2x ATI Radeon HD 5870 Or 2x nVidia GTX 285 OC

[JXJXJX8585]

I am in the Market to by a new system: i have thought up the following package, and am not sure if i should go with the 2x (Crossfire) ATI Radeon HD 5870 Or 2x (SLi) nVidia GTX 285 OC

WHAT WILL BE SMOOTHER AND FASTER?

nVidia: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143201

ATI: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121346

I want to run Xfire or SLI so i will be buying 2 of either of these cards...




Will ATI cards be able to use the Nvidia 3D Vision Glasses i suspect not..... but throwing that out there!
Website: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Vision_Main.html



nVidia has its PhysX capabilities in games eg: when u shoot stuff it falls down, Does ATI have that or support that?



The System im looking to build is the following: (im still trying to find out if the ram is compatible with the mobo)



CPU: Intel Core i7-860 2.8GHz (O.C:4GHz) | Model#:BX80605I7860
Website: http://processorfinder.intel.com/Details.aspx?sSpec=SLBJJ

Motherboard: ASUS Maximus III Formula Intel P55 Chipset | Model#:Maximus III Formula
Website: http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P [...] templete=2

Memory: GeIL EVO ONE 8GB(4x2GB) DDR3 2133MHz | Model#:GE38GB2133C9QC
Website: http://www.geil.com.tw/products/show/id/190

HDD: 5x Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000 RPM | Model#:WD3000HLFS
Website: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=494

Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS10X Extreme 120mm | Model#:CNPS10X Extreme
Website: http://zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=350

Thanks for the help!!

 

[darkvine]

5870 crossfire. It would be a close race, and the GTX285 might beat ti but the 5870 has it's whole life ahead of it, new drivers and the like.

 

[crosko42]

5870 crossfire. It would be a close race, and the GTX285 might beat ti but the 5870 has it's whole life ahead of it, new drivers and the like.

Are you kidding me?

The 5870 wipes the floor with the current gen cards with the exception of the 295 ( even then it beats it in some benches)

Go with the 5870's in XF for sure.

 

[dandy]

go for 5870..

 

[Harrisson]

5870 x2 will be ~30% faster on average (you can OC them as well 😉), plus whole set of new features.

 

[Yellowcard]

The HD 5870 is from +10%, all the whey up to +155% better than GTX 285 in 17 different game's. However under Crossfire it might have serious problems. On general crossfire scales better than SLI (A test done by benchmark.pl) but as we all know this is a new GPU and the drivers aren't really out there yet. So we are yet to see, if HD 5870 does as good as it's predecessors did in that matter. So HD 5870 Crossfire? A bit of a gamble ;] But, there are more things to consider. the eyefinity technology will let you connect up to 6 monitors (in crossfire mode). You get the directx 11 with a bunch of ridiculously good features. Such as Direct Compute 11, that might not tell you anything, but in short, it’s a standard for what ATI and Nvidia are trying to do with their “ATI Stream” and “CUDA” respectively. It’s important to notice that (unlike with DirectX 10) you get a few games - almost at lunch – that can use DirectX 11, with Battle Forge, Dirt 2, And Stalker: Call of Pripiat on top. But one very important question you asked, haven’t yet been answered and that is if ATI has something similar to PhysX. Unfortunately they don’t, and by the time they will, Programmers will most definitely have started using Direct Compute 11. Since any DirectX 11 GPU is compatible with it. And you can use it for any calculations (Physics, A.I., Video Encoding/Decoding etc.)
So it’s like this:
GTX 285 SLI is most likely (but not indefinitely) slower than HD 5870 Crossfire
HD 5870 Has allot of new technologies with DirectX 11 sitting firmly on top
GTX 285 Has PhysX which as you know is in most games an important feature

I personally, would go for HD 5870. When the GT 300 will hit the market. GTX 285 will undoubtedly become old. It’s SLI will still have enough power to run new games flawlessly. But it wont be able to. Because it’ll lack DirectX 11 compatibility. HD 5870 on the other hand might turn up to be a great GPU given enough time for ATI to optimize it’s drivers.

 

[ChrisRed]

5870 crossfire. It would be a close race, and the GTX285 might beat ti but the 5870 has it's whole life ahead of it, new drivers and the like.

wut? have u even seen the benches? 5870 no question.

 

[EXT64]

Yes, technically you can run PhysX, just on the CPU. However Havok has a much larger game base and is purely CPU. Thanks to NVidia's stubborness, PhysX is limited to only their hardware, and thus will probably die out. Really not worth getting slower hardware for it, imo.

 

[outlw6669]

Hands down, get the pair of 5870's.
Even with the early drivers, it is a MUCH better and faster choice.

Take a look at Tom's 5870 Review.
It directly compares a pair of 5870's with a pair of GTX285's.
Needless to say, 5870 CrossFire massively outperforms GTX285 SLI.
Adding to the performance wins DX11 support, lower temps and much lower power consumption makes the 5870's that much more desirable.

 

[Yellowcard]

Hands down, get the pair of 5870's.
Even with the early drivers, it is a MUCH better and faster choice.

Take a look at Tom's 5870 Review.
It directly compares a pair of 5870's with a pair of GTX285's.
Needless to say, 5870 CrossFire massively outperforms GTX285 SLI.
Adding to the performance wins DX11 support, lower temps and much lower power consumption makes the 5870's that much more desirable.

So true... I never so the Crossfire vs SLI comparisons for theese cards. HD 5870 does seem to kick ass.

 

[darkvine]

Are you kidding me?

The 5870 wipes the floor with the current gen cards with the exception of the 295 ( even then it beats it in some benches)

Go with the 5870's in XF for sure.

yes, it does but they are still haven't trouble with scaling in most games. So sli tends to be more stable across the board, in a few drivers updates that will change though.