Single Card Advice

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ritch1

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 1, 2005
Messages
112
I been out of it a while and need a bit of advice on a card upgrade. I currently have a Q6600 system running an ATI 4890. First off I assume my rig will run one of these newer beasts, i have a 650 power supply? I’m looking to play games on 1900 x 1200 res

I’m looking for a single card solution, not into SLI or CF at all, I am willing to pay a lot as I deprived myself of playing games for a while now, so my price range will be around £500 ($750). I get the impression ATI have run away with things a bit but I’m very confused as to what the best single card solution for me is. The 5970 option sounds interesting but i hear its overkill or a waste of money plus some games don’t support it properly, then people tell me the new Nvidia cards don’t perform as well as ATI. So i’m not really sure what i should be looking at.

Would i be right in saying ATI’s best single chip solution is the 5870? Do the Nvidia cards match up to this and does the physx make them a better choice? Excuse my ignorance, its just so much to take in and i’m looking to sort something out within a week or so and i know you guys know what your talking about. Thank for any pointers
 
The 5870 is pretty quick, but the GTX 480 is noticeably faster in almost every game. PhysX is nice, but I can't call it a selling point since so few games make good use of it. Your 650W PSU can power either a 5870 or a GTX 480. The 5970 is great for some games, decent for others. It is generally faster than a GTX 480 and while Crossfire doesn't scale as well as SLI, you sound like you're only going for a one card solution.

You can find the 5870 for $360: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125326
You can find the GTX 480 (with a free copy of Mafia 2) for $375 after coupon code EMCYWNV49 and MIR: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127502

MSI's GTX 480 is a no brain-er for this difference in price. Save your money and go with this GTX 480... it's a fantastic value compared to the 5970. This sale price, with coupon, ends on 9/2, so hurry and make up your mind. :) MSI's tuning software (Afterburner) the best AIB tuning software, too!
 
Performance:
5970>480>5870>470>5850>460 1GB
$650|$450|$400|$325|$300|$230
Price (average)

That's pretty much how it goes in performance in the single-GPU selection.

I personally would choose between the 5870 and 480. 480 runs hotter, but does deliver a pretty good margin over the 5870 with the newer driver revisions, and folds like crazy. Physx and 3D Vision are both bonuses, although Physx so-far has been a bit underwhelming.
 
4890 is still a pretty good card.

Do you know that there are rumors of ATI releasing new videocards soon? Seems like there will be an announcement of new parts in October. No one knows when they will actually be out (at least no one who really knows is talking about it) but my guess is Oct or November. If I was going to spend that much, I'd wait a little longer.
 
you are certainly going to need to oc that cpu to get the most out of a 5870 or gtx480.
 
ritch1 said:
I been out of it a while and need a bit of advice on a card upgrade. I currently have a Q6600 system running an ATI 4890. First off I assume my rig will run one of these newer beasts, i have a 650 power supply? I’m looking to play games on 1900 x 1200 res
Click to expand...
Is that Q6600 decently overclocked (as in 3.2GHz+)? If not, you might not have the CPU horsepower to keep up with some of these cards in newer games.

ritch1 said:
I’m looking for a single card solution, not into SLI or CF at all, I am willing to pay a lot as I deprived myself of playing games for a while now, so my price range will be around £500 ($750). I get the impression ATI have run away with things a bit but I’m very confused as to what the best single card solution for me is. The 5970 option sounds interesting but i hear its overkill or a waste of money plus some games don’t support it properly, then people tell me the new Nvidia cards don’t perform as well as ATI. So i’m not really sure what i should be looking at.

