What an absolute steal..

[^Andy^]

Although I already have a Sapphire 6870 I couldn't resist this deal http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF

I may be mad but at least I know this card runs in snow leopard whereas no amount of hacking around will get the 6870 working (yet).

That's mne skint for Christmas - oh well

 

[nicnik]

brilliant deal. faster than gtx 470 yet much cheaper they were selling for 270-300 jus 1-2 months ago

 

[^Andy^]

brilliant deal. faster than gtx 470 yet much cheaper they were selling for 270-300 jus 1-2 months ago

They still are on some sites and even the worlds favourite auction site can't match that price!

 

[uk_unbeliever]

I was going to ask a question related to this so i'll do it here. I'm looking for some upgrade advice.

Current system:
GTX285 (with Zalman VF cooler- very good- rarely hits 70C on low fan speed)
Q6700 @ 3.6
WD Black 500gb
P43 MB so no crossfire
Antec Truepower 650w
Res 1680X1050

I love games like total war and Fallout 3 and I like to add mods to improve the visuals. On my current system FO3 with visual mods + high texture mods runs ok on the 285 (FO3 doesn't seem to like the GPU being overclocked at all) but I get short periods of dips down to 30fps ruining the immersion, often if I quickly pan the view angle around so I guess it's to do with loading different textures?- I'm wondering if this could actually be a hardrive issue which could be better solved by getting an SSD? Any ideas.

I don't 'need' to upgrade but seeing the XFX 5870 and MSI GTX 470 Twin Frozr at £177 and £187 respectively they seem like a great deal and after selling the 285 they'll only cost £100 or so.

My main question is related to physics in games. I know that Nvidia cards do 'Physx', but i'm currently playing through Company of Heroes and like to have the physics effects on and I don't recall them being 'physX', so i'm guessing that everything I can see using the 285 in terms of explosions / things moving when you crash into them etc would also be there on the ATI card? Sorry if this is a stupid question!

Final thing- with games like total war (which I assume to CPU intensive) would I see a good improvement over the 285 with either of these cards? I can't find any total war benchmarks.

I'd considered the MSI GTX480 @ £250. Not that bothered about power but don't want a noisey card which is why I thought the 470 with custom cooling could be ok

thanks!

 

[Mattyjw]

I think Physx is to do with volumetric and particle physics calculations rather than the standard large object physics so stuff like Smoke, mist, chunks of plaster etc. I think youtube would have examples of it.

 

[Rroff]

I think Physx is to do with volumetric and particle physics calculations rather than the standard large object physics so stuff like Smoke, mist, chunks of plaster etc. I think youtube would have examples of it.

PhysX is a fully featured physics API that can handle rigid bodies and all the other physics primitives as well as particle physics, fluid dynamics, soft body/cloth effects, etc.

However most games use different APIs so even if they do particle effects it will be processed through another API like bullet, ODE, havok, etc. not PhysX.

AFAIK Company of Heroes uses Havok (which is currently run on the CPU only) to do physics so you will see all the effects on an ATI card.

 

[zo1d]

Although I already have a Sapphire 6870 I couldn't resist this deal http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF

I may be mad but at least I know this card runs in snow leopard whereas no amount of hacking around will get the 6870 working (yet).

That's mne skint for Christmas - oh well

Interested to know what the problem is/was with your 6870 as I've just mine today although not fitted it yet?

 

[mikkyh]

Although I already have a Sapphire 6870 I couldn't resist this deal http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF

I may be mad but at least I know this card runs in snow leopard whereas no amount of hacking around will get the 6870 working (yet).

That's mne skint for Christmas - oh well

Good choice ; )

 

[Rimsy]

I may be mad but at least I know this card runs in snow leopard

I may be mad but what the hell are you talking about?

 

[danceforfreedom]

Theres no OSX (apple) drivers for the 68 and 69 series cards to date...

Theres isn't any for older gen cards too...

But sometimes hacks will get around it, like the physx hack and the sli hack for crossfire mobo's...but there still isn't any for these cards!

 

[MikeHunt79]

I may be mad but what the hell are you talking about?

He's saying you can put this in a Mac Pro without having to pay thru the nose by getting a gfx card frrom the Apple store... I think...

 

[^Andy^]

I may be mad but what the hell are you talking about?

LOL I guess I should have explained in a bit more detail. Basically I run a dual boot setup and one of my installed operating systems is Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard only has official support for a few cards and unnofficial support for a few more. Unfortunately the 6800 and 6900 cards have no support at all as yet so wont work beyond basic VGA as yet in snow leopard.

 

[^Andy^]

Interested to know what the problem is/was with your 6870 as I've just mine today although not fitted it yet?

Sorry I wasn't very clear - I have 0 problems at all when using the card for Windows XP or Windows 7, I only have problems when using the card in Mac OS X.