I think I'm an ATIer for life now.

[microterf]

After seeing the $379.99 for the 5870, I think I'll stick with ATI from here on out. I was pretty impressed with the eyefinity reviews on the 10th (been looking for a way to game on my extra monitors), and the performance of the 5870 now that we see it is right where most of us expected it to be.

The last Nvidia card I bought was a Geforce 4 Ti4600 for $400. It burnt out 2 months later, so I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro for the same price. One thing we know for sure is that no matter what we buy now, 8 years from now it will be little over a paperweight. That being said, I cannot believe how cheap this card is compared to how much Nvidia charges for their single GPU cards when they are on top.

My next build was going to have whatever card was the fastest, but now I don't care what NV brings out, I'm getting 2 5870x2 when they hit the egg.

Thank you AMD/ATI!

 

[jsh1284]

While I agree their x1k and HD2000 cards weren't great, ever since the HD 3000's came out, there has been no reason whatsoever to buy an Nvidia card. Simply trying to claim the 9K and 200 series cards were somehow better than the 4000's especially .. is a sign of true bias. The 4850 alone was basically known around the business as "the people's card" for example .. and the 3870 and 4870x2's were both dominant compared to anything Nvidia could throw out there in the high-end too. Not just dominant in the mid range field. Don't even try to say the 9800Gx2 was some great phenomenon btw. It was a huge bust and it was pretty much the worst high-end card that's been made in quite a while. So yeah ... ATI has been dominant for a few years now. And they have easily continued it with the enormous win that is the 5800 series. And you can bank they won't have an answer for the 4700 series cards, either. 4870/90 speeds (probably) in a low/mid-range priced card? Yeah .. that's a show of power more than anything else. The last time Nvidia had the edge was during the 8000 series card days when ATI was putting out those puny 2600PRO and 2600XT cards and could not come close to matching even the 8800GTS performance wise, and only had the 2900XT as a flagship. Everyone thought ATI was doomed after that gen of cards .. However that was certainly the last time the green boys could say they had an edge with a straight face.

 

[jsh1284]

The 9000 geforce series were basically a bunch of re-branded 8000 series cards, only tuned down and with better heatsink/fan designs IMHO. The HD3000's were a huge leap forward in terms of ATI getting true performance back in the hands of the people for a reasonable price. And the 4850 was, in the previous gen, a card that would have cost twice what it released for. So yea .. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise, to be honest.

 

[chef7734]

While I agree their x1k and HD2000 cards weren't great, ever since the HD 3000's came out, there has been no reason whatsoever to buy an Nvidia card. Simply trying to claim the 9K and 200 series cards were somehow better than the 4000's especially .. is a sign of true bias. The 4850 alone was basically known around the business as "the people's card" for example .. and the 3870 and 4870x2's were both dominant compared to anything Nvidia could throw out there in the high-end too. Not just dominant in the mid range field. Don't even try to say the 9800Gx2 was some great phenomenon btw. It was a huge bust and it was pretty much the worst high-end card that's been made in quite a while. So yeah ... ATI has been dominant for a few years now. And they have easily continued it with the enormous win that is the 5800 series. And you can bank they won't have an answer for the 4700 series cards, either. 4870/90 speeds (probably) in a low/mid-range priced card? Yeah .. that's a show of power more than anything else. The last time Nvidia had the edge was during the 8000 series card days when ATI was putting out those puny 2600PRO and 2600XT cards and could not come close to matching even the 8800GTS performance wise, and only had the 2900XT as a flagship. Everyone thought ATI was doomed after that gen of cards .. However that was certainly the last time the green boys could say they had an edge with a straight face.

The 8800gtx outperformed the 3870 not to mention the 8800gts did also, and the gtx 295 outperformed the 4870x2. Not to mention that the gtx 285 outperformed the 4870 and the gtx 260 traded blows with the 4870. It took the 4890 massivly overclocked to come close the the gtx 285 in performance then when you overclocked the 285 to the max it was still the fastest single gpu card while the 295 was the fastest multi gpu card. That is why the ati had to focus on the price/performance and that is where it did well. That is an unbiased look at what has been going on. As I said before the 5k series is currently on top and it might stay that way but we will not know till nvidia releases thier first get dx11 cards.

