new video card.

[Blue Stealth]

I am thinking about buying this card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127467&cm_re=5970-_-14-127-467-_-Product

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with the 5970 model, or if you have any reasons for me to consider a different card. I am not tight on money here so the pricetag is not an issue, but I dont plan on going over 700.

I was looking at the GTX480 but I dont really think its right for me. I am sure the 480 is a great multi-function card, but I am only interested in solid gaming performance. I was looking at benchmarks and the GTX480 was getting beat by radeon HD4000 series cards by a few framerates. Instant turn off.

thanks guys

-Blue

 

[dbee]

You should really consider a GTX 470 , a pair of them in SLI would be within your 700. Even a single card overclocked to to mid 700's on the core will yield amazing results . A pair of them is even more impressive. Drivers are still young, so we could see boosts there as well.

YES, at stock they do turn me off as well... Til i seen the overclocked benchmarks and OC'd SLI benches. I have posted the link in a few other threads but have in my fav's

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3...eforce_gtx_470s_in_sli_overclocked/index.html

Be sure to look into other benches at other sites on single and SLI 470 configurations to get the whole picture as far as temps, power consumption, etc. A single overclocked 470 can beat the 5970 in some benches.

My plan is to start with one 470 once a few upcoming games release and go for an ASUS Rampage III or EVGA Classified board when its time to SLI.

Those cards in particular would be best for extra cooling , very good stock coolers compared to the standard EVGA though i would opt for the EVGA myself when using a single card. SLI , the Galaxy and or Palits would make a good team.

The 5970 is AWESOME. No doubt about it, the above is another solution to consider seeing as you were originally turned off by the 480 benches. I have zero interest in the 480 as well to be honest. Do as much research before droppin 700 on some cards, and since moneys no issue- feel free to send me a 470, i wont mind .

 

[Blue Stealth]

thanks for the reply and your thoughts dbee.

Ill just say that I dont plan on overclocking my GPU's at all. And in addition, the 5970 is also very overclockable.

I checked out some of those SLi benchmarks you linked me to. I think the SLI setup runs too hot and noisy for me, which is one of the reasons I stay away from SLI and crossfire. Also, I have had rotten luck with SLI drivers in the past and currently. That being said, my SLI drivers are for GTX280M's and I dont expect laptop drivers to be as stable as desktop SLI drivers. But currently, I dont think there is enough of a framerate advantage in going with SLi while using such immature drivers.

Also, the 48w idle power usage for the 5970 is very appealing to me. That is one thing I love about ATI cards, they generally run cooler and quieter than their Nvidia counterparts. However, I obviously am not saying im an ATI fanboy since I have geforce in all four of my machines at the moment.

here are some of the reasons I am looking into the 5970

Source

Here is one of the games I play quite often. I really love the lighting in this game, and my GTX295 just doesnt cut it. Yes 30 fps is not unbearable, but its an average, meaning it often drops down to 15-20 fps with max settings, usually during important parts like firefights.

This picture makes me laugh at Nvidia. Seriously? a 4890 outperforming a GTX 295? facepalm:facewall:

Source

Honestly I did not check out the 470's as the 480 was such junk that I thought it would be a waste of time to look at the 470. However, SLI might be a possibility. But again, SLI 470's would be both hot and noisy, and having a machine where I am already overclocking the CPU 17%, it is plenty warm. Not throwing the idea out yet, but I need to find noise and heat levels for the stock 470's.

Almost forgot to add. I am only concerned with the 1680 x 1050 benchmarks and plan on running dual 22 wide's. More stalker benchmarks if you are not convinced by the higher resolution marks.

Thanks
-Blue

 

[Ph?bus]

I have a 470 and can vouch for its awesome-ness.
Get one. You will not be disappointed.

 

[shadows5631]

You will notice a lot of microstuttering with the 5970, which is a huge reason I will never get a multi-GPU card again. It is a great performer though, but I've heard in intense scenes the Nvidia cards handle it better.

I would say the GTX 470, 5870 or maybe even the 480 are better options. The noise and heat of the GTX 470 are about the same as the 275, 285, etc. which isn't very bad at all. Also, it's good that they downclock on idle, currently mine is at 36c and never goes above 70 under load(the 275).

