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Is the 5870 the new 8800GTX?
- Thread starter SpeedyVV
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Falling Anvil
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I think it's more like the new GTX 280, save for being less outrageously priced. 
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Hard to say this early, lets wait until the 9.10 drivers come out. For pure performance it does not blow me away. Sure for a single card it is hands down the top dog, but for it to completely wow me it would still have to beat the GTX-295 and 4870X2 in every benchmark easily, and it does not do that. So people with 295's and X2's have no reason to upgrade really, unless they want to spend $800 on Crossfire, which is way more than either of those cards cost.
But two other very important features, Eyefinity is a very cool feature, and the low idle and energy efficiency is nice too.
But the 5870 1gb is NOT the 8800GTX at launch, the GTX at the time in November 2006 was hands down the king of the hill over everything at the time, not one card could come close to it.
But two other very important features, Eyefinity is a very cool feature, and the low idle and energy efficiency is nice too.
But the 5870 1gb is NOT the 8800GTX at launch, the GTX at the time in November 2006 was hands down the king of the hill over everything at the time, not one card could come close to it.
I think it's more of the new GTX 280, save for being less outrageously priced.
No, GTX 280 was only a moderate improvement over the last generation. The 5870 counts as significant improvement (about double).
Porter_
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i agree with this. the 5870 looks like a great card, but does not have the same impact as the 8800GTX had.
Yep. Now the 5870X2 if that comes out well before the GTX-300 series, that card will blow the doors off anything around, it should come in around 80% or so faster than the single 5870 1gb. And the price of around $599 will still be much cheaper than 5870 in Crossfire. Too bad the X2 version is rumored to be two months away ?
AltTabbins
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Personally, I dont think that the 8800gtx was that monumental at all. The 8800 series was good for the industry but this thread is making it sound like the best thing since sliced bread.
Maybe some of you weren't around for the 9700pro? Did some of you forget how great of a card the 6800gt was and how it co-dominated the mainstream alongside the x800/x850 series? What about the 7600gt/6600gt, which still hold a HUGE place in the marketshare of computer gamers (see the steam surveys). Hell, I think that even the 4870/4850 has a bigger place in the history of GPUs than the 8800gtx with AMD's bang for the buck marketing.
Don't get me wrong, the 8800gts/gtx/gt/9800gt/gso and ever other restickering of the 8800 series was great for its time and had its place in dx9 performance... but to try and make it THE benchmark for future generation cards is dumb.
Maybe some of you weren't around for the 9700pro? Did some of you forget how great of a card the 6800gt was and how it co-dominated the mainstream alongside the x800/x850 series? What about the 7600gt/6600gt, which still hold a HUGE place in the marketshare of computer gamers (see the steam surveys). Hell, I think that even the 4870/4850 has a bigger place in the history of GPUs than the 8800gtx with AMD's bang for the buck marketing.
Don't get me wrong, the 8800gts/gtx/gt/9800gt/gso and ever other restickering of the 8800 series was great for its time and had its place in dx9 performance... but to try and make it THE benchmark for future generation cards is dumb.
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no one said it is THE benchmark. it's being used in this thread simply as a basis of comparison.
Look, it's simple. You release a card that is double the performance of the previous generation. Nothing can double its performance for 3 years (now: the 5870 - dual cards don't count and never count). That is monumental. 4890 came close to doubling its performance, but was more like... 80% better.
AltTabbins
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Your argument doesn't make sense. The 8800gtx was NOT double the performance of the 7900gtx OR 1900xtx (both previous generation cards in the same bracket). It was maybe double the performance of the 6800 Ultra. It was marginally at best better than a 1900xtx in some games.
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No, I'm pretty sure it was double. Especially if you look at the higher resolutions. I did this analysis almost 3 years ago, so I'm fuzzy on the exact details, but I know the conclusion was clear. The 8800 GTX is twice the performance of the previous generation and about 4x the performance of the card that I owned (X800 XL).
The 8800gtx lasted as near top of the line for ~2 years (Nov 2006 to late 2008), and it made many shader intensive games easily playable. The most noticeable was Oblivion, which the Ge7 series choked on.
