Graphics Card suggestions?
By
Emberly,
Posted on: 2010-01-01 15:46 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
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There's a whole thread on this subject here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=200245|
Originally Posted by Rylas
I'm trying to see if there's a good upgrade option worth the investment from my nVidia GeForce 8600 GT. My main reasons for wanting to upgrade is so I can be ready for Going Rogue when it comes out. I know system requirements for the new graphics haven't been listed yet, but I'm sure the higher end cards out at the moment would suffice.
My current specs are: Dual Core E6750 @ 2.66GHz 3GB RAM DDR3 1066 PSU - 500W ATX12V V2.01 I know I may need to upgrade the PSU, but currently what I'm looking for is a good GFX card suggestion. I was thinking of the GTS 250, but I'm not sure how much better my FPS would be from that. Any ideas? |
Short version, the GTS 250 is a 9800 GT that's been die-shrunk and rebadged. Yes, it's a bit over an 8600...
Nvidia is pulling the GTX chips from the market causing the price to go up as stocks dwindle.
Nvidia's Fermi won't be here until March at the earliest.
If you are buying right now, buy AMD. Buy any of the RadeonHD 5x00 series cards shipping. They are the only DirectX 11 / OpenGL 3.2 cards on the market.
The RadeonHD 5750 and 5770 cards are generally in stock and under $200.
The RadeonHD 5850, 5870, and 5890 cards are now being stocked as shipments are up, and most will start in the $300+ bracket.
The best new performance bang for your buck is RadeonHD 5750 in Crossfire mode: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...rossfirex.html
Don't look for a price drop on the RadeonHD 5x00 series anytime soon. They have no competition.
The best old performance bang for your buck is the RadeonHD 4850 in Crossfire. They start under $130: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150351
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To add to this, the new AMD/ATI Radeon HD 5770 (~$175) is likely to run off of your existing 500 W power supply, unless it's a really weakly built one.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
If you are buying right now, buy AMD. Buy any of the RadeonHD 5x00 series cards shipping. They are the only DirectX 11 / OpenGL 3.2 cards on the market.
The RadeonHD 5750 and 5770 cards are generally in stock and under $200. The RadeonHD 5850, 5870, and 5890 cards are now being stocked as shipments are up, and most will start in the $300+ bracket. The best new performance bang for your buck is RadeonHD 5750 in Crossfire mode: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...rossfirex.html Don't look for a price drop on the RadeonHD 5x00 series anytime soon. They have no competition. The best old performance bang for your buck is the RadeonHD 4850 in Crossfire. They start under $130: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150351 |
Actually the GTS 250 is a die-shrunk, overclocked, double the memory in some cases, rebadged version of the 512MB 8800GTS if you want to be exact about it. 
512MB 8800GTS -> 9800GTX -> 9800GTX+ -> GTS 250
Now we have no idea how much better a GTS 250 would be over an 8600GT in this game but this chart may give some indication (note that the 9500GT falls just short of an 8600GTS in performance, which in turn is an faster clocked 8600GT). So roughly 2.5-3 times the performance.
Now looking at a more current version of that chart will have the HD 5750 and HD 5770 je_saist is talking about. One advantage besides a bit of performance improvement is significantly lower power use.
Here are the GTS 250, HD 5750 and HD 5770 cards with 1GB of memory available at NewEgg.
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I'd grab what I just picked up for my rig ( which has the same specs OP listed aside from a 650 W PS). the Geforce GTX 260 896 RAM. It's shown on fatherXmas's chart he linked to and it is slightly above all the cards listed thus far.
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Several problems with this:|
Originally Posted by Lohenien
I'd grab what I just picked up for my rig ( which has the same specs OP listed aside from a 650 W PS). the Geforce GTX 260 896 RAM. It's shown on fatherXmas's chart he linked to and it is slightly above all the cards listed thus far.
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A: the GTX prices are going up as stock decreases
B: The GTX card isn't DX11 / OpenGL 3.2 compatible
C: the cheapest 5770 starts at $155: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131326
The cheapest GTX 260 that really doesn't outrun it starts at $179: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814143189
D: the performance difference between the 5770 and the GTX 260 isn't that great.
