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550 TI card over 8800GT

C

chrcoluk

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 7, 2008
Messages
1,274
Funyn enough recently I made a post saying upgrading my gfx card may be a waste of cash, I recently ordered elder scrolls 5 and the game will be played on 1680x1050.

I have a small concern my 8800GT wont handle it well as its listed only as the min spec although the prequel using the same sort of graphics engine is fine.

If it turns out I will have to upgrade I am looking at a GTX 550 TI card as it provides a healthy jump (from what I can see more or less double speed) in performance and maintains reasonable power consumption. A lot of people seem to hate this card tho and say get the GTX 460 1 gig instead but to me seems overhype, its only 10% or so faster? uses 50% more power on full load and needs a 2nd power cable. For me to do a 2nd power cable I have got to do a lot of work to feed an extra modular cable from my psu to that part of case. (modular ports on psu hard to reach).

What has really got my attention with these cards tho is if I am right the power they use in 2D mode is only about 1/3 of what my 8800GT uses and since my pc is on 24/7 I will save a significant amount on my electric bill.

any thoughts?
 
The GTX550Ti is indeed about double the speed for $115-$120, but the HD6870, as an example, is almost triple the speed for $160...
 
I forgot to mention ideally I want to stay with nvidia. Thanks

Its possible I wont even upgrade, which I wont if the game runs fine.

The 30 watt power saving when idle assuming I buy the 550 TI or a card with same idle power, is 0.72 units a day so about £3 (4usd) saving a month on electric bill. Realistically there probably also bit fluff on that as well, so not a bad saving on power costs.
 
chrcoluk said:
A lot of people seem to hate this card tho and say get the GTX 460 1 gig instead but to me seems overhype, its only 10% or so faster? uses 50% more power on full load
Click to expand...
According to the Anandtech review of the GTX 550 TI, the performance difference between the GTX 460 1GB and GTX 550 TI is roughly 15% to 22% depending on the game and if using the stocked clocked versions. However apparently overclocking the GTX 550 TI by 10% on the both Core and Shader clock as well 7% on the memory clock can close the gap to around 11% to 18% depending on the game.

In addition, also shown in that review is the full load power difference between the two cards. A stock clocked GTX 550 TI + full system setup used up around 307W. An OC'd GTX 550TI + full system setup used up around 323W. The GTX 460 1GB + full system setup used up around 331W. So it's only a power difference of 2.5% to 8% depending on whether or not the GTX 550 TI is overclocked

Then there's idle power difference: Both a stocked clocked and overclocked GTX 550 TI + full system setup used around 155W while idle whereas the GTX 460 1GB + full setup used around 161W idle. So only a difference of about 3.7%. Hardly noteiceable IMO.

The main issue I have with the GTX 550 TI is price: It's really shitty from a price to performance ratio considering that the stocked clocked GTX 550 TI costs around $133 to $135 USD shipped. As shown in the above mentioned AT review, the HD 5770, and by extension the HD 6770 since they're basically the same card, usually peformned as well as and sometimes outperformed the stocked clocked GTX 550 TI and was only 1-3 FPS behind the overclocked GTX 550 TI. Here in the U.S, the HD 5770 and HD 6770 can be found for around $120 shipped. Also the factory OC'd GTX 550 TI tend to cost around the $140 to $160 range. Here in the U.S, the GTX 460 1GB can be found for $160 to $165 shipped.

With that said, the price differences could very well be different in the U.K where you are. Though skimming through Scan.co.uk, the cheapest in-stock GTX 550 TI was around £111. The cheapest in-stock stock clocked GTX 460 1GB was around £119.35. I dunno man, 7% price increase for a 15% to 21% performance increase with similar power usage is pretty worth it IMO, especially if Skyrim is pretty demanding.

I'm sleepy as hell so I got anything wrong with the above post, feel free to correct
 
Indeed, the cheapest you can buy the GTX550Ti is about £110, and it's a 115W typical card. The HD6770 meanwhile is only £90, 108W at maximum load (normally much less), and performs quite similarly, within about 10% most of the time. The 550Ti's not a very good card for value or efficiency.
 