While it was not cheap, and vendors gouged for it, that card gave out great performance for a very long time. Nvidia's later incarnations of that video card were die shrinks w/ OC's, and ATI simply had nothing to counter it with at that time.
That's what was memorable about that card.
If the 5870 is going to last for 2 years, and Nvidia can't counter it, then yes, it can be looked upon as the next 8800gtx
While it was not cheap, and vendors gouged for it, that card gave out great performance for a very long time. Nvidia's later incarnations of that video card were die shrinks w/ OC's, and ATI simply had nothing to counter it with at that time.
That's what was memorable about that card.
If the 5870 is going to last for 2 years, and Nvidia can't counter it, then yes, it can be looked upon as the next 8800gtx
Good points, but no way the 5870 1gb will be strong for 2 years. Even if nVidia is late to the party, for sure the GTX-300 series will match or maybe beat it's performance, and then the 6870 will come out in late 2010 or so and be top dog, and in 2011 most likely the GTX-400 series beating that.
This is great for the consumer, having ATI and nVidia fighting back and forth, means we have top VideoCards coming out on a regular basis, at good prices.
Domingo
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Yeah, I'm reading about how the GTX was something like $600.
I paid $499 on launch day, which isn't THAT much more than the 5870's are going for.
It was the biggest single jump I can recall since the 9800 Pro days.
I paid $499 on launch day, which isn't THAT much more than the 5870's are going for.
It was the biggest single jump I can recall since the 9800 Pro days.
AltTabbins
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It was a pretty standard upgrade. Again, you are making a hard comparison. The x800xl was a mid range mainstream card, 3 generations back from the 8800gtx. Not only are you upgrading from a 3 generation old card, but you might have forgot that the GTX was an enthusiast level card.
Here's some reviews from when it came out. In most cases it was a good upgrade from the previous generation x1900xtx and 7900gtx, but it wasn't a 100% increase.
http://www.techspot.com/review/32-msi-geforce-8800gtx/
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/xfx_8800_gtx/
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=359
While I hope nVidia comes out with a better card, I hope it doesn't do so at any cost. This means that if it draws more than 225W of power, it's an automatic failure. If it is longer than 11" (or longer than my current 8800 GTX which is HUGE), it's an automatic failure. What we could use is some time to cut back on the pure high-end, and develop smaller, more efficient, and of course cheaper cards. I would sacrifice an entire year, to wait for a card that has 5870 performance at a 75W power envelope and that's only 8" long (and that may be possible in a year!).
The performance gap between the 8800GTX (at launch) and its next ATI competitor was tremendous and stayed that way for a long long time. It gave Nvidia time to relax, time to cool down its rapid development cycle, while ATI came up with their 4800 series. The perfomance gap between the 5870 is large but not overwhelmingly, and in some setups not as fast as the dual gpu cards.
I think your idea of marginally better is different from the [H]'s idea of marginally better. link
The best card launches in my history would be the Ti 4600, 9700Pro and 8800GTX. Though right now, the card to get is the 5870.
I hope you realize there are also a significant number of benchmarks where the 8800 GTX is actually double the performance, and some where it's more than double the performance (as well as some that are less), but the entire feeling you get from combining all the benchmarks is that it's double. Again, this is only looking at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 results, since those are the ones that are GPU-limited.
Also, yes, I am comparing it to a midrange card that I had, but so what? That was the card I owned, and I would only upgrade if I could find a card at least 4x better (or more precisely, 2 generations of approximately 100% performance increases).
Well thats how Nvidia and ATI makes them. High end first, capture the market and then tweak and use chips that dont pass muster as mainstream products. Look at the performance of an 8800GTX compared to a GTS250.
needmorecarnitine
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Something like that will happen, may take slightly longer than one year though.
Cutting back on high end card development will not happen just like only developing midrange cards would not happen. They are both happening all the time. Next gen (ATI and Nvidia) gpus are being designed today.
Wait for the 5770 and you might see something that is 4870 level performance, definitely lower power consumption and who knows how long...
needmorecarnitine
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Mainstream products are different gpus from the high end versions. They are not reject high end gpus.