Actually, the Catalyst drivers are known to be holding several games back, which some reports placing the beta Catalyst 10.1 drivers as matching the GTX 260 in non Nvidia TWIWTB titles. Now, whether or not that Beta performance will turn into real-world performance on "your rig" is yet to be seen. This early in a video cards life though, it's not uncommon to see another 5%, 10%, or 15% over-all performance wrought out as the drivers are refined and optimized for the (new) architecture. With the GTX series being (Forcefully) end-of-lifed, there probably won't be any future driver performance enhancements.
The other side to the performance coin is that DirectX 11 / OpenGL 3.2 is a lot like DX10 / OpenGL 3.0 over DX9 / OpenGL 2.0-2.1. There's not actually a lot in the API's that cannot be implemented or accomplished on the older feature set. However, the architecture to support the API's allows for some operations to be accomplished quicker. A shader intensive scene that might require 8 passes on the DX9 / OpenGL 2.0-2.1 API might only require 5 or 6 passes on the DX10 / OpenGL 3.0 API.
This means, in theory, that graphics engines built against newer versions of various API's should run faster on the same hardware. This hasn't actually been the real world case with engines based on Unreal or CryEngine, where the DX10 path never really offered noticeable performance gains over the DX9 paths.
There is the counterpoint to this argument that these two engines were really DX9 / OpenGL 2.0 engines that were extended, rather than built from the gound up. Other engines, such as ID's Tech5, Valve's Source, and the new Unigine have been noticeably faster when running similar scenes against different API's on the same hardware with the same quality levels.
Since DX11 / OpenGL 3.2 continue to be evolutions, rather than revolutions, of existing API's, there is a question over whether or not engines built against previous API's extended to use new API features will be any faster.
Is a $24 price difference really worth it for a card that runs hotter, uses up more power, isn't actually any faster, and doesn't have the same API feature support?
Personally, no, it's not.
The 5750 an 5770 are quite capable of powering a DX11 game at 1680*1050, even with Anti-Aliasing: http://hardocp.com/article/2009/12/2...mage_quality/1
So there is some assurance that as DX11 / OpenGL 3.2 titles come down the pipeline, these medium range cards will be able to run them.
The GTX 260? Well. It won't. At all.
What about the GTX 275? According to the chart, it would have quite a bit of performance over the 5770. I've had unpleasant experience with ATI in the past, so I'm dubious of going that route. Sure, I'd need to upgrade my PSU, but the power requirement isn't that much more than what I use now.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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The 275 is a bit odd out since there's no direct answer on the AMD side right now due to market demands. |
Originally Posted by Rylas
What about the GTX 275? According to the chart, it would have quite a bit of performance over the 5770. I've had unpleasant experience with ATI in the past, so I'm dubious of going that route. Sure, I'd need to upgrade my PSU, but the power requirement isn't that much more than what I use now.
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The RadeonHD 5850 out-runs the GTX 285, and if you could get one at it's MSRP of $260, it'd be well worth the extra cash over GTX 275's current $230 price tag.
However, nobody is selling the HD 5850 at it's $260 price point. Prices start at $310. Okay, that's cheaper than the starting price of $350 for the GTX 285 it outruns, but you are still getting price-gouged. Granted, you'd be getting price-gouged even more if you went with a GTX 285.
So if you are looking to spend between $200~$250, the GTX 275 is your only option.
Unless Nvidia can get a competitor to the RadeonHD 5x00 series onto the market, AMD's vendors aren't going to have much incentive to drop prices. Right now the HD 5x00 series is a cash cow with gamers willingly paying way over the suggested price for what's a better product.
AMD's plans on the $200~$250 market are still uncertain. Depending on you ask AMD has two different plans to deal with this price segment depending on how TSMC production holds up. Reportedly, when the 5670/5570 (Redwood) and HD 5450 (Cedar) GPU's hit, AMD could also be introducing a 5830, much like they have before. Such a card would be a downclocked version of the GPU found in the 5850, possibly with the memory controller from the 5770.
The other option is a clock bumped 5770 running at 1ghz by default.
***
Now, as to whether or not you should buy AMD or Nvidia?
Well, I'm sorry, but unless you are stuck in that $200~260 price bracket, Nvidia's not exactly an option. You are basically paying for a product that is overpriced, under performing, with the industry's worst 64bit drivers (seriously, even Via/S3 has better 64bit drivers on their Chrome products), and from a vendor whose continued existence in the consumer market is still very much under question.
