Advice on 5850 / Alternative

[Lunatyc]

Hi guys,

I'm building a new rig after emigrating and need some advice on a suitable video card.

My old rig was an i7, 12gb patriot, p6t se and a 9800gt.

For my new rig, Ive brought the i7 across the pond with a p6x58e and have a corsair hx750 psu for supplying juice. I am also intending on buying another 12gb of either corsair or adata ram.

So basicaly, I need the rig for 3d design work and audio editing and maybe the occasional session on Metro 2033 and as such was looking at getting the Saphire Vapour X 5850 with 2gb of memory but have read that the extra gig of ram might not be of any use?

Therefore given the specs is this card going to be worth the money over other 5850's - it retails for $383 on newegg.ca compared to $330 for 1gb versions and are there any new Ati or Nvidia cards coming out soon that i should wait for?

Thanks

Edit: Forgot to add, the card is gonig in a Fortress Ft02 and as such would need to take the length into consideration

 

[BassPwr]

what resolution do you use? monitor size?

I'd say it's only going to be worth it at larger resolutions.
From the tests I remember reading the 1gb versions offer great performance even at 1920x1080.

And if you're not going to be doing a lot of gaming I think it would be even more of a waste.

Does any of the software you use able to make use of CUDA by nvidia?

theres an nvidia gtx 460 coming out in early july (12th is the reported date) and should be a high end of the midrange card, it wont match a 5850 but might if overclocked perhaps. As for ati I don't think they will be releasing any newer cards until later this year.

 

[Lunatyc]

I am using an Nec ea231wmi at 1920x1080, which as you say is not a massive resolution, but I thought the extra gig may be useful for rendering with Vray / Mental Ray which is use more than gaming.

I heard rumours of a 5860 but with no confirmed release date i doubt its worth the wait.

Im not sure if any of the programs I use can make use of Cuda or not as I havn't been following the computer market too closely over the last year.

The applications I mainly use are as follows:

Photoshop, 3D Max, Maya, Zbrush, and CAD software

 

[BassPwr]

I did a quick google and saw a couple of pages talking about large VRAM in Vray / Mental Ray but it's unclear how that is used, I'm no expert on this! I checked the requirements for both on their official pages and they do not mention a graphics requirement. But as you know best the 2gb version might be more worthwhile for the software you use.

I would say it is worth you looking into each piece of software you use if it makes use of opencl/cuda or not, what you can do with that technology if so, and it might affect you going for an ati or nvidia card.

You need to ask for advice about this in a developer forum and aim your topic towards devs with the right title to attract attention from experts in this field who can advise you better, especially if this will be needed for employment.

google gpgpu

as for gaming a 1gb card would be great.