Graphics Card

[Celeras]

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...0_sli_review/7

The wattage differences are fucking huge. Temperature wise I think only the 5850vs470 is worth mentioning.

5850 is better than the 470, hands down. 480 is exactly what I expected it to be, a normal expensive video card. It's a mild increase over the 5870, which is why we get to laugh at the fanboys who said it was going to murder the 5000 series.

Its a power hungry card for sure. If you value a 27W difference in TDP as 'vital' to your purchase, then get the 5850. But the 470 gives the better performance for the better price.. and you can't really argue that.

And this isn't even considering the fact that both Fermi GPUs give a +300% increase in F@H, and nearly +50% in tessellation. Sources below:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/n...5215/22216.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/n...5215/22218.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/n...5215/22211.png

Which makes your '5850 hands down' statement rather silly. Like I said before you can't really go wrong with either, but you'd have to give the edge to nVidia.

[Kurp]

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/n...5215/22204.png
From anandtech.com

That shows ~90 watt difference between the 470 and the 5850. The 470 even draws ~47 more watts than the 5870. The 480 draws over 100 more watts compared to the 5870.

That's total system watts during demanding game play.

[Celeras]

If that was intended to contradict me, TDP isn't 1:1 with load power consumption. You can look it up if you care to know the specifics of the figure and why its included in a GPU spec sheet, but the difference is still 27W TDP.

[edit]And if you'll notice, the 470 is only 6 watts more than the 285 from last generation. It's really being blown out of proportion at this point as its the only downside to the chip, and I guess some people just need something to rag on.

[Kurp]

I'm simply pointing out what can be expected from these cards for real-world power consumption under load.

[Celeras]

Well then, yup. Something for people to keep in mind if they have an out of date power supply. You're going to want at least a 550W for these cards. Though that should really be the minimum nowadays regardless, just for futureproofing issues.

[Kurp]

There is also the additional cost for power. A 90 or 100 watt difference is ~$15-17 extra per year at 4 hours per day at load and $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (close to the US national average iirc). Someone that lives gaming on their computer could spend $40 more per year.

Granted, it's not a huge number for people willing to shell out this kind of money for a GPU. The difference is still there though. Any sort of $/FPS or similar calculation should account for that, imo.

[Celeras]

Impossible to account for in a calculation because there are wayyy too many variables. And even if you could, we're talking about the difference of a light bulb here. The only reason its even a relevant stat is to determine if your power supply has the required juice.

P.S. We're highjacking this guys thread pretty good, lol.

[Kurp]

Yeah, it's pretty much hijacked.

I think the extra dollars on a power bill probably matters more for the people that are looking at the 5850 or 470. The people that are buying a card with at least some sort of budget considerations. I know I hate my power bill and would rather not spend an extra dollar or three per month!

Just for the record, I'm not loyal to either brand. I'm just looking for the best card that I can get and have been flip-flopping between the two companies since I started buying GPUs.

Comparison chart of many site's benchmarks compiled by a poster at anandtech.com. They are all at 1920x1200.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2062300

Spoiler: show

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/211...v2smallpng.jpg

I haven't looked at it very closely yet, but the numbers that stand out immediately are the 470 vs 5870 ones. The 470 comes in less than 7.5% behind the 5870, which seems nice. It'll be interesting to see how close the 470 can get after a month or two of driver revisions. Hardware Canucks still seems like an outlier though.

[Celeras]

As awesome as my droid is, theres no way I'm scrolling through that image in an attempt to read it. It'd take me all day, lol.

I'll check that out when I get home from work.

[Kurp]

I snipped the summary.

Spoiler: show

http://premium1.uploadit.org/samskeyti//summary.JPG

The left section is without AA and has much fewer numbers. The right section is with AA/AF and has more sites reporting.

[Celeras]

Thanks, better

Closer than I thought it would be, that will be an interesting race when Driver Maturity gets underway. Especially since the latest ATI drivers were something like a 7% performance boost themself.

[Grandcross]

GTX 480 seems to scale really well in SLI... Might sell my 285 (Can't handle any new games at 2560 X 1600 especially with any sort of AA enabled)

[Ramor]

rather than a new thread i'll post it here, when is Nvidia releasing their new line of cards so the old ones will hopefully have a pricedrop? I know it's supposed to be in march so that's not so many days left unless I've missed it, and what card would be worth picking up once its price has dropped (depending on how much the price drops y'know)

[shidobu]

Are you talking about Fermi? lol... the stats and info was released to the public on Friday. they hover just a lil better than the radeon 5870s. like 12-15% better across the board. Only real improvement is when you put them in SLI. But the power needed and heat produced is kinda extreme.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...80,2585-3.html

[Darus Grey]

480 is a pretty big disappointment, it's slightly better than the 5870, a year late, and nearly the same price as the 5970...which destroys it.

[shidobu]

yea, i was gonna wait on fermi to release for my new build to see what happend. Glad i didnt. Cuz im sure if i did i woulda just been pissed that i waited.

[Isiolia]

480 is a pretty big disappointment, it's slightly better than the 5870, a year late, and nearly the same price as the 5970...which destroys it.

But, but, it doubles as a cooking appliance!

Value!

[Ramor]

well the thermi picture posted in RIT makes a lot more sense now

so then, what card would end up leaving me well off enough to not have to upgrade in a year or two if i plan to play FF14/SC2/Diablo 3 etc...?

GTX260 looks relatively promising but i don't know enough about cards to just buy it

[Celeras]

480 is a pretty big disappointment, it's slightly better than the 5870, a year late, and nearly the same price as the 5970...which destroys it.

As I said earlier in the thread, it's 15% better than the 5870 and released 6 months later. By comparison, the 5870 is only now 17% faster than the 285 after 6 months of driver maturity.. and was released 9 months later. These are both typical launches, the only difference being propaganda.

And when compared to the (dual GPU) 5970, the (single GPU) 480 is over $200 less and still manages to beat it in tessellation rendering.

Don't know where you guys get your facts, but its kind of embarrassing.

[Don Katsu]

I think the expectation everyone had was that these cards would have the same performance gap from ATI cards as the GTX 280 and 8800 Ultra.

By comparison, the 5870 is only now 17% faster than the 285 after 6 months of driver maturity..

The 5870 also launched at only $50-$60 more than the 285.