Not happy with ati 5770

[giger]

Hello,

I dunno, I'm wondering if something is up with the actual GPU or if I've got other issues elsewhere.

So I visually 'benched' it with Crysis and I'm seeing tearing and it's lagging a bit. I've got everything up to max and am expecting more.

Also, running things like BF2 at max on a 64 player server....hrmm..Just seems sluggish.

there's other games too. L4D2 seems good at max, but that's about it.

All other applications are zooming along just fine so that's why I'm thinking GPU.

So i'm wondering if it's just the card, or not enough card, or maybe I need to splurge for the extra card and go crossfire. Will I see THAT much improvement or am I ...?....I dunno.

Your thoughts?

Here's my specs. (just built)

Asus P7P55D Deluxe
i7 860 (oc'ed to 3.5)
8gbs Corsair XMS3 (cas7)
corsair tx750w ps (oops forgot)
Barracuda 500gb Sata drive (16mb cache - 7200rpm
ATI HD 5770
Dell 24inch lcd

 

[jonpaul37]

Well then, lets compare, what was your old video card (and old setup if you had a different PC) and what kind of results were you getting?

 

[jyjjy]

For 1920x1080 the HD5770 is a good card but not great. It cannot handle Crysis maxed at that resolution and BC2 is also one of the most intensive games around and needs to have at least slightly lowered settings for smooth game play. If you want to be able to max out settings on the more intensive games you will need to add another in crossfire. And yes another in crossfire will give you a large increase in performance. Crossfire scales very well on the HD5000 series and 2 HD5770s should give you performance similar to an HD5870. Here is a good article on the subject;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5770-hd5750-crossfirex.html

 

[giger]

Well then, lets compare, what was your old video card (and old setup if you had a different PC) and what kind of results were you getting?

Ha, ok - Lets compare. I was running just about nothing on a laptop. A dell 1720 with a mobile geforce 8600 GT. 4gbs of memory, 2ghz core 2 duo. Running (without DVI - had to run it on VGA) dell 24 inch lcd.

So I was not able to play crysis. I played L4D2 on low/medium setting, and BF2 on low. Could play on higher settings in single player, but multi just lagged all over the place.

Played crysis at a friends house on some sort of monster computer that glowed brighter than it should (I think he's ascared of the dark), and it never had horizontal tears or lagged at all. He's on a Core 2 quad core, so I just don't get it.

Like I said. I was expecting it to just run everything without a hitch. Yes, I eventually plan to go xfire, but figured just one 5770 would do the trick for now.

This is why I'm asking for the advise - wondering if I've got a bum card or something. Wondering if I should just spring for a little more in a single card, or just go for the extra 5770. Then again, if one 5770 is not pulling it's weight, are two really going to make me crap my pants?

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Since you're going from an Nvidia to ATI card, make sure you did a clean install of drivers.

This involves using drive sweeper to remove all hidden Nvidia drivers in the registry (do this in safe mode too), and downloading the latest ATI drivers.

As psycho said, a single 5770 is too weak to handle Crysis at 1920x1080p.

You'll need a minimum or a 5850 or GTX470, or preferably a GTX480 or 5870.

You can either get those cards or Xfire another 5770. Two 5770s = 1 5870.

 

[4745454b]

Probably just asking to much.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/11/23/powercolor_hd5770_video_card_review/8

Here is a 5770 playing Crysis Warhead. They say the res is 1920x1200 which is an odd one for me, but its probably near your 24" dell. Notice they can't max everything out. Only 3 options can be at "Enthusiast", and no AA at all. The 5770 is performance wise like a 4870 or GTX260. I think your probably just asking to much.

 

[thestrangebrew]

I've got xfx 5770s xfired and oc'ed to 950mhz and I still can't play bc2 at the highest settings with reasonable frames at 1920 res. Two of these cards will rock just about any game out there, except for bc2 and crysis. I just picked up metro 2033, but I haven't really checked it out yet. I think this game is going to bring my xfire set up to it's knees too.

 

[giger]

What idiot recommended a 5770 to you with a 24" monitor. The 5770 CANNOT handle AA and AF and 1920 res. Return it and order a GTX 470, 480 or a 5870

I did some of the research myself, and was floating the idea of the two 5770s (eventualy) or just getting 1 5830. Then I went to frys (daaa da dauuuuum) and spoke with the "experts" and they assured me that my res on that monitor would absolutely be able to handle whatever I threw at it with the 5770. And when I get the second, it would be unreal.

So yah.


Oh, and guys, I'm talking about battlefield 2. That's why I was expecting more from that game. Hell it's pretty old now and I haven't upgraded since so it was disappointing to not even be able to max that game out.


