Graphics Card

[Darus Grey]

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.

$500 vs $600(though the 5970 is hard to find at retail price these days), and the 5970 performs 40-50% better.

And oh shit...tessellation rendering...that...means nothing.

By the time tessellation is even a consideration in real games we'll have the ati 7xxx and GT 500/600, so the 480's performance gain there is nothing but marketing hype for the time being.

I don't know where YOU get your facts from, but it's kind of embarrassing.

The 480 is just a poor value(compared to other highend cards which are already poor values).

[Celeras]

You're way off. The 5970 is $699 right now, and in some cases even $719. And it's barely than 20% faster according to even the most ATI favorable sources: http://techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDI..._Fermi/32.html

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeF...es/perfrel.gif

I'm sorry if I come off rude, but 'fact twisting' has to be the most annoying thing in the world to me. I also completely disagree with your Tessellation assessment, but it's not worth arguing opinion. It(along with other performance specific scenarios like F@H) may not matter in your mind, but if you're going to give an objective opinion they must be included in the conversation. And the bottom line is that the 480 destroys the 5970 in both. You also grossly overestimated the 5970s performance, and underestimated its price.

The 470 is definitely much better 'value' for the money, but the 480 is by no means a waste. Yeah, it's the worst price/performance card of all the DX11 single GPUS, but its also the fastest. That's a market in and of itself. Not one that I would venture too, but at the same time I certainly wouldn't drop an extra 200 on a 5970 either.

[Darus Grey]

You're way off. The 5970 is $699 right now, and in some cases even $719. And it's barely than 20% faster according to even the

Wrong, it's $599 MSRP, and is actually purchaseable at that price, stop saying that.

Also, for someone who so passionately hates disinformation, you think you'd know better that showing stock performance for the 5970 is innately unfair because it is drastically underclocked in order to get under the 300w barrier for PCI-E compliance.

Meaning the 5970 needs to be "overclocked" nearly 50 fucking percent just to reach it's ACTUAL stock performance, and then can go beyond that. Unlike the 480 which gains 10-15%.

I'm sorry if I come off rude, but 'fact twisting' has to be the most annoying thing in the world to me.

And you'd think that annoyance would stop you from doing it, yet it does not.

I also completely disagree with your Tessellation assessment, but it's not worth arguing opinion.

What part exactly is opinion? Do you disagree that Tessellation won't be a relevant consider for at least another year? and MUCH longer for the majority of new releases?

Cause if you do, you're simply wrong. That's not opinion, that's reality. The fact that the 480 outperforms in a test whose only relevance is a benchmark is meaningless, good job buying the propaganda though. I mean, maybe you just have a massive love for Metro 2033...but are you really arguing based on ONE game?(that isn't even terribly good it seems).

Not to say that ATI doesn't need to catch up, but it currently is irrelevant, even if you consider the video card you buy now lasting 2yrs+, it's still near irrelevant,

Like I said, the issue with the 480 is that it's a poor fucking value. It's not nearly the best, you can get 10%~ less performance for $100 or more less(did I mention you could of have said card for almost a year already as well?), or for $100 more get a much much much better bargain in terms of price vs performance(and also had it for awhile now).

Too little, too late. The biggest thing about the 480 release is that it'll push down the price of the 5870, making it at an even better value.

[Amastacia]

I'm sorry if I come off rude, but 'fact twisting' has to be the most annoying thing in the world to me. I also completely disagree with your Tessellation assessment, but it's not worth arguing opinion. It(along with other performance specific scenarios like F@H) may not matter in your mind, but if you're going to give an objective opinion they must be included in the conversation. And the bottom line is that the 480 destroys the 5970 in both. You also grossly overestimated the 5970s performance, and underestimated its price.

The 470 is definitely much better 'value' for the money, but the 480 is by no means a waste. Yeah, it's the worst price/performance card of all the DX11 single GPUS, but its also the fastest. That's a market in and of itself. Not one that I would venture too, but at the same time I certainly wouldn't drop an extra 200 on a 5970 either.

The central issue, in my mind, is that the market both the 470 and 480 compete in (along with the 58xx) is a relatively small one in terms of both units shipped and revenue.

With piss poor yields on Fermi, nVidia is going to continue to recycle 1-3 generation old GPU hardware to address the bulk of the market, which is aggravating since their halo cards won't in any way reflect on what the lesser cards can do (DX11, any hardware tesselation at all).

Also, just as the 58xx cards aren't selling for MSRP due to both lack of yield and lack of necessity, I suspect GTX400 parts will not sell for MSRP, making comparisons between street priced 58xxs and GTX4xx basically moot. And you can guarantee that if, for some reason, they do, that ATI won't sit idly on its hands, and price wars will ensue.

With 6 months more maturity on their DX11 40nm part, better yields, and a much smaller die, ATI is in a better position to come out swinging if a price war does start.

