New Build gtx 470 vs amd 6870?

[gamrWraith001]

I am working on my new build and I need to choose a gpu.

I have been looking at the 6870 and the 470.

the 6870 has second gen dx11 but I don't think its much of a difference. Nvidia has physx but not a significant amount of games use it to make me care about it.

What's the deal with Cuda?

The benchmarks in the tomshardware review show that the two are very close to each other. I am going to over clock my card and the 6870 seems to be an alright oc-er
while the 470 over clocks like a beast. Power specs make the 6870 very appealing though.

I don't know why but people seem to complain A LOT about ati drivers. I don't know about 6870 drivers however. I don't want to be hassled with driver issues all the time.. Does someone with a 6000 series card have anything to say about this?

my budget is $300 and I plan on buying my card in December. I don't know if I should wait for a cayman gpu instead as I have no idea what the price will be like.

If i get the 6870 I might crossfire, not sure if I would ever get two 470's as the power consumption and noise would make my heart stop.

I am going to be using my build for:

GAMING: and lots of it
crysis
metro 2033
call of duty
bad company 2

video editing
Graphics design
movies

My system is:

i7 950
Asus rampage iii formula
ocz reaper cas 6 1600 mhz
ocz agility 2 ssd 90gb for a boot drive.
wd caviar black 640gb
650 watt psu corsair tx

I am going to be using a 1920 x 1080 monitor I am not interested in eyefinity for the time being.

I am not very familiar with choosing a gpu so any help is much appreciated.

 

[rolli59]

You summed it up very well. The GTX470 is powerful but the HD6870 is not far behind. I have never had any driver issues with cards from either and would select the HD6870 myself just because of the power consumption.

 

[gamrWraith001]

Hmm come to think of it I might get three 16800 x 1050 monitors instead (not all at once though) I checked out a eyefinity vid and it seems amazing.

 

[mactronix]

I agree with this and would say that i have only ever had a couple of issues with ATI drivers ever. Certainly not enough to ever make it an issue.
As always with a new ATI/AMD card you should expect fairly good improvements from the 6870 with driver updates. Dont know if Nvidia cards improve this way as i have never used one but the 470 isnt a new card so the performance should be pretty much settled where it is now.

Mactronix

 

[gamrWraith001]

Best answer selected by gamrWraith001.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey