GTX 295 or hd 5870

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iusahell

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I would like to buy a gtx 295 because in my country cost me $ 370 dollars and HD 5870
$515(yes $126 of ripoff but there isnt another dealer right now) both as to taxes, the 295 is cheaper and faster:D but the 5870 has DX11 (future proof factor) and slightly slower:mad:, do you guys think the hd 5870 will beat the 295 in the next 3 months when drivers mature? Fermi should be faster than both but how much? gtx 295 already has 480 cores fermi will have 512 so theoretically should be faster but then again how much? is worth the looong wait (feb 2010, 5 fuck*n months)? i been waiting 7 months already, i dont like ati that much but if nvidia dont bring the powaaa soon:mad: i dont know if can wait any longer :( sorry 4 the rant:)
 
drivers should improve the 5870 beyond the gtx295, but where it will likely improve the most is crossfire support.
 
Yes i think the 5870 will end up faster in few months and its better choice then GTX295 still it depends what games you playing on what resolution and how much budget you got? if that 126 $ are not problem for you i would get the 5870

1.No scaling issues, the GTX295 is SLI so in some games which don't support sli you will have only 1 part of the card working. The 5870 is single card and its better in this way:

2.No microstuttering,all dual cards have it, still some notice it some aint.

3.Better overclocking potential on 5870, less heat alot less idle and smaller load power usage.

4. Very little drop from AA in games with high resolutions only 5-10% GTX295 around 15-25%. This is important if you love eye candy.

5.If your low on budget then grab the 295 its still good card no matter what will someone said and FWIW you can wait a week or two so the price in you country will drop on 5870 and grab it then.
 
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5870 will eventually surpass the 295 as the drivers mature. The 4890 has already gained around 15% since release. The 5870's specs have largely doubled since the previous gen and has even more room to improve with drivers.
 
Been using a friend's GTX 295 the last week, go with the 5870. This card is really fast but isn't future proof as the 5870 and you have to remember it's basically an SLI set up with all the hassles that come with it.

I will say though this BFG GTX 295 is almost silent at idle and runs a lot cooler than my 4850 with reference cooler.
 
It is far from guarantee that the 5870 will eventually surpass the 295 as the drivers mature.

Now, the 5870 maybe a bit slower but a single GPU approach should be favored against a multi GPU one. The 5870 has more features (D11, D10.1, Eyefinity), draws less power and is more silent. Unless you absolutely want NVIDIA proprietary features such as PhysX, CUDA and 3D, I would go with the 5870. Of course the price difference is significant and it depends of your budget.
 
thanks everyone for the answers, is clear now, hd 5870 or fermi gtx 380 nothing less, you see i want something that last me 2 years minimun, being optimistic:cool: of course the waiting game sucks but im not made of money you know:D and i really hope NV will bring the card before december of this year and not in feb like fudzilla is sayin:) i like to get one card for gaming mainly cause i missed many console ports and like to max out crysis just cause, yeah kinda stupid i know.... anyways the next year i wont have so many free time like i do now since problably i ll get a job hopefully, and well thats the story.
 
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Well you might want to upgrade your cpu or oc the one you got now to at least 3.4
 
iusahell said:
. . . and I really hope NV will bring the card before December of this year and not in Feb like Fudzilla is sayin'.
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Sorry, man, but Fudzilla is not the only one saying that.

Kyle Bennett said:
On the flip side of this, many hardware enthusiasts are asking, where is NVIDIA? The fact is that NVIDIA has no products to immediately answer AMD’s 5800 series and it is our understanding that it will be late February at the earliest before we actually see a next-gen GPU show up from NVIDIA in the retail channel.
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TheQuestian said:
Sorry, man, but Fudzilla is not the only one saying that.
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If its real, so the powersavings costs with hd 5870 only make it worth for me in the long run say 3 years at least and i dont plan to keep it that long, 2 years will be enough i think, but what if some cool dx11 games appear before and i cant play them well with gtx 295, that is scary, i already got the money in my pocket but i want to make a right decision, some preview benchs of fermi now will be awesome to give me an idea of how much min fps could expect in crysis.

With my q9300@3ghz wich card would be less bottlenecked the hd 5870 or gtx 295 im not interested on i7 gains not worth for me:p
 
iusahell said:
If its real, so the powersavings costs with hd 5870 only make it worth for me in the long run say 3 years at least and i dont plan to keep it that long, 2 years will be enough i think, but what if some cool dx11 games appear before and i cant play them well with gtx 295, that is scary, i already got the money in my pocket but i want to make a right decision, some preview benchs of fermi now will be awesome to give me an idea of how much min fps could expect in crysis.

With my q9300@3ghz wich card would be less bottlenecked the hd 5870 or gtx 295 im not interested on i7 gains not worth for me.
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Well, I am only an avid reader, so I just regurgitate what I've read. But as I understand it, clock speed is still more important than number of cores/threads when it comes to gaming. It may run a bit behind an i7 rig, but probably nothing worrisome. And there are plenty of vigilantes about these forums preaching the gospel of "You won't be bottlenecked, you idiot."

Regarding Fermi, I think a 5870 would hold its value well-enough that you could always sell it when the time comes and still make out alright. A GTX 295 would probably lose a some value after the Fermi release.
 
At this point in time, you shouldn't even consider the GTX295. Go for the 5870. Add another one later if need be.
 
Can't believe anyone would consider paying that much more for the HD5870 over the GTX295..perhaps others overlooked the price difference where you are.
The GTX295 does perform better in most games, however I would normally recommend the ATI card if the price was similar. Mainly due to the newer tech and power savings etc.
Usually the price difference is the other way, hence the most likely reason for their recommendations.
But you'd be a little silly perhaps, if you spent that said amount on the HD5870.
 
PlatinumPC said:
But you'd be a little silly perhaps, if you spent that said amount on the HD5870.
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Not really. You have to balance out what he is after. If he has a board that can Xfire two 5870's it a much better investment. Even if he upgrades to a i5/i7 board he can keep existing 5870 and pair it up with another for some serious performance in the future. Sticking two gtx 295's together isn't very effecient so his upgrade path comes to an end with the gtx 295 while the single 5870 can still be used with another.

Its not silly, he just has to know what he is going to do in the future. I prefer nVidia cards because I like going with EVGA but right now I wouldn't even think about going with a dual GPU solution when I can get one that has almost the same performance out of a single GPU card.
 
Looking at the parts you currently have in your your sig, I am guessing that you are likely one of those people who is interested in high performance, but still more concerned about about price/performance than just getting the latest greatest components.

Now if you sig had SSD drives and i7's(etc.) then I'd say forget price/performance and get a couple of the HD 5870 for $1030. Or one now, and one later. Who cares about the price? It's the latest greatest - you need to have it.

But from a price/performance perspective, the ATI card is horribly overpriced compared to that other cheap card. I'm a bit surprised I'm refering to a GTX295 as a "cheap" card but at $370 it's a bargain relative to the ATI. From this perspective, get the GTX295 as it is plenty fast for such a "cheap" card and faster than the HD 5870 is many cases.

Given your situation, I recommend the GTX295.
 
The GTX295 really needs to be <$350 to compete with the 5870 @ $380.
 
Mr. K6 said:
The GTX295 really needs to be <$350 to compete with the 5870 @ $380.
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In the USA, the 5870 is the best choice no doubt. It's cheaper and better. But in OP's country, the 5870 is actually more expensive. I'd advise OP to wait for the price of the 5870 to drop or maybe consider importing it somehow.
 
vjcsmoke said:
In the USA, the 5870 is the best choice no doubt. It's cheaper and better. But in OP's country, the 5870 is actually more expensive. I'd advise OP to wait for the price of the 5870 to drop or maybe consider importing it somehow.
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Ah, I just noticed that. In that case I would just wait for the 5870 to drop I suppose. There's no real point in buying expensive old tech.
 
The power usage alone would've made me go with the 5870. 5870 uses less power, but still gives great speeds; not to mention the use of MSI afterburner has done with this card. I wouldn't even lose a night's sleep over it, as I didn't ;)

This is also coming from a guy that upgraded from a GTX 275 (eVGA) & was looking at the 5870 & GTX295. Save the $100 & use it towards a after market cooler when they come available for the 5870.
 
Had bad experiences with importing (i.e.evga cards from the US). Having a local retailer support you in case of problems is invaluable sometimes.

The OP seems pretty impatient...perhaps he can wait but up to him. And there's a cheap card that's faster available right now to him.

As for old tech, sure the GTX295 is old tech but it's "much" cheaper than the 5870 and is still faster in many cases. I suppose this depends on how badly he needs to upgrade or if he can wait. If he wants to upgrade now - he should get the cheap card. If he can wait, he has more options.

p.s. rest of you guys realise he is not US based I hope and the prices he's talking about are much different to newegg.
 
iusahell said:
you see i want something that last me 2 years minimun,
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The 5870 will easily last for two years as long as your expectations aren't to be able to fully max out every game on displays that are 24"+ within those 2 years. ;)
 
RamonGTP said:
The 5870 will easily last for two years as long as your expectations aren't to be able to fully max out every game on displays that are 24"+ within those 2 years. ;)
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ATI's next gen DX11 cards based on an entirely new architecture will be out by Dec 2010 that will perform much better ..but point is that DX11 games won't 'stress' the current architecture solely because these games will be built with DX9 in mind make it easier to support consoles...and the next gen consoles will be out only in 2011-12.
 
Next gen consoles will do one of two things...

Revive PC gaming with new games that actually allow us to use our hardware

or

Put the final nail in PC gaming coffin. From very early reports I've been reading, the next gen consoles are going said to be quite revolutionary, basically taking Nintendo's Wiimote up 10 notches and mimicking entire body movements in-game.

I hope the former is true, I just purchased a PS3 slim less than a week ago and even the prettiest game on there (GT5) can't hold a candle to many of my PC games.
 
I skimmed over this, so sorry if it has been brought up.

But to the OP, I wouldn't worry about 'not' being able to play a game with a GTX295 when a DX11 game comes out. I'm pretty sure the games won't be DX11 Exclusive. That would alienate a large portion of the market, so I doubt that will be the case. As you can see, a game like Lord of The Rings online, they're adding DX11 support. If its anything like DX10, the gains won't mean much. I understand this time around (from the limited reading I've done so far), that won't be the case. I just don't see developers really taking advantage of that tech off the bat. My humble guess is that we won't start seeing more games with DX11 more until Q3 2010.

If I'm wrong on any of that, feel free to cyber slap me xD
 
commodore said:
ATI's next gen DX11 cards based on an entirely new architecture will be out by Dec 2010 that will perform much better ..but point is that DX11 games won't 'stress' the current architecture solely because these games will be built with DX9 in mind make it easier to support consoles...and the next gen consoles will be out only in 2011-12.
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LOOL and i just thinking about 2years when it could be only 1, go figures...:eek:
Damn thats really fast even if arent many good dx11 games that justifies the hd 5870, later the hd6870 arrives, so i guess it doesnt matter if get this or that:confused:, in 1 year will be outdated&busted by the new ati standards ( efficiency, shrinks, double transistor count, almost double performance,etc) but what about nvidia top cards, they should be ready for december time, cause mainstream are set for march of next year, right? I can wait until december max but no more
 
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