Well for power I meant in graphics card power not overall system.

I found a very good site which shows all manner of graphics cards, it graphed the following values for gpu power (not overall system)

numbers in this order.

idle 2d load 2d avg 3d peak 3d

8800gt 512meg (current card)

37 42 97 117

gtx 460 1 gig

17 35 128 155

gtx 460 1 gig SE

14 22 116 146

gtx 460 OC

n/a n/a 141 179

the 550 TI is not on there tho.

I also am using scan to check prices, I am starting to lean towards the 460 again as I suppose I can put the effort in to plugin the 2nd pci-e cable, my 12v rail has 40 amps on it. I do believe the 460 does idle at higher power then the 550 tho although both significantly less than the 8800GT. I dont want an OC 460 tho as can see from those figures its scary and the ones on scan are all OC, none are stock.

Regarding oblivion someone adbised if the game runs fine with Qarl's texture pack 3 and Oblivion Graphics Extender v3 installed it should be good for the sequel. I have the first of those 2 now installed and its all dandy until a fight occurs, if I just let a crab hit me it goes super jerky for about 5 seconds or so, even if the crab isnt on screen. I loaded up gpuz and see that even on the desktop 400 out of the 512meg vram is used so I suspect as a guess its vram saturation, I have disabled aero which has it down to 360 which still seems very high for just desktop usage, and will keep it going in the background this time when I try the game again.
 
ok without aero the problem is gone, all max settings. The video memory still peaks at almost 100% but the swapping is obviously significantly lower.

When I exit the game with aero off vram usage is 145meg, it is 400 with aero on. If i turn on aero at this point it will use an extra 300 meg or on top of current usage so I guess I know why now gamers disable aero ;)

Will try some other tests with oblivion like with HDR on and that 2nd mod to see how it goes.
 
Personal preference some of it is due to drivers as well I just prefer nvidia ones. Not saying if I upgrade I will defenitly go nvidia tho. Just my preffered optino at the moment.

With HDR on there was an obvious lower framerate although still playable, the framerate sort of went like the xbox360.
 
I disagree that running Oblivion with mods categorically means you can run Skyrim just as well, the proof is when the game is actually released - 5 1/2 years is a long time in terms of game development for hardware demands to increase - consider that this is the sort of gap between Half Life and Half Life 2, between the UT GOTY and UT2004, between Far Cry and Far Cry 2, between Doom 3 and Metro 2033. Those are colossal differences. I do agree, however, that in your current situation you're hitting video memory issues.
 
Yeah you are definitely hitting some VRAM issues. That's the main reason why I upgraded from my 8800GT to the HD 6850 1GB earlier this year.

Also, I concur with samuelmorris that Oblivion + a whole bunch of mods does not equate to or give a semblance of Skyrim performance. Especially since Skyrim is using using an entirely different and newer engine than any of the past Fallout or Elder Scrolls games.
 
The theory given by a few people is since the game will also run on consoles where the hardware hasnt updated they dont expect major engine changes, but yes both are you are ultimately right.

It seems now my next update is the nail in the coffin for my current card, I enabled HDR and set very high AA modes in the nvidia panel. Loaded the game and performance was ok, but then after about 10 minutes I had a BSOD. nvvdkm.sys. (or similiar cant remember exact name) an nvidia file. Temps were high on the card with fan at 100%, so I decided to order a 460 now to get next week because one thing I hate is crashes as I had a ton of unsaved work open at the time, wasnt best pleased.

system (particurly hdd i/o) is laggy since the BSOD also, I guess that threw caches and such out of whack also.
 
I havent had any more crashes but I also toned down the settigns in the nvidia panel on AF and such.

I also read that oblivion has a crash bug with nvidia cards as well.

However I still want a 460 but am baffled why those 2 cheap ones on scan are a massive £40 cheaper than the msi etc. I dont want to get another card that runs at hideous temps, and I am guessing they cut corners on the cooling.
 
chrcoluk said:
However I still want a 460 but am baffled why those 2 cheap ones on scan are a massive £40 cheaper than the msi etc. I dont want to get another card that runs at hideous temps, and I am guessing they cut corners on the cooling.
Click to expand...

