Which card is better all around GTX 480 or 5870.

Best card overall of the two.

  • ATI 5870

    Votes: 214 83.3%
  • GTX 480

    Votes: 43 16.7%

  • Total voters
    257

455olds

Gawd
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
791
The best of the two overall,all things considered heat,performance,price..
I want to see what everyone thinks cut and dry.
 
wow these threads are getting a little old already.... :rolleyes:

Fermi is over heated, over powering (watts hungry) and over priced

Go with 2 5870s :p
 
Every fanboy is going to vote for their favorite brand's card. You're not going to get much objective or empirical information from this poll thread at all. You should have set it to public results, too.
 
Well since one of Nvidia's own partners (XFX) has announced they will not be selling 400 series cards, I'd have to go with ATI.
 
Every fanboy is going to vote for their favorite brand's card. You're not going to get much objective or empirical information from this poll thread at all. You should have set it to public results, too.

I am not a fanboy for either ATi or NV

If you look at my track record I have bought just as many ATI as I have NV....

If I started a list I would be here all day and I have owned tons of cards and have a mix of brands on the systems I currently own.

I buy what is best.... NV just didn't do it here and again for my last system the 5850 was the best price per frame
 
It pains me to say.....5870. The 480 runs entirely too hot and uses too much power. When I am buying a video card I consider more than just gaming FPS performance, running cool and being easy on the power consumption do matter to me.
 
I am not a fanboy for either ATi or NV

If you look at my track record I have bought just as many ATI as I have NV....

If I started a list I would be here all day and I have owned tons of cards and have a mix of brands on the systems I currently own.

I buy what is best.... NV just didn't do it here and again for my last system the 5850 was the best price per frame

Amendment to my previous post: The occasional non fanboy will chime in and offer something useful. :)

I was writing in the broadest sense in my previous post.

Better? ;)
 
Well since one of Nvidia's own partners (XFX) has announced they will not be selling 400 series cards, I'd have to go with ATI.

WOW no kidding.... even more reason to not buy a 400 series card... even though it would be a hard pick for EVGA and XFX for a NV card... ATI XFX hands down though
 
WOW no kidding.... even more reason to not buy a 400 series card... even though it would be a hard pick for EVGA and XFX for a NV card... ATI XFX hands down though

Like I said in another thread: That move does have some interesting ramifications.
 
When factoring everything in I'm going to go with the 5870, but there are situations where I might make a different choice.
 
Amendment to my previous post: The occasional non fanboy will chime in and offer something useful. :)

I was writing in the broadest sense in my previous post.

Better? ;)

No I completely understand, and I know where you are coming from, I know people that are NV fanboys and would buy one even it is clearly was the underdog just because it has NV on the chip :rolleyes:

I respect people and their thoughts, if you want to boycott a company like ATI for whatever reason,... fine by me :rolleyes:
 
No I completely understand, and I know where you are coming from, I know people that are NV fanboys and would buy one even it is clearly was the underdog just because it has NV on the chip :rolleyes:

I respect people and their thoughts, if you want to boycott a company like ATI for whatever reason,... fine by me :rolleyes:

You have that on both sides. ;)
 
Every fanboy is going to vote for their favorite brand's card. You're not going to get much objective or empirical information from this poll thread at all. You should have set it to public results, too.
I thought it would be better if the poll was anonymous so everyone could vote without being branded as a fan.
I read through the threads but its mostly a few guys debating. You can't tell which card the majority likes. I want to see what the lurkers think also.
 
When factoring everything in I'm going to go with the 5870, but there are situations where I might make a different choice.

What situations would those be? ;) *nudge, nudge*



I thought it would be better if the poll was anonymous so everyone could vote without being branded as a fan.
I read through the threads but its mostly a few guys debating. You can't tell which card the majority likes. I want to see what the lurkers think also.

Fair enough. :)
 
If you are going for pure performance, GTX 480

If you want a cooler running video card with a lower TDP in about the same performance class, HD 5870

i have GTX 480 and HD 5870 CrossFire and i should be getting a second GTX 480 shortly
:cool:
 
The Fermi "marks a milestone in gaming" so I'll have to go with the Fermi.

yes it does.. it marks the day when people no longer need to use heaters.. all they have to do is run furmark to heat their house.. :p

picked ATI.. for the cost its well worth dealing with the driver troubles then to deal with a power hungry furnace called the GTX 480 that has at best 10% performance gain over the 5870.. not even worth it..
 
