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58XX or wait for nvidia?

I was planning on upgrading soon, but I'm also just about to go back up to uni so I'll probably be putting it off for a few weeks at least. Maybe by then there will be some good 5850 reviews :/
 
I think a lot of people will be switching to Nvidia for better performance(maybe) at launch but find themselves screwed down the line with more and more dx11 games. Everything points to a massive change in architechture this gen with Nvidia, and they are pushing gpgpu like never before while playing down DX11.

There have long been rumours it will be a highly paralel design and might even give up a lot of die space that would ahve things like hardware tesselators and acceleration for various DX11 features, in favour of more shaders for more raw grunt to help with gpgpu stuff. Think SSE4, didn't matter that ATh 64's could beat a Intel at the time with ease, a encoding app with SSE4 support was accelerated and much faster on the Intel, which we had with sse2/3 in the past aswell, acceleration of key features is hugely faster.

We could very well be seeing a uber programable, but not hugely accelerated GT300 core, that could perform far better in dx9 than dx11. Thats if it performs that well in dx9. Depending on how big a change it is, you really can't remotely guess what performance will be like, but assuming doubling, going to a completely new architechture, is a very very big assumption.

Personally I'd be grabbing a 5850 when in stock, the 5870 isn't £100 worth of extra performance.
 
drunkenmaster said:
There have long been rumours it will be a highly paralel design and might even give up a lot of die space that would ahve things like hardware tesselators and acceleration for various DX11 features, in favour of more shaders for more raw grunt to help with gpgpu stuff.
Click to expand...

We will have to see.

Nvidia's last design was a lot more encapsulated than ATIs, giving over (relatively) more transistors to control logic rather than raw compute in comparison to ATI. This allowed them to offer better overall performance despite having a lower theoretical floating-point performance.

A MIMD design would likely necessitate further encapsulation, in order to handle the increased flexibility within the shader pipelines. Rather than having a massive increase in total floating point "grunt" I'm expecting a rather modest increase, with a greater focus on efficiency and control logic. What's holding back most GPGPU applications isn't total FPU performance - this is going to be many times faster than any CPU anyway. The issue is inflexibility with regards complex programs. Even those which can be easily parallelised take a fair amount of hammering in order to work in a SIMD fashion.

We will have to see. I agree that the GT300 is likely to be more heavily focussed on GPGPU applications, but I disagree that this will be achieved simply through further FPU performance (particularly if it does turn out to be a MIMD device).
 
Nvidia might also have backward compatability for DX10.1 (What a waste of time that was, how many games took advantage?)
As said when Nvidia get their DX11 cards out prices should start to fall due to competition
 
I think you need to aswk yourself what you want from the card and how much money you have.

As someone said you can wait forever because as soon as the new NV card arrives there will be something else in pipeline that you could wait for.

The NV card will be very expensive compared to the 5870 ( probably over £100 more ) so if price is not an issue and you dont want it now wait but if you just want the card to use in games now and a card that will probably handle most games no problems for teh next year or so then go for the 5870.
 
the gtx295 is already on par with the 5870 so if the next high end nvidia card beats the gtx265 by a fair margin then i should expect the price will be higher. but nvidia will also relase their mid-high end cards to compete with the 5850/5870
 
I just built a new high end system, AR2E, 920, 6G Dominator and went for a Sapphire 4870 (120quid)... I dont do that much gaming but when I do want a quick blast on Crysis or something then the 4870 handles my res fine (1680x1050) on a 22" and all settings in-game at max. The game even plays and runs great on my 32" at a lower res.

I'll wait now and see whats around the corner... I've a good base to play with now and the next big upgrade for me is the GPU(s). :) ;)
 
Its true you cant wait forever for the latest and greatest product, at some point you need to draw a line in the sand.

For me personally, I plan to upgrade before the new year, as vat returns to its normal level. Course it doesnt make a huge difference to the price, but its a line in the sand none the less, and nvidia hopefully will have released their dx11 product by then.
 
Might aswell just buy a 5870 now i mean just looking at it's performance it can handle any game at any setting, whats the point in waiting?
 
I would get a 5870 now.

No denying that the 8800GTX was king in it's day and nVidia seemed to be quite good.


Back to present day: ATI are king now, with great graphic cards at a reasonable price/performance. If nVidia had released this same "DX11" card you would easily pay £450 !!

No brainer really.
 
Ahh right, thanks guys for all of the responses and feed back.

I start in a weeks time for uni. However, i have the remainder of my budget to spent on a GPU; so money is (for once) not an issue. I think I will wait until the end of October, if the nvidia cards are in sight I will get one. If not I think I will get a cheap 4870 or 5850 for the time being.

Thank you all so much for the replies, I apreciate them very much.
Until my next problem: "goodbye, happy gaming."
 
I don't think you would be getting a Nvidia DX11 card for anything less of HD5870 money maybe more :(
 
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