What One?

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 18:49

So i been working a little and got myself some money, so i was thinking that i would upgrade my graphics card! I have targeted too that i am interested in buy but i am not sure which one is the better buy i was wondering if any of you guys could spread some light on it!

the first choice is: GTX470

Second choice is crossfire 2: HD5830

I was wondering what are the pros and cons

some one told me that crossfire just courses a lot of driver errors what gaming?

plus why do ATi not have shader clock speeds?

many thanks
Frost_Bite

P.s or anything you would recommend around the same price!?

cmndr_andi · 15 May 2011 at 18:54

Hi there,

I'd really like to help, but please remove those links ASAP (as they are against forum rules) before the mods see it.

Between the HD 5830 and the GTX 470 there is quite a few differences - here is comparison of the raw performance. They are both pretty good cards in terms of bang-for-buck, it really depends on how much you want to spend and what the rest of your system is like.

May I ask what the full specs are for the rest of your system?

nicktay2605 · 15 May 2011 at 18:54

You're not allowed to link to competitor sites mate, you'd better remove them before you get in trouble from the mods!

What's your budget? Oh and what resolution are you playing at?

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:04

cmndr_andi said:
Hi there,

I'd really like to help, but please remove those links ASAP (as they are against forum rules) before the mods see it.

Between the HD 5830 and the GTX 470 there is quite a few differences - here is comparison of the raw performance. They are both pretty good cards in terms of bang-for-buck, it really depends on how much you want to spend and what the rest of your system is like.

May I ask what the full specs are for the rest of your system?

CPU: AMD quad core 2.6ghz
GPU: Nvidia GTS 250 512MB Core Clock:770mhz, Shader Clock 1890mhz, Memory Clock 1123mhz
MoBo: M3a32-MVP Deluxe
Ram: 4gb DDR2

KiiYzOo · 15 May 2011 at 19:09

whats your budget?

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:12

urm 150-200

cmndr_andi · 15 May 2011 at 19:12

May I ask what model quad core your are using? You can check this using CPU-Z.

As for alternatives at the price ranges, the HD 5830 is the best you will get for that price range - it really is a great value card.

As for the GTX 470, you can get one here for £150. However, personally I would be looking at either the HD 5870 or HD 6970 1GB which are both in this price range and perform better.

The HD 6950 2GB is currently available for £192 and would be my pick if my budget was £200 and under.

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:13

AMD phenom X4 9950 black edition

KiiYzOo · 15 May 2011 at 19:17

I agree with cmndr_andi or the gtx480 or the gtx560ti

cmndr_andi · 15 May 2011 at 19:20

May I ask what make and model of PSU you are using?

Since you are planning on spending £200, you may want to consider instead going for a Phenom II X4 955BE CPU (which will work fine with your board once the BIOS is updated) and a nice graphics card like the HD 5850. This will give you a big overall performance boost.

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:30

Not really too sure what my PSU is all i know is that it is 750watts, but i wan't thinking about upgrading my CPU because for 50pounds i can get that Watercooling kit and then overclock my one too 3ghz or something and i plan on doing and full refit later on when i got some more money, i just wanted a new graphics card to last me till then

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:32

i like the look of the gtx560ti but i keep notising that the clock speeds are not much more than what i already got? are these important?

cmndr_andi · 15 May 2011 at 19:36

Would you be able to open the case and tell us what it says on the label of the PSU. This is crucial as all of these graphics cards will draw a lot more power and put a lot of pressure on your PSU when at full load than your current card, so you need to make sure you have a good quality PSU in your case.

As for water cooling and overclocking you would be much better off selling the X4 9950 and buying the £90 X4 955 - clock-for-clock the Phenom 1 is a fair bit slower than the Phenom II, so even if you go the 9950 to 3GHz then the Phenom II X4 955 (stock clockspeed: 3.2GHz) would still be a fair bit faster - and 955 is known to overclock pretty well to 3.8GHz with decent cooling.

i like the look of the gtx560ti but i keep notising that the clock speeds are not much more than what i already got? are these important?

With graphics card (and CPUs TBH) you can't rely on clockspeeds to gauge speeds. The GTX 560 Ti is at least twice as powerful as a GTS 250 in real-world use (eg. games), partly due to many more stream processers (336 compared to 128 in the GTS 250).

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:43

Plus i don't think that wou;d fit my Mobo as it is a socket AM3 and my board is AM2+

i opened it up but it didn't have anything on, its and Alienware Aurora R5 bought it about 2 years ago the paper work just says 750watt OEM ATX PSU

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 19:44

So ATi have WAY more cores than Nvidia?

I most come across i real noob

KiiYzOo · 15 May 2011 at 19:52

socket am2+ motherboards support am3 cpu's so you can use a socket am3 cpu

nvidia use less but more powerful stream processors and AMD use more less powerful stream processors if you want to check the performance of graphics cards against each other here

cmndr_andi · 15 May 2011 at 19:53

Frost_Bite said:
Plus i don't think that wou;d fit my Mobo as it is a socket AM3 and my board is AM2+

It will definitely fit, have a look here. Just make sure the BIOS is updated to version 1903. AM3 is backwards compatible with AM2+ boards - so long as the installed BIOS supports the newer CPUs.

Frost_Bite said:
i opened it up but it didn't have anything on, its and Alienware Aurora R5 bought it about 2 years ago the paper work just says 750watt OEM ATX PSU

In that case I suggest you only trust it as far as you can throw it. May I ask what spec Aurora R5 it was powering?

Frost_Bite said:
So ATi have WAY more cores than Nvidia?

I most come across i real noob

Yea, they do but they aren't directly comparable - it's very much apples and oranges. The only way you can reliably compare AMD/ATI and Nvidia cards is using real world gaming benchmarks.

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 20:00

Could a bios up allow me to SLi on this crossfire board?

as the spec of the parts in my computer are listed in a post above other than that i don't know

cmndr_andi · 15 May 2011 at 20:04

Frost_Bite said:
Could a bios up allow me to SLi on this crossfire board?

No, unfortunately that board doesn't support SLI at all.

It may be possible to make it work with SLI by hacking it, but if you do this wrong you risk bricking your board without any chance of a warranty repair.

Frost_Bite said:
as the spec of the parts in my computer are listed in a post above other than that i don't know

In that case I would suggest changing the PSU immediately or buying one of the lower power usage graphics card options (like the HD 5850) and upgrading the PSU later (perhaps when you add a second 5850 for Crossfire).

Since the board only supports Crossfire I recommend sticking wit an AMD/ATI card, they see to offer the best value for money at this price range and you can make use of crossfire in the future.

Frost_Bite · 15 May 2011 at 20:09

Would my PSU really not be able to support GTX560ti? i mean it has 4 GPU power things on i would have thought it could?
Is there not a way to monitor how much wattage i am using to see how much i got spare?