The gtx 4x0 series i faster and its tessliation performance is stellar . However by the ime these things matter the gtx 480 doesn't seem to get playable frames either (metro). in the future the gtx 480 may pull further ahead , but does it matter as most people buying $500 video cards will be upgrading in a year or so anyway.

The 58x0 series on the other hand is affordable hitting $400 with the 5870. IT uses less power than last gen high end cards , it stays cooler , it has eyefinity and offers performance in line with the gtx 480.


I have to go with ati this round. Its a better all around card and I think that ati will have the advantage the rest of the 40nm gen (so till early next year ?)
 
wow these threads are getting a little old already.... :rolleyes:

As is the liberal use of the word (Or variants of) fanboy around here. (Not aimed at you, but I think that's apparent....just making sure.)

When all is taken into consideration I have to stick with ATI this round.
 
Voted 5870, but I don't consider GTX480 a total flop either. Performance is as expected, but then it does consume a lot of power to get there. I think a lot of people are upset because the price, while pretty reasonable imo, hasn't forced any cuts from AMD.
 
It depends on alot of things, really. :) You didn't gave us alot of details. PSU? How many monitors? Resolution? You want to use only 1 GPU or 2? Good case with good airflow? Air or watercooling?

I voted ''5870''... if you are on air, and use a single card, and have good ''regular'' PSU, and want to use regular resolutions, like 1980X1200 or lower....

But. If you don't mind watercooling, and using 2 cards, and have a beefy PSU (1000W or more), then I would vote ''480 SLI''. Because of the impressive scaling and higher minimal FPS at high resolutions like 2560X1600 and high AA.

It depends. :)
 
Performance wise the GTX480 is a better single gpu card. But overall the 5870 is a better overall card. price/performance/thermal

LOL voted for wrong card..!!
 
I don't pay over $300 for a single card, I like low temps, I like low wattage. I'd pick up a 5870 sooner than a 480 (when they hit $300)
 
Havent owned an ATI card since the 9800pro. I have liked NV cards over the years. Thank goodness I have a 260 and only buy a card every other generation otherwise I would have to buy ATI this time around.
 
I've used both Nvidia and ATI, I prefer Nvidia's drivers but I must say Im very happy with my 5870.
 
What situations would those be? ;) *nudge, nudge*

Right now even with regard to single high resolution monitor use, I think there is still a need for multiple GPUs. Two 5870's in Crossfire, a single 5970, or a GeForce GTX 480 or two would all be excellent. I don't think it really matters too much which one you chose. They'd all provide excellent performance in nearly every game out there. However, throw multi-monitor gaming into the mix and things can change quickly. At higher resolutions on the latest games a single 5970 or dual 5870's will struggle. It would be nice to throw another 5870 or two into the mix, or double up on some Radeon HD 5970's. Sadly CrossfireX scaling is still pathetic to put it mildly. This is where two or three GeForce GTX 480's may be your best bet for performance. The GPU scaling with SLI/3-Way SLI is just significantly better than it is with Crossfire/CrossfireX.

This is the only situation where I can see the GeForce GTX 480 as being more appealing than ATI/AMD's higher end offerings. Beyond that it doesn't make sense to buy one in my mind. The Radeon HD 5870 costs less to own and to operate. Yes performance is slightly lower than that of the GeForce GTX 480, but the difference isn't earth shattering. It certainly doesn't justify the trade offs of extra heat and power usage. There is also no Eyefinity equivalent you can use today with the GeForce GTX 480 either. Throw the Radeon HD 5970 into the mix and it makes even less sense. The TDP is similar to that of Fermi, although slightly higher, but the cooling solution doesn't sound like a shop vac. It is still faster than the GeForce GTX 480 is though it seems many people are ignoring the 5970 entirely. I think this is still the whole stigma of it being a dual GPU solution that is responsible for that. As for price the 5970 is just a hair higher than the GTX 480.

So again I can only come up with one reason why the GeForce GTX 480 is more compelling. Even then we won't know for certain until NVIDIA actually releases a driver that allows it to support multimonitor gaming in an Eyefinity like way. For all we know it will support it, but take a huge nose dive in performance when setup that way. Given the fact that this technology is as of now unsupported, there is no telling. The jury will have to remain out on that one. But assuming the card works as well as AMD's in this regard, it would be a compelling solution for driving multiple monitors despite the problems with heat and power consumption. Someone rocking 3 30" LCD's isn't likely to care about those issues too much.

I've used both Nvidia and ATI, I prefer Nvidia's drivers but I must say Im very happy with my 5870.

