Bargin GTX 570 to Upgrade My 460 SE 768MB Card?

[YankeeSteef]

Hello,

I found what appears to be a very good deal on a Nvidia GTX 570 card, $180.00 shipped after $20.00 rebate). I had been thinking actively about upgrading, but this seems like a very good deal and got me thinking even more about it. I know both the red and the green teams have new architectures out, but this seems like a pretty good upgrade for me for the money. Do you think that this would be worthwhile to upgrade to, or would do you think that this is a little short-sighted in light or newer, more efficient cards?Should I consider AMD 7870, Nvidia 660, possibly 660ti instead? Performance is important here, but about equal or secondary to the importance of value for the dollar.

Here's the link to the card I'm considering:
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=58573&vpn=012%2DP3%2D1571%2DKR&manufacture=eVGA&promoid=1210

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Anytime in the next 2-3 months that the price/part is right
BUDGET RANGE: Up to around $250, but would very much like to get a good deal and as much bang for my buck as possible.

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming(Borderlands 2, Fallout 3 &New Vegas heavily modded, soon Dishonored and Far Cry 3), media consumption, and light occasional video editing.

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: EVGA 460 SE 768MB GPU, Anatec Neo Eco 620c (620watts 80+ certified)

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: Intel Core I-2500K, Asus P8P67 Mobo, 8GB Corsair 1600 RAM, OCZ Agility 3, Windows 7 Professional, Corsair Carbide 500R Case.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: ncix.com, tigerdirect.com, newegg.com, amazon.com (but must pay tax at these last two)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: No real preference, might like to use Physix on some games like Borderlands 2 though.

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe Some light Overclockng
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Thank you very much for your input

 

[amuffin]

What about a GTX 470?
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=012-P3-1470-RX

 

[YankeeSteef]

That is a pretty good looking suggestion there, thank you for pointing that out to me. Less than the latest I had seen for the going rate of an additional 460. However, I do have some reservations about reinvesting in the same generation of card that I am leaving behind. At $119.00 for the GTX 470 though that looks very good price, and I am definitely going to check that out more. If anyone else has an opinion or any other suggestions, including the potential drawbacks to doing this vs. investing that money towards a newer generation card, I would love to hear their input. I am curious about the GTX 660 and have been seeing the AMD 7870's around the $230 range after rebates occasionally, does this present a better value for my money?

 

[luciferano]

Why not get a GTX 660? That'd be better than a GTX 480 and GTX 570, but only a little more expensive from what I've seen. Also, there isn't a major difference between GTX 400 and GTX 500 except for power consumption improvements, so if you buy either card, you're effectively investing in a nearly identical generation anyway.

Of course, that GTX 470 does have a good price, but is it really a major upgrade from what you have now?

 

[CaedenV]

Unlike CPUs, GPUs have a ton of variance in performance between the different levels, and this is especially true of the 400/500 series from nVidia. Moving from a 460 to a 470 is a decent step up, while moving up to a 560 would not be as dramatic of a change. And also remember that the 400 and 500 series IS THE SAME ARCHITECTURE, meaning that they are the same cards, but with a few power and performance optimizations between them. It is like moving from an 8800GT up to a 9800GT, the first revision they were identical, though the 9800 did hit a die shrink towards the end of it's life cycle, which then turned into the 280. The 400 and 500 series is not quite so identical, but they are extremely similar.

The nice thing about moving up to the current gen of hardware is on power consumption. The higher end cards perform better, but on a $ per $ basis you get similar performance across the board, but with the 600 series sipping somewhere near 1/2 the power of the power hungry fermi architecture.

