480 vs. 5870

[jigger]

By the sounds of thing you have to consider the PS3/Xbox, drop 3D vision or just wait for Nvidia like you said.

 

[ejr22]

By the sounds of thing you have to consider the PS3/Xbox, drop 3D vision or just wait for Nvidia like you said.

The Xbox/PS3 comment was a joke - nothing against them fundamentally, but consoles just aren't for me.

 

[jigger]

I quite enjoy my consoles, just slap in the game and play. Granted the IQ is not the best but its good enough.

 

[James J]

For stable 3D frames your gonna have to wait by the looks of things. Early benchmarks on a few of the reputable sites show truly mental FPS loss when enabling it even on the 480

 

[sir-les-mp]

Ok from what i have read in this thread your are set on keeping 3D vision so for the moment it seems you have one choice which is to stick with nvidia.
As for getting better performance from your current setup i can see three possiblities.

1: Purchase another GTX285 and run your system with sli which should net you upto an extra 60% if i remember correctly in games that support SLI over your single card .
Then wait till the GTX480's have been out for a while and some proper end user benchmarks come out or ATI support 3D Gaming and judge the performance differrence then.

2: Sell your current GTX285 and purchase a 2nd user GTX295 from an early adopter of the GTX480/GTX470. As you mentioned in an earlier post you were happy with the performance with the games you were running.
Again then wait till the GTX480's have been out for a while and some proper end user benchmarks come out or ATI support 3D Gaming and judge the performance differrence then.

3: Sell your current GTX285 and purchase a GTX480 as you are looking to do once stocks become availeable. And make your own mind up whether it was worth it once you are using it.

Now if it was me i would most likely go with option 1 as this should give similar performance to a GTX295 and my wallet would not take too much of a hit. Unless i found a GTX295 at that must have price and then sell the GTX285.
As a user of F@H Nvidia is the best option for me at present, however looking at the performance of the GTX480 that has been posted so far againts its current price i would not be looking at purchasing one as yet.
Price v's Performance it is just too expensive.

 

[Azuse05]

How exactly is the £140 difference between a 5870 and a 480gtx, an $80 difference? At the moment thats around a $210 difference.

In the US the pricing is different, it's actually competitive, sometimes dropping below atis. In the UK nvidia just added an extra hundred and something pounds to it.

 

[james.miller]

unfortunately, we live in the uk. so its somewhat irrelevant

 

[Tute]

I used to, when the 295 was released, have a Quad-Sli set-up! Oh how I wish I had that luxury now!

I bought them (coming from a Crossfire 4870X2 set-up) and quickly found out that I didn't need anywhere near the horsepower - should have learnt my lesson from the 4870X2s! Great cards (both the 4870X2 & GTX295) but really only ever needed one of either, especially gaming @ 1920*1080.

Anyway, ended up selling that rig last August, went 4 months without a PC (I still receiving counselling following this period), eventually bought a 2nd hand rig just before Christmas which had 2 x GTX285s, sold one of them in January in preparation for Fermi (with optimistic crossed fingers over performance), turns out Fermi is not what I was hoping for, so I am now left with a slightly underpowered rig (3D-wise) with no real sensible upgrade path - considering I want to keep the 3D Vision shenanigans - it's either stick with the 285 or buy a 480. Problem is, both options seem to have more negatives than positives.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard-place really and although I understand that it is fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, it's hopefully only a temporary aberration in my quest for the winningest PC.

Perhaps I should just buy an Xbox or PS3?

Well what's stopping you buying one now? You could always have a look on the MM - someone's bound to be upgrading.

It's what i'd do if I was in your shoes - jump to a second hand GTX295 and hold tight on the Fermi front for now. The GTX295 is what... a little bit faster than the GTX480 without all the heat, noise, and power draw? Seems exactly what you're looking for.

 

[=VTA=MANFACE]

Get a 5970, nuff said.

 

[Liampope]

LOL! The OP has to work for nvidia, right? Perhaps a kid on work experience or something? That is just a 480 advert. A lame one at that.

 

[jorzeh]

I loled

 

[Rezident]

Nvidia drivers have always been the more stable of the 2

Over the last few years I've had many more nvlddmkm.sys crashses and BSODs than on ATI drivers.

 

[Spazzfish]

buildings dont blow up on an ati card then?

Only when i'm underneath them it seems

 

[harryohh]

- Only about $80 more than the 5870 for the fastest single-card graphics solution (Don't compare it to a 5970 since theres 2 gpus on one PCB, In some cases I think its better than the 5970, but don't quote me on that

Had to laugh at this and quote him on it because after all he did say it.

That whole post was complete and utter rubbish.

 

[reiyushin]

Only when i'm underneath them it seems

Evil evil buildings, if only having an ATI card made me immune to physics related deaths!!

 

[thingemajib]

dont know what been said before (too much effort to go back and read). but:
pro's for the gtx480:
1. slightly more powerful
2. a couple of mm shorter than the 5870
3. someone claimed that it had more dx11 features than the 5870, but i really doubt this, because i have yet to see proof of this.

cons,
1. waaay more expensive,
2. consumes waaay more power
3. get veeeery hot.

 

[Spazzfish]

Kylew, serious question - What would you do in my situation...

I've currently got a GTX 285, 120Hz monitor, and the Nvidia 3D Vision kit.

I'm finding that the 285 is starting to struggle slightly - especially with some of the latest games in 3D. I also want to experience a bit of DirectX11 eyecandy (although I'm not sure how much of a big deal this is).

What would you do?

• Keep the 285, put up with decreasing performance/value and wait for the next gen until upgrading.
  
• Sell the 285 whilst it is still worth something and buy a 480 to enjoy DirectX11 + better performance.
  
• Sell all Nvidia products and buy ATI

Now, I know you will probably plump for the last option but imagine for a second that you are me and you enjoy 3D gaming "now" and doesn't want to wait for ATI to release their solution (is there any confirmed dates for this?)

I'm not trolling, I am genuinely interested to know what you would do?

p.s. Bang for buck isn't high on my list of priorities, and I have good/excellent cooling.

Look for a cheap 285 and crossfire if you want to stick with Nvidia.
Your not missing much with DX11 at the moment anyway. Then just wait for the next Generation of cards.
As personal preference i'd sell up and go with ATI this generation.
Personally I wouldn't recommend the 480 to anyone that doesn't have it strapped to water, even then it's still a pointless card imo

 

[Tute]

strapped to water

I tried the mental image of that, just gave me a headache.