ati 5850 or nvidia gtx460

[Marine-RX179]

without aa, at 2560x1600(which is MUCH closer to 1920x1200 4xaa performance) its 25% behind IIRC.

just because this happens to be the first in my firefox history from techpowerup.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTS_450_TOP_DirectCU/10.html

84 to 94fps, not a huge difference, no AA

Crysis, low res, no aa 55fps to 65fps, a 20% lead for the 5850,

slightly higher res, 2xaa 34 to 44fps, 30% lead to the 5850, thats 1280x1024 with 2xaa, hardly mind blowing stuff.

1680x1050, 26 to 34fps, coming up to almost a 40% advantage to the 5850,


1920x1200 4xaa, 21 to 28fs, again almost a 40% advantage, then on to top res and the 5850 finally gets further than 40% ahead.

The most demanding game in the test probably, the 5850 even at low res no aa offers a pretty massive advantage, move up beyond the res we all used on monitors a decade ago(for me, almost two decades) and the advantage is between 30-40%, its not close, and the 460gtx 1gb is no where near 30% cheaper, which makes the 5850 a MUCH better value card and its MASSIVELY more powerful.

Dawn of War 2(a game I expected to be more cpu limited, but then its a BS RTS compared to the first game) and 1920x1200 4xaa has a 30% advantage.

Dirt 2, 1920x1200, 4xaa whats this, another 30% advantage, 61 vs 78fps.

Far Cry 2, actually beats the 5850, but basically matches it throughout, no realistic difference between them. Being honest, I swear when I played it(sure witha 4870x2 back then) I was blistering along in 1920x1080 with 4xaa at much higher FPS than that review shows, has a patch changed performance massively or something? It seemed ridiculously fast and smooth given it looks pretty damn decent, or that was my impression of it anyway.

Hawx, first game the 460gtx 1gb has a lead in, pretty decent at low res, at 1920x1200 they are within about 5%, at higher res the 5850 leads marginally.

Metro are pointless results, they used settings that would give unforgiveable low minimums at 1024x768, weird results throughout, the 460gtx starts lagging first at 1920x1200(you'd think due to the worse memory performance on Nvidia vs AMD, IE memory limits for 5 years have ALWAYS hit Nvidia first, and continue to do so, yet at higher res the memory limit has hit all amd cards but not the 1gb 460gtx, DOF/Tess kill performance more on AMD, no idea which card is faster without both enabled.

The problem with tabulated results is they include, WOW, Supreme commander, very very old 3dmark, they are all so cpu limited that tha 480gtx is performing the same as a 5770, if you go back far enough and include ENOUGH games, then the results will even out far more than if you compare non cpu limited games.

In the vast majority of games the 5850 is between 20-30% ahead, in a LOT its 40% ahead from low to high res, aa or without. In several games they perform the same as 260gtx's and 470gtx's, because the games are massively cpu limited, these effect the results massively but don't remotely indicate the cards are the same speed. Throw out the cpu limited results and that 10% across all games, will get much MUCH closer to 30%.

The cards aren't in the same ballpark and with the 460gtx not 20%, let alone 30% or 40% cheaper, its a much worse value card.

This will only get worse as AMD bring the same performance level down to the £170 price point.

So you are saying AnandTech's data are wrong and Tech's are right then?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/180?vs=164

 

[Defunkt]

5850 i would go for. Iv'e got 2 PC's both with 5850's in never had a problem with them or the drivers which people seem to continually complain about. Most of the issues with ATI drivers seem to be X-fire or 5970 related and/or overclocked cards There is no issue what-so-ever with a single 5850 using any of the driver releases. I bought my 1st one on release almost a year ago and have used EVERY driver since their release and all have worked fine.
This was my 1st experience with an ATI card in the past I have always had Nvidia and i have to say it has been a very enjoyable experience.

Sure a 460 will clock to speeds around the 5850 level but the 5850 is probably the easiest card on the market to overclock itself and is easy as pie to clock any of them to 5870 performance levels. Couple this with the VERY low power consumption of the 5850 and the VERY low temperatures they produce and to me it's a no-brainer which you should go for.
The only hesitation you should have is that you arn't buying for another month and the 6 series ATI cards will be out around then. If I was you i'd prolly wait to take a peek at those before buying but if you can't wait you will love the 5850. buying a 460 for such a small amount less isnt going to get you the best "bang for your buck"
I'm saying this from a very neutral POV as I just like to buy the best I can afford at the time and don't go into all the fanboy stuff like many here seem to. (mostly those recommending the 460 to you it seems)
Hope you are happy with whatever you settle on.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I'm saying this from a very neutral POV as I just like to buy the best I can afford at the time and don't go into all the fanboy stuff like many here seem to. (mostly those recommending the 460 to you it seems)

Well, if you read this thread carefully, nobody is really pushing the GTX460 1GB over the 5850. It's all about how much the OP wanting to pay for the card in relating to the performane/speed he's expecting or want...that's pretty much the determine factor.