Link the cards.
 
550ti is a pretty bad card. It performs around the same as a 5770/6770, or gtx260 or 4870. It's just barely double the performance of an 8800GT. The GTX460 offers another 20-30% more performance

If you're bent against buying a GTX460, then go AMD/ATI. There's no real reason not to, unless you had bad experiences or need CUDA/Physx.
 
I am not bent against it and is currnetly my first choice. My current concern is why are the evga cards £40 cheaper than the msi ones, is it because the cooling on them is poor?

As for the 550TI performance wise its clearly worser value than the 460 but it obviously has advantages like not needing a psu with 2 pci-e connectors and lower power consumption. To say its aweful whilst the 460 is good for only 20-30% seems far stretched, 20-30% isnt a huge amount of difference. 100% is huge not 30%.

The watts difference in terms of power bill savings obviously depends on what you pay for electric and how much you use the cards at full load. But it can be significant if its many hours a day and your electric is expensive.

The reason I am willing now to accept the power hungry 460 is it also uses less when idle than my current card and it has a dynamic mode when in 3D which I assume means it wont always be drawing full power during games it will depend how stressed it is. So the power is no longer my concern, it will be a lot of hassle doing the 2nd pci-e connector but I have accepted that now. My only concern now is buying a card with inadequate cooling. If I buy the evga, and it has stupid temps, are those card coolers which go in adjacent slots effective?

like this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ante...rds-upto-15-degrees-cooler-extendable-3-speed
 
Done a bit more looking around.

The more normal price for the gtx 460 here is £140+ with the evga been a freak occurance. I have read many reports of evga cards overheating with noisy fans.
The 550ti is averaging £90-120 with scan's been overpriced a bit. So scans prices actually provide a misleading picture. eg. the asus versions of the cards (better cooling than evga) is £92 for the 550ti and £170 for the 460.

I checked the american prices and they have much cheaper 460's so over there the picture is different, its as if the uk retailers have adjusted pricing to take account of the demand.

If I find a asus directCU or msi 460 GTX 1 gig for under £120 I will take it.
 
chrcoluk said:
Done a bit more looking around.

The more normal price for the gtx 460 here is £140+ with the evga been a freak occurance. I have read many reports of evga cards overheating with noisy fans.
The 550ti is averaging £90-120 with scan's been overpriced a bit. So scans prices actually provide a misleading picture. eg. the asus versions of the cards (better cooling than evga) is £92 for the 550ti and £170 for the 460.

I checked the american prices and they have much cheaper 460's so over there the picture is different, its as if the uk retailers have adjusted pricing to take account of the demand.

If I find a asus directCU or msi 460 GTX 1 gig for under £120 I will take it.
Click to expand...


I own an Asus DirectCU 460 and its amazing. I have it overclocked to 560 speeds (same card just overclocked) and it never breaks 60c.
 
I found asus directcu gtx560 cheaper than its gtx460 variant as well.

The 460 seem the worse value out of the 3 when I shop around. hmmm

asus directcu

550ti £92
560gtx £147
460gtx £170 -> £157 found bit cheaper now but still more than higher model.

Also I found it can be got for £125 (directcu gtx 460) from an american seller but the shipping fees bring it up to £150, but still cheaper than the uk.

With that price and been a directcu card the 550TI seems head of the pack again, but for bit more future proofing if I can find a directcu 460gtx for under 30% higher then £92 I will buy it instead so about £120 or under.
 
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chrcoluk said:
I am not bent against it and is currnetly my first choice. My current concern is why are the evga cards £40 cheaper than the msi ones, is it because the cooling on them is poor?

As for the 550TI performance wise its clearly worser value than the 460 but it obviously has advantages like not needing a psu with 2 pci-e connectors and lower power consumption. To say its aweful whilst the 460 is good for only 20-30% seems far stretched, 20-30% isnt a huge amount of difference. 100% is huge not 30%.

The watts difference in terms of power bill savings obviously depends on what you pay for electric and how much you use the cards at full load. But it can be significant if its many hours a day and your electric is expensive.

