit of a hoo ha about having worked closely with the developers but not in a way that would nobble Nvidia cards in the same way that they felt Nvidia had nobbled their cards in that stupid Batman game.

Batman; AA was not stupid, take that back, heathen!

 

[Mousemonkey]

Batman; AA was not stupid, take that back, heathen!

No! *runs away*