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470 sli or 6870 CF

wow, thanks for all the replies guys, didnt expect the discussion to become so heated.
seems after a nice read over everything, it seems pretty much split between the 2 options, with favour pushing marginally to the 6870 CF.
To the person who asked "do you really need all this power" the simple answer might be... no.
Though I'm sure everyone has had this problem when purchasing new components... "for this much more i could have this much more performance" I'm unsure if this is the way I should be thinking, but i wont be contemplating any new update within the next 1-2 years.
I like the peace of mind that I am able to play any game at enthusiast level of graphics, and there are a few titles due next year that I want to be taking on board and wanting to play with the high level of graphics.

If i'm honest, even though I like a little bit of FPS in my life, I usually lean further towards a RPG gamer.

In all.. I'm still drawn between the two.. maybe i need someone to pull the trigger for me :p
 
RavenXXX2 said:
I believe the 470's are better future proof with the extra memory they have on board.
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i mean yea, originally i was going to just wait until the new cards come out from both sides, then make a decision, (already have a thread open froma few days ago about this) but not knowing when this is going to be... i built my system a few weeks ago, and due to RMA's etc i am still without a GPU so cannot use my new system at all, so i'm now at the point where i just want to get things up and running.
 
Both crossfire 6870 and gtx470 sli will perform similarly. If you are looking at this from a pure gaming point of view you will recieve the same kind of performance. So this part is a draw.

To the next point i think gtx470 sli will use around 50% more in power. It will also give out much more heat and certainly will be much louder. +1 6870

On to overclocking. The gtx470's win in this secion but beware overclocking them will make them even more noisy with more heat and more power usage. +1 gtx470

Feature wise they both have there strength's so its up to you to read up and see if any of the features these cards have will be useful to you.
 
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470 in SLI definintely pump out a lot more heat and use more power than a single card or 6870 CF but they don't really make any more noise while gaming. The noise does get quite silly tho if you throw on furmark :D but who sits there playing furmark.
 
Don't be fooled by this extra memory of 470gtx. They need extra memory because their texture compression technique is way poorer than amd's.
 
Skyrocket said:
Don't be fooled by this extra memory of 470gtx. They need extra memory because their texture compression technique is way poorer than amd's.
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A lot of games these days ship with textures already encapsulated in DXTC or similiar formats so that doesn't really make any odds.

To be a little more technical tho, I don't think the texture compression is what makes the difference - nVidia seem to have a higher per texture memory overheads this may partly be due to properly supporting some industry standard (tho underused) features that ATI do not - run into this twice previously while involved in developing games in one case a feature was abandonded in another case (ETQW) it could only be solved by going to ATI and getting it fixed in the next driver release.
 
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Rroff said:
I'm glad you mentioned MLAA... 470 SLI gives you 64x4SS TRAA at playable fps. MLAA can't even touch that image quality.
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Yeah! 64 TRAA is really important.
I cant see a difference from 8>16, let alone from 16>64 lol

Edit: if I three SLI will I have a 128 TRAA option? Wow!
 
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470 tri-SLI gives you 96x TRAA option.

While I agree between 4-16x AA theres little difference, 32x (and 64+) AA work a little differently and there is a bigger impact on the overal image quality.
 
^^^listen Rroff MLAA is vastly more relevant and usable feature than 32x 64x TRAA. I should know I used both 32 with 580 and MLAA with 5870.

+ I simply do not know how u can be impartial when all u have ever owned was a Nvidia card. Says it all really.
 
Skyrocket said:
^^^listen Rroff MLAA is vastly more relevant and usable feature than 32x 64x TRAA. I should know I used both 32 with 580 and MLAA with 5870.

+ I simply do not know how u can be impartial when all u have ever owned was a Nvidia card. Says it all really.
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True MLAA is potentially the more useful feature, but given the option of 60fps with 64xAA or 100fps with MLAA I know which I would choose.

I've never pretended to be impartial but I've certainly always tried to be objective.
 
Its a dangerous game offering advice based on regurgitated knowledge and findings.

Some state ATI drivers are naff when in fact certain people have never even installed them or owned a ATI card. Thats just arrogance in my book and reeks of FUD and conceptual representation

Fact is the heat and power and noise of the 470 SLI route do not make up enough of a performance leap over the 6870 Xfire route to warrant it.

If the performance gap was big enough then yes but its not
 
mrteabag said:
So...verdict?
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The impartial amongst us ( I have used many cards from both camps) would say 6870 xfire as the extra heat power and noise makes up for nothing more than a hotter louder more power hungry PC for little if no gains over 6870 Xfire.

I just don't know how someone can offer an opinion with blinkered experience of the hardware in question..

Its like offering advice on overclocking when you have never overclocked. :D
 
easyrider said:
Its a dangerous game offering advice based on regurgitated knowledge and findings.

Some state ATI drivers are naff when in fact certain people have never even installed them or owned a ATI card. Thats just arrogance in my book and reeks of FUD and conceptual representation

Fact is the heat and power and noise of the 470 SLI route do not make up enough of a performance leap over the 6870 Xfire route to warrant it.

If the performance gap was big enough then yes but its not
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This makes me laugh... have you ever used or owned a pair of GTX470 SLI? I can put my hand on my heart and say I've used both options and can tell you for a fact that GTX470 SLI is not that noisey and definitely gives up the performance to make it worth the heat and power use.
 
Rroff said:
This makes me laugh... have you ever used or owned a pair of GTX470 SLI? I can put my hand on my heart and say I've used both options and can tell you for a fact that GTX470 SLI is not that noisey and definitely gives up the performance to make it worth the heat and power use.
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Thats subjective...How much faster is 470 sli over 6870 xfire exactly?

50%?

Cause that how much extra power is used. Never mind the heat pumping and the noise.
 
Me? I would go with the cooler, quieter and less power hungry solution, given that they are both roughly speaking the same performance. We are really splitting hairs if we start talking about a few percentage on average difference between the two setups.

PLUS crossfire will be supported in more motherboards if it matters.

IN THIS INSTANCE.. if you have other considerations rather than just playing games (i.e. you can make use of CUDA/3D display / and Physx for games). Another moot point is the tessellation feature. It isn't really a major concern right now, but say another year or two down the line it might be. But by that time, much faster cards will be around so it won't really matter.

I'd go with 6870 X2. (Out of the two options you have listed initially).
 
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