Three Factory-Overclocked, High-End Graphics Cards

[cleeve]

Why buy a standard model when you can get the top-of-the-line? Treat yourself to the good stuff! We take three premium graphics cards for a spin to see just what kind of optional extras you can get when purchasing a factory-tweaked non-reference board.

Three Factory-Overclocked, High-End Graphics Cards : Read more

 

[knutjb]

Good to see sensible conclusions, bang for the buck.

Amazing how well the ATI cards are doing given their time on the market.

 

[Jax69]

i am amazed by ati cards after one year on the market is still strong as hell. very good amd

 

[jonsy2k]

I'm not liking the trend of these cards consuming more and more pci slots to be honest.

 

[lashton]

lol GTX 480 aginst the 5870

 

[carlhenry]

GTX 480 is looking very good and sexy

 

[ohim]

Did your lights flickered when you powered up that GTX480 ?

 

[Guest]

^^^^^
hahahahahhaah.
liked the flickered thing.
LOL

 

[h83]

So, the conclusion is that the only good point about those factory overclocked cards are their coolers...

 

[Tamz_msc]

Aliens vs. Predator favors the Radeons, just like Crysis favors the GeForce cards. However, the playing field remains very close

The graphs tell otherwise.

 

[The Lady Slayer]

It's a shame the Big Green has paid off so many game developers that we'll never see a 'true' comparison between ATI & nVidia

 

[LaloFG]

In my previous card (HIS 4870 with a default zalman heatsink and an HIS fan) the fan failed, not so much a problem, I replaced with a better one, and that was better because while the heatsink is better (zalman one) the fan is crap (thin and very sensitive).

The HIS card in the article, the heatsink it is not superior to the references one, and if the fans are the same type than before, well...

I Like the gigabyte one, that heatpipes shines and offers superior cooling (ignore the inferior performance gain due to overclock).

The GTX 480 ... well, I don´t like physX.

 

[juliom]

Far Cry 2 is so Nvidia biased, why the hell do you use it to compare the cards? If that test disappeared the huge advantage in the conclusion graphic would get much smaller.

 

[tony singh]

Why far cry 2 , crysis & dirt 2 chosen again & again knowing that nvidia performs better in these?? To show 480 much master than than 5870 ? Want an answer.

 

[vaughn2k]

[citation][nom]ohim[/nom]Did your lights flickered when you powered up that GTX480 ?[/citation]


Did not notice, because they were busy with the benchmark...

... but their neighbor does...

 

[kikireeki]

[citation][nom]from the article[/nom]At 100% fan speed, the card is noisier than a stock Radeon HD 5870. but it manages to keep the GPU cool, with temperatures under 70 degrees Fahrenheit at full load.[/citation]


wow This fan must be blowing liquid-nitrogen!

 

[chunkymonster]

Not as big of a gain with the factory oc'd 5870 cards over the 5870 reference design, certainly not enough to justify the additional cost, IMO.

No surprise that the 480 performs better than the 5870 overall, this is something that ATI stated would happen when they announced they would use dual gpu cards to compete with the high end nVidia single gpu cards.

Again with the Crysis and Far Cry benches...sheesh!

 

[halls]

Just a heads up: on the second page, you mention that the fan keeps the card at under 70 degrees Fahrenheit on full load. I don't believe you!

 

[rrobstur]

these cards are both bad-ass. you cant expect a year old card to compete with that gtx 480. thumbs ups nvidia but watch out ati next gen is inbound

 

[ares1214]

Next gen ATI isnt changing much, so i doubt performance will be massively increased. Maybe 15-30%, but nothing like the 4xxx series to the 5xxx series. However, their arch. change comes with 7xxx, and my money is, by the time Nvidia finishes the 4xx series, 6xxx will be out. By the time Nvidia releases 5xx (depending on if they go fast or go good), 7xxx will only be around the bend. 7xxx however is scheduled for around Q3-Q4 2011, so they have some time.

 

[coolvoodoo]

I like the ATI vs Nvidia wars because that is what drives progress, but it seems that some people want any benchmarks where the Nvidia card is faster to be removed. What would that prove? It is funny that the commenters above seem to think that when ATI performs better, it is because of the card, and when Nvidia performs better it is because they "paid off Tom's". That just seems like fanboys spouting off. I admit that I still like to see how any graphics card performs in Crysis because:
1. It still taxes even the mightiest of cards.
2. Every comparison for the past few years has used it, thus giving me an idea how my current card performs against the new cards.
3. Someday I want to own a graphics card that can beat it down.
4. I actually still play Crysis (and Far Cry 2).

 

[skora]

What I would have liked to see is the ref cards OC'd and benched also. If the performance is the same, then is the extra money worth the extra physical hardware?

Also, for those blasting Nvidia and the benchmark suite: The Way Its Meant To Be Played is a non spec value add. It makes the games that work with them better, so it needs to be factored in. ATI has every opportunity to pony up the resources to have a branded hardware/game developer program also. TWIMTBP is vastly under recognized and shouldn't be defamed because ATI doesn't have a comparable program!

 

[avatar_raq]

About the 5870 idle clocks: CC C10.5 is known to prevent some cards from returning to the low 157/300mhz idle clocks. This applies to the reference design cards whenever they are OCed using AMD overdrive and also when more than 1 dispaly is connected. My point is: Using CCC 10.4 may enable the HIS card to clock down as the Gigabyte one did.

 

[philiprudd]

nice test to see even a huge card that is oc it managed the system to stay under 500w thats just amazing. And of course AMD to be so low powered at peak performance at less than 400w. nice test guys

 

[nforce4max]

The Amp looks nice but not the price. Give it a year and the it will drop by a third knowing the pace of planed obsolescence. The power consumption and heat will work against the Fermi boards while the 5xx0 will end up like past generations only to be ditched for the latest thing. At least for us budget gamers things only get cheaper.