GTX 400 is underwhelming but still impressive. It absolutely serves a purpose, and is undeniably the fastest single-GPU card (in 480 form). If prices stay where they are this minute, the 470 is quite the interesting value buy. I'm a bit sad that the new die is so enormous, so hot, so power hungry, and so little of it is applicable to what I do, but we'll see if nVidia's bet on GPGPU computing pays off. I don't tend to think it will, but I've been wrong before.

The only oddball to my mind is that ATI has been playing with tesselation for years, and I'm a bit shocked that nVidia put out a product that is much better at it, since they haven't historically shown much interest.

[rezn0r]

i currently have 2 radeon x1600 pro pcies in crossfire and i'm about to click confirm order for a 5850 from newegg because i want to play bc2 with some idiots. my brain is mush after reading charts and reviews all morning. someone pat me on the head and tell me i'm doing good and that everything is going to be ok.

[Amastacia]

You're doing just fine, and everything will be more than okay.

The 5850 is a great card, you will be very happy with it.

A couple things to be aware of, which should not affect your buying decision, but may matter down the road.

1) It's pretty easy to have the CPU become a bottleneck on new graphics cards. When you first get your 5850, leave SpeedFan, Task Manager, or some other utility that will graph CPU usage running where you can see it (if possible). If you run into any framerate issues in games, check to see whether your CPU is totally pegged before you blame the video card.

2) The 5850 does swimmingly up to about 1920x1200 depending on the game. If you have a 26" or smaller monitor, the card is more than up to the task. There are a few games that will chug at that resolution with all settings maxed, but most will be fine, and if you have anything smaller than a 24" monitor you'll be able to run everything at absolutely maxed-out settings with no problems.

[rezn0r]

nice, thank you very much

my cpu/mobo/ram could definitely use an upgrade, and i figured would become a bottleneck, but i didn't want to worry about that for a few months. i almost bought a 5770 earlier but a friend told me i might as well spend the difference (which is less than double) for a better card that will last longer and still be decent in whatever i build in the fall. i think this should work out nicely.

sorry to help with the hijacking OP but lots of good info in here lately.

[Amastacia]

Just my opinion, but your friend gave you good advice.

The "value" card in the performance bracket of a generation of graphics cards tends to have a relatively long life, and enough features that it doesn't get obsoleted as quickly. It's also, by nature, the best bang for your buck in the higher-end space.

The 5870 is significantly better than the 5850, but the cost difference is larger than the performance difference. The cost and performance differences between the 5850 and 5770 are closer to 1:1.

[Don Katsu]

The best price performance model on that chart is the 4870x2. You can get it for $339.00 on Newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...114&Tpk=4870x2

older card, dual GPU but still doesn't run as hot as Fermi

http://media.bestofmicro.com/1/U/242...emperature.png

But it doesn't support Eyefinity or DX11

[Celeras]

Wrong, it's $599 MSRP, and is actually purchaseable at that price, stop saying that.

Too little, too late. The biggest thing about the 480 release is that it'll push down the price of the 5870, making it at an even better value.

Show me one source where its purchasable for that price. While you're looking, here's fact:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-335-_-Product

You're spewing nonsense. Oh, and ATI already announced they would not be lowering prices.

And reznor, I agree with your friend.

[rezn0r]

thanks everyone, the card is ordered (SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100282VXSR Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card /ATI Eyefinity) - which btw i researched can be oc'd to the next model up np - and i'll be refreshing tracking #s over and over for probably the next two days. happy gaming!

[Darus Grey]

Show me one source where its purchasable for that price. While you're looking, here's fact:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-335-_-Product

You're spewing nonsense. Oh, and ATI already announced they would not be lowering prices.

And reznor, I agree with your friend.

A simple google shopping search would have you eating crow. Nice to home in on the one point you thought you could contest and ignore the rest that you were wrong about. Pretty transparent

[Celeras]

The rest of the post was dribble. I mention the tessellation/f@h performance in passing and you go on a rant about Metro 2033, ignore the pricing facts, and ignore the fact that I posted a source showing its only 20% faster in all resolutions/games averaged when you quoted 50%.

And to that, you come back and reply: "I cant find a source so I'll tell him to google it". Continue on with the faggotry, and welcome to ignore.

@rezn0r, that's a good buy. And yeah they overclock pretty darn good. Should last you a good long while. Somewhere down the road it'll be a cheap upgrade too, just get another and go crossfire and you're looking at 5970ish performance

[Darus Grey]

I went on a rant about Metro 2033? News to me...seem like I mentioned it in passing...of you know, the one game that currently uses high-end tessellation, not relevant at all.

If you actually bothered to look, there's a handy sort by price option, if you can figure out how to use it.

Oh and yes...your 20% source, the one I completely discredited with the fact about 5970 being severely factory underclocked at reference specs in order to pass compliance for PCI-E certification, and that real world performance is significantly higher. The one you conveniently ignored because you didn't know that, and thus were wrong, it's ok though, I'm on ignore now, where you can hide safe from people calling out your BS.