Also about 5850 can overclock to as fast as stock 5870, the same can be said for the GTX470 can be overclocked to as fast as a stock GTX480 which also cost around £25-£30 extra (same as the cost of 5850 over GTX460 1GB)...so it is not exactly an unique advantage.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Double post, ignore.

 

[Mojo]

The Xfx 5850 is under £200, that's your baby!

 

[MOOGLEYS]

Everyone that has Ati will say buy Ati and everyone that has Nvidia will say buy Nvidia....

These kind of posts are always the same..

 

[Marine-RX179]

Everyone that has Ati will say buy Ati and everyone that has Nvidia will say buy Nvidia....

I own Nvidia card, but I always say buy what the OP himself prefer/prepared to pay, as I know everyone's preference are not the same, and it is their money

But yea I know what you mean...most people tends to be biased with the with the side of which their cards belong If graphic card can poo, the fanboys would probably argue the poo from their graphic card smille nicer than the poo of other side

 

[Vir]

It's really easy, first see how much you want to spend on it, then look at benchmarks what is faster and buy it, done.

 

[Helios1234]

It really depends what games you will be playing but both will give you similar performance/cost.

 

[drunkenmaster]

So you are saying AnandTech's data are wrong and Tech's are right then?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/180?vs=164

I'm saying its actually too few games and too limited a selection of performance figures, IE, very specific data. All the Crysis results are at 4xaa gamer + enthusiast shaders.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3909/nvidias-geforce-gts-450-pushing-fermi-in-to-the-mainstream/9

Look at the results between 1680x1050 4xaa, and 1920x1080 8xaa, hugely different amounts of power required, utterly utterly cpu limited, anywhere from 120-130fps and the mix of cards is jumbled up and basically , useless, the game becomes heavily cpu limited from 120fps onwards, with a 285gtx matching a 480gtx, a 4890 just behind a 5970.

An out of order set of results(which pet peeve has a HORRIBLE design, very unreadable and just the list of game results themselves are mixed up and out of order), which out of context appear to show one thing, but show another.

Anand's GPU bench is much like the "collective" results on techpowerup, 10% ahead it says, yet you look at the individual benches where you can see the performance over several resolutions and against other cards, you can distinguish the massively cpu limited situations, you can see where a 4890 is matching a 5970 and see its not about gpu power, but cpu power.

When you disect either techpowerup or Anand's results against THEIR OWN ACTUAL REVIEWS, you see a COMPLETELY different story.

Techpowerup results suggest the 460gtx 1gb is 10% behind a 5850, their OWN results when compared specifically show cpu limited games mixed with games where the 5850 ranged from between 20 and 40% ahead.

Anandtech suggests they are pretty close, but check the ACTUAL REVIEWS and you can see the 460gtx is gpu limited at 100fps, the 5850 is cpu limited at 120fps. CONTEXT, everything is about context.

Both sites in actual reviews will show several things, in the toughest games in the toughest situations more often than not the 5850 is a lot more than 20% ahead, in cpu limited games they are ruddy close.

I personally think Battleforge and Hawx are horrible benchmarking tools because, both games blow and are each majorly "pro AMD/Nvida".

I'm sceptical about Warhead results because Crysis original seems WAY WAY ahead for the 5850, and on release Warhead seemed very very good on the 5870/5850, yet now a 5850 which did so well against a 470gtx, is now matched by a card thats 40% behind in normal Crysis.


BC2 results are iffy, if you look at the waterfall result only it suggests they are equal, the other result gives vastly different results. Waterfall, 13 to 12fps in the 460gtx favour, Chase at every resolution the 5850 has a significant lead at "playable" framerates, up to 30% ahead. Which is more accurate, I don't know, again doesn't help that the anandtech list jumbles the order, so you see some pro 5850 results, then another game, then back to BC2 again and a lead for 460gtx at an unplayable setting, where are the lower res waterfall results?

Anandtech's gpu thing is just crap basically, for a gpu bench, why they've not excluded cpu limited games/resolutions so they can compare the gpu and gpu alone I don't know.

Techpowerup don't claim to be doing it, its just a round up of results in that review.

 

[Defunkt]

Also about 5850 can overclock to as fast as stock 5870, the same can be said for the GTX470 can be overclocked to as fast as a stock GTX480 which also cost around £25-£30 extra (same as the cost of 5850 over GTX460 1GB)...so it is not exactly an unique advantage.

That is true but when you take into account the power consumption and the heat given off from a 470 at STOCK levels then you have to start taking into account additional cooling if you wish to overclock to the levels you are talking about. I wouldn't go as far as saying the 5850 is "unique" in what it does or can do but, as I said it, is EASY to overclock without any heat/power issues. I can only imagine the crazy temps a 470 would be running at on a stock cooler on a reference board to get 480 speeds.

Helios makes a good point also. It will also depend on which games the OP wants to play. There certainly is a bias towards games developers in the Nvidia camp so if PhysX or CUDA is important to you then this also should be thought about and then maybe an Nvida card is for you.