The reason I am willing now to accept the power hungry 460 is it also uses less when idle than my current card and it has a dynamic mode when in 3D which I assume means it wont always be drawing full power during games it will depend how stressed it is. So the power is no longer my concern, it will be a lot of hassle doing the 2nd pci-e connector but I have accepted that now. My only concern now is buying a card with inadequate cooling. If I buy the evga, and it has stupid temps, are those card coolers which go in adjacent slots effective?

like this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ante...rds-upto-15-degrees-cooler-extendable-3-speed
Click to expand...

So does the HD6850 - it's as fast as the GTX460, but only needs one PCIe connector, and uses a lot less power.

By the way, where are you getting these ridiculous prices for the GTX460?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...shader-clock-1526mhz-336-cores-2x-dl-dvi-i-mi
There's one of the best, for <£120...
 
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is done, ended up ordering the cheap evga 460GTX, as also found out the 550ti's apparently are hot due to the higher clock speeds.

I think the directcu's look great but the price is harder for me to justify so am hoping this one runs ok, and the stories regarding evga was their external exchaust model which this isnt so hopefully it be ok.
 
samuelmorris said:
So does the HD6850 - it's as fast as the GTX460, but only needs one PCIe connector, and uses a lot less power.

By the way, where are you getting these ridiculous prices for the GTX460?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...shader-clock-1526mhz-336-cores-2x-dl-dvi-i-mi
There's one of the best, for <£120...
Click to expand...

from google shop comparison.

The prices I listed I specifically stated were for the asus directcu version (highly rated version for cooling).

I ordered the cheap evga now but its defenitly a freakish price, even other sites dont have that model for that price. I am assuming scan are desperate to rid of it for some reason.

The £92 550ti is on amazon, same with the £170 460gtx, I cannot remember where I found the £157 460 gtx tho, was some not well known shop.

and yes the 560gtx directcu is cheaper than the 460gtx variant, yet in america the 460gtx is almost the same price as the 550ti, seems to be inflated here.

If the temps are no good I will return it saying its crashing or something and exchange for the msi that scan have (twin fans). They dont sell the directcu 460.
 
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I learned that the current gfx market is flooded with products, much more than when I got my 8800GT which was an easy decision at the time. However I got a cheap 8800GT and my current temps suggest I should have took more care on the fan pre fitted.

64C idle temp and 80C load temp with 100% fan speed.
 
samuelmorris said:
Rofl, the Asus DirectCU cooler's not worth £50!
Click to expand...

well the sites that sold the directcu also charged more for the evga than scan does so in that respect its not a £50 premium on those sites. Of course for me its a £50 premium if I paid it. I am hoping that cooling wont be needed, but obviously they will charge more than the fan is worth as they banking on the buyer paying for the ability to not need to do the work to swap the fan.

Thanks to you and anyone else who replied for the help given to me in this thread. ;)
 
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card is in now.

put the 2nd pci-e cable round backpanel of case so was easier then expected.

Temps are way lower than the 8800GT, when completely idle is 30-33C and under load it goes up to about 45-50C.

8800GT was 60+ idle and about 80 under load. Also the 8800GT sounded like concorde when playing a game.

So yes I am happy, interesting that firing up firefox uses 300meg of vram (with aero on) and puts the card in 3d mode, I assume as I got hw acceleration enabled in the browser.

Tired at the moment due to working through night so will test card with oblivion and few other games later.

Finally is knock on temps on all my hdds :D down from about 50C to 33C
 
In oblivion the fan only hits about 50% and stays quiet. Temp hit about 47C. Colours seem more vivid in game and detail also seems better although it could be pseudo.

I left the system idle overnight and before i went bed the clock speed was dynamically going up and down depending on what I was doing, browsing firefox made it increase to 3d speeds when loading/scrolling pages but then would go back to very low idle clocks again after. In IE the clocks only went up when watching flash videos. Now however the clock is staying about middle speed and idle temp is up to 35-37C.

The 8800GT didnt adjust clocks at all was always at full speed.
 
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