Palit

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 09:55

Who are Palit?

Are they the Happy Shopper of the graphics card world or just as good as anyone else?

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 10:28

Is there any reason not to buy one?

Looking at the 570.

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:38

MikeHiow said:
I don't get it. Now I can understand why you'd choose the 480, but that much more money for a 570 with sub 6970 performance?

I started off considering the 6970 route but from what I've been reading the 6970 is inferior in some games - games I play.

It gets quite badly shown up in Dirt2, for example:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/20

As ever though if you can demonstrate that a 6970 performing 6950 is clearly the better choice, then I'll have no reason to buy the 570.

I'm no fanboy - though I will admit to being concerned about ATi drivers based on past experience.

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:47

In that scenario, sure - but what about Dirt 3? etc. I'm using those results as an indication of the performance gap between the cards.

It's a difference of over 20%.

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:55

The Radeons suffer on the BC2 Water Bench as well, seems they have issues rendering scenes like that quickly?

The GTX570 just seems like a better card. The issue seems to be 'Is it £60 better' rather than 'Is it better'. It beats the 6970 in BC2 all round, infact.

Plus, the GTX570 is overclockable whereas a 6950 @ 6970 is already overclocked..?

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 13:01

Is BC2 an Nvidia game as well? Look at the difference in the Waterfall bench!

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 14:07

I have no issue at all with Mikes posts in my thread. This is a discussion forum at the end of the day.

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 18:19

Nickg said:
Palit are like the Alba brand of graphics cards. Yes some of the hardware is there and functioning but its not good.

See the GT 460 VRM sinks issue.

they are a reference board but with cuts in quality in terms of the cooling/hardware.

If its a reference board fitted with a reference cooler how can it be anything different?

Drivers, BSOD, compatability. thats why id take the hit and go nvidia. I had a 5830 and ditched it for a 460 and i couldnt be happier as my system is rock stable now. With ATi i recieved driver crashes as did numerous other people.

Hmmm, not good. Is this really what ATi is still like?

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 19:08

Nickg said:
Well the boards are reference but the coolers arent always...

The cooler is a reference cooler. It's quite obviously such in the photograph of the card.

If i was spending over £150 on a graphics card, is 10% swing in price that much to pay for a better brand? personally i think not.

It is if its pointless spend and every card is the same, though?

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 19:31

Gibbo said:
But a GTX 480 is a better deal.

I know

I wish I could put up with that fan because the performance is so great

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 23:40

bobert50 said:
I'm just a bit surprised that someone who looks at things in reasonable depth didnt realise the repuation the 470-480 reference designs have as "hoovers".

I have explained this on countless occasions. I shall do so again, one last time.

I am aware that the 480 had a reputation for having a loud cooler. However, the GTX280 also had the same reputation. I looked at various reviews all of which had graphs showing relative noise levels. It appeared from these that the situation with the 480 was exactly the same as that with the 280 - some people thought they were loud.

I was happy with the noise levels on my 280, so figured I would be happy with the noise levels on the 480 as well.

Getting absolute information before purchase was not possible because most people with GTX480 experience were split into two camps:

a) People reviewing early samples who declared the cards VERY NOISY. These are the same people who did the same thing with the GTX280.

b) People who had spent £400 on a 480 (Hello Raven) and therefore would literally fight until the last breath to defend the honour of the card in a valiant battle of purchase justification.

I did all the research I could, and on this occasion there was no subsitute for personal experience. Sadly the card fell at the personal experience hurdle and as a result, it isn't the card for me.

The 470 was never the right choice either, I'd rather have just bought a 560 than one of those.

[TW]Fox · 5 Feb 2011 at 17:30

Interestingly Techpowerup got completely different results in Dirt2 than Anandtech did. Infact it seems that in Techpowerup's figures, the 6970 was 10% faster in Dirt2 than the GTX 480?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_560_Ti/12.html

What do we make of that?

Not sure if I trust them given they put the fan noise of a 480 as considerably lower than a 280 in all tests :rolleyes:

[TW]Fox · 5 Feb 2011 at 17:45

MikeHiow said:
Just wait until the next gen, it'll probably come before you make up your mind anyway

It's pretty difficult with so much conflicting information around. Some reviews say the 6970 is off the pace in Dirt 2. Others show it as being quicker than a 480 in the same game.

Some reviews say the 480 is a noisy beast. Others show it as being quieter at idle than a 6950!?

[TW]Fox · 5 Feb 2011 at 18:47

I dont know why but I keep coming back to something like this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-143-EA

Would you guys go EVGA over Palit? Perhaps I'm some sort of Nvidia fanboy, because I just seem to think the 570 is the line of least resistence..

[TW]Fox · 5 Feb 2011 at 19:54

To be honest despite the obvious issues with noise and reviews it seems everyone agrees that of the current generation of cards, the 570 is one of the quitest. Therefore if a 570 is still too noisy then no card will do - ie, it could be put up with.

I can't really explain why I keep being drawn to the 570. It's about £60 more expensive than an equivilent 6950 and it probably doesnt offer £60 more performance. But it just seems right somehow :confused:

[TW]Fox · 5 Feb 2011 at 22:11

RavenXXX2 said:
Fact is Fox really has no clue,

Here we go - right on form, turn against me because I don't share your worship for the 480 eh?

gets a 480 somehow he has idle fan speed equivalent to my gaming fan speed and complains about the noise lol,

Most other people in the thread with these cards have fan speeds which match mine, not yours.

Now he wants a 570 because it has a better cooler even though it has weaker specs than the 480

Performance seems roughly on par, if not marginally better for the 570.

There is no question that from a value for money perspective, the 480 is an unbeatable card. The performance it offers for the money is staggeringly good - but for me personally I'm afraid the fan issue is such that I can't enjoy owning the card

[TW]Fox · 6 Feb 2011 at 00:04

Interestingly Mike it has made me wonder more about what you said about video memory. I noticed when playing Crysis that my max memory usage was 1230mb. Concerning really - what would happen if i only had 1024mb or 1280mb of memory? Slowdowns?

[TW]Fox · 6 Feb 2011 at 01:00

360 pad for dirt2. Have a Logitech G25 as well.

[TW]Fox · 9 Feb 2011 at 22:52

I picked up an EVGA 570, it's completely silent at idle (Infact I've actually turned the fan up a tad to benefit from lower temps!) and it's not instrusive at all when gaming. I've now got a custom fan profile set up, it's running at 810Mhz Core/2000Mhz memory, never goes above 78c under load and I'm absolutely chuffed to bits with it.

At stock it was barely any quicker than the 480, so in reality the 480 is clearly a better value for money card. I don't think I've got a particularly good value option at all, but I'm now 100% satisfied which I wasn't before, so all is well that ends well

[TW]Fox · 9 Feb 2011 at 22:59

Just a standard one - it's easily beyond Superclocked specs.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-143-EA

Good package from EVGA as well, 10 year warranty, free copy of 3Dmark 11 and if you do wish do use custom coolers I dont think it voids the warranty either.