DX11 now or wait?

[nugentcj]

There has been something puzzling me lately. DirectX 11 seems like it would make my media center computer, that I'm building, much more eye catching, but it seems to be fairly new and currently only ATI offers it. I have a decent Radeon HD 2600PRO, and I'm currently using that, however the lag is too much for me to stand and I'm honestly thinking of paying $150 to get the 5750. At this moment, I'm looking at the 5600 series and I am greatly considering one. I read recently that that series will have 5 seperate editions within it. So, I will probably wait until a 5690 (or something like that) comes out. Another thing I am looking at is the cheaper 4000 series, they seem to have no speed difference (actually some seem to be better than their 5000 series counterparts), They just don't have DX11 and are notably cheaper. The one I'm looking at is the 4650 which has a higher core clock than the 5670.

If I buy that and decide to late upgrade to a 5000 (or even 6000) series, I can just put it into another computer. So, Is DirectX 11 worth it at this stage?

By the WAY, I stick to XFX cards because of lifetime warranty and Quality products.

 

[jaguarskx]

What lag are you talking about?

Are you playing games?

 

[paperfox]

How many watts is your PSU? What screen resolution do you play at?
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-5670,review-31787.html
Review of the 5670, for your reading. (or skip to benchmarks)

Newegg right now has the XFX:
4670 @ 70 (get a 4770, bigger bang for the price difference, but if you have to buy a bigger PSU then maybe not)
5670 @ 100 (its worth jumping to the 5750 because it performs ~50% faster at <50% more money.)
9800GT @ 110 (get a 4770)
4770 @ 95 (best performance out of all above)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=4770
5750 @ 140 (DX 11 but is it worth $45 more? and only a slight performance increase over 4770)
5770 @ 160

Its hard to say for the low-mid range cards wheither DX11 is worth it as the older DX10 cards are at such a good price point. The bigger the screen resolution you have the more benificial getting that 5750 and DX11 card over the 4770 becomes.

 

[nugentcj]

What lag are you talking about?

Are you playing games?

I'm building a media center computer and while I'm scrolling through the windows media center it is too slow to bare with, also video playback is terrible and will only go up to 360i definition (which is horrible since I am watching on a 48 inch HDTV).

 

[nugentcj]

How many watts is your PSU? What screen resolution do you play at?
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-5670,review-31787.html
Review of the 5670, for your reading. (or skip to benchmarks)

Newegg right now has the XFX:
4670 @ 70 (get a 4770, bigger bang for the price difference, but if you have to buy a bigger PSU then maybe not)
5670 @ 100 (its worth jumping to the 5750 because it performs ~50% faster at <50% more money.)
9800GT @ 110 (get a 4770)
4770 @ 95 (best performance out of all above)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=4770
5750 @ 140 (DX 11 but is it worth $45 more? and only a slight performance increase over 4770)
5770 @ 160

Its hard to say for the low-mid range cards wheither DX11 is worth it as the older DX10 cards are at such a good price point. The bigger the screen resolution you have the more benificial getting that 5750 and DX11 card over the 4770 becomes.

My PSU is a 550w, It is also great quality and doesn't need much headrooom (Will go up to 530w, and still keep surge protection, supports crossfireX as well).

I would appreciate at least 720p definition at good speeds, but it would be nice to watch movies in 1080p.

 

[sabot00]

What's your CPU? HDD? Seems like one of those might be cause for WMC to lag.

 

[jyjjy]

I was thinking lack of RAM and/or too much bloat/spy/malware running in the background. In any case the video card likely isn't the problem.

 

[SV_Bubbles]

Most likely a lack of CPU power. The GPU basically sits on it's thumbs when playing back video.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

There's something else going on in your PC, I have the mobile version of that GPU in my laptop and have no problem playing high bit-rate BluRay or HD-DVDs at full resolution (via HDMI out) nor on laptop resolution, both of which are much higher than 720p, so there's something else going on in your system. The HD2600 should be able to handle most of the acceleration (save dual stream BR), and I've had no issues with Media Centre either watching 480i or 1080i content via Cable or ATSC.

I would recommend cleaning out your old drivers and updating to the latest ones, and clean-up the rest of your system.

If you still feel you want to update, then the HD5 series would be better than the HD4 series for the update HDMI features as well as the update internal math like SAD which is good for both video decode, encode, and transcoding.

 

[nugentcj]

I'm looking to buy a Video card, for a new computer I am building. I'm using an old 2600pro (that has been damaged slightly), in my current computer. The problem is the GPU because, it is having problems with displaying the correct definition. If I adjust it down to 360i, playback and others begin to work at a good speed (not perfect). This is an indication of a graphics card problem, and I do not want to keep that graphics card in the computer that I am building.

So once again I ask, Is DirectX 11 worth it, since it will make Windows7 more appealing and also do the same for Media Center.

I stick to XFX graphics cards, and I am only considering 4xxx series and 5xxx series.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Most likely a lack of CPU power. The GPU basically sits on it's thumbs when playing back video.

That's not true for anything that can take advantage of GPU acceleration, even old plain MPEG can be accelerated by the GPU, and MPEG2 definitely works in Media Centre from base without add-ons.

 

[jyjjy]

If you aren't gaming just get the HD5450

 

[sabot00]

The 5570 is the cheapest card that can use all the video playback features.
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=669

 

[nugentcj]

One more time, I'm not looking to upgrade my existing computer. I'm building a new one and using my existing situation as a reference. I would like better performance that what I currently have, but I don't know if performance/price is better than performance/features(as in DX11).

4000, seams to be on the performance/price and......
5000, seams to be on the performance/features side of things.

I don't game, but I would like some headroom for mild gaming.
DirectX 11 looks extremely beautiful to me, but is it worth the premium?

 

[jyjjy]

According to that link what the HD5450 can't do is rather minor and only applies to very high resolutions.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

So once again I ask, Is DirectX 11 worth it, since it will make Windows7 more appealing and also do the same for Media Center.

DX11 has NOTHING to do with it, DirectCompute might be of use for Transcoding in Win7 but that's available to other GPUs too, it's not about D3D11, and even then OpenCL will be worth more overall, but that's outside of Media Centre. Media Centre is mediocre player and wont' take advantage of the biggest benefits, but for whatever you're doing media-centre wise, the HD5650 would likely be more than enough (although the early drivers don't exploit the hardware fully yet so it's not as fast as it needs to be so if you go that rout, be sure to update the drivers when the media playing features are updated).

I stick to XFX graphics cards, and I am only considering 4xxx series and 5xxx series.

That's unfortunate for you about XFX, they don't have a good reputation for quality right now, but if you prefer them, they make an HD5670 and 5570 so you have both options available, but no passive heatsink model for HTPCs.

 

[jyjjy]

One more time, I'm not looking to upgrade my existing computer. I'm building a new one and using my existing situation as a reference. I would like better performance that what I currently have, but I don't know if performance/price is better than performance/features(as in DX11).

4000, seams to be on the performance/price and......
5000, seams to be on the performance/features side of things.

I don't game, but I would like some headroom for mild gaming.
DirectX 11 looks extremely beautiful to me, but is it worth the premium?

DX11 really only applies to gaming. What resolution is your monitor?

 

[nugentcj]

DX11 really only applies to gaming. What resolution is your monitor?

1080p, it is a 48in HDTV.

 

[nugentcj]

That's unfortunate for you about XFX, they don't have a good reputation for quality right now, but if you prefer them, they make an HD5670 and 5570 so you have both options available, but no passive heatsink model for HTPCs.[/quotemsg]

I have just never had a problem with them once. When I bought my 2600pro, I bought a powercolor one, it broke. Then, I got a diamond one, it blowed up. I finally got an XFX, it has lasted my around 2.5 years.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

According to that link what the HD5450 can't do is rather minor and only applies to very high resolutions.

If he's complaining about sluggishness now, you're going to recommend a GPU that can barely do the job now, let alone when higher resolution movies, and 3D BluRays and such come out?

I wouldn't bother for the meager savings of the HD5450 the difference is about the price of a single BluRay.

 

[nugentcj]

Best answer selected by nugentcj.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Neither Powercolor nor Diamond are quality AIBs, they are value AIBs, you get what you pay for, unfortuantely XFX had alot of problems with the HD4 series and early HD58xxs.

I would recommend even standard Sapphire above XFX, and HIS, Gigabyte and MSI (and sometimes ASUS [they may cheap models sometimes, [like Sapphire's Lite models]) as quality AIBs.

 

[nugentcj]

DX11 has NOTHING to do with it, DirectCompute might be of use for Transcoding in Win7 but that's available to other GPUs too, it's not about D3D11, and even then OpenCL will be worth more overall, but that's outside of Media Centre. Media Centre is mediocre player and wont' take advantage of the biggest benefits, but for whatever you're doing media-centre wise, the HD5650 would likely be more than enough (although the early drivers don't exploit the hardware fully yet so it's not as fast as it needs to be so if you go that rout, be sure to update the drivers when the media playing features are updated).


Thanks for that, I have decided to get the 5670 because it seemed like it would give me the benefits I need at a decent cost. I'll make sure to update drivers as well. But, do you think it is worth me waiting for the higher powered 5690?

 

[nugentcj]

Which brand would you recommend?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I would say the HD5690 will give you nothing worth waiting for. Once the drivers are sorted out the HD5670 should handle anything you throw at it media-wise, and for your light gaming it's fine, the HD5690 boost would likely be something in the order of 10-20% nothing noticeable. And it won't be out until the fall at the earliest as it's supposed to be on the new process.

And XFX is 'ok' and they do have a good warranty that lasts a long time, so even if you get a dud, they will replace it, so it's not like you're left out to dry.