ATI 5870 or GTX480

[Kkkk1]

I'm at a cross roads, my GTX 295 has died and after much arguing with Overclockers UK and Gainward they will not re-inburse me a 295. If anyone would like to know my story just post here but guanenteed I won't EVER be purchasing from Overclockers UK or Gainward ever again.

Anyway I want the best performance but a 5970 is just too expensive at the moment. I know the 480 is slightly faster but those temps of 90c + bother me. What do you guys recommend?

 

[ares1214]

Personally, id say go with the 5870, or ati setup. the fermis run WAY to hot, and 1 480 consumes as much or more power than a 5970, thats dual card vs. single. the 5870 is an extremely capable card, and only loses to the 480 by a margin of around 10%. considering the fact its quite a bit cheaper ($50-100) runs a lot cooler (10-15 C less) and uses a LOT less power (up to 130 less watts at load) i think its the better choice. however, for the same price, you could xfire 2 5830s. 2 will outperform the 5870 by a decent margin, putting them on par or greater than the 480. 2 only cost 400$, and use about 80 more watts than the 5870 in load.

 

[Kkkk1]

Thanks ares1214. I'd not considered xfiring 2 5830s. I may go with the 5870 with a view to xfire in 12-18months or so. I've just read an article which put the 5870 at number 5 in the worlds fastest cards, i'm not sure if this will satisfy my needs. I mainly play at 1680x1050 Crysis, FSX but would dearly love to play Crysis 2 later this year with high settings. I thinking the 5870 may struggle with DX11 Tesselation.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/15-best-graphics-cards-in-the-world-today-654141?artc_pg=9

 

[ares1214]

if you play at 1680x1050, you are pretty safe. as you can see:

http://www.softsailor.com/news/22371-nvidia-geforce-gtx-480470-benchmarks-review-roundup.html

at 1650x1080 the 480 beats the 5870 by about 1 fps.

 

[asteldian]

I would go 5870 over 2 x 5830s, one powerful card is better than 2 weak ones - for a start XFire performance increase is not guaranteed for each game and can vary significantly, but also, you have no where to go for an upgrade without replacing both cards. Start wth a 5870 and when required move on to a second one.

At that resolution you should have no real issues.

Here is a recent review done for the 480/470 vs 5870/5850, unlike most reviews this was done in June after Nvidia have released some new drivers. It is a good read

http://www.techspot.com/review/283-geforce-gtx-400-vs-radeon-hd-5800/page10.html

 

[ares1214]

while i would rather have 1 strong card than 2 weak ones, when the 2 weaks ones together are stronger and cheaper, its not a bad choice. but a 5870 is likely your best bet.

 

[Petey1013]

If your case and PSU is good, which it should be if your in the market for a 400+ video card, I'd grab the 480 and be done with it. They perform amazing, and I seriously doubt it's much hotter then your 295 was.

 

[ares1214]

the 480 outperforms the 5870 by a small margin. 1 fps in crysis. it costs much more, uses way more energy, and produces way more heat. 5870 is the better buy.

 

[sunzeal]

Well, 5870 would be better option, less cost, slight low performance, and does not heats up like GTX 480.

 

[okini55]

I would go for 5850. Its much cheaper than 5870 and with overclocking it can beat the 5870 in terms of performance also its more overclockable than the 5870.

 

[asteldian]

The June review at techspot failed to convince me that the 480 was a great buy, even in Direct X 11 the results were not convincing - when the 5870 failed to be playable so did the 480.

It's a tricky question, the GTX480 IS a better performer. It is a horrible power whore and very hot, but if you are a gamer and want all you can get then technically it is the card to go for. The question comes down to whether you are willing to pay the premium cost for it.

I personally would sooner go for the 5870, simply because I am cash conscious and given the performance difference I would not pay the extra cash for the 480. The noise power and heat are just extra factors to put me off.

However, if money was no object I would get the 480 as I would have a system that could live with the excessive power and heat anyway and as it is a more powerful card I would get it.

...Actually, that's not true - if money were no object I would get the 5970 as that is more powerful

 

[ares1214]

Pulls more then 1fps better then the 5870....

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/nvidiageforcegtx480launch_032610115215/22161.png

Costs 50 dollars more then the Asus 5870 on newegg...

MSI GTX 480 - 439.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127502&cm_re=GTX_480-_-14-127-502-_-Product

I think of it this way. You have a 1K watt PSU bro so there's no problem with power. So we move onto price. The best 5870 available on newegg is the Asus for 389.99 after rebate. So the question turns into "Is the 480 worth the 50 dollars?" and the answer is YES. You'll never get a straight answer from any of the ati fanboi's on this forum about fermi because 99% of this board owns ATI cards and they have no idea how great it is. All i hear everyday is how hot it runs. Newsflash.. Nvidia has ALWAYS ran hot and Fermi doesn't run any hotter then a 295 or 285 did.

Move onto the "Fermi sucks so much power" Argument. Look below. Those are total system power consumption numbers. A 480 pulls 62 more watts then a 5870 system which isn't that much at all.

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww252/2MCHBoost/powa.png

Go with the 480 because IMO you're going to regret it if you go with a 5870.

at toms it says 1 fps @ 1680x1050:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-465-fermi-gf100,2642-5.html

at toms it says power consumption is 120 more watts at load than the 5870. using the same link, you see it also runs 10-15 C hotter. just because it runs no hotter than the 2xx series, and nvidia has always run hot, doesnt mean those temps are good, or even acceptable. with stock cooling, fermi even is louder than the 5870. the 480 also costs a minimum of 50$ more. so there really is no reason to go for it.

