It just seems from this review
http://techreport.com/articles.x/19342/2 that the gtx 470 more or less matches the 5870 in the games where the 5870 has slightly more fps, or when it comes to more modern games such as dx11 titles, the gtx 470 is actually better than the 5870...
I think this means that looking forward, the gtx 470 is gona have more mileage in it than the 5870. Additionally the 5870 I bought cost me £300 when the GTX 470 is around 240-250 for near identical if not better performance.
The only down side to the GTX 470 is probably going to be noise and heat. The 5870 I have is quiet and very cool, and very powerfull.
But, ATI drivers are not great. I personally have had issues, I noticed as I mentioned above graphics corruption whilst playing Warhead, and I like how Nvidia with most driver updates increase performance. Something ATI dont do enough off.
For instance compare the release notes for the 10.7 Ati and the Nvidia Foreware
258.96 drivers.
Ati, advertise that Borderlands has have a performance increase of around 5% accross the 3000, 4000 and 5000 gpus.
While Nvidia's drivers say:
New in Release 258.96
* Adds support for GeForce GTX 460.
* Adds support for NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology. Learn more about this technology including the hardware and software requirements here.
* Adds additional performance increases for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games (these improvements are in addition to the previously reported Release 256 improvements). The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured with GeForce GTX 480. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:
o Up to 11% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 7% in Crysis: Warhead (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Gamer)
o Up to 4% in H.A.W.X (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High)
o Up to 10% in Just Cause 2 (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF - Concrete Jungle)
o Up to 6% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 10% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 12% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 4% in World in Conflict (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
* Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0224.
* Upgrades HD Audio driver version 1.0.15.0 (for supported GPUs).
* Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.
New in Release 256 Drivers
* Adds support for Blu-ray 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology. Learn more about the hardware and software requirements here.
* Increases performance for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs in several PC games. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured with GeForce GTX 480. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:
o Up to 14% in Aliens vs. Predator (1920x1200 noAA/AF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham Asylum (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF PhysX=High)
o Up to 5% in BattleForge (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Very High settings)
o Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 4% in Crysis: Warhead (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Enthusiast setting)
o Up to 24% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1920x1200 no AA/AF)
o Up to 9% in Far Cry 2 (2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF)
o Up to 25% in Just Cause 2 (2560x1600 no AA/AF - Concrete Jungle)
o Up to 7% in Metro 2033 (1920x1200 no AA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 40% in Metro 2033 with SLI ((1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF – Tessellation on)
o Up to 8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (1920x1200 no AA/AF – Day)
o Up to 110% in Stone Giant with SLI (2650x1600 – Tessellation on, DoF on)
o Up to 6% in The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena (2560x1600 no AA/AF)
o Up to 9% in Unigine: Tropics (2560x1600 no AA/AF – OpenGL)
o Up to 5% in 3DMark Vantage (Performance and Extreme Presets)
o Up to 19% with Transparency AA (1920x1200 4xTrSS – measured in Crysis)
* Adds support for OpenGL 4.0 for GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs.
* Adds support for CUDA Toolkit 3.1 which includes significant performance increases for double precision math operations. See CUDA Zone for more details.
* Adds support for new extreme Antialiasing modes for 3-way SLI PCs, including up to SLI48x AA for GeForce 200 series GPUs and up to SLI96x AA for GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs.
* Adds support for a new ‘Quality’ mode for NVIDIA’s Ambient Occlusion control panel feature.
* Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel setup page for SLI and PhysX for ultimate control over multi-gpu configurations.
* Adds a new NVIDIA Control Panel feature for ultimate control over CUDA GPUs, allowing the user to effectively choose which GPU will power each CUDA application.
This may be marketing on behalf of Nvidia, a clever ploy to make it LOOK like they have more development going in to the drivers... but with all the games going the way of TWIMTBP, why should I suffer from brand loyalty and stick with ATI?
Im not having a bump at ATI, I just feel, I want to try Nvidia again, aditionally the GTX is 50-60 cheaper, and looks like it has better DX11 performance, tesselation and in some instances higher minimums.
Only question I have (not that I care for warhead or crysis, but as a benchmark)
Can the GTX 470 do Warhead enthusiats settings 2xaa at 1920x1200?
Also the GTX 470 is a 2010 product and the 5870 is from 2009... not a big deal, but Im sure that will have a say come a time in the future.