Keep in mind, Stalker is optimized for ATI though.

 

[RustyPwns!]

ATi's are cheaper and seem to get better frames in comparison to price but nvidia has better technology for physics and I noticed first hand. I had a 9800gt and "upgraded" to a 5770 and in bfbc2 smoke softening and explosions KILLS the 5770. Smoke/debris/destruction doesn't affect nvidia cards not nearly as much as they do for ati's. I go from 70 frames to 20 in smoke and destruction and I have a pretty nice rig. I personally wished I gotten a 260

 

[Blue Stealth]

You will notice a lot of microstuttering with the 5970, which is a huge reason I will never get a multi-GPU card again. It is a great performer though, but I've heard in intense scenes the Nvidia cards handle it better.

I would say the GTX 470, 5870 or maybe even the 480 are better options. The noise and heat of the GTX 470 are about the same as the 275, 285, etc. which isn't very bad at all. Also, it's good that they downclock on idle, currently mine is at 36c and never goes above 70 under load(the 275).

Keep in mind, Stalker is optimized for ATI though.

well the microstuttering is a driver problem that will be fixed before long, but I will do some further looking to see if many others have this problem, and the version of driver they are using. And the 5970 also downclocks to 500Mhz just like the other cards do on idle.

As for the heat and noise, yes one 470 is about the same as my 295 I would guess, but dual 470's effectively doubles the decibels and temperature inside my case. That is the issue I am trying to deal with right now. If I can find two 470's that put out even close to the same temperature and noise as one 5970, then I will go with the 470's. But I doubt that is going to happen.

And the 480 is just a waste of time and money for gamers. Look at the price tag, look at the benchmarks, and tell me how you can charge 500 dollars for a product that is being outperformed by radeon HD4000 series cards? The 480 is out of the question.

Thanks for the input.
-Blue

 

[Blue Stealth]

ATi's are cheaper and seem to get better frames in comparison to price but nvidia has better technology for physics and I noticed first hand. I had a 9800gt and "upgraded" to a 5770 and in bfbc2 smoke softening and explosions KILLS the 5770. Smoke/debris/destruction doesn't affect nvidia cards not nearly as much as they do for ati's. I go from 70 frames to 20 in smoke and destruction and I have a pretty nice rig. I personally wished I gotten a 260

I would be concerned with this if my 4870x2 had not handled the smoke on day of defeat source perfectly. And as anybody who has played that game, the smoke is optimized horribly. It is the only card I have ever had that does not drop in the smoke to a low enough framerate to notice. Heck, my dual gtx280M's cant even handle the smoke at times.

I think you're right in saying that physx does make a difference in rendering smoke, etc. But in the high-end card department, having physx vs. not having it does not make a big enough change in framerates and definitely not enough change in aesthetic look to say that I need physx processing power. Also, keep in mind that it is possible to install nvidia and ATI drivers side-by-side on windows 7, and that if I really decide I need physx I can buy a dedicated card for it.

Just saying physx takes a back seat for me when I am buying video cards. It is a marketing scheme by nvidia to make people buy their cards, when you really only use it in a handful of games.

-Blue

 

[Silent Ghost]

I want that card too but i dont know if its the best one but i like ATI more

 

[RustyPwns!]

I would be concerned with this if my 4870x2 had not handled the smoke on day of defeat source perfectly. And as anybody who has played that game, the smoke is optimized horribly. It is the only card I have ever had that does not drop in the smoke to a low enough framerate to notice. Heck, my dual gtx280M's cant even handle the smoke at times.

I think you're right in saying that physx does make a difference in rendering smoke, etc. But in the high-end card department, having physx vs. not having it does not make a big enough change in framerates and definitely not enough change in aesthetic look to say that I need physx processing power. Also, keep in mind that it is possible to install nvidia and ATI drivers side-by-side on windows 7, and that if I really decide I need physx I can buy a dedicated card for it.

Just saying physx takes a back seat for me when I am buying video cards. It is a marketing scheme by nvidia to make people buy their cards, when you really only use it in a handful of games.