Monumental? No. 4870x2 was more of a monumental graphics card than this. Maybe that's because the 4870x2 put well over twice the preformance of an ultra and made dual GPU cards a real option. This isn't anything special.
Yes, it's faster than the old tech. That's the norm.
Yes it uses less power at idle, thats good, but I don't buy a video card for it to be idle.
It'a a good card, but it's not "phenominal".
Yes, it's faster than the old tech. That's the norm.
Yes it uses less power at idle, thats good, but I don't buy a video card for it to be idle.
It'a a good card, but it's not "phenominal".
AltTabbins
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Now this thread is just coming down to opinions. Its my opinion vs yours and its not going anywhere.
I disagree with your opinion of this thread.
Either way the 8800GTX dominated and brought about a whole new architecture (unified shaders).
The 5870 is not even the fastest card.
AltTabbins
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Tamlin_WSGF
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This must be a joke. Unified shaders is part of DX10, 8800GTX supports unified shaders, but DX10 brought it. 5870 supports DX11 which has a lot more features like compute shaders and tesselation. 5870 brings more to the table then 8800GTX did.
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=783&type=expert&pid=1
8800GTX was also struggeling to begin with against 7950GX2. What made 8800GTX great, was that it could max out most of the current games, so it was infront of game development. You can argue if game development was behind or 8800GTX was infront, but it had value for years.
It's good. I don't think we've seen the full potential yet of the 5870 with all these launch reviews. Wait a while for drivers to mature...then maybe we can talk 8800gtx. The fact that it does beat last gen's dual gpu cards in some benchmarks is still quite impressive, especially since it can do it at relatively low watts.
ATi's drivers have been "maturing" for 10 years now. I hate the "mature driver" card. (as in "race card") It's ridiculous...the only thing newer drivers will improve is optimized support for new games, usually in the form of cheats and 1-2 frames per second increase in games.
As it stands right now with whatever drivers they are using, the 5870 is a total annihilation for the Red Team in terms of price-performance... NV can suck it with their re-naming and $500-600 enthusiast launch prices.
Technically were both right, the tech from the High End core is trickled to the Mainstream core. Dies that dont qualify as high end but are still useable become the GTS's or the 5850's. They've already made the wheel, no need to make a brand new smaller wheel.
This is how GT300 die (and past dies) will be used for Nvidia's GeForce, Tesla & Quadro lines.
ATI had unified shaders before Nvidia.
It would be nice if people stop trying to downplay a great new card by comparing it to Giant expensive dual card solutions that leave you standing with your dick in your hand in games because some stupid profile doesn't work... making you buy new power supplies / mother boards and dropping a G just to have a profile screw you.... run on sentences mmmmmm
Screw dual card solutions. Don't compare a badass new single gpu card to x2's and 295's.
That being said... i'm moving up from an 8800GTX to a 5870. Its the first card that has even made me think of upgrading. I've never owned a video card as long as this 8800GTX.
I don't have alot of faith that it will be solid as long as the 8800GTX was. I'm afraid it will be stomped on by the next Nvidia offering. I hope it will not.
Screw dual card solutions. Don't compare a badass new single gpu card to x2's and 295's.
That being said... i'm moving up from an 8800GTX to a 5870. Its the first card that has even made me think of upgrading. I've never owned a video card as long as this 8800GTX.
I don't have alot of faith that it will be solid as long as the 8800GTX was. I'm afraid it will be stomped on by the next Nvidia offering. I hope it will not.
If you think like that...you'll never buy another piece of hardware. ebay is your friend. Ditch the last gen. just before the new gen comes out and you'll get most of your money back lol.
Orange, that's my plan as well, but I might wait until the prices drop a little and there are solutions with good HSFs attached as opposed to the stock design.
Idk, I don't think the 5870 will be anything like the 8800GTX, because the 8800GTX brought with it price hikes and kept it there, while the performance did increase so did the long standing price of cards. Where as the 5870 series from ATi brought the performance and it has a damn reasonable price.