[Solved] Nvidia GTX 460 or ATI 6850

[areszues92]

Going to buy the GTX 460 768MB next month, and suddenly Barts popped out, so I'm contemplating. Is the 6850 better than the 460?

 

[Tamz_msc]

Compared to the 768 MB GTX 460, it is slightly better.Between the 6850 and 1GB GTX 460, they are pretty much equal.I expect the price of the GTX 460s to drop further by next month.So, they will be cheaper if you buy them next month.

 

[areszues92]

What's the price difference between the 460 768mb and the 6850?

 

[rob2010]

the 768mn 460 is about $170 and the 6850 is about $180. I'd say the 6850 is worth the extra 10 bucks. however the 1gb 460 when OC'd performs slightly better than an OC'd 6850 but the 1gb 460 will cost you $200.

 

[Tamz_msc]

That's why I said to wait till next month.

 

[yanje03]

if your power supply doesn't have 2 6pin, go 6850, if does go 460. $10 $20 isn't big deal. to play game I only trust nVidia.

 

[areszues92]

All right I'll wait and see how it goes.

 

[eyefinity]

Note that all the overclocked cards used in the benchmarks are limited editions? I don't see them coming down in price.

It seems Nvidia's shady tactic of promising a neverending supply of top-binned 460 chips works with some people though.

In a couple of months, driver optimisations will have given the 6850 a bigger lead. It already beats the 460 easily in crossfire too and has a better feature set. There will almost certainly be non-reference versions out as well, so we're back to square one.

By all means wait but don't expect anything much to change.

 

[areszues92]

I'll go with the GTX 460 1GB and from the various benchmarks i have seen the 6850 only beats the 460 by a little, overall the 460 is still better.

 

[wh3resmycar]

In a couple of months, driver optimisations will have given the 6850 a bigger lead.

toms did an article related to this myth. that drivers blah blah boosts cards performance by a degree blah blah blah. and you know what they found out?

 

[cirslevin]

I'll go with the GTX 460 1GB and from the various benchmarks i have seen the 6850 only beats the 460 by a little, overall the 460 is still better.

6850 and 460 1G pretty much perform the same (6850 is 3% faster)

so choice is just personal preferences.

460 1G is said to have more OC headroom, while 6850 is new and unexploited yet.

6850 can support 3+ display eyefinity and draw less power.

both 460 768MB and 460 1G have had a significant price drop as of last week, and there is rumor saying the price will rebound.

If you are interested in 460 768MB, lowest price I saw is $150, which cannot be beaten, you should grab it now.

If you are interested in 460 1G or 6850, I see no point waiting. The price won't go down much, unless you can wait 3-6 months.

 

[cirslevin]

toms did an article related to this myth. that drivers blah blah boosts cards performance by a degree blah blah blah. and you know what they found out?

enlighten me.

what I do know, is that new 10.10 driver boosts performance by several fps in many systems.

 

[17seconds]

The GTX460 has PhysX. The 6850 does not.

 

[vilenjan]

Dont forget that OC is not free. OC editions will consume more power.

A 6850 is around 130W at load, a stock 460 is around 160W load, a highly OCed 460 can get up to 190W to 195W load.

While 30 watt is not major, 60-65W is a whole tier up power consumption for the same tier performance, and there is no way about it, a highly OCed card, even if cooled well, will degrade faster than a stock card.

Avoid the 768MB edition, it will be capped by thier its narrow bandwidth (192bit) or its smaller frame buffer in the near future.

 

[wh3resmycar]

just read the article. although the cards in question were older ones, 5850 or the 4890 if im not mistaken. i can't find the direct link though.

 

[cirslevin]

toms has so many articles, searching for "myth" yields tons of irrelevant stuff, you might have to offer a link for people to read.

 

[cirslevin]

i think I found the one you were talking about: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/GeForce-Catalyst-overclocking,2037-15.html

really, we are at driver 10.10, and you are citing driver 8.8's results?

I do agree with one of their conclusions: 10% is not as important as it looks, it might be just 1 or 2 fps.

but to the same token, there is no difference in perf of 460-1G and 6850, as well as 470 and 6870.

 

[wh3resmycar]

yes that's the link. what i'm going at is not the specific driver but result. i have yet to see a driver update that boosted performance across the board to actually "reshape" the GPU landscape.

when some bloke says "driver updates will make card A faster and obliterate the competition", always take it with a grain of salt. because the competition can come up with driver optimizations of their own.

but i'm talking only about single gpu setups, most driver updates for xfire/sli setups relies heavily on them.

 

[17seconds]

Dont forget that OC is not free. OC editions will consume more power.

A 6850 is around 130W at load, a stock 460 is around 160W load, a highly OCed 460 can get up to 190W to 195W load.

While 30 watt is not major, 60-65W is a whole tier up power consumption for the same tier performance, and there is no way about it, a highly OCed card, even if cooled well, will degrade faster than a stock card.

Avoid the 768MB edition, it will be capped by thier its narrow bandwidth (192bit) or its smaller frame buffer in the near future.

According to the Guru3d power consumption analysis that they do with each card review, the GTX460 will cost about 1 Euro more per month to operate than the 6850/6870. That is playing games 5 days per week, 4 hours per day.

 

[cirslevin]

extra power draw of GTX OC cards may accounts for $2-$20 per year, maybe $5-$40 per card's lifetime.

More immediate price impact is the fact that factory OC cards with warranty are selling at higher price than stock. By up to $50.

 

[areszues92]

Oops saw the mouth-watering price tag of the 6870 and went for it instead.

 

[re-play-]

im in the same case as u, but i will wait until January 2011 when all the card will be out and price will be much lower ^^, maybe by that time i can buy a HD6850 for 160US

 

[bravo delta]

re-play- im hoping youre right lol
i keeping waiting and waiting, watching the prices, i should really just buy one

 

[hitec16]

well in this list HD 6850 has been ranked 9 whereas GTX 460 is ranked 15
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
search for all GPUs u want