-Blue

I'm not talking about nVidia Physx, I'm just talking about how nVidia cards handle physics in general, and how they compute shaders and in my opinion is much more efficient than ATi cards do. Either that or ATi drivers are just bad. I say wait a little while for prices to drop on all cards and see how it goes on from there Blue.

 

[Blue Stealth]

I'm not talking about nVidia Physx, I'm just talking about how nVidia cards handle physics in general, and how they compute shaders and in my opinion is much more efficient than ATi cards do. Either that or ATi drivers are just bad. I say wait a little while for prices to drop on all cards and see how it goes on from there Blue.

noted, thanks

-Blue

 

[reflex99]

I have used both ATi and nVidia cards recently. (9800GX2, 4890, 3850)

I could not notice ANY micro stuttering with the 9800GX2 (it is a dual GPU card), so I think that that issue should probably be resolved with the 5970.

I could not notice any diference between any of the cards on how they handled physics. (In games w/o PhysX)

If you want pure gpu pwnage you should get 2 of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121382&Tpk=5870 ROG

 

[Ph?bus]

ATI cards don't handle phyics (NOT PHYSX) as well as nVIDIA. Probably has something to do with CUDA.

 

[dbee]

If you think the other cards are still too hot n noisy, check this guy out. Posted a thread on it as well but heres the link. Not out yet , but should be this month.

Gigabyte GTX 470 " superoverclock" edition - these are the cherry picked good ones that come clocked to you at 700 core , with headroom for more. Extra power phases and 3 fans angled to cool the card the best they can. Check it out. I cant stop looking at it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/GTX...470,10575.html

 

[PewPewBangBang]

DONT GET A 5970 YET!!!!

they're coming out with the 5970 4gb cards soon and XFX has a black edition on the way

Supposed to be much better

Or you could just wait for the ATI 6 series which are supposed to come out end of this year or beginning of next year

5970 production is really low right now which is why they are so much more expensive

 

[Blue Stealth]

DONT GET A 5970 YET!!!!

they're coming out with the 5970 4gb cards soon and XFX has a black edition on the way

Supposed to be much better

Or you could just wait for the ATI 6 series which are supposed to come out end of this year or beginning of next year

5970 production is really low right now which is why they are so much more expensive

yeh but the 4GB cards are up over 1grand and im not paying that for a video card.

Also, any evidence that the 6000 series wont have the stock issues that has plagued the 5870's and 5970's?

-Blue

 

[Silent_Predator]

Im looking at SLI 2x 470s for my next build with a 9800gtx for PhysX - i7 platform

right now Im running SLI 9800GTXs on core 2 quad platform and on max Quality(res 1680x1050) settings I get around 130fps in HL2:Lost Coast stress test w/ max pre-rendered frames at 2 to add, both cards are OC'd to 700mhz core clock, 1150 memory clock, and 1750mhz shader clock -- fans maxed at 100% ... yes, it is a bit loud, but stays under 110F even under the most graphic intense applications.

 

[BlackBird.]

All I have to say is; i wish i had so much money Its a nice videocard, much beter then mine.... i can only dream about having it

 

[dbee]

ATI 6 series... Could you really wait another 6 months + for your GPU ? You have all the options laid our for you, im sure you have spent hours and hours reviewing bench after bench weighing everything out before you spend that hard earned cash.

Have we helped you reach a conclusion? I can feel your confusion. Myself, i already have my heart set on the Gigabyte 470 super OC . That will be plenty of juice for at least a couple years though my 260 runs everything nicely right now with the exception of a few titles. In these ones, i simply turn down shadow and shader detail a notch and all is well.

 

[Blue Stealth]

ATI 6 series... Could you really wait another 6 months + for your GPU ? You have all the options laid our for you, im sure you have spent hours and hours reviewing bench after bench weighing everything out before you spend that hard earned cash.

Have we helped you reach a conclusion? I can feel your confusion. Myself, i already have my heart set on the Gigabyte 470 super OC .

I am leaning very much towards an asus 5970. Yeh you already guessed that card im sure.

-Blue