So ok. I spent 150 on the card (or a little less). If I throw another 100 on that or maybe 150 - give me some opinions as to what's a little more robustfuture ready. I'd love to utilize the crossfire/sli capabilities of the MB one day. Or now, if I can accomplish it in that price range.

I'm looking at the gtx 470, and 5870 right now. Oh, and should I be staying away from their "OEM" versions and go with some branding? (like I said, it's been a while)

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Either get another 5770 for xfire, or get 1 5850 now and another in the future (OCing will be fine).

Or 1 5870 now and another in the future, but you'll need a bigger PSU if you want to OC. The GTX470 is also a great deal, but you'll need a bigger PSU for SLi if you want to OC.

I don't recommend a GTX480 since for SLi, it's really power hungry and you'll need a 850+ to 1000watt PSU...

 

[jyjjy]

The GTX 480 and HD5870 are more than the budget you are laying out. Just get another HD5770 or return it and get an HD5850. Either of those are a great value for the money and will give you excellent performance. The article I linked earlier will give you plenty of benchmarks so you know what you are getting.
If you are unfamiliar with this stuff usually if the minimum frame rate stays above 30 things will feel smooth in first person games. If minimum frame rate isn't given usually an average of 40 or above means you will rarely go below 30. Difference in frame rates above 60 are pretty much pointless as 60hz is the refresh rate for almost all LCD monitors.

 

[giger]

The GTX 480 and HD5870 are more than the budget you are laying out. Just get another HD5770 or return it and get an HD5850. Either of those are a great value for the money and will give you excellent performance. The article I linked earlier will give you plenty of benchmarks so you know what you are getting.
If you are unfamiliar with this stuff usually if the minimum frame rate stays above 30 things will feel smooth in first person games. If minimum frame rate isn't given usually an average of 40 or above means you will rarely go below 30. Difference in frame rates above 60 are pretty much pointless as 60hz is the refresh rate for almost all LCD monitors.

Wouldnt say it's out of the question to go for an HD4870, but I was trying also pick up a SSD too . So I may go with the 5850 for now, and xfire it later.

damn..I dunno.

Thanks everyone. I'm off to return the 5770 and see what my wallet will allow.

I'll update to what I get and the difference I see.

Thanks again!

 

[4745454b]

The 5850 would be pretty good. Probably won't allow you to get an SSD though. At least a good one anyways...

 

[jyjjy]

Fry's cheapest 5850 is 309.99 and the cheapest 470 is 349.99. Get the 470 as you will be much happier with it.

He stated how much he wanted to spend already and $350 is more than that. Pushing him to spend more than his budget based on your arbitrary personal bias in choosing a brand of video card and suggesting it will make him "much happier" to do so is... misleading.

 

[jyjjy]

Wouldnt say it's out of the question to go for an HD4870, but I was trying also pick up a SSD too . So I may go with the 5850 for now, and xfire it later.

The HD5850 is a good choice and the best deal for the money on the high end at the moment. One of the things that makes it such a good value is that it overclocks exceptionally well. You should actually be able to easily get it to perform at a level higher than a stock HD5870.

 

[jyjjy]

Considering i stated he should look into a 5870 before shows i have no bias. I'm giving him my opinion based on whats the biggest bang for the money and the 5850 isn't that. It's overpriced.

How is it overpriced...? I missed that you recommended the HD5870 but if so the card you did tell him to look at is the overpriced one. The GTX 470 is a good value but it's quite questionable whether it is worth an extra $40 over the HD5850. The only reason you don't think that is questionable is because of your bias. Seriously, imagine if the GTX 470 was actually the HD5850 and it was Nvidia that had first released a high performance, low power, extremely overclockable card at such a reasonable price and then later on ATI released some huge, hot, power hungry card that cost $50 more with just an a 10% performance increase. You would consider it a joke and probably mock anyone who bought it. I'm not saying the GTX 470 is a joke, it is a reasonable choice; I'm just pointing out how your bias would likely paint the situation if things were reversed.

 

[JofaMang]

In the world of ever-diminishing returns on investment as you climb the power scale, 16% higher price for 10% higher performance at this tier of GPU is actually quite awesome.

 

[jyjjy]

Awesome? It's an ok value like I said but awesome is far from the adjective I would use. And if that is legitimately "awesome" in the context then that context is one that should be avoided making the HD5850 the max one should buy because anything more expensive isn't worth it. Honestly that is where I'm coming from really. Unless you have a 2560x1600 monitor there is simply no need for anything more powerful than an OCed HD5850 and the choices above that are quite questionable in value. The GTX 470 is actually the only one I would even really consider but its heat/power efficiency compared to its competitor make it less appealing, especially if an eventual crossfire/SLI setup is a possibility.

