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gtx470 or 5850 ?

chaotic_uk

chaotic_uk

chaotic_uk

Soldato
Joined
19 Jul 2007
Posts
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notts , uk
i am thinking of changing to a single gfx card from my crossfired 5770's , which would be the better option as i do not want to spend on a gfx card for a while lol . gtx470 or 5850 ?
 
GTX 470 i believe is the most powerful of the two, however the ATI card consumes less power and generates less heat i believe ;)
 
Having gone from a 5870 to a 480 and being very pleased with my decision, I would recommended the 470 as at stock speed it's faster than the 5850 but it scales better when overclocked as well, downside is the 470 runs hotter and consumes more power.
 
I was under the impression that Crossfired 5770's are slightly better then a 5850?

Well nvm, GTX 470 is the better card anyway, you could also buy a GTX 460 and overclock the hell out of it :)
 
Having picked up a GTX470 I'm quite impressed with the overclocking potential and seems decent card all in all - it does get quite loud tho if you max it out with furmark, but in normal gaming (having adjusted the fan profile) I only get to ~66C and its reasonable noise wise.
 
^^Enjoy your new card. :) Was going to ask what you thought of the noise but then remembered that you've only had it a few hours. They look like great cards from what I've read, plus they come with more vram so that should help with all eye candy maxed at higher resolutions.

Edit : Just seen the cheap temp price, what a steal.
 
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Not too impressed with the noise - but it doesn't run as hot as some people would like you to believe. I've adjusted the fan profile which helps on both counts tho. If I'm playing something like Mafia 2 it sits around mid 60s and its quieter than the GTX260 SLI. If I even touch furmark tho even with modified fan profile it quickly gets to 70-75C and you can hear the fan whoosh in the next room.

Coming from a heavily OC'd GTX260 SLI setup its not really an upgrade in a lot of cases but it overclocks nicely which keeps it matching or beating that setup


arc@css said:
Edit : Just seen the cheap temp price, what a steal.
Click to expand...

Yeah wouldn't have bothered at any other price - but couldn't really resist that. If I can get another one down the line for <£200 then it would actually end up work out quite cost effective as an upgrade.
 
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I upgraded to a 470 from a 280 and am very happy, it's not really that hot, in fact I think the 280 was worse. If you get one though first thing you do is run afterburner and change to a custom fan profile, the default one is a load of fail. Also up the voltage to 1.087 and whip that core up to 800/1600 shader for a free 30% overclock. I can bench at 900/1800, 850 is stable but don't need to run it apart from Crysis really.

PS. Rroff, can you do a couple of heaven 2.1 runs if you get a chance? Just want to see how my lowly dual core setup is coping.

I run 1080p so a run with normal and extreme tesselation, 4xAA/16AF would be great.
 
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0.975->1.087 seems quite a jump in voltage - I'm not a fan of voltage tweaks over 10% without additional cooling. Testing 800/1600 w/ +5% voltage atm.

Hmmm MSI claim that 1.087 is perfectly safe on reference cooling but I'm not entirely convinced. Looking at the benchmarks tho - if you get clocks over 800/1600 w/ 1.087 the GTX470 buries even a 5850 even when its also overclocked.
 
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I wouldn't have a problem with uprated cooling or watercooling, but on the reference cooler I'm not so enthusiastic.

That said so far 800/1600/2000 seems stable with only 1.025v on the core and not getting more than 70C in games and benchmarks, tho a tad more in furmark :D

EDIT: From further looking around it seems nvidia consider upto 1.075 acceptable for stock voltage on the GF100, so 1.087 isn't hugely over that.
 
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Rroff said:
0.975->1.087 seems quite a jump in voltage - I'm not a fan of voltage tweaks over 10% without additional cooling. Testing 800/1600 w/ +5% voltage atm.

Hmmm MSI claim that 1.087 is perfectly safe on reference cooling but I'm not entirely convinced. Looking at the benchmarks tho - if you get clocks over 800/1600 w/ 1.087 the GTX470 buries even a 5850 even when its also overclocked.
Click to expand...

How overclocked was the 5850 compared? 1000/1250 at 1.25V is a reasonable and mostly achievable clock for these cards FYI. Just asking, out of curiosity.

I would also go with the GTX470 but only if I either had money for a third party cooler or would have watercooling in mind. Otherwise 5850 will cause less issues and offers similar performance me thinks.

Perfectly safe voltage for 5850 is going from 1.087->1.150V. This is for some non-reference 5850s and all 5870s (same GPU). They're fine with higher voltages though and Asus and MSI support up to 1.3V (or 1.35V, not so sure). I wouldn't go that high personally, even with water :)
 
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RavenXXX2 said:
Care about temps and power usage then get a 5850/5870, care about performance and better minimum fps then go 470/480
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I thought better minimum framerates are just a myth? Most benchmarks show this to scale just around the same for both 470 and 5850 with average framerates?
 
Mr Krugga said:
How overclocked was the 5850 compared? 1000/1250 at 1.25V is a reasonable and mostly achievable clock for these cards FYI. Just asking, out of curiosity.

I would also go with the GTX470 but only if I either had money for a third party cooler or would have watercooling in mind. Otherwise 5850 will cause less issues and offers similar performance me thinks.

Perfectly safe voltage for 5850 is going from 1.087->1.150V. This is for some non-reference 5850s and all 5870s (same GPU). They're fine with higher voltages though and Asus and MSI support up to 1.3V (or 1.35V, not so sure). I wouldn't go that high personally, even with water :)
Click to expand...

900MHz in the one article (fairly conservative review overclocks) - but the compared GTX470 was only at 775MHz.

My card seems like a decent clocker - 800/1600/2000 with only a minor voltage adjustment is stable and 900/1800 ran fine at 1.087 but I haven't liked to test it as extensively at that voltage :D
 
Talking overclocked, stock for stock I would take a 5850 over a 470, if you intend to overclock then a 470 it is, 5850 might overclock high but it scales poorly compared to fermi overclocking.
 
Mr Krugga said:
I thought better minimum framerates are just a myth? Most benchmarks show this to scale just around the same for both 470 and 5850 with average framerates?
Click to expand...

it certainly isn't a myth

if you play a game where a 5850 and 470 has the same avg. fps on both and they have different minimum fps then the one which has the higher minimum will feel smoother
 
900 MHz with 1.15V is mostly achievable (I'm getting 930 atm, not sure if 100% stable though). At 1.2V you could get much higher clocks, 1GHz could be hit. It's about the same voltage adjustment as with 1.087 on 470s.
 
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