 

[jsh1284]

Let's see .. how much does a 4870x2 cost you may ask? You can get one for $350 if you look in the right places. How much for a GTX 295? You will spend over $500 bucks if you buy at a credible, good online retailer. Yeah ... that's a lot of money for almost the same performance. The 4890 is aroud $200 bucks, and for similar performance, the 285 is over $350. I won't even bring the 5000 series into the discussion because they are hands down the best out there, however ... we're talking about overall dominance here. Let's go to the 4870.. it beats the GTX 275 and smokes the 260 in most unbiased benchmarks. You can get one of these now for around $130 bucks. Granted, the 260 is around the same price at the moment but seriously .. the 260 is a crippled card in a lot of ways. Just a clocked down version of a more powerful unit. Then when we get to the mid-range cards, the 4850 is by all accounts one of the best price/performance video cards ever made. And for a while there Nvidia had no viable competition for it until they came out with the GTS 200 cards. Just this card ALONE makes the 4000 cards beat out the 200 series green team gen in my book. Then below that, where's the competition for the 4770, and 4670 cards which are pretty fast for the budget gamer in their own right. There's none.

Going further back, the 3000 series cards just blew everybody's minds by bringing a true next gen and were a huge leap compared to anything that was out in the prev. generation of cards on both sides. It took Nvidia a hot minute to even answer with their own new lineup of cards, much less beat the price/power bargains that were to be found in this series by ATI. I will give you Nvidia has tended to have one flagship card that is just beastly .. but seriously .. 500? 600 bucks? C'mon nobody but rich fanboys really buys those things. They use enormous amounts of power, get overly hot, and have all kinds of issues. When it comes down to which company makes the best products for the most people and still manages to keep all of their options fast up and down the entire lineup .. ATI is the only way to go. It's been this way in the past, and in the alst three gens now .. ATI has done it once again. I highly doubt the green boys will truly have an answer for the 5800 cards for a decent price. I'll be stunned if they do. I think they'll have an equal card, yeah. But it's going to be bigger, use more resources, get hot, and be an ugly one at that. This gen, especially, I think Nvidia is getting truly desperate to really answer ATI's call .. and I don't think anything they rush onto the market is really going to be a viable option for most of us who are enthusiasts and look at the whole picture and not just what color the cards come in. This is a KO punch. Will Nvidia be back? Yes .. they will. But is it gonna happen by rushing to answer their competition instead of making cheaper, more reasonably priced cards that actually appeal to people like me who simply want the best price/performance/value out there? No, it won't.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Read the post before you make senseless comments. It's not so much about products, as that is always going to change and Nvidia usually finds a way on top anyway. It's about the fact that ATI respects the customer enough to not TOTALLY rape them. I'd rather support a company with that mind set than Nvidia.

lol, fanboy...

 

[Bluescreendeath]

As an owner of both high end Nvidia and ATI cards, I can say the two companies are about equal. I currently own more ATI cards than Nvidia, but I slightly prefer Nvidia since it gives me a boost in Crysis fps.

 

[chef7734]

lol, fanboy...

Yep and not the only one around here in this thread. It is funny when you show that the fastest cards are what they are people throw in the price factor. I really can not stand fanboys as they will never see the truth no matter what it is. Some of us do not care about price or brand we just want the fastest out there.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

They have not been dominate since the 9700/9800 pro and that is why they are focusing on the price factor.

What does 'dominate' (should be dominant) mean to you?

The X800 series had the performance crown, GF6 only had the feature crown, GF7 came out of the gate with the lead, with a somewhat weak X1800 reply, but the X1900 reply got the performance crown back until the G80/FD8800 came out. So you have rather selective memory or else are judging using some weird techniquess

The last time before that was back before 3dfx came out and was the Rage2.

Actually no, the time before that would be the very VERY brief period during which the R8500 was in the lead prior to the GF3 launch.

And any person really concerning themselves about performance will hold off to see what nvidia has to offer and pick the fastest whether it is ati or nvidia. Nvidia may not beat ati5k series in performance, but have to see numbers of both before I buy new cards.

Anyone concerning themselves with performance will already have bought the HD5870, and then sell it when something better comes out. The only people concerning themselves with the G300/F100 right now, are those looking for brand loyalty, not those interested in playing games on their computers instead of in the court of public opinion.

BTW, Why the FAQ did you resurrect this thread two weeks later for that other post? It wasn't worth it !!