I have used both and generally preferred NVIDIA's drivers over ATI/AMD's drivers at least until recently. I'm sick of the control panel features like fan control, etc. being broken all the time. When you have 3 NVIDIA cards in 3-Way SLI all air cooled, the fan control features need to work. I hate using Rivatuner or anything else to do it. Despite it's usefulness I've had issues with Rivatuner and other programs. Not to mention, their interfaces suck.
 
In this corner we have new tech, Ifinity, less heat and power with great performance.

And in that corner we have slightly better performance, massive heat and power consumption with older tech.

And the winner is?
 
Though the Fermi was very late to the game, it wouldnt have been that bad of a card for the price if it wasn't plagued with the major faults that it is. However, when you compile the factors together, the fact that its late, offers less than 15% performance increase even with the extra 1/2 gb of ram onboard, uses an attrocious amount of energy, and is so hot that you have to watercool it to keep it in safe temp range, make it horrible choice.

It would not be surprising to see the 2gb 5870 outperform the 480 without all of the unforgivable faults of the 480.

That is the objective approach to the matter. The incessantly ranting fanboys in this forum as of lately are turning this rational topic into a personal vendetta against non-brand loyalist and are trolling in every thread they can. Fuckin idiots need to be banned.
 
It would not be surprising to see the 2gb 5870 outperform the 480 without all of the unforgivable faults of the 480.

Fermi doesn't beat 5870 purely in situations where a larger framebuffer is needed - the 2GB card is pretty much for Eyefinity and getting the most out of a CF setup really (it's not any faster per se). And let's not forget that an extra gig of fast GDDR5 will increase cost, power and heat - I think I saw an article which pinned the TDP of 2GB 5870 around the 235w mark. For single-card, single-monitor gaming I'd say the 480 will actually be a better buy.
 
In this corner we have new tech, Ifinity, less heat and power with great performance.

And in that corner we have slightly better performance, massive heat and power consumption with older tech.

And the winner is?

Not quite. Fermi isn't older technology. It is very different than its predecessors. Aside from that you are pretty much on the money.

Though the Fermi was very late to the game, it wouldnt have been that bad of a card for the price if it wasn't plagued with the major faults that it is. However, when you compile the factors together, the fact that its late, offers less than 15% performance increase even with the extra 1/2 gb of ram onboard, uses an attrocious amount of energy, and is so hot that you have to watercool it to keep it in safe temp range, make it horrible choice.

I've already said as much, so I have to agree with you here.

It would not be surprising to see the 2gb 5870 outperform the 480 without all of the unforgivable faults of the 480.

Not going to happen. A larger frame buffer won't do anything for you if it isn't being utilized. In some cases cards with larger amounts of memory suffer from additional memory latencies, and thus are slightly slower than their counterparts running half as much RAM. At present I only see 2GB of RAM helping out with Crossfire and Eyefinity.

Fermi doesn't beat 5870 purely in situations where a larger framebuffer is needed - the 2GB card is pretty much for Eyefinity and getting the most out of a CF setup really (it's not any faster per se). And let's not forget that an extra gig of fast GDDR5 will increase cost, power and heat - I think I saw an article which pinned the TDP of 2GB 5870 around the 235w mark. For single-card, single-monitor gaming I'd say the 480 will actually be a better buy.

That all sounds about right. That is another situation where Fermi might be more attractive than the 5870. 2GB 5870 / 4GB 5970 cards will be VERY expensive.
 
That all sounds about right. That is another situation where Fermi might be more attractive than the 5870. 2GB 5870 / 4GB 5970 cards will be VERY expensive.

True, the 4GB 5970 will be VERY expensive as you put it, but, most people would consider the entry cost for 480 SLI to be VERY expensive as well.
 
I voted for the 5870 as the better card.

I also pre-ordered a 480 and plan to SLi them. See how that works?
 
wasnt the 280gtx faster than the 4870? The only thing they went wrong this time around was 6 months late and extra power usage. so that means ati = automatic win i guess?
 
I think Fermi has better features, it just not the better card. It just seems that it is so underwhelming considering the hype it got. I was seriously excited for it to come out, then it came out and I was like BLEH. The power, heat, and more than one card for nfinity are the biggest issues. If the 480 would have come out 10% faster using the same power/heat/multi-display gaming of the 5870 and the same features it has now that would have been impressive 6 months ago.... Honestly I thought Nvidia was better than this.

5870 gets my vote
 
Back
Top