GTX 460 fermi vs saph 5850

samtheham1

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hey guys. I just bought a GTX 460 for right around $200 and my friend has a sapphire 5850. I'm pretty impressed with the performance of his 5850. We have yet to lag during any game. My 460 hasn't arrived yet so I haven't had a chance to compare performance between the two.

Because nvidia and ati builds their cards so differently it's really hard to compare performance based solely on stats. you look at the stats for nvidia and they tend to have jacked up clock speeds where ati cards are heavy on stream processing units. I really don't know where ati and nvidia compare with eachother. Since both of these cards are right around the same price, I was wondering which card is most likely to perform better if either really does outperform the other. Also, how do they compare with overclock head room, temps, and power consumption. I'm pretty sure the ati card runs cooler, but beyond that I'm in the dark.

What do you guys think?
 
Solution
The HD5850 is faster than the GTX460 any day. It was priced more than the GTX460, but the prices have dropped coz the ATI's 6xxx cards are out. GTX460 is one of the most value for money card nVidia have released in their Fermi camp. Don't worry, GTX460 is good enough and you wont notice any lag.
 

asheesh1_2000

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These two cards are of different class hence shall not be compared at the first place. With this I do nt mean that ATI 5850 is better then 460.
I am assuming you hv GTX 1 GB card. Then HD 5850 will be 20 only while your card is 18 which is hardly noticeable. However if you happen to play a game which uses GPU PhyX (I hope you know wat it is) then your card is 20 while ATI card will not stand at all. Your card has more scope of overclocking.

Overall Nvidia cards take more power and give more heat and give more output while ATI cards lag on all but yes in same class they are cheaper as well.

You just happened to post it when I am just heading to buy one GTX460 1 gig.
 
Solution

geniusender

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hello samtheham1,
Given below are their general specifications:
HIS ATI 5858:
*Pixel Pipelines: 1440 stream processing units* (Unified)
*Vertex Engines 1440 stream processing units* (Unified)
*Manu. Process (Micron): 40nm
*Memory Size (MB): 1024
*Memory Type: GDDR5
*RAMDAC (MHz): 400
*Engine CLK (MHz): 765
*Memory CLK (Gbps): 4.5Gbps
*Memory Interface (bit): 256
*Power Requirement: 500 Watt or greater power supply
*Bus Interface: PCI Express x16
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EVGA GTX 460:
* Core Clock: 720 MHz
* Memory Clock: 3600 MHz Effective
* Shader Clock: 1440 MHz
* CUDA Cores: 336
* Bus Type: PCI-E 2.0
* Memory Detail: 1024MB GDDR5
* Memory Bit Width: 256 Bit
* Memory Speed: 0.5 ns
* Memory Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec
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Buddy take a look.
Now for your convenience given below are the links of power wattage calculators:
http://www.antec.outervision.com/PSUEngine
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http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDR

http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/psu_power_supplies/

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/page/power

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

http://www.raptoxx.com/calculator.php

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/Power

http://www.journeysystems.com/power_supply/

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=power

http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html
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Buddy Go for GTX 460 superclocked version otherwise overclock it if u want to otherwise no need for this.It will be more powerful than ATI 5850 (not overclocked) in this case.
Otherwise there will be no lagg if u use GTX 460.It is still very good choice.Its a beast.Although it is slight less powerful than 5850
but still put your hands on it.
N in GTX 460 latest chip technology is used.If i will be in your place then i will get a GTX 460.
U will not feel any prominent difference between GTX 460 n HD 5850.I trust more on Nvidia as compared to ATI.
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Tell me your system specs,so that i can confirm it that your graphic card performance will not be bottlenecked by other components i.e:CPU etc.
And now i come towards the cooling factor.Cooling system of such graphic cards are good but to some extent cooling is also dependent on your motherboard.
Also check your power supply.
Check the power requirement for your system from the calculators i have given above.
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Best Of Luck.






 

samtheham1

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system specs:

GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

COOLER MASTER UCP RS700-AAAAA3 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Power Supply

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Brisbane 2.8GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor ADO5400DOBOX

COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

and of course the GTX 460 1G card
 

samtheham1

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I suspected that cpu upgrade would be my next project. Do you guys know if I'll need to upgrade my mobo also to get the AM3 socket? Does the socket type really affect performance or is its only purpose to fit the CPU? I'm also on a budget. I definitely want to spend between 100 and 200 dollars on a processor. I'm pretty sure I don't want to bother with any 6 cores. I'll probably just go with a powerful quad.