It's your money though. Buy what you want.
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No, you're not. You can't pay for something that's *not in stock.* |
Originally Posted by je_saist
You are basically paying for a product that is overpriced, under performing, with the industry's worst 64bit drivers (seriously, even Via/S3 has better 64bit drivers on their Chrome products), and from a vendor whose continued existence in the consumer market is still very much under question.
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Well, you *can,* I suppose, but I for one would feel rather silly doing so. Honestly, with my in progress system build, one thing made me finally go and put an ATI card on the list - as I had a *really* bad experience with them that put me off their products for some time (since the Radeon 7000 days) - not performance, though I'm not seeing a hit there it looks like. The fact that, for nVidia, everything in the range I want was sold out *continually.* A shipment came in for one I initially had in the build, ("due 12/20," I think) and was gone almost instantly.
Fermi initially was "due at the end of 2009," then they had chip problems (not an issue, as it was still in development at the time,) then production problems (and don't forget that wonderful sawed off circuit board on the "This is the real card I'm holding!" presentation. Just irks me.) If it's a killer card, I can wait for the .1 or .2 version to come out and upgrade in a year. If it doesn't outperform what I put in - the upgrade gets put off.
But for now, if stock's not there, I can't buy it, and that's all it boils down to.
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Actually that's the official price point from ATI now. They bumped it up to $300 when multiple review sites reported the same thing: that they could repeatably and reliably overclock a 5850 to 5870 performance levels. With the 5870 at $400, there was no reason to buy it over the 5850. So they raised the price.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
However, nobody is selling the HD 5850 at it's $260 price point. Prices start at $310.
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Aside from Fermi's absence, you're not going to see the GTX 2xx series come back into stock either. The entire line has been removed from production by Nvidia. They were losing money on each chip sold due to manufacturing costs.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
No, you're not. You can't pay for something that's *not in stock.*
Well, you *can,* I suppose, but I for one would feel rather silly doing so. Honestly, with my in progress system build, one thing made me finally go and put an ATI card on the list - as I had a *really* bad experience with them that put me off their products for some time (since the Radeon 7000 days) - not performance, though I'm not seeing a hit there it looks like. The fact that, for nVidia, everything in the range I want was sold out *continually.* A shipment came in for one I initially had in the build, ("due 12/20," I think) and was gone almost instantly. Fermi initially was "due at the end of 2009," then they had chip problems (not an issue, as it was still in development at the time,) then production problems (and don't forget that wonderful sawed off circuit board on the "This is the real card I'm holding!" presentation. Just irks me.) If it's a killer card, I can wait for the .1 or .2 version to come out and upgrade in a year. If it doesn't outperform what I put in - the upgrade gets put off. But for now, if stock's not there, I can't buy it, and that's all it boils down to. |
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Interesting. I hadn't caught that bit.
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Originally Posted by Human_Being
Actually that's the official price point from ATI now. They bumped it up to $300 when multiple review sites reported the same thing: that they could repeatably and reliably overclock a 5850 to 5870 performance levels. With the 5870 at $400, there was no reason to buy it over the 5850. So they raised the price.
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See, that's the thing. Just how much money are they making now with nothing in stock? The demand is there, or was - I have to wonder just how much they'll have lost (versus some from manufacturing) from people jumping ship to, or just seeing their only choice as, ATI in new systems, new games from the holidays, etc. |
Originally Posted by Human_Being
Aside from Fermi's absence, you're not going to see the GTX 2xx series come back into stock either. The entire line has been removed from production by Nvidia. They were losing money on each chip sold due to manufacturing costs.
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Not to mention the perception of "full on retreat." They're not (IIRC) making mainboard chipsets now, their video cards are nowhere to be found and the new ones are basically being pushed as "extra processing" as opposed to - well, gaming, workstation graphics and the like.
Did they ever fix the issue ATI had with FSAA and CoH yet by any chance?
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yes and no.|
Originally Posted by Wuigly Squigly
Did they ever fix the issue ATI had with FSAA and CoH yet by any chance?
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Yes. The issues have been fixed on the back-end on the current graphics engine.
No, those updates have yet to be pushed out to game client.
Reportedly these fixes will arrive with the Ultra-Mode updates. Unfortunantly, we don't know when Ultra-Mode will arrive. I recall somebody commenting in the gigantic Post Going Rogue Information Here thread that Ultra-Mode could arrive separately of Going Rogue.
