5870 whattt?

[Sadtrial]

Isn't the ATI Radeon HD 5870 a fairly old and outdated card? I want to know because I just stumbled over something ridiculous, I think.

 

[Sunius]

Yes it is.

 

[Sadtrial]

Then why is apple releasing it into the new Mac Pro and introducing it as some top of the line thing? Especially in $2,500-$5,000 dollar machine?

http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro

http://www.apple.com/macpro/features/graphics.html

Read through the links and look at what they are trying to pull. That's crazy.

 

[Sunius]

I stopped reading after I saw Intel Xeon “Westmere” CPU PC for $5k.. That's 2 generations old CPU. They are just scamming their customers..

 

[xtreme5]

they are old but thier performance is still rocking the same story of GTX 480.

 

[alyoshka]

Errr... 'Cos it's an Apple product.....
They do that to everything....

 

[Sunius]

I would not say that their performance rocks for such price point.. Huge waste of money. They want $225 for 3 GB RAM :lol:

 

[njt]

the ''new mac pro"? "new". with westmere and nehalem cpus options? that "new" mac pro is still the one they've been selling for 2 years, and so is the graphics card.

 

[Sadtrial]

I so want those 12 cores, oh wait.... what about my PC games... oh back to my PC ahhhhhhhh.

In theory; couldn't you just install a different OS on the HDD and play your PC games though? (Not saying that system is worth it 5k but yeah.)

 

[Sunius]

My rig is worth roughly $1500....
It runs circles round that machine for my tasks (gaming/video editing/ some rendering)

BUT IT'S NOT A MAC

 

[Sadtrial]

Hey, since you guys seem like you are pretty good with graphics (your badges). I was wondering if you could assist me. I'm building a machine with an AMD x4 975 BE and a ASUS M5A97 Mobo, and a TX750 corsair gaming enthusiast. All this time I have been thinking AMD gpu since I'm going with an AMD cpu, but that's not how it works and I have been trying to explore nVIDA options but all the different versions of the same card confuse me (example TI, fermi, GTS, GT, GTX, and so on). I know the TI is suppose to stand for titanium and Fermi is the architecture but it's still all confusing figuring it out in one night. My previous option was an AMD 6870, it's a decent card for under $200 dollars and that's my price for now. Do you know of any other cards nVIDIA or AMD that out preform the 6870 for under 200 bucks? My friend built his system with a nVidia 480 Fermi, but yeah.

 

[Sadtrial]

I'm not sure, I haven't talked to him in a while he's too busy playing Diablo 3 on it. We also only talk over Skype. But it seems to be better than the 6870 in benchmarks, but it uses a lot of power as well doesn't it? I know the 750 should handle it?

 

[Sadtrial]

Is the CUDA cores only an nVida thing? On the 6870 I see Stream Processors but no CUDA cores and on the 480 I see CUDA cores but no Stream Processors

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150521 <-- the version I was personally thinking about getting.

 

[Sadtrial]

What do they do?

 

[Sunius]

Processes graphics. AMD use stream name and Nvidia uses Cuda name. In essence, it's the same thing.

 

[Sadtrial]

I'm buying later this summer and during that time I will do more research and develop an opinion on the topic of my own, but pretty much the 480 will out preform the 6870 in most applications/games/benchmarks right?

 

[Sunius]

In all of them. By a lot. GTX 480 is around 31% faster than HD 6870.

 

[Sadtrial]

In everything yes.

Go to my Youtube channel and watch all footage, it is all GTX 480 benchmarks.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrMike655?feature=mhee

Am I to assume you have a 480 as well sir?

 

[Sadtrial]

Were you running 2 in this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um3lsIf9Me4&feature=plcp

Also did you overclock your GPU to 900mhz? bc in the one we were looking at the core clock is 700mhz

 

[Sadtrial]

That is a single GTX 480 at 900mhz, the only SLi video i have is of Crysis 1, and says so clearly in the title.

You will never reach 900mhz on the stock cooler, but you can hit 800mhz without touching voltages, this will give you GTX 580 performance

It's a shame my mobo only supports cross fire.

 

[Sadtrial]

This is the vid you were speaking of, single GTX 480 @ 900mhz custom air 2560x1600 ULTRA

[flash=1280,720]http://www.youtube.com/v/Um3lsIf9Me4?version=3&hl=en_GB[/flash]

Yeah how would the stock 480 at 700mhz do in frame rate in that game?

 

[Sadtrial]

Brilliantly, that was at double HD resolution.

It scored 24min/39 average/57max, fluidly playable!

At 1920x1080 38min/ 55average/ 80+max

Here is 1920x1080 with 4x MSAA version of that run:

[flash=1280,720]http://www.youtube.com/v/K7GZPPB1Jbg?version=3&hl=en_GB[/flash]

Was that version also while it was at 900mhz though?
It looks really nice. I'm probably going to go with this card.

 

[Sadtrial]

I gained around 10fps on minimums and average fps.
If you play with only 2xmsaa and ssao, the 480 can handle it easily at stock clocks.

Lol Sorry for the 150 questions. What do you think the max temps should be coming from this card with stock cooler under full load? Just to be sure I don't get a bad or defective heatsink. Like what temps should I start to be concerned?

 

[Sadtrial]

How can a mobo only support crossfire and or SLI and a PSU support SLI and or crossfire? Aren't they pretty much the same thing? My mobo says it is crossfire x support, and my PSU says it has SLI support but not crossfire? how can a psu not support one but not the other.

 

[Sadtrial]

Link me your motherboard please.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131767
Mobo- someone says it in the reviews, and it only states it supports CrossfireX in the features.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139021
PSU- under details it says SLI yes Crossfire no