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Video card recommendation

HohnyF said:
Who'd buy 5870 for $400 LOL

Rendering on NV demands more CPU power
Click to expand...

I never said a HD5870 was $400, I was trying to make a price/performance ratio.

Also, that's total bullshit, rendering on NVIDIA or AMD takes the same amount of CPU power, depending on the GPU class being used. One brand doesn't require more than the other.

With SLI or CrossFireX, that's a different story since there is a software-layer involved.
 
Red Falcon said:
I never said a HD5870 was $400, I was trying to make a price/performance ratio.

Also, that's total bullshit, rendering on NVIDIA or AMD takes the same amount of CPU power, depending on the GPU class being used. One brand doesn't require more than the other.

With SLI or CrossFireX, that's a different story since there is a software-layer involved.
Click to expand...
actually there have been a couple of reviews that showed Nvidia to be slightly more dependent on the cpu than AMD in some games. the difference was not very significant though.
 
I already said BC2 wont be too good.
GTA 4 also not great. But playable? Hell yes!
Prototype...I'd say maxed out no problemo!


Anyone wanna I downclock my E5200 to 2.7 GHz and put this to test?
He should get at least that much FPS with 5870 as above.
 
Yeah I know it's CPU demanding, but... wait I'll reboot and test.

Prototype with E5200 @2.66 + GTX 460:
proto2dj58.png

Maxed out @1080p
FPS:30-40 fps, mostly low 30s

VERY smooth.
 
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HohnyF said:
Yeah I know it's CPU demanding, but... wait I'll reboot and test.

Prototype with E5200 @2.66 + GTX 460:
http://www.abload.de/img/proto2dj58.png
Maxed out @1080p
FPS:30-40 fps, mostly low 30s

VERY smooth.
Click to expand...
and just like I said, he we would have to have his cpu oced at 2.66 just to be playable in some games. if it was at stock 2.13 the game would be too sluggish. I would not be happy with low 30s in that game especially knowing what a gtx460 could actually do with a better cpu. and he would get the same performance with a 5770 as he would with a 5870 in that game. same goes for those other cpu intensive games that I listed especially in regards to minimum framerate. heck even in Metro 2033, he would be limited to a mid to low 30 fps average even with his cpu overclocked considering the stock E6400 could only muster 29 fps on high settings in that review I linked. and again thats with a gtx460 so the gap a better cpu would have would be even larger with a 5870.
 
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That Prototype run was a CPU bounded scenario and really was very smooth.

So why should he cry about the gap vs a CPU he does not have, if he can play his games.

$100 card won't give him nearly as good experience in Metro as 5870.


Red Falcon said:
Also, that's total bullshit, rendering on NVIDIA or AMD takes the same amount of CPU power, depending on the GPU class being used.
Click to expand...

Heh...
Opposite is true. With rendering on NV incurring bigger CPU hit, while GPU class having nothing to do with it.
That was exactly my point on why 5870 is a decent choice for his rig.
People imagine GPUs are like tractors needed to be pulled, with higher classes needing more power.
 
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Red Falcon said:
No, he won't, that CPU will hold that GPU back by a minimum of 50%.

An E8200 @ stock would only hold a HD5870 back by 35-40% or so, but both CPU's are getting up there in age.

A system should be built from bottom up, not top down.

Investing in such a powerful GPU like that would be a total waste of money with the CPU the OP currently has. He said he wants to upgrade, but by the time he does, more powerful GPUs for the same cost will be out, so there isn't really a point to upgrade that far at the moment.

I would hate to buy a $300-400 GPU and then get held back by 50% when I could have bough a $100 GPU to get the same performance.
Click to expand...

You guys are blowing CPU bottlenecking out of proportion, Those games that another poster named are so CPU bound aren't even that demanding for the GPU regardless of which videocard is used. The 35%-45% bottleneck stuff may happen in those rare games. Arma 2 barely uses my GPU and still running strange and stutters with my quad core, a stupid asscoded game, just like GTA4. No one is denying the fact that the GPU will be bottlenecked, but not in a fact that the game will be unplayable (Except in those rare games). OP, buy the card, enjoy it and overclock your CPU a little more if needed and once you can, get a cheap Q8X00 series CPU.

