ATI vs NVIDIA

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stryder092

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Which card should I get for my system!?!

No bias between ATI Radeon and Geforce here I want to get a real nice new upgrade to my video card. I have an HD 4850 and it has temp issues and other issues and needs to be upgraded. Check out my system I actually really only play games at the resolution of 1280x1024 and around there. But I want a card that will last me a long time and has a very nice oooler and warranty. I was thinking either the Geforce GTX 470 (Fermi) or the Radeon HD 5850 TOXIC Edition by Sapphire. My budget is around 300$

Thanks!
 
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mactronix

mactronix

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You definitely don't need a Fermi card, the 5850 would seem to be over kill to me at your resolution as well. The thing that sticks out to me is what is the make and power of your PSU ? You need to be sure it will handle a 5850 etc. And also the rest of the system specs would need to be able to support the card properly, what is your CPU ?
There are only a few games that would use a 5850 properly at your resolution, trying to "future proof" your purchase is always a bit of a pointless exercise really. Usually a mid range card that is updated to a better able more advanced mid range card in a year or two ends up being cheaper than getting a high end card and trying to make it last 2-3 years. Generally its easier to sell on a mid range card and put the cash towards the new card.
This is where i would be looking http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_5770_HAWK/
If you are set on getting the more powerful card then the 5850 gets my vote.

Mactronix
 
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stryder092

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I have a 750watt power supply and I got the 4 pin molex to 6 pin pci-e connector so I got 2 6 pin PCI-E power connectors now. Yes, the two cards are alittle bit "maybe" too powerful, but I want insurance on my purchase. It's better then buying an HD5770 when it will get beaten by a newer mid-range card soon when the HD 5850 or GTX470 will last me a long time and be a better investment when I upgrade my CPU/Motherboard and Ram soon too after I get the new video card.
 
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stryder092

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Mactronix, it's ok because the HD5850 doesn't need anywhere near its recommended 500 watts, even if it's 500 watts the card itself only needs like 300 on full load, and the 750 watt power supply I have surely can hold it's own as I have the 4850 now and it is nearly the same watt usage on full load.
 
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stryder092

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I have a Duo Core 2 3.0GHZ, 4GB PC6400, Windows Vista X64 Ultimate as well. I want a good card, it will be a good investment. I like the TOXIC Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 or maybe the GTX 470.
 
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mactronix

mactronix

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I can see it makes sense if you are planning to carry it forward to a new more powerful build soon. What worries me here is that you have a 750 Watt PSU that doesn't already have a second PCIE connector.
This indicates to me that it could well be a cheaper PSU and if it is then you need to be very careful as a PSU of that type hardly ever manages to provide anywhere near the power it promises to.
As i said the 5850 gets my vote

Mactronix
 
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mactronix

mactronix

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Ok that makes sense, I used to work my power usage out like that. I have had cards before running on PSU's that they plain shouldnt have done even going on review findings.
I ran a X1650XT years ago on a generic PSU based on it having run the slightly less power hungry X800XL for a good year with out issues.
You seem to know what you are doing ;) so i will just leave you with my above recomendations

Mactronix :)
 
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stryder092

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Exactly, I am investing in a nice new video card now in in the not-too-distant future finally upgrade my processor/motherboard and ram in a few months or maybe sooner, who knows, but not too long. The Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 TOXIC Edition is real nice thinking about that one, or the GTX 470 (Fermi)
 
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stryder092

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I got the numbers wrong dude, the HD 5850 under full load uses 315 Watts, the entire system not just the card dude, that's what I was talking about.

The Geforce GTX 470 uses 419 Watts under full load, everything in system. Looks like the HD 5850 is a much better choice power-wise
 
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Nashsafc

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no for 1280 x 1024 an ATI 5850 wouldn't be overkill, it would be a sensible option for those newer games like battlefield bad company 2 which get low framerates even with the new cards that have come out with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. I think if your doing sli or cfx though you'd need to get a 22 inch monitor with a 1680 resolution, something i heard about getting less FPS or something with a smaller resolution. I had a GTS 250 and i played Crysis on low settings with 4 aa and 4 af and my FPS was 30 average which isn't that good. My system had a phenom ii x3 720 at 3.2ghz and 4gb ddr2 800mhz ram (with low timings) to show that i didn't have a major cpu bottleneck. I now have an ATI 4870 still playing at this resolution and play Crysis on medium settings with 8 aniso-tropic filtering, i still get around 40 FPS average. Playing games without anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering looks really bad, if you can't get good performance with those two settings on you might as well buy an xbox 360 and play the same games. Because of the graphical inefficiency of windows seems like you have to spend a great deal on a graphics card to have same xbox 360 performance but slightly better graphics. Also to note that i prefer my computer much more to the xbox, don't have an xbox anymore, but not happy with xbox 360 having an ATI x1800 gpu and my computer having a graphics card about 5 times better and performance is still poor linked with quality. Just that if you are playing those games requiring 128mb minimum of graphics and you have a system relatively similar to mine or better then the 5850 would be slightly more than enough, but more performance is better because it means your FPS never drops bellow 50 in graphical intensity, but would actually mean that you could virtually destroy aliasing in images by enabling 8 aa and keeping great texture sharpness with 8 af, FPS would probably be then just around 95 average for most games.
 