There is also the possibility that if Ultra-Mode is held off to be launched in the free issue accompanying Going Rogue, that the current engine fixes will be published before hand.
Either way, when Going Rogue arrives, you should have the exact same visual image reguardless of whether or not you are running Intel, S3 Chrome, Nvidia, ATi, and presumably even XGI graphics. (Though really, is ANYBODY using a Volari?)
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ATI has been twisting the knife in them on manufacturing costs since they released the 4xxx series with 30%-50% lower production price per board. Nvidia chose to "buy market share" by losing money on the GTX cards until Fermi was due in Fall of this year. When it became evident Fermi wouldn't show up until early-middle 2010, that calculation changed and Nvidia decided to stop bleeding money when they had no way to answer ATI's newer 5xxx series. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
See, that's the thing. Just how much money are they making now with nothing in stock? The demand is there, or was - I have to wonder just how much they'll have lost (versus some from manufacturing) from people jumping ship to, or just seeing their only choice as, ATI in new systems, new games from the holidays, etc.
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| Not to mention the perception of "full on retreat." They're not (IIRC) making mainboard chipsets now, their video cards are nowhere to be found and the new ones are basically being pushed as "extra processing" as opposed to - well, gaming, workstation graphics and the like. |
EDIT: It is officially now the "new year" since I've made that January Mistake. I meant last year.
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If they take out Ultra-Mode from the (im guessing 50 buck expansion) and just give it as part of i17, or even delay it for 6 months, I hope the rest of GR is pretty good
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Originally Posted by je_saist
yes and no.
Yes. The issues have been fixed on the back-end on the current graphics engine. No, those updates have yet to be pushed out to game client. Reportedly these fixes will arrive with the Ultra-Mode updates. Unfortunantly, we don't know when Ultra-Mode will arrive. I recall somebody commenting in the gigantic Post Going Rogue Information Here thread that Ultra-Mode could arrive separately of Going Rogue. There is also the possibility that if Ultra-Mode is held off to be launched in the free issue accompanying Going Rogue, that the current engine fixes will be published before hand. Either way, when Going Rogue arrives, you should have the exact same visual image reguardless of whether or not you are running Intel, S3 Chrome, Nvidia, ATi, and presumably even XGI graphics. (Though really, is ANYBODY using a Volari?) |
The market's always tweaking things and coming out with the "latest and greatest", but are there any new advancements, things we've not seen that might be coming out by early 2nd quarter that would suggest one wait to get a vid card?
I'm toying with replacing my rig, too, and although I know legacy and business systems pretty well, I'm not so much up on bleeding edge gaming stuff. In addition to Going Rogue, I'm looking to tinker with several of the new MMO's and expansions on the horizon (Star Trek, DC Universe, Star Wars, etc.) so I'm wondering how the cards stack up to those games special needs as well (such as je-saist's comment "The GTX card isn't DX11 / OpenGL 3.2 compatible". that kind of info is quite helpful)
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I'm pretty sure everyone would have access to Ultra Mode even if they didn't buy GR. So it doesn't necessarily have to be tied in with GR's release.
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Originally Posted by Wuigly Squigly
If they take out Ultra-Mode from the (im guessing 50 buck expansion) and just give it as part of i17, or even delay it for 6 months, I hope the rest of GR is pretty good
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I'm having to go back and check that massive thread on this, but I don't think Ultra-Mode isn't actually part of the (retail) Going-Rogue Expansion.|
Originally Posted by Wuigly Squigly
If they take out Ultra-Mode from the (im guessing 50 buck expansion) and just give it as part of i17, or even delay it for 6 months, I hope the rest of GR is pretty good
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As I understand the situation, Ultra-Mode will be arriving with, and was paid for with, the Going Rogue development monies. However, the art assets and mode will be available even if you don't actually buy the expansion as both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles will be receiving graphical enhancements.
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Rylas, I was in the same boat (all my cards since 2003 have been NVIDIA cards), until a couple of months ago I had two NVIDIA cards fail on me and I waited a month for my distributor to get me a replacement (and in the end they couldn't; NVIDIA is making the cards scarce). I bought a Radeon HD 5770.|
Originally Posted by Rylