GTX 295 vs Radeon 5870

[reallyscrued]

Originally posted by: Panthur
I will be using a 22" lcd @ 1920x1080. I was afraid you all would opt for the 5870. I will keep looking for availability. Thanks.

Threads like this irk me. The benchmarks, information, and comparisons between the two cards are all over the internet. It's kind of a personal decision whether or not you would 'buy now' or 'wait' isn't it, why would you want a bunch of people on a forum making that decision for you?

You were afraid we would all recommend the ATi card that costs less and performs better than the nVidia card?

Do yourself a favor. Get the nV card, more ATi for the rest of us.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: honolululu
Random question here. Basically the driver writing teams often have to reprogram the GPU to work with 'funky' code from the game? I mean, you can't really say the driver is at fault if the game is spitting out unexpected data to the GPU.

You are right, something like that happened to Lost Planet which made the game ran twice slower on ATi hardware than nVidia hardware, how's that possible? A game that uses the standard DX9/DX10 API? Specially a game that was a direct port from the Xbox 360 which uses an ATi GPU? It took more than 3 months to fix that strange behavior. The same engine which is also used on Resident Evil 5 and had no problems with graphical glitches and slow performance except in the level 3 that ran slow with Anti Aliasing on and the black screen in cutscenes, I fixed it disabling CAT AI.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Back to reality, DX11 is a gimmick which will not give you immersion in games and won't change the gameplay enough to justify to go with a slower card, Eyefinity is another gimmick which gamers do not care and while the idea is old, doesn't benefit gamers much. Plus the link with a game that uses the popular Source Engine which a lot of games you would actually play uses.

Fixed.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Back to reality, DX11 is a gimmick which will not give you immersion in games and won't change the gameplay enough to justify to go with a slower card, Eyefinity is another gimmick which gamers do not care and while the idea is old, doesn't benefit gamers much. Plus the link with a game that uses the popular Source Engine which a lot of games you would actually play uses.

Fixed.

That was a good one, made me laugh, but the one that I fixed for you in the other thread was funnier

 

[alcoholbob]

There are PLENTY of 5870s available with TONS of merchants, and I'd wager, far better consumer policies than newegg.

 

[davidb72]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
There are PLENTY of 5870s available with TONS of merchants, and I'd wager, far better consumer policies than newegg.

Not to be a lazy bones, but could you provide a couple links? I've looked at all the ones I know about and can't find any.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
It's been since pre Radeon 8500 (ie 8 years-ish) that ATI driver support could be truly classifiable as sub par or even terrible.

QFT. Takes a VERY long time to shake these things though.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Tempered81

Originally posted by: Panthur
I am 90% done getting a new high end gaming rig assembled for me but can't seem to get access to the final component....yes the Radeon 5870. Usually I have been an Nvidia guy in the past. Cost aside, should I just go for the 295? Isn't ATI's driver support far worse than Nvidia's historically anyways? Thanks.

I have to agree that the driver support is worse, even though I am an ati fan. They just dont have it together in the driver area like Nvidia does, despite the fact that they have far superior hardware. However choosing between a 5870 and 295 is a no-brainer. It's a single GPU that performs about 90-95% of the NV dual GPU card for $100 less. If you've ever used a crossfire or sli rig and then a single card that does about the same performance, you should know that the single card gives a much more enjoyable experience. Things are more fluid, minimums are higher, etc.

I mean would you rather X1900xt 512 crossfire or a 8800GTX 768? The X1900 CF might be 10% faster, and more expensive, but an experienced gamer would choose the 8800GTX.

Availability will be your biggest problem.

I disagree,ATI drivers are excellent,as a beta games tester myself I have been using both Nvidia and ATI drivers for years and find ATI drivers good as Nvidia drivers if not better,my recommendation is 5870 if he is buying right now.

IMO ATI has way more problems with new release games than Nvidia. Red Faction Guerrilla and Resident Evil 5 certainly come to mind. I personally got fed up with ATI last year because I waited for months for a couple of different issues to get resolved. Nvidia is far from perfect but I at least can play every game I know of right when it comes out.

that being said I would still recommend the 5870 over the gtx295. the 5870 is a much better investment for gaming than the gtx295.

I never owned an 8800gtx, but I seem to remember bfg bitching for a LONG time about poor drivers on it. Also, it's lucky that all of your games play ok on nvidia hardware because they usually take 4-6 months between driver updates.

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I've not once had a problem playing any game new or old in 10 years with ATI or Nvidia cards.

of course you havent. I bet you have not even had a cold in 10 years either. get real because of all the games and drivers over a 10 year period there would have been at least a couple of issues at some point.

there you go again, calling someone a liar b/c he doesn't agree with your viewpoint. Have you considered that maybe he doesn't play the same games you play? And what if he is only a casual/moderate gamer and even does some of that on consoles? As a matter of fact, I do not recall a single instance of not being able to play a game correctly due to a driver conflict. Are you going to call me a liar, too?

