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What graphics card(s) for this system?

lanzarobbie said:
okay 480 review from custom pc


Yes, the GTX 480 offers great performance in our test games, especially in Dirt 2 and Bad Company 2, but compared to the competition, it doesn't make a strong enough case for itself, especially when you consider that there are just so many caveats involved with buying this card. The higher price, the 100W of extra power consumption, scorchingly hot temperatures and a much noisier stock cooler are all extremely detrimental to its desirability. The HD 5870 remains a far better choice if you're a gamer; while we've yet to see how the GTX 480 performs with CUDA apps and Folding, at this stage Fermi looks like a flop.
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Yes, which indicates the price is way too high for what the card is worth.

If the prices were just above the 5870 (Around £350) the value of the card would be perfect and there would be a lot more buyers of it, but over £400 it simply isn't worth the extra cost over a 5870 and under a 5970.
 
I just think now that it has come down in price it might be worth a look. If you are thinking of spending £330 anyway, will £393 be that much different.
 
Unfortunatly it seems SLI is out of the question for you, but this is one of the rare times I would reccomend the GTX470... 2 of them in SLI would be one of the best ways to get great performance at 2560x resolutions without spending an absolute ton - for most titles it will walk over a 5970 or 5850 cf setup - especially with the new drivers coming which increase the SLI gains a bit more too.
 
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You have just found the problem of buying a high res big fancy monitor, it takes a beast of a card to run at that res. You will find that you will quickly be dropping in game detail settings to enable you to run at native res. Still, in the short term it will look spectacular :)
 
Arg! A worry. I was just reading a review on the Asus Voltage Tweek 5870. They took the card up to 1GHz core at 1.3v and although the idle temps were fine. Apparently the load tems soared by 40 degrees.

My worry is that as this card comes pre-overclocked to 950Mhz, with no information on how many volts are in it, the card will be a noisy hot thing?

Has anyone got one of these PCS++ cards from Powercolor? Are they significantly hotter and noiser by bumping the clock up 100Mhz and an unknown voltage increase?

Should I cancel the order and go for a cheaper, stock card as noise and heat is a big concern of mine.
 
Yannic said:
Arg! A worry. I was just reading a review on the Asus Voltage Tweek 5870. They took the card up to 1GHz core at 1.3v and although the idle temps were fine. Apparently the load tems soared by 40 degrees.

My worry is that as this card comes pre-overclocked to 950Mhz, with no information on how many volts are in it, the card will be a noisy hot thing?

Has anyone got one of these PCS++ cards from Powercolor? Are they significantly hotter and noiser by bumping the clock up 100Mhz and an unknown voltage increase?

Should I cancel the order and go for a cheaper, stock card as noise and heat is a big concern of mine.
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+1 I'd like to know this too since I'm considering the same card.
 
Yannic

My question is which of the current crop of ATI cards are the way forward? Ideally I would like it if I could use the card to play at native res considering I could potentially be spending over £400 on this one piece of hardware!
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From what I have read recently a 5870 at that res would be good. If you have the money go 5970.

To me it seems Nvidia went, ah, there are no cards at the price point between the 5850 and 5870, and 5870 to 5970 so lets put the GTX 400's in those empty spaces, yep they will be bound to sell as the have "no competition" at that price point.

Sheesh!


Personally I dont like the GTX400's because of the price and possible heat issues (my GTX 280 can chuck out heat despite its cooling) and I like the lower power of the ATI 58xx but I dont think they give me enough performance gain to warrant the money outlay. So like the I5/I7's I`ll skip this round and see what comes out next year as one thing you can guarantee is that a new card is only round the corner. It seems nowadays as soon as ATI or Nvidia "hit the shelves" a new one is announced.
 
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if you have the money HD5970 if you can get hold of one

also to the point, what about the 2Gb HD5870s? how do they sum up thier worth


nothing wrong with the GTX480 apart from it can only perform 10% faster than AMDs HD5870, and also runs hotter, and needs a lot more of a kick in the butt than a HD5870( power) you think I would kick 300-400 pounds worth of hardware? well not unless it made my face black :mad:

Saying that you can get a GTX480 for like £400 which has really sweetned them up so to speck
 
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AMG said:
if you have the money HD5970 if you can get hold of one

also to the point, what about the 2Gb HD5870s? how do they sum up thier worth


nothing wrong with the GTX480 apart from it can only perform 10% faster than AMDs HD5870, and also runs hotter, and needs a lot more of a kick in the butt than a HD5870( power) you think I would kick 300-400 pounds worth of hardware? well not unless it made my face black :mad:

Saying that you can get a GTX480 for like £400 which has really sweetned them up so to speck
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The 2Gb 5870 is pointless and over priced from what I remember reading. It performs the same as the standard 5870 but has 6 monitor outputs.

What about the Asus Matrix 5870, isn't that some kind of super tweaked 5870 monster ?
 
thats a bit harsh

jigger said:
The 2Gb 5870 is pointless and over priced from what I remember reading. It performs the same as the standard 5870 but has 6 monitor outputs.

What about the Asus Matrix 5870, isn't that some kind of super tweaked 5870 monster ?
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I have not been keeping up of late, I was thinking its just a HD5870 with a bigger price tag with more memory and thats it

as for the matix its a asus ROG what do you expect ?
 
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cobhc said:
+1 I'd like to know this too since I'm considering the same card.
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Well its installed and its smaller than I thought. I removed my hard drive cage from my lian-li thinking it wouldnt fit but it just fits in nicely. This PowerColor model puts the power connectors on the rear of the card, not the side like the stock ATI cooler but even still there was still plenty of room.

The 6 year old lian-li is still holding out :)

Re: heat - havent really given it a full long work over but idle is very quiet. Loaded BC2 for 20 mins and L4D2 for 20 mins and it didn't turn in to a hoover so I am still quite happy.

PCS++ @ 950mhz from Powercolour - no heat probs from me.


Only downside is I loaded L4D2 @ 2560x1600 full AA and AF, and low and behold - it still wasn't responsive enough to consider fully playable and smooth.

Now running it at 1920x1200 4AA and 8AF and it runs nice and smooth although I havent been in the rain storm scenes yet.

BC2 was a lovely improvement over the 8800GT, settings up much higher (although still only at 1920x1200) looks much nicer and much smoother.
 
I wouldn't recommend a 5830 for you, I game at 1920x1200 and it struggles at times. I reckon that for modern games, Crossfire 5830s would be perfect at 1920x1200.

For 2560x1600 though I'd say get a single 5850 and it will manage OK, then in the future you can add another for extra power.
 
Sounds good Yannic, can you have a look at overclocking the core to 1ghz, and also what kinda temps are you seeing?
 
cobhc said:
Sounds good Yannic, can you have a look at overclocking the core to 1ghz, and also what kinda temps are you seeing?
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I dont know the temps to be honest. Just so long as it isnt a hoover or a power sucking noise maker im happy.

Its quiet, fast and looks great. It also didnt take up as much room as I thought... im happy :)
 
Don't forget you should always have the option to run 1280x800 with AA in games where you are struggling. Although it isn't native resolution it should be fine because it will have an exact 4:1 pixel mapping.
 
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