Would i be right in saying ATI’s best single chip solution is the 5870? Do the Nvidia cards match up to this and does the physx make them a better choice? Excuse my ignorance, its just so much to take in and i’m looking to sort something out within a week or so and i know you guys know what your talking about. Thank for any pointers
Click to expand...
My best advice would be to wait. It's seems like you've been waiting a long time and AMD's 6xxx cards are coming in the next couple of months. It would be silly to lay down that kind of cash for something that will soon be obsolete, especially if you upgrade as infrequently as you do.
 
sorry my processor is actually a Q9550 and it runs at 2.80Ghz. I might try and overclock it a bit as it has a decent cooler but looks like i need to start looking at a new system for these cards then?

seems a bit rash to get one at the mement then if the new batch are coming out, so might concentrate on upgrading the rig for now.

thanks for the info guys, has givne me a few things to think about
 
I'm in a similar position spec wise and while I understand there will be some bottlenecking wouldn't he still see a large performance boost? I've been considering upgrading mine as well (specs below) with a 460/70/80 but haven't been able to decide since I am on a bit of a budget.

Q9300 (default 2.5ghz)
8gb of ram
8800gtx
Antec 850w psu

Unlike the OP though I do have an SLI motherboard (P7N SLI) but I honestly didn't have a lot of luck a while back with my old 7800gt SLI setup. Have things changed that much in the past several years? I use to have issues with some games having to disable one card or the game would tend to crash (WoW use to have some wonky issues with SLI as an example). I've heard gtx460 SLI is a really nice setup for less than the cost of a 480 but I honestly don't want to fool with having to tweak stuff. (Not a big tinkerer I like when things just work)

I mean shoot if it wasn't for a few certain titles I'd probably wait longer on upgrading but 20fps in Mafia 2 and down right horrible framerates during sea battles in Empire Total War is pushing me to (1920x1080 res).
 
lol no i would not do that, 5970 is an CF card you could have issues with that a lot more then an SLI setup where you have next to no issues or Buy an GTX480 in that case as it closely compares to an 5970 but with out the downside of CF and it's drivers or games do not scale with 2x460 SLI

he wants an simple setup Maybe an single ATI card
an single Nvidia or Nvidia with SLI work well with little fuss or none at all

Mafia 2 just better not using the Physx as its badly coded game for it (or its just the demo that Sucks)
 
IRSmurf said:
The 5870 is pretty quick, but the GTX 480 is noticeably faster in almost every game. PhysX is nice, but I can't call it a selling point since so few games make good use of it. Your 650W PSU can power either a 5870 or a GTX 480. The 5970 is great for some games, decent for others. It is generally faster than a GTX 480 and while Crossfire doesn't scale as well as SLI, you sound like you're only going for a one card solution.

You can find the 5870 for $360: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125326
You can find the GTX 480 (with a free copy of Mafia 2) for $375 after coupon code EMCYWNV49 and MIR: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127502

MSI's GTX 480 is a no brain-er for this difference in price. Save your money and go with this GTX 480... it's a fantastic value compared to the 5970. This sale price, with coupon, ends on 9/2, so hurry and make up your mind. :) MSI's tuning software (Afterburner) the best AIB tuning software, too!
Click to expand...

pretty much this. the 480GTX is king of the hill (hot and noise though). If your looking at just a single card solution then the 5870 is probably it. (quieter less heat) there isn't a lot of difference between them in terms of playability. but if you don't mind the heat and noise then the 480GTX is faster. if you play to ever go dual card though this changes pretty quick in the green favor. SLI scales very well

and physx only matters in a handful of games. so it should only be a consideration if your into those.
 
ritch1 said:
sorry my processor is actually a Q9550 and it runs at 2.80Ghz. I might try and overclock it a bit as it has a decent cooler but looks like i need to start looking at a new system for these cards then?

seems a bit rash to get one at the mement then if the new batch are coming out, so might concentrate on upgrading the rig for now.

thanks for the info guys, has givne me a few things to think about
Click to expand...



Good idea on waiting for the new videocards to come.

But don't just go off and buy a whole new computer. A Q9550 is a good cpu and they overclock well also. Which motherboard do you have?

Make a new thread about overclocking your computer if you don't know how and you will get lots of help. A lot of people here will always tell you to just go buy new stuff but your cpu is still very good. It could actually be fine even without overclocking it but those overclock so well, you might as well get some more free performance out of it.
 
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