So some other questions.

1. is it possible to get a powerful CPU in an am2+ socket or will I be forced to get a mobo upgrade as well?

2. Any suggestions for processors within my price range or slightly higher if need be.

3. Knowing that it's likely I'll have to upgrade my mobo, I'm looking for AMD with PCI-e x16 slots which can run at dual x16. None of that x16 and x4 nonsense. I'd like to run dual x16 in case I choose to run crossfire in the future and I want to have plenty of room for any upgrade in the future so if I get a new mobo, I really don't want to skimp on upgradabililty. I figure it will save me money in the future. Yes, I realize I'm buying nvidia and not ATI. I'm just not planning on running any side by side graphics any time soon. Maybe in the far future when the gtx 460 will be out of date I could then go for dual ATI cards. Anyways, enough with the rambling.

-dual x16 pci's ( not just dual x8 or x16 and x4
-I'm just going to assume will be AM3 socket
-I guess SATA III (6 Gb/sec), but not at all picky there

That's all I can think of at the moment. Any suggestions you guys have within my budget or close to it would be greatly appreciated. I'll, of course, look for myself, but I'd like to pick some brains out there.

Also, if there's something that I haven't thought about yet, please mention anything I've neglected to think about or just don't know about. I'm not the most tech savvy guy out there, but I'm getting there I suppose. I think I've covered the foreseeable questions you guys might have. I did write a book.....That's about as detailed as I can think to get.
 

samtheham1

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if I upgrade mobo and cpu I wanna go around 400 I'm a little hesitant about going 500 dollars, but I have the funds for it.

I'm open to upgrading my mobo, I don't want to have to mess with BIOS in order to run a better processor. If it would be easier to get a new mobo, then I want to do it just because I'll need to eventually. Also, I don't want to get a processor that's only slightly better. I'd like something with a good bit more power just because I don't want to have to upgrade again in like a year and a half.
 
If you want to upgrade your Motherboard, RAM, and CPU all at once, I personally lean towards Intel. The P55 Intel board plus i5-750 or i5-760 setup is stellar performance, and overclocks very well. The AMD Phenom II X4's start at higher clock speeds, but clock for clock Intel beats them every time.

As for your original question: The ATI 5850 will probably beat out your GTX 460 in most gaming applications. However, with specific Tessellation based uses the GTX 460 has an advantage. Either way, as long as you're playing at less than 1080p resolution the GTX 460 is going to kick butt. :) Even @ 1080p (1920x1080) it should do fairly well so long as you don't max out all the settings.
 
^ That top one would be a nice combo if it wasn't an SSD. Would just be quite a bit cheaper that way. Though performance wise, that would be pretty stellar. :)

The other two combos are handicapped by having 1 PCI-E x16 slot, and 1 PCI-E x4 slot. They are meant for PhysX cards, and not true SLI/Crossfire. :( Same problem with the first AMD combo that malmental listed.

Where as that top motherboard has 2 PCI-E x16 slots. That is important if you ever want to run two video cards at once in Crossfire or SLI. The second AMD combo malmental listed has 2 PCI-E x16 slots as well, that will run x8 / x8 when in SLI/Crossfire.
 

samtheham1

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I like a lot of what you guys posted. I would really like to get a mobo that supports dual x16 though. I'm really leaning toward AMD for price efficiency. You really just get more bang for your buck. I'm sort of anticipating the next comment to say something about Intel CPU's overclocking more efficiently, but I try to avoid any major overclocking. The last thing I need is a fail processor because I overclocked a little too much. This, of course, is just my personal preference.

Right now I'm looking through some nice AMD combos and they look pretty promising. I'll let you know when I find something to settle on. More suggestions are still appreciated. I'm open to learn all I can.
 

Embra

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Price different combos out, but if your not in a hurry ....wait for SB to launch in the beginning of next year .... or even for bulldozer in April?.

You may end up with something you put together now, but it may be cheaper.
 

samtheham1

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I'm not familiar with SB or bulldozer. Care to tell me about it?
 


Very good choices. Keep in mind however, an Open Box item means you may not be getting all the parts and pieces it normally ships with. These are items someone returned to NewEgg for any reason (perhaps they 'thought' it was broke). Since you don't want to OverClock, I wouldn't do anything less than the processor you've selected. Though keep in mind, the Black Edition was designed to allow you to overclock it more easily. :)