5850 or 460 or 470 for long term?

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Nosotros

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Hi,

I don't plan on upgrading my graphics card for a while (about 3 years I think.) and I don't plan on SLI/Xfire.
Initially, I was prepared to shell out the $300 for the 5850, but the 470s are now $300 and 5850s are $280. I'm not that worried about the noise and heat of the 470, but then the 460 comes along and everyone is saying its great and even better in SLI.

Questions:
1. It seems to me that the GTX 470 will age better than the 5850. Is this correct?

2. If so, it becomes the question of 460 vs 470.
460: cheaper, adequate for many current games.
470: more powerful, will probably keep me pleased for just a bit longer than 460.

3. Is my chain of logic correct? Any pros and cons you would like to add?

4. Finally, what would you suggest?

Thank you very much for your input.



My rig:
i5 750
1920x1080 monitor
Asus p7p55d-e pro mobo
Spinpoint F3 1TB
Ripjaws 4gb 1600 ram
650W corsair psu
NZXT M59 case
 
Solution
welshmousepk
If you plan to add a second card in the future, then go for a GTX460. its SLI scaling is pure madness, and its single card performance is still very good.

but if you simply want a single card that you will eventually replace, i'd go with the 5850.
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welshmousepk

welshmousepk

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If you plan to add a second card in the future, then go for a GTX460. its SLI scaling is pure madness, and its single card performance is still very good.

but if you simply want a single card that you will eventually replace, i'd go with the 5850.
 
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mooman

mooman

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dont know where you got that info from, when the gtx 470 came out it was inbetween the 5850 and 5870, but now with driver updates its slightly better, however its more power hungry and much hotter, so i dont know if you can sli with that psu, but it is better value for money in terms of outright performance, but the gtx 460 is the best price performance, especially if you add one for sli, because of the scaling, its nearly as good as a 5870 crossfire, but much cheaper, its also overclocks a lot very easily. the 5850 is a good choice as well though, but the price is just too high. when overclocking it, it may seem like the clocks go very high, but it doesnt affect performance very much. if the price goes down then it would be a good buy. however, keep in mind they do not handle dx 11 as well as the nvidia cards, if you want to go with ati then i would wait for the refresh at the end of the year. but at the moment the best card to go for is the gtx 460 and overclock it, its very easy to overclock it, and in the uk two of the 768mb cars cost less than a 5870, especially when its comparable to 5970 performance when a 5970 is overclocked to 5870 crossfire performance.
 
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Nosotros

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I don't plan on dual-carding.


I will eventually replace it, but it won't be right away. Like in three years. In that case, won't the 470 be able to handle future games better?



I can get the 470 for only $5 more than the cheapest 5850. (470 for $290 5850 for $285) Doesn't that make the 470 better for almost the same cost?

Sorry if I am being stubborn with the 470, but it seems like it makes more sense to get the 470 over the 5850 now that the prices are the same.
Now the 460 vs 470, I need to think about it more.
 
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mooman

mooman

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well the 470 is good price for the performance but its up to you whether you want a card that will be noisy and over 90 degrees celcius, id recomment picking up a gtx 470 768mb, and then adding another one for sli either now or in the future, because it will still be coler and less noisy, and it will probly consume less power, however if you live in a cold place then maybe the gtx 470 can be used as a heater as well?
 
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Nosotros

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Well I said I don't plan on dual carding because I think I would rather get the current gen in the future than to drag on a two+ years old card.

I don't think I quite understand the purpose dual carding. It's an upgrade path right? Does it make sense to plan dual card if I want to keep it for three years. Wouldn't it just be better to get the current gen in three years?
 
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mooman

mooman

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dual carding can also be used for current gen because its usually a cheaper option for good performance, and because the gtx 460 is so efficient and cool many people are buying it for sli as an alternative to a gtx 480 and 5970 as it is cheaper as well, you could buy two now and it will probably last you years, the only reason to upgrade would be for something like 3d or dx 12
 
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devil hunter

devil hunter

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5850s is better compared to 470s in performance wise and also it have extra Eyefinity support(you can play games/watch the movies in larger resolutions upto 7860x1600 and on 5850) which Nvidia dont have Eyefinity support.

If you are interested to increase the no.of cards in future you can increase up to 4 5850 cards
 
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Nosotros

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I've thrown 5850 out of the equation because its the same price as the 470. I don't need eyefinity either and my goal is a card that will last longer and if ati can't handle dx11 as well, i'd better to go nvidia.

mooman, I think I'm beginning to lean toward the 460. I mean my old card is something like a 7600 so whatever card I get will impress me right? If sli 460 can be as close as 480/5970, that's great. Although for now, I only want a single card. Maybe next summer I will get another card
 
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welshmousepk

welshmousepk

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yeah the 470 is more powerful than a 5850, but so much hotter and louder that for me its a no go.

the 460 on the other hand is the one card in Nvs lineup i can truly recommend. excellent performance at stock, and if you can get a second sometime down the road you are laughing.
 
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devil hunter

devil hunter

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5870/5970 given more performance than 470 for some benchmarks and nvidia given more performance for some benchmarks .

Find some benchmarks scores on both 5870 and 480 in the below links. scores with 5870 is awesome

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100606/gpu-computing-directcompute-computemark-2-1-gtx-480-vs-hd-5870/

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100528/test-avp-dx11-tessellation-battle-gtx-480-vs-gtx-470-vs-hd-5870-vs-hd-5770/

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100510/directcompute-computemark-1-3-available-and-gtx-470-and-hd-5870-scores/
 
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oz73942

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i'd say go with the gtx 470 if your looking for futurability.
1. it does tessalation and dx 11 better(although no way of knowing if it will catch on)

2. nvidia seems to team up with a larger amount of game developers, thus giving thier cards an edge over ati in some games.

3. if you do any video work, cuda could help you out(cut my times in half)

As for the heat im running mine in a cm 690 ii, and my temps stay 30c idle, and only climb to about 60c at full load, with the fan at 65%,with no noise.
 
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ionut19

ionut19

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gtx460 SLI surpasses in everything a gtx480 from what i know, up to a max of 40% or something like that. Here you can see what it can do: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-sli-geforce-gtx-480,2694.html

I would go for a gtx470 in terms of single card raw power. And remember, the more RAM is has, the better it will scale at high resolutions.
 
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ionut19

ionut19

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TYPO^ he ment a gtx460 and ad another for SLI. I would recommend the 1Gb version, not the 768Mb because it scales a little better in SLi and better at high resolutions where there is needed more memory. -that's if you want to go for gtx460.

 
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devil hunter

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you can get the eyefinity and DX11 features with equal performance to G470 to buy a 5850 card. There is no need to buy a heavy expansive 2 x 470 cards.

you want more performance, you can get the good performance crossfireX feature with another 5850 card.
 
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Nosotros

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I have chosen the GTX 460 Gygabyte card for my build. I am very happy with it; VERY quiet (it is now the stock cpu cooler that I hear instead of the old card that I had), very cool, and suits my needs perfectly. I think the GTX 470 would have been overkill for me and too hot, too expensive to SLI in the future.
I do have a SLI capable motherboard, so I might eventually try dual carding it.

Thanks everyone for sharing many different opinions and pros/cons.
 
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