 

[jsh1284]

Again I can't lie and say Nvidia is not a good company. it is .. I really like my 8800GT and it really treated me well for a while. And I even bought and 8600GTS back in the day when both sides sucked eggs and I needed to upgrade from an olllddd x1300PRO. If Nvidia gives me a reason to buy their cards again, I'm going to buy Nvidia. As of now though, I see absolutely no reason to waste my money on an overpriced card. Basically my view is Nvidia is gouging the prices mostly because lots of games are being optimized for intel/nvidia and since they are a more well known brand ... people will pay the extra cost. However as an informed buyer, at least recently, I haven't really been blown away by anything Nvidia in a little while. That's just me though. We'll see what they offer up in the 400 series lineup. Maybe then I'll go back to the greenies. Until then though .. this 5870 is where it's at.

 

[magicbullet]

I guess you cannot really fix stupid.

 

[jsh1284]

Chef, I'm sorry you aren't informed on the facts. However as an owner of Nvidia products all the way back to the RIVA TNT2 days .. I think you might want to rethink the whole idiotic me being an ATI fanboy concept. As you said, I just care about performance for the dollar. That's what matters, not whether my card can do ten more FPS in COD World at War than yours does .. when the fact is if you have a normal 60 hertz monitor it doesn't really matter that you can do 150FPS in the first place. I see you as one of those guys, though. Sad, really.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The 8800gtx outperformed the 3870 not to mention the 8800gts did also,..

Not the original GTS-320/640, only the refreshed G92 GTS-512.

 

[one-shot]

What I mean is, both Nvidia and ATI make cards that can have stuff go wrong.

I've had two nvidias and two ati's that have broken. If I decided not to buy from a company based on failures, I'd not be using any graphics card.

What's wrong with Matrox

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Nothing's wrong with Matrox, they have the perfect cards, are a socially responsible morally perfect company; it's the world that's imperfect !! 😍

FAQin' World !! [:mousemonkey:2]

 

[soundefx]

Yep and not the only one around here in this thread. It is funny when you show that the fastest cards are what they are people throw in the price factor. I really can not stand fanboys as they will never see the truth no matter what it is. Some of us do not care about price or brand we just want the fastest out there.

I agree with you.
If the argument is " What is the fastest card? ", price should not be mentioned.
If the argument is " What is the best over all card, price/performance wise? ", then the whole picture has to be taken into account.

The fastest card is, GTX295 or HD 5870. ( I am not sure which one because I can't remember the benches from the top of my head. )
What is the best over all card, HD 5870 or 5850.

All this crap about waiting on nvidia or waiting on ATi is simply crap, becasue after nvidia comes out with their card, there will be the, wait, ati has the 58(what ever) coming out.. that will be a killer....

 

[amdfangirl]

Just make sure to get a decent PSU that can power them and for a couple of years you'll be all set as from initial benchies they look to be the new 8800GTX, performance wise at least.

Well, they are the first Dx11 cards kinda like how the 8800GTX was the first Dx10.

 

[randomizer]

Not the original GTS-320/640, only the refreshed G92 GTS-512.

The 320MB GTS was a weird card. I'm sure I remember seeing a review where an X1950 pro 256MB managed a few FPS while it failed completely. The reviewer put it down to lack of VRAM. Last I checked 320 > 256 and only the X1950 pro managed to render the scene

 

[chef7734]

Chef, I'm sorry you aren't informed on the facts. However as an owner of Nvidia products all the way back to the RIVA TNT2 days .. I think you might want to rethink the whole idiotic me being an ATI fanboy concept. As you said, I just care about performance for the dollar. That's what matters, not whether my card can do ten more FPS in COD World at War than yours does .. when the fact is if you have a normal 60 hertz monitor it doesn't really matter that you can do 150FPS in the first place. I see you as one of those guys, though. Sad, really.

If someone has the disposable income to spend it on the best card it is not sad. Other people spend their money on cars or other things. I choose to buy the fastest gpu's that I can partly because we use them to demo what our company can do other part is because I can. If i did not I would spend far more money on cards till I got the fastest at the time. To you price matters which is fine and in that case as I have stated many time ati fills that gap. if someone makes a statement that ati is dominating nvidia is incorrect in many factors. Then price/performance is brought in which is fine then total sales need to be brought into to the fact. Sorry to say this nvidia still has more sales than ati. Both companies are loosing money right now but nvidia has other sales that make up for what ati does less. The tnt was my first nvidia card and prior to that it was all 3dfx. I have used both ati and nvidia in my current builds, one running 285's and other running 4870's. Your comment about 60hz monitors is not completly true. there are 120hz lcd displays where 60 to 100 fps does make a difference and they are becoming more popular. BTW I do reccomend ati for the majority of my customers as price/performance matters to a lot of people.


As for the person says there is no reason to wait for Nvidia. Why not to see what technology they bring to the table. If it is more than 3 months then yes I say buy now with the 5870 being top single card and xfire them for the top performance. If you can wait a little bit till the games catch up and nvidia release thier cards 2 things should happen. Ati will most likely reduce price of the 5870 and if it beats the nvidia or price/performance is much better go that route. I think with both of my setups I can wait for more dx11 games are released and both companies have good supplies of dx11 cards on the market to pick up whichever is fastest and available in quantities.


We got off track here and a lot of it is my fault. Back to the op. It is pretty retarded to put your faith in one company and just go with that. You should always look at all the options out there or you will most likely miss something huge. Eventually that company will let you down and neither company cares about the customers. It is all about the dollar they get. The ones that need to care are the ones that get your business, ie the individual companies that make the cards such as xfx, saphire, bfg, etc. Their prices are based on their reputation and the max they can sell the cards for to make a profit.

 

[mikeinbc]

Nvidia's practices in the past (especially lately) have been desperate & disrespectful to shareholders & consumers:

1/ Shady cheating in the past few years on futuremark's benchmarks.

2/ Payoffs to game producers to favor nvidia's overpriced & overpowered hardware.

3/ Raping consumers as much as possible on price.

4/ Choosing a closed proprietary software PhysX over open software.

5/ Disabling physX when ATI cards are present on the system.

6/ Batman AA fiasco

7/ The old "Fermi GT300 fake card in my hand" controversy

8/ Claiming that DX11 is worthless, until of course they release GT300

Enough said, whatever happened to ethical behavior?

 

[rangers]

The 8800gtx outperformed the 3870 not to mention the 8800gts did also, and the gtx 295 outperformed the 4870x2. Not to mention that the gtx 285 outperformed the 4870 and the gtx 260 traded blows with the 4870. It took the 4890 massivly overclocked to come close the the gtx 285 in performance then when you overclocked the 285 to the max it was still the fastest single gpu card while the 295 was the fastest multi gpu card. That is why the ati had to focus on the price/performance and that is where it did well. That is an unbiased look at what has been going on. As I said before the 5k series is currently on top and it might stay that way but we will not know till nvidia releases thier first get dx11 cards.

your way off, if that was true ATI would price the 5870 higher than it has

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Nvidia's practices in the past (especially lately) have been desperate & disrespectful to shareholders & consumers:
1/ Shady cheating in the past few years on futuremark's benchmarks.
2/ Payoffs to game producers to favor nvidia's overpriced & overpowered hardware.
3/ Raping consumers as much as possible on price.
4/ Choosing a closed proprietary software PhysX over open software.
5/ Disabling physX when ATI cards are present on the system.
6/ Batman AA fiasco
7/ The old "Fermi GT300 fake card in my hand" controversy
8/ Claiming that DX11 is worthless, until of course they release GT300
Enough said, whatever happened to ethical behavior?

lol fanboy...

1. ATI did the same years back

2. What? Some games favor Nvidia tech, some favor ATI tech. Crysis favors Nvidia hardware. Fallout3 favors ATI hardware. The companies don't pay off anyone.

3. Nvidia cards cost more to product than their ATI counterparts. And they cost about the same.
9800GT/4830 ~ $90, GTS250/4850 ~ $110, GTX260/4870 ~ $150

4. PhysX as a software is optional, not required. Games don't require it to run.

5. ATI would do the same in their position.

6. Read the new article/post on it. Nvidia created AA from scratch for Batman, just like in UT3. The game doesn't disable AA for ATI.

7. What? Are you saying the card is a fake? 😵

8. ATI would do the same thing.


Companies are here to make money, not make "ethical decisions" that benefit you. Stop being a fanboy and understand that neither ATI nor Nvidia is on your side.

 

[Harrisson]

2. What? Some games favor Nvidia tech, some favor ATI tech. Crysis favors Nvidia hardware. Fallout3 favors ATI hardware. The companies don't pay off anyone.

WTIMTB Payed program... pays devs, in one way or other (support, HW, PR, etc). Sometimes with money too (Nvidia VP confirmed it).

