480 Or 5870

[lostprophetsam]

Getting a new graphics card. I hear alot about the two.

Could some1 list me some pros and cons on each. Im wanting to max out crysis, My old nvidia card's capacitors blew up because of heat issues. I hear 480 has terrible heat issues and consumes more power?

Whats the cons of more power consumption too?

Which should i get!!

 

[Dom]

If you look at some of the videos on Youtube, there will be some benchmarking tests.
For example, YouTube - GTX 480 Vs HD 5870 EXTREME Tessellation Showdown and there are plenty of others for you to look at there.

 

[smarteyeball]

The 480 does run hot in comparison to the 5870 and it certainly does use a lot more power.

More power means more expensive to run. It depends on who pays the power bill at your house.

It also needs a good quality PSU. At a guess, I'd say your current PSU may not be up to scratch.


It is more powerful than than the 5870 and nvidia drivers are arguably better than ATI.


The 5870 does run cooler and uses a lot less power.


At your resolution, the 470 is also a good alternative.

If you can afford to wait a little bit longer, the 470's replacement is reportedly more powerful, runs cooler and uses less power than the 470 and is due relatively soon.

 

[bobkn]

I'm not sure what the actual power consumptions of the cards are, but the 5870 has two 6 pin PCI-E power connectors, so it should draw less than 225W max. The GTX480 has one 6 pin and one 8 pin, so it should consume less than 300W. I've seen suggestions that he cards come pretty close to these limits in practice.

How heavily will you use it? That extra 75W translates to about 658 kW hours in a year if you ran the card flat out 24 hours/day. In practice, it would be much less. (That's not entirely fair - the 5870 is known for its particularly low power consumption at idle, which is the way graphics cards spend most of their time.)

Both cards exhaust most of their heat outisde the case. I doubt that there would be a significant temperature rise in the case with a 480.

You might need a better PSU with the 480, and the fan on a 300W card would make more noise at maximum than a 225W card.

The 480 has 1.5GB of VRAM standard, vs 1GB for the 5870. That may be significant with high-resolution monitors. I'm not sure where the break point would be. I expect that there'd be no benefit at 1680X1050. (Are there games that can run at 3360x1050?)

 

[lostprophetsam]

Hmmm i see. Well i want to upgrade to the antec signature 850W psu. as my psu is just a stock psu from my old system. I need a replacement now as my card has blown, although it still seems to be working? :S 2 of the capacitors burst. hmmm could it damage the rest of my system to keep using it?

 

[bobkn]

Hmmm i see. Well i want to upgrade to the antec signature 850W psu. as my psu is just a stock psu from my old system. I need a replacement now as my card has blown, although it still seems to be working? :S 2 of the capacitors burst. hmmm could it damage the rest of my system to keep using it?

I've never seen an example of a blown graphics card taking out the rest of the system.

On the other hand: do you feel lucky?

I'd be more optimistic if it was easy to remove the blown caps entirely, but I wouldn't be competent to do that safely. Are you?

 

[lostprophetsam]

Nope ill just leave them in haha

 

[sygnus21]

Well i want to upgrade to the antec signature 850W psu.

You can't go wrong with the SG-850. Excellent PS, I have on myself.

Which card to get? Do some reviews & comparisions.

Good luck

 

[imeem]

I would pick GTX 480 in m case because I need the cuda, physx, and my pc case already have a nvidia sticker logo. Other than that I would pick the HD 5870.

 

[lostprophetsam]

Yeah all reviews argue good cases. BUT the 480 is more powerful and will give better fps. I have always been with nvidia and i want all the technology that comes with it. The drivers, and expecially physx. And its better for dx 11 which is the future. also as for the heat issue. My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

 

[cloud8521]

Yeah all reviews argue good cases. BUT the 480 is more powerful and will give better fps. I have always been with nvidia and i want all the technology that comes with it. The drivers, and expecially physx. And its better for dx 11 which is the future. also as for the heat issue. My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

it also came out months later, its kinda late in the game when the 6k series is comeing out in a few months

 

[imeem]

Yeah all reviews argue good cases. BUT the 480 is more powerful and will give better fps. I have always been with nvidia and i want all the technology that comes with it. The drivers, and expecially physx. And its better for dx 11 which is the future. also as for the heat issue. My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

it also came out months later, its kinda late in the game when the 6k series is comeing out in a few months

Yea but for sure it's gonna cost more.

 

[Faladu]

If on that 2 gig E7300 rig, these video cards aren't going to suddenly make Crysis run perfecto, you need more RAM and better processor, also.

I've had a 5850 for about 6 months now, running cool and everything I throw at it just fine including extreme resource piggy EQ2 (due to non-optimized aged code), if that is major concern, I don't have Crysis though, I gave up after Far Cry 1.

 

[NTFS]

I'd agree, you'd need a new system to push either card.

 

[smarteyeball]

My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

It will still run warm regardless.

As for the power draw, it sounds like your parent/s are paying the bills so it's not a concern for you.


Just stick with what you know - nvidia.


Either card is overkill considering the rest of your specs - but you might end up upgrading anyway, yet you have a need for a card and PSU now.

 

[cloud8521]

Yeah all reviews argue good cases. BUT the 480 is more powerful and will give better fps. I have always been with nvidia and i want all the technology that comes with it. The drivers, and expecially physx. And its better for dx 11 which is the future. also as for the heat issue. My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

it also came out months later, its kinda late in the game when the 6k series is comeing out in a few months

Yea but for sure it's gonna cost more.

well i am hoping for something more of keeping the same prices as the 5k series while dropping the 5k . unrealistic huh

 

[lostprophetsam]

yeah well i want to upgrade, and i dont have a card atall. id rather get the best i an now than waste more money replacing a smaller upgrade later on.

 

[cloud8521]

yeah well i want to upgrade, and i dont have a card atall. id rather get the best i an now than waste more money replacing a smaller upgrade later on.

smaller, its a whole generation difference

 

[Bootz]

Yeah all reviews argue good cases. BUT the 480 is more powerful and will give better fps. I have always been with nvidia and i want all the technology that comes with it. The drivers, and expecially physx. And its better for dx 11 which is the future. also as for the heat issue. My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

it also came out months later, its kinda late in the game when the 6k series is comeing out in a few months

late in the game? a few months after the 6k series comes out, nvidia will have there new series out. Its a never ending cycle. i dont think either is late in the game. If anything ATI is late in the game to support features like Tessalation and physx at the standard nvidia does already.

 

[cloud8521]

Yeah all reviews argue good cases. BUT the 480 is more powerful and will give better fps. I have always been with nvidia and i want all the technology that comes with it. The drivers, and expecially physx. And its better for dx 11 which is the future. also as for the heat issue. My case has 4 fans so i doubt that will be an issue.

it also came out months later, its kinda late in the game when the 6k series is comeing out in a few months

late in the game? a few months after the 6k series comes out, nvidia will have there new series out. Its a never ending cycle. i dont think either is late in the game. If anything ATI is late in the game to support features like Tessalation and physx at the standard nvidia does already.

physx is not a standard really, not to mention Nvida already cripples physx for anything but their hardwar (cpu) what keeps them from keeping ati crippled too with phyx? . Tessellation already is supported btw, but Nvida did have a longer time to tune theirs so it performs better. the problem is they are offering little extra for the time and price. and you cant change my opinion on that.