Edit: Fermi architecture indeed sucks more CPU power than AMD's equivalent. There's scenarios that coupling a weak CPU to a GTX 480, performs slower than the HD 5870.
 
evolucion8 said:
You guys are blowing CPU bottlenecking out of proportion, Those games that another poster named are so CPU bound aren't even that demanding for the GPU regardless of which videocard is used. The 35%-45% bottleneck stuff may happen in those rare games. Arma 2 barely uses my GPU and still running strange and stutters with my quad core, a stupid asscoded game, just like GTA4. No one is denying the fact that the GPU will be bottlenecked, but not in a fact that the game will be unplayable (Except in those rare games). OP, buy the card, enjoy it and overclock your CPU a little more if needed and once you can, get a cheap Q8X00 series CPU.

Edit: Fermi architecture indeed sucks more CPU power than AMD's equivalent. There's scenarios that coupling a weak CPU to a GTX 480, performs slower than the HD 5870.
Click to expand...
so perhaps you missed the link showing a stock E6400 giving ONLY about 1/3 the performance that a gtx460 is capable of. so if anything I was being very generous because his old E6400 oced to 2.66 would still only deliver about 50% of what the gtx460 could do and even less for the faster 5870. you could also see in that link that some games will end up in the 30-35 fps range for an average no matter what gpu he gets.
 
cannondale06 said:
so perhaps you missed the link showing a stock E6400 giving ONLY about 1/3 the performance that a gtx460 is capable of. so if anything I was being very generous because his old E6400 oced to 2.66 would still only deliver about 50% of what the gtx460 could do and even less for the faster 5870. you could also see in that link that some games will end up in the 30-35 fps range for an average no matter what gpu he gets.
Click to expand...

Those results are totally abnormal as AMD's Athlon II 565 is much faster than Intel's Core 2 E6400 while in reality, the Intel CPU is slightly faster and both are dual core!! And that kind of CPU tendency isn't the norm in all games. Like I said before, there will be a bottleneck, but not for the point to make ALL GAMES UNPLAYABLE, there's some that will experiment bottlenecking like BC2 or GTA4 etc, but oh well, you can't get it all, specially with a Dualy coupled with a Fermi based card.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck,2738-12.html

The latest 3D engines aren't doing Intel or AMD any favors. Somehow, something seems a bit off here. When most games used DirectX 9, you needed a really fast CPU, and these weren't terribly common before the 65 nm fab node due to thermal issues. Transitions to 65, and then 45 nm allowed processor manufacturers and overclockers to accelerate clock frequencies, making 3.5 GHz a breeze with most CPUs.

But the newer DirectX 10 and 11 games don't really need this speed. This change snuck up on us, making CPU overclocking for 3D games rather meaningless at the mainstream level. Of the 20 games tested in this article, only 10 respond at all to CPU overclocking when we used a GeForce GTX 460 graphics card. Seven of them show only small reactions. Just three show a small frame rate increase. Now, this situation might be completely different at lower resolutions, but the Radeon HD 5800-class monitors, the GeForce GTX 460, and HD resolution LCD monitors are slowly becoming standard gaming equipment.

The following table provides an overview of all the test results so that you can check whether your PC is ready for the tested games or if you need to upgrade something. If you are looking for an upgrade, we show what you should replace first. All of the games deliver higher frame rates with better graphics cards. The average optimal number of CPU cores suggested by the test results is 2.75, showing a clear trend towards at least three CPU cores. The age of dual-core CPUs is certainly not over yet, since DirectX 11 yet again puts the focus on graphics card performance. But with the help of better supply and pricing, the market is trending toward quad-core CPUs nonetheless (or at least dual-core chips with Hyper-Threading). Overclocking the CPU is quite pointless when playing games with high quality graphics settings and HD resolutions--unless you already own a pair of flagship graphics cards rendering cooperatively able to shift the bottleneck back to the host processor.
 
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Thanks for all the replies everyone. Fantastic ammount of information and some great suggestions.

My system upgrade is going to be done in stages as taking the hit for a new GPU, CPU, MB and RAM all in one go is a bit much for me.

My current graphics card is having hardware issues and so needs to be replaced. It has served me well over the past four years and I would rather get a card that will be able to run what I play for the next four. I know the CPU i have now will mean i dont get the full potential of what it can do but it will give me a nice boost over what i currently have and will come in to its own when I replace the rest of the system in several months time.

The 5870 is available for £150 while the 6950 is another £25-30 extra. Not sure if its worth getting the newer card as i cannot see much difference in performance and from the reviews i have seen power consumption is up.

Cheers

Simon
 
wait you have an eVGA 8800gts, did you setup the lifetime warranty? Call them!!
 
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