 

[JofaMang]

The higher the tier of hardware, the more expensive it gets to upgrade, in relation to upgrading previous tiers. This is not a new trend in the slightest, and I hold fast to the opinion that at this tier of GPU (5850/470) 16% price premium for 10% performance increase is a deal. There are only 3 superior cards above these (5870, 480, 5970) and that premium goes up at a MUCH greater rate than the relative performance does.

I am not pulling these numbers out of thin air, but relaying my general performance impressions after reading dozens of reviews and hundreds of FPS charts. Please feel free to correct any misconceptions I might have!

Compare 470 to 5870: Peak FPS can often see a 10-15% increase in performance, but with the AA and or tessellation enabled, the 470 makes ground and can even match/slightly surpass a 5870 in some titles with those settings. A realistic overall performance increase of no more than 5-6%. The price premium for a 5870 is generally about $50, or roughly 14% over the 470. Optimistically, you will get 6% performance increase for a 14% price premium.

5870 to 480: Without AA or tessellation, the 480 will generally perform 10-12% higher than a 5870, but the gap often grows to up to 20% with the AA/Tess enabled. A realistic overal performance increase of about 15%. With a $100 difference, you are looking at a price premium of 25%. 15% more performance for 25% more money.

480 to 5970: Without AA/Tess, about 15% performance over the 480, but that difference almost completely disappears with AA/Tess. Realistic performance increase of a 5970 over a 480 is somewhere around 8-10%. Again, optimistically, you are looking at 10% performance increase for 40% more cash ($200 price difference).

Thinks get wonky when we start looking at multi-card scaling performance, so for the ease of discussion I am limiting myself to single card comparisons.
5850 to 470 - 10% more performance for 16% more money
470 to 5870 - 6% more performance for 14% more money
5870 to 480 - 15% more performance for 25% more money
480 to 5970 - 10% more performance for 40% more money

I know arguments can be made that I have oversimplified things, and perhaps have not given enough weight to top load performance (AA/Tessellation on) and I in no way claim this to be empirical data. Just a general impression of the lay of the land from someone who is rather OCD about this stuff.

(You can't call me an ATI fanboy either, MM, IMO the best price/performance upgrades from their closest competition are the nvidia cards )

 

[Mousemonkey]

(You can't call me an ATI fanboy either, MM, IMO the best price/performance upgrades from their closest competition are the nvidia cards )

I wasn't going to say anything but as you mentioned it, what about multi-card set ups?

 

[JofaMang]

SLi scales far better than Crossfire, enough to make the nvidia cards a better price/perf than ATI when breaking into multi-card set ups. But, I have also noticed that those with multi-card setups seem to be FAR more likely to be brand loyal above anything else.

 

[Mousemonkey]

SLi scales far better than Crossfire, enough to make the nvidia cards a better price/perf than ATI when breaking into multi-card set ups. But, I have also noticed that those with multi-card setups seem to be FAR more likely to be brand loyal above anything else.

True, but I wonder if the P55 and X58 chipsets might be doing something to change that.

 

[JofaMang]

True, but I wonder if the P55 and X58 chipsets might be doing something to change that.

Without a doubt. The open platform can only promote clean and concise comparisons and not lock a user into a single brand with their mobo investment. Add into that the i7/i5's superior handling of multi-card setups, and we have a platform that can truly promote using the absolute best components available, and get the most out of them. This is also why every hardware site uses no less than an i7/x58 for reviewing multi-card setups. The side effect is that it seems the ATI/Nvidia fanboys that are broken by this platform appear to be replaced by even more rabid intel fanboys. Oh how the Internet Turns~

 

[Mousemonkey]

If only AMD would pull their finger out eh? I for one wouldn't have a problem going back to my (computing) roots.

 

[sabot00]

He's not talking about Battlefield: Bad Company 2, he is talking about Battlefield 2.
1. You cannot expect to max out Crysis with a 5770, my friend can only do it with a 5850 CF.
2. The server probably can't handle 64 players, it's not your fault.

 

[giger]

Update:

So the 5770 has gone back. One of the more knowledgable (and that's used carefully) admitted to me that the particular card that I was sold has been being returned with the same complaints. So if I was being too picky, others are even more picky.

So I've been taking all the advice and then branching out to all the articles out there, and forum posts here and have decided on a HD 5850. I just can't justify the 5870 with the difference in price, and marginal performance gain.

So I'm torn between two at the moment and would appreciate the input on these two, or other brands (within this price point) as these are both sapphires.

Oh, and I do like the GTX 470s but with what I've been reading (all afternoon) I'm just personally leaning the 5850 way.

$294.99 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102884

Or the higher clocked and better cooled
$339.99 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102881

Can I justify the extra $45 bucks or am I just being marketed into thinking the toxic model is that much better?

Links work now