3. Nvidia cards cost more to product than their ATI counterparts. And they cost about the same.
9800GT/4830 ~ $90, GTS250/4850 ~ $110, GTX260/4870 ~ $150

Maybe its because... of ATI pricing? Do you remember GTX260/280 prices before R4800 series? 😉

4. PhysX as a software is optional, not required. Games don't require it to run.

thats good, it would be a shame if tech which will die soon would be required 😛

6. Read the new article/post on it. Nvidia created AA from scratch for Batman, just like in UT3. The game doesn't disable AA for ATI.

Have you read about it? At all? Nvidia helped with PC port's AA, and because of one or other reason (i.e. WTIMTB Payed) dev blocked AA for ATI cards, literary. If you remove that block, AA works on ATI cards too.

7. What? Are you saying the card is a fake? 😵

The card JHH was holding? Yes, of course it was fake, regardless of JHH and PR lies about it, only when everyone found out the truth, they admited it.

Companies are here to make money, not make "ethical decisions" that benefit you. Stop being a fanboy and understand that neither ATI nor Nvidia is on your side.

Its a truth to some extent, they are on their own side, still some companies make money in more or less decent way, some others are not. Sadly, the richest companies are usually the ones who bend the rules and sometimes even break the laws to prosper, like Microsoft or Intel.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

WTIMTB Payed program... pays devs, in one way or other (support, HW, PR, etc). Sometimes with money too (Nvidia VP confirmed it).


Maybe its because... of ATI pricing? Do you remember GTX260/280 prices before R4800 series? 😉

True. But remember how the 3870x2 was first released, it was priced at $400? And it didn't even perform that much better than an 8800GTS 512mb in most games at the time. That would be a case of ATI overpricing their stuff, and Nvidia competition forcing them to lower it. The best case scenario would be if the two companies are neck and neck like the GT200 vs ATI4800 series, where the prices go into free fall due to the competition.

thats good, it would be a shame if tech which will die soon would be required 😛

Aye...I dunno why ATI doesn't implement something like PhysX in their drivers though. Isn't PhysX somewhat open source? >_>

Have you read about it? At all? Nvidia helped with PC port's AA, and because of one or other reason (i.e. WTIMTB Payed) dev blocked AA for ATI cards, literary. If you remove that block, AA works on ATI cards too.

I read a different post that said that AA wasn't blocked by the developers, but was non-existent and was made from scratch by Nvidia.

The card JHH was holding? Yes, of course it was fake, regardless of JHH and PR lies about it, only when everyone found out the truth, they admited it.

Well, sources have confirmed they do have the card/die out so it's not that big of a deal anymore. It is annoying in the sense that they should've just told the people it was a non-working floor model.

Its a truth to some extent, they are on their own side, still some companies make money in more or less decent way, some others are not. Sadly, the richest companies are usually the ones who bend the rules and sometimes even break the laws to prosper, like Microsoft or Intel.

Yeh...pretty much. Or companies like Apple, which overprice their stuff and use massive marketing to sell it to wannabe hipsters.

 

[rhys216]

If ATI could charge more for their cards and still sell they would. It has nothing about respecting the customer. It is all about numbers. Ati realizes that it usually not the top performer and thus can not charge premier prices for their cards. I is all marketing not the customer.Ati never has to deal with the customer it is the card manufactures such as Xfx that deals with customers and quality control issues.

Lol!

With the huge demand the 5800 has and the lack of competition, ati could currently charge allot more, but they have chosen not to. They could of done this for many reasons, but they probably simply thought they would force Nvidea's hand to abandon the high-end and mid -range markets! 😀

Red Team Red Team Red Team

Don't be

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Lol!

With the huge demand the 5800 has and the lack of competition, ati could currently charge allot more, but they have chosen not to. They could of done this for many reasons, but they probably simply thought they would force Nvidea's hand to abandon the high-end and mid -range markets! 😀

Red Team Red Team Red Team

Don't be

fanboy...

If they charged any higher, than the current Nvidia GT200 cards would be a better deal. If they charged $500 for the 5870, people
would still buy the GTX295 since it's slightly better and would cost less. If they charged $350 for the 5850, people would buy the GTX285 since the 285
performs about the same and would cost less.

Consider that ATI charged ~$400 for 3870x2 and ~$550 for the 4870x2 when those were first released, which in hindsight are grossly overpriced.

ATI's strategy is to price it below GT200 cards of equal or the same performance or people would still be buying Nvidia. It has nothing to do with ATI wanting to benefit consumers by lowering the price.