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andylp4ever

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hey man,..... first buy a new monitor... it doesent mean spend too much money on these cards without having a great gameplay... i have the same rez and im buying the HD 4890... its perfect for this...... in your case, if you want to buy one of these i would choose the HD 5850 iCooler.... have a great buy
 
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Nashsafc

Nashsafc

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In that case you definately want the ATI 5850. It's technology is better, performance per watt, it's technology is cleaner as it uses 151 watts compared to 215 watts from the GTX 470. The card came out a couple of months before the GTX 470 and the GTX 470 isn't any considerably better in that case it shows Nvidia's technology is worse of than ATI's currently. Eventhough they have brute performance but then you think at what cost they have done to achieve it. The ATI 5850 should in my opinion be a cooler card than the GTX 470 seeing how it consumes 65 watts less than the GTX 470, and at your resolution it makes sense to buy the 5850. Mind you still won't be able to play games like bad company 2 (max settings) with 60 FPS+ average even at that resolution with a minimul amount of aa and af enabled. With the ATI 5850 you get the power of a GTX 285 (with a slight bit more performance) in a smaller and cleaner package. I think in the future that i will upgrade to this card as well, in my cooler master elite 342 matx case, no chance for getting a GTX 470 that will seriously overheat in my matx case. However i think that the FPS decrease in getting a 1680 x 1080 resolution monitor in my opinion for most games is up to 15 FPS less. If your monitor is of good quality and is about 19 inch, probably just stick with it unless you have the money to spend in that case you might as well buy an ATI 5870 instead of a new monitor as well.
 
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ScoobyJooby-Jew

ScoobyJooby-Jew

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I don't run AA or AF, and Crysis with everything else set to max looks way better than anything on my PS3. G-d of war III looks really flat and plain. Hell, WoW on max settings minus AA looks sweet. I play at 1360x768 with a 5750. My old system was a p4 2.8 with a 9250 and 2 gigs of RAM. I could barely get 25 fps in WoW with everything set to low. Now I'm rocking ~58 fps with everything sans AA.
 
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Nashsafc

Nashsafc

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are you sure you're not comparing Crysis a 256mb min graphical requirement game on the computer with a 128mb min graphical requirement game (equivilant on the ps3 to the computer) on the ps3? Crysis will obviously look better because of larger memory requirement and much more colour and vibrance in the game etc. You have to compare games like Battlefield 2 Bad Company or COD MW2 on the computer with the xbox 360. I think i like to compare pc with xbox 360 graphics because the xbox tends to have more vibrance. But i definatetly noticed a large difference between no anti-aliasing and 4 anti-aliasing and also aniso-tropic filtering settings. The xbox 360 uses these two settings and what i'm saying is that if your computer can't play with these two settings for the same exact game on same hd monitor getting performance with a good 60 FPS then you might as well play on the xbox 360. Because textures are only very slightly worse of than the computer and detail is also very slightly worse of but you have to really put picture to picture and spot the differences to be able to see how much better the pc is. Since he's asking for a graphics card this good he implies that he wants to use anti-aliasing and aniso-topic filtering in his settings, am i so opc? If not then a 5850 would probably be more than you need.
 
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stryder092

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To be honest I have a PS3 and upgrading my PC, I want to play Starcraft 2, only available on PC and maybe an MMORPG, games only available on PCs. My playstation 3 is my game system. So forget the xbox 360, I had one sold it. I want a nice upgrade to be able to play any game I want, I am picking the Radeon HD 5850 and I think either the Sapphire TOXIC edition or Asus with the real nice cooler.
 
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Nashsafc

Nashsafc

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yeah i see what you mean, rts games are definately played better on pc than on games console; rts was designed for pc. Looks similar to command and conquer. I was just using the xbox 360 as an example, when i say xbox 360 i also mean ps3 as well, they're both probably as good as each other in terms of graphics i just wanted to use one as an example. Also, yes i'd definately go with Sapphire and Asus, they would be a good choice as they have grecommend not to,ood coolers attatched to them, don't go with XFX though. I mean since their coolers look cheap and of the basic standard ofcourse and i had an XFX GTS 250, it looked nice, but it's features were rubbish and was rather expensive. Well i don't know anything about mmorpg games apart from oblivion which i have and i play first person shooters mainly or rts like command and conquer. But most of them look like a 5850 will do, perhaps would be too much, it is the first person shooters that you need a good card for.
 
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