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Cant decide, need your help!

D

Darth_Penguin

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
Messages
174
I have been presented an opportunity to purchase 2 MSI reference 5870's with EK water blocks for $600. I also have 2 Asus GTX460 TOP edition cards pre-ordered from amazon which wont ship till some time next week. I am not sure which deal I should go with. I am currently watercooled (cpu, mobo, gpu) and was not planning on putting the 460's under water. I like the idea of being able to stay water cooled on the 5870's without any added cost but I feel like gtx 460's are fresh and hip (and so cheap too) and was really excited to give them a try.

What deal would you guys go with and why?
 
For me this is a no brainer!! 2 reference 5870's with waterblocks for $600!!! that is a pretty sweet deal.

What are you getting the 460's for?
 
The SLi 460's are the most cost efficient bang for your buck. Though its really a matter of preference.
 
reaper12 said:
For me this is a no brainer!! 2 reference 5870's with waterblocks for $600!!! that is a pretty sweet deal.

What are you getting the 460's for?
Click to expand...

I locked in the 460's on Amazon for $209.99 each with free shipping so they are only going to run me $420.

Dosobye said:
okay

http://hardocp.com/article/2010/08/09/geforce_gtx_460_1gb_sli_vs_radeon_hd_5870_cfx/


The 460s in SLI will be better and cheaper.
Click to expand...

That article is the reason I even preordered the 460's in the first place. My only problem with it is that it seems to stray a little from the other reviews. Many have claimed that its the 10.7 drivers that is causing scaling issues in cfx. I know [H] is doing real world gaming while most others are using demos and benchmarks.

I almost want to go with the 460's so I dont have to deal with the constant "one month of broken drivers and next month we will fix it because we put out 12 driver updates a year" nonsense that ATI is playing.

At the same time though the vein person inside me wants some EK water cooled 5870 goodness which will look sweet in my new 700D.

AHHHHH, cant decide!!!
 
Yes, ATI are releasing updates once a month, but, you see, you don't update drivers every month, you only update if the drivers have something you want or fix something that it's broken in your setup. As for the article linked, well, that article uses the latest 10.7 and 10.7a drivers which are not working right with cfx. People are getting much better performance out of the 10.4a and 10.5 drivers. Just like the drivers from any company, you use the best driver for your setup, which might not be the latest driver.

The 460's are a great price, are they the 1GB versions?

If you take out the waterblocks out of the equation, the two 5870's would come to less than $460, heck less than $440. (I am presuming they are the full EK waterblocks, which cost around $80-$90)

So two 5870's for $440 or two 460's for $420?

And if you do factor in the waterblocks, well, wow, just plug in a play water setup with no messing about. that's gotta be worth a few dollars :)
 
I'm pretty sure you mean two 5870s at $440

I don't think you will be finding two of them for $440... maybe Euros
 
These are the ones I have preordered: http://www.amazon.com/PCI-Express-E...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1282268940&sr=8-1

Except I secured them when Amazon first listed them @ $210 each.

The best price I have seen for a used 5870 is about $290 and thats with no water block. So I know the deal at $600 is good, i just wanted to make sure it was worth spending $180 more then the 460's.

I feel like this is worse then buying a house... decisions decisions :-P
 
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Let me put it in perspective, you can't lose. Grats!

Neither is a bad decision by any means. Ok, let me throw a few monkey wrenches in there real quick though. Do you want a triple monitor and are you willing to buy one with Displayport? If you do and don't mind byeing one with DP, then either is still a great choice. If you do but don't want to get a DP monitor then I'm leaning towards 460's. If you even think about wanting to do 3D then you really have but one choice.
 
Omegas said:
Let me put it in perspective, you can't lose. Grats!

Neither is a bad decision by any means. Ok, let me throw a few monkey wrenches in there real quick though. Do you want a triple monitor and are you willing to buy one with Displayport? If you do and don't mind byeing one with DP, then either is still a great choice. If you do but don't want to get a DP monitor then I'm leaning towards 460's. If you even think about wanting to do 3D then you really have but one choice.
Click to expand...

this. but I will add that you would be a fool not to grab the 5870 with the H2O blocks just for the added value. 600 for two is just too good to pass up. they don't scale as well as the 460 but they still do slightly better and should OC like champs. now if they didn't have the water blocks that might change my view here
 
by the time you get water blocks for the 460s your looking at 600+ anyway... i know you said you where not planing on WC'ing them... but...

what is the ram count for each setup?

maybe get both for the time being, bench mark and oc them till you just cant take it any more, come out with the one you like more. sell the other set. (or return them in the case of the 460's... )

i however, like the idea of the 5870s with water already installed... pop em on the mobo, add to the loop, bleed and be done with it..
 
Meleniumshane90 said:
I'm pretty sure you mean two 5870s at $440

I don't think you will be finding two of them for $440... maybe Euros
Click to expand...

No, you didn't read my post right. With the deal he is getting, two 5870's with waterblocks for $600, it works out at $440 if you remove the waterblocks from the price. The waterblocks are arround $80 each.

so that's a pretty amazing deal for two 5870's. I would get them without a doubt. Use 10.4a drivers until we see what 10.8's are like.
 
reaper12 said:
No, you didn't read my post right. With the deal he is getting, two 5870's with waterblocks for $600, it works out at $440 if you remove the waterblocks from the price. The waterblocks are arround $80 each.

so that's a pretty amazing deal for two 5870's. I would get them without a doubt. Use 10.4a drivers until we see what 10.8's are like.
Click to expand...

This. Hell, you can get 460s for that price later if you want, so you could theoretically just resell the 5870s, maybe even for a small profit because of the water.
 
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