 

[Kkkk1]

the 480 outperforms the 5870 by a small margin. 1 fps in crysis. it costs much more, uses way more energy, and produces way more heat. 5870 is the better buy.

Yep my current setup is:-

i7 920 @3.6Ghz
12Gb DDR3 1800
Corsair HX1000 PSU
CoolerMaster Cosmos S case with 6 fans

I reckon a 480 if and be done with it like you say.

Many thanks for all the replies guys

 

[ares1214]

wait, why are you quoting me, but saying your getting a 480? if you dont believe me about the heat, noise, and power:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx-480-and-gtx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/19

 

[Kkkk1]

wait, why are you quoting me, but saying your getting a 480? if you dont believe me about the heat, noise, and power:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx-480-and-gtx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/19

Ooops! Sorry.

 

[ares1214]

although if anything, the only card i would imagine regreting is the 480 due to its heat and other things. the 5870 doesnt have much to regret about.

 

[Kkkk1]

Don't you think the 480 would be better in terms of longer life as once Tesselation becomes the norm it should be able to stretch it's legs more then a 5870?

 

[ares1214]

not especially. personally, i stay off the nvidia train (NO im not an ati fanboy) as nvidia cards usually are much more expensive, and run way hotter. but from an honest, non biased point of view, the 5870 is better. yes, the 480 performs better, it will continue to hold that lead for a while, but by the time any of the things you are talking about will be useful, ati and nvidia will have their 7xxx and 6xx series out. trust me, the 5870 will give you PLENTY of performance, if there is some way you figure out how to max it out at 1680x1050, then you are doing something wrong :lol: 1080p, maybe, but at that resolution, you are very safe. especially considering the fact you can always add another, as you could with the 480.

 

[ares1214]

you can also always oc, as you can for both. and to be honest, if crysis 2 is anything like the 1st one, neither the 480 or the 5870 will be able to play it well.

 

[BruceOTB]

To OP:

Im interested about ur 295 story. Care to share?

 

[ares1214]

the 485 will be about 5-10% faster, 20-30$ more expensive, and use 2 8 PIN CONNECTORS for power. thats a max power draw of 360 watts. believe me, i know bout the 485:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/291926-33-here-maybe

imo, one of the better buys is the 470. i admit, the 4xx scales beautifully, has great tesselation and such, however i dont care what anybody says, to hot, too much energy, too expensive, too late. imo, the 480 isnt worth it, id say either get the 470 or 5870. although even the 470 runs too hot, so overall, i say 5870. any of them will max out just about any game @ 1680x1050.

 

[OvrClkr]

If your res is 1650x1080 you can easily get by with a single 5850 and later on add another one if you decide to upgrade the screen.

In Warhead I get around 40-50 FPS (Enthusiast)
In BC2 I get around 75/80 FPS (High/HBAO/x8/x16)
In L4D2 over 100 FPS MAXED out
In MW2 over 100 FPS MAXED out

@ Psycho, lol dude the tess advantage is minimal, 4-5 frames aint going to hurt the AMD card especially If he goes CF in the future. Of course you cannot compare NV's tess with AMD's but 4-5 frames is nothing earth-shattering. Plus I would take those tests with a grain of salt, I have a single 5850 and it can do over 60FPS (stock) in BC2 MAXED out @ 1680x 1050 but if you look at the below chart you will see where it shows a MAX FPS of 49.74 :

With the card overclocked to 1000/1275 it can do over 80FPS easy, since all systems vary you always have a margin of error but if I can get over 80FPS with even higher settings than the above chart that normally tells you that its not 100% accurate.

 

[ares1214]

while i do agree with just about everything said up there, if he doesnt want xfire, its better to play it safe and get the 5870, so he really wont need to upgrade later. especially oc'ing the 5870, you should be safe for a very long time.

 

[OvrClkr]

The 465/470/480 only produce 5-8C higher temps then the 5850 and 5870. Let me see if i can find the article i posted in this forum about it's temps. When fermi came out the online sites all quoted furmark temps. The article i quoted showed that in furmark the 5870 ran 2C cooler then the 480 where in games it was a 5-10C difference. I personally laugh when people bring up the heat issue because on air my 470's barely topped 82C. Hmm.. This gives me a great idea for a topic.

Onto the Topic Of tessellation. The 58xx series can't handle it Period. With Tesselation the 5870 gets rocked by the 470

In a review done on sunday....

Tessellation Disabled :

http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/GIGABYTE-GTX-470-OC/GIGABYTE-GTX-470-OC-72.jpg

Tessellation Enabled :

http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/GIGABYTE-GTX-470-OC/GIGABYTE-GTX-470-OC-73.jpg

The 470/480 produces around 20/25c more than a non-ref 5850/5870 @ LOAD. My last 470 did 85c after 1 hour of BC2 w/ stock clocks. My current 5850 does 58c after 1 hour of BC2 with a 900/1200 OC + bump in voltage. So if the OP has low ambient temp and he can care less about the power draw the 470 is the card to get, if not the 5850/5870 will do just fine.

You have your cards under water so I guess you don't notice the real temp of Fermi on Air =)

 

[ares1214]

@ OP, what case do you have, and do you plan on a liquid cooling loop for your video card?