FACT: in ten year period both companies have had driver issues with many games. FACT: every driver revision fixes some type of issue with multiple games. FACT: if he played even a few major titles over the last 10 years then he would have had at least one issue at some point.

so yes if plays a lot of games then he is either mistaken or the luckiest person on earth to have never ran into one single issue from either company in any game in 10 years.

FACT: Not everyone replaces a driver to a new beta every single release. Why? Simply because if it aint broke don't fix it! People may not have the latest speed enhancements, but generally speaking the games run.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: Wreckage
The GTX295 is still the fastest card. It also has features you can use right now, instead of waiting a few years.

But this site will always recommend the ATI card so, take it with a grain of salt.

You can look at benchmarks though and lists of games that actually use DX11 vs PhysX. Not to mention the large number of CUDA apps.
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/17618/11

Pleeeassseee, recommending an obsolete card which doesn't support DX11, Tessellation, Eyefinity, plus horrible power consumption, SLI scaling issues, you should recommend him instead the GeForce 7900GTX because DX9 is already here and will play all games today. (That is a reply using your logic and cheap marketing tricks which are nauseating)

Back to reality, PhysX is a gimmick which will not give you inmersion in games and won't change the gameplay enough to justify to go with such old power sucking card, CUDA is another gimmick which gamers do not care and while the idea is great, doesn't benefit gamers in any way. Plus the link with a game that uses the old Source Engine which doesn't even challenge the HD 4770 series, a waste of power.

To be fair DX11 is hardly used right now, and who knows if it'll have the same problems DX10 had with poor performance with initial cards, not to mention adoption rate from devs. Also, you call Physx a gimmick but eyefinity? Please that's even more of a gimmick.

Argue all you want, but basing a purchase RIGHT NOW on DX11 is beyond dumb.

Maybe when there's 5 or so games that use it...Wait for the games before you buy simply for DX11.


My recommendation? Buy an inexpensive card now, just enough to hold you over until GT300 release and you have an idea of the performance differences. You'd hate to spend $300+ now and then realize you could have waited 2-3 months and gotten a better card. Playing the waiting game has ALWAYS paid off for me when buying cards. I've waited to see what ATI came out with in previous generations and got a better deal before that way.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: reallyscrued

Originally posted by: Panthur
I will be using a 22" lcd @ 1920x1080. I was afraid you all would opt for the 5870. I will keep looking for availability. Thanks.

Threads like this irk me. The benchmarks, information, and comparisons between the two cards are all over the internet. It's kind of a personal decision whether or not you would 'buy now' or 'wait' isn't it, why would you want a bunch of people on a forum making that decision for you?

You were afraid we would all recommend the ATi card that costs less and performs better than the nVidia card?

Do yourself a favor. Get the nV card, more ATi for the rest of us.

Less cost yes, more performance no...

Please get the facts right. They're all over the internet after all

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I got myself an ATI 5870 off of ZipZoomFly... I waited like 3 weeks to build my comp and they still had it in stock everyday I was waiting. (I was checking) Different brands come in and out of stock but essentially they're all the same right now. Nabbed a HIS 5870 for $379.

I feel like my card could be performing a little better when drivers mature but its still amazing right now. Full 60 FPS in everything all the time (vsync) except for WoW when Im in Dalaran mid day with hundreds of people there. It hits 30 fps, but its all good with Ultra Shadows and 8xMSAA lol.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
I got myself an ATI 5870 off of ZipZoomFly... I waited like 3 weeks to build my comp and they still had it in stock everyday I was waiting. (I was checking) Different brands come in and out of stock but essentially they're all the same right now. Nabbed a HIS 5870 for $379.

I feel like my card could be performing a little better when drivers mature but its still amazing right now. Full 60 FPS in everything all the time (vsync) except for WoW when Im in Dalaran mid day with hundreds of people there. It hits 30 fps, but its all good with Ultra Shadows and 8xMSAA lol.

WoW is probably going to be more of a CPU hog than GPU hog. At least when you start talking about the times it dips FPS.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
I got myself an ATI 5870 off of ZipZoomFly... I waited like 3 weeks to build my comp and they still had it in stock everyday I was waiting. (I was checking) Different brands come in and out of stock but essentially they're all the same right now. Nabbed a HIS 5870 for $379.

I feel like my card could be performing a little better when drivers mature but its still amazing right now. Full 60 FPS in everything all the time (vsync) except for WoW when Im in Dalaran mid day with hundreds of people there. It hits 30 fps, but its all good with Ultra Shadows and 8xMSAA lol.

WoW is probably going to be more of a CPU hog than GPU hog. At least when you start talking about the times it dips FPS.

Well when I went from 2.8 ghz to 3.6 it didnt make that great of difference with fps. Maybe like 10?

Im just guessing by the sheer number of people and shadows they're all rendering.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99Well when I went from 2.8 ghz to 3.6 it didnt make that great of difference with fps. Maybe like 10?

Im just guessing by the sheer number of people and shadows they're all rendering.

There is a limit to how much can be processed at once online too. Think of all the calculations it's getting from the server and having to render them to the screen. MMOs have always been slow, generally speaking.