going from geforce to radeon

B

bluesmap

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
147
im starting from the ground and building a new pc. in the past ive used geforce cards but looking to make the switch to radeon and are a bit lost on what the radeon cards have to offer, or how they are compatible with intel cpu.

im looking for a performance card, i do alot of photo editing of large files, and i also plan on watching 1080p movies and stream them to my plasma and i need to watch movies on the plasma while doing some work on my monitor without any hiccups from the video card.

so far i only have my psu, its a corsair 850w
8gb corsair ram
cpu i5-2500k
have not decided on motherboard, but probably asrock or asus

as a starting point, i am undecided but this card (sapphire radeon 5770, 1gb ddr5) "looks" good i want to know if it will give me everything i need. my budget is below $200
 
If you are not gaming, then a 5770 is overkill. A 6570 will be sufficiently fast to decode video and give you all post-processing options.

If you want to game on 1080p, then get a 6850 at least.

Compatibility should be no problem.
 
Which of the 6850 flavors should i be considering or does it not matter? Sapphire? Gigabyte? Asus? Xfx? Msi....?
Thanks
 
I'd say no matter your use go with Nvidia...having owned all ATI for years (up until my 6870) then went to Nvidia (GTX480...got it cheap) I can now officially say that I am an Nvidia fan.

Why? Well all the little stuff like:

Physx - Trivial I know but I have a few games that support it...more than most at least. Add's to the game...just nice to have it I guess.

Audio - Problem free HD audio through HDMI - My 6870 was a NIGHTMARE to get Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master HD working through HDMI...I eventually just gave up! Nvidia was simply plug in HDMI to receiver start up Blu-ray and done...that's it! ATI involved using different drivers, hacks, file editing etc etc...to no avail!

Nvidia has EXCELLENT video decoding/encoding - ATI/AMD have seemed to all but give up on their "Stream" processing...none of my video converters that support hardware converting works with ATI/AMD cards anymore after a certain point in driver updates. Like 10.2 or something...either way, Nvidias CUDA works with EVERYTHING no problem!

Basically CUDA > ATI Stream (as its no longer supported)

Of course its all different strokes for different folks, but to me it seems like Nvidia is just running more smoothly...better at keeping their shit together more so than ATI/AMD...since owning my GTX480 (besides having to RMA it - hardware failure, Gigabytes problem NOT Nvidia) I have nothing but good things to say in regards to performance and features...something that I didn't have a problem with using ATI...well until I used Nvidia of course ;-)

And just to clarify I am NOT a Nvidia fanboy...like I said I used ATI exclusively for YEARS and just said all this because I do feel that in my case (and it would seem in yours too OP) that Nvidia is the best choice right now!

For a $200 budget? Look into getting something old-ish...I picked up my GTX480 here on the forums for a measly $200...can NOT beat that! If you can't find one cheap look at a GTX470 or a GTX560ti or there abouts. Will be plenty fast for anything (gaming included) that you would need them for!

Hope my advice/experience helps!!!
 
Woah woah woah.

If you aren't gaming and you are buying a 2500k, and I assume a Z68 platform board - Then why even bother buying a dGPU? Just use the iGPU and call it a day.

I'd save the money since you don't need the dGPU and get a 2600k instead for the benefit of having hyperthreading and the larger cache. Having the hyperthreading makes a pretty big difference for multi-threaded applications.
 
Mchart said:
Woah woah woah.

If you aren't gaming and you are buying a 2500k, and I assume a Z68 platform board - Then why even bother buying a dGPU? Just use the iGPU and call it a day.

I'd save the money since you don't need the dGPU and get a 2600k instead for the benefit of having hyperthreading and the larger cache. Having the hyperthreading makes a pretty big difference for multi-threaded applications.
Click to expand...

This ^^

The extra money on the cpu would benefit your system more (photo editing, rendering etc), plus would end up costing you less because you won't need a dedicated gpu if you aren't gaming with a 2600k.
 
I'm not convinced he needs more than 4 cores for photo-editing.

If you aren't gaming generally nvidia is the better choice unfortunately.
 
JoeUser said:
Hope my advice/experience helps!!!
Click to expand...

yes, thanks.

thanks all for the advice.
i definitely will be getting the 2500k, at least 8gb ram, and unsure about the video card and motherboard. but on cyber monday i expect to be making my purchases, im hoping things go on sale to make my wallet happy.

again, thanks.
 
Please don't waste the money on a dGPU if you aren't going to be gaming with the computer.
 
If you are using Photoshop you should stick with a CUDA (Nvidia) capable card as it's supported by Adobe and allows much faster rendering, instant in many cases.
 
bluesmap said:
yes, thanks.

thanks all for the advice.
i definitely will be getting the 2500k, at least 8gb ram, and unsure about the video card and motherboard. but on cyber monday i expect to be making my purchases, im hoping things go on sale to make my wallet happy.

again, thanks.
Click to expand...

Don't get a video card if you aren't gaming. Just get a Z68 motherboard as someone said earlier, it uses the graphics chip on the 2500k. This will save you money.
 
What made you think about radeon ? It was mentioned many times here, but you should stay at nvidia.
 
Your fine on your research.
Yes Nvidia is better in rendering video and pretty good on Adobe programs but ATI (AMD), is just as good. I would also buy a video card, keep the iGPU as backup just in case. Video cards are cheap right now so the Sapphire video card is perfect. Price fit your video card to your budget.

Most motherboard will support both types of GPU's so again price fit you MB. I am a big ASUS fan.

Have fun bluesmap building your PC.
 
can i use this thread to ask about motherboard advice or should i start a new thread?

im looking at some p67, 1155 boards, but im just unsure about brands. i'd like to keep my price below $200.

i wanted to try something different with the radeon, but it seems i should just stick with what ive used in the past, and that's nvidia. if i can narrow down a motherboard, i can buy everything on monday, hopefully some good cyber monday deals.

what brand motherboard? asus? msi? asrock? gigabyte?
i might try some games, i used to play Unreal Tournament and i know things have changed in 10 years, so although im not a gamer, i dont want to "limit" myself. i want a p67 motherboard
 
extreme series 6 core chips are bogus.... i just swapped in my 3960x which ran @ 4.8 stable, and now on the 95 watt 2700k @ 5.2, and the only bench i seen the 3960x do better was cinebench cause it utilizes all cores, all other bench test, ill take this 2700k
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top