Lastly, from what I hear on boarderlands 2 (have not played it yet as I generally wait a year or so before picking up a game), you absolutely want to stick with nVidia as the physX stuff in the game is amazing. But if it is just a 'game you play' instead of 'the game you play' then you may want to look into AMD's offerings as they tend to have a bit better performance per dollar on the low to mid range cards.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

That's ($180) a great price and i wouldn't worry if ya not overclocking .... if ya are, I wouldn't do a reference EVGA 570.

http://www.overclock.net/t/929152/have-you-killed-a-570-no-recent-deaths-buy-some-570s/550

Still, I'd try and stay w/ current technology of ya can afford it. The 660 Ti POE is a great buy at $300

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=msi%20660%20ti&bop=And&CompareItemList=-1|14-127-696^14-127-696-TS%2C14-127-697^14-127-697-TS

Guru3D uses the following games in their test suite: Hard Reset, COD-MW2, Far Cry 2, ANNO 1404, Metro 2033, ANNO 2070, BFBC2, BF3, Crysis 2, AvP, Lost Planet 2. Total fps (summing fps in each game @ 1920 x 1200) are tabulated below along with their cost in dollars per frame @ 1920 x 1200:

660 PE gets 851 fps for $300 at a cost of $0.35 per frame
7870 gets 701 fps for $280 at a cost of $0.40 per frame
670 DCII gets 999 fps for $420 at a cost of $0.42 per frame
670 gets 917 fps for $400 at a cost of $0.44 per frame
7950 gets 746 fps for $330 at a cost of $0.44 per frame
7970 DCII gets 924 fps for $415 at a cost of $0.45 per frame
680 DCII gets 1077 fps for $520 at a cost of $0.48 per frame
7970 gets 872 fps for $420 at a cost of $0.48 per frame
7970 GHz gets 952 fps for $470 at a cost of $0.49 per frame
680 gets 989 fps for $500 at a cost of $0.51 per frame

 

[Guest]

That is a pretty good looking suggestion there, thank you for pointing that out to me. Less than the latest I had seen for the going rate of an additional 460. However, I do have some reservations about reinvesting in the same generation of card that I am leaving behind. At $119.00 for the GTX 470 though that looks very good price, and I am definitely going to check that out more. If anyone else has an opinion or any other suggestions, including the potential drawbacks to doing this vs. investing that money towards a newer generation card, I would love to hear their input. I am curious about the GTX 660 and have been seeing the AMD 7870's around the $230 range after rebates occasionally, does this present a better value for my money?

Honestly if your mobo and PSU can support it just get 2 470s in SLI for around the cost of one 570. You'd have better performance as well.

 

[luciferano]

Unlike CPUs, GPUs have a ton of variance in performance between the different levels, and this is especially true of the 400/500 series from nVidia. Moving from a 460 to a 470 is a decent step up, while moving up to a 560 would not be as dramatic of a change. And also remember that the 400 and 500 series IS THE SAME ARCHITECTURE, meaning that they are the same cards, but with a few power and performance optimizations between them. It is like moving from an 8800GT up to a 9800GT, the first revision they were identical, though the 9800 did hit a die shrink towards the end of it's life cycle, which then turned into the 280. The 400 and 500 series is not quite so identical, but they are extremely similar.

The nice thing about moving up to the current gen of hardware is on power consumption. The higher end cards perform better, but on a $ per $ basis you get similar performance across the board, but with the 600 series sipping somewhere near 1/2 the power of the power hungry fermi architecture.

Lastly, from what I hear on boarderlands 2 (have not played it yet as I generally wait a year or so before picking up a game), you absolutely want to stick with nVidia as the physX stuff in the game is amazing. But if it is just a 'game you play' instead of 'the game you play' then you may want to look into AMD's offerings as they tend to have a bit better performance per dollar on the low to mid range cards.

GK110 and GK100 quite literally are roughly identical chips, just with power consumption optimization so that the rest og the GK100 doesn't need to be locked due to excessive heat generation.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the GTX 280 does not use a G92-based GPU.

 

[YankeeSteef]

Thanks for all of the great information and opinions, I'm new to this forum and it's great that so many people took the time to help me out. I'm thinking that I'm gonna hold off on the old stuff- I think I saw that sale and was heading towards an impulse buy. I had been thinking about the power consumption issue all along and I think that the efficiency gains from the newest generation cards, along with performance and feature improvements will make them the better value in the long run. Now to start looking for a deal on a 7870 or 660...

 

[luciferano]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161404
Radeon 7870, $200 after MIR. This is one of the better models, but it's probably not nearly the best, although it might be the best for the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699
GTX 660, $205 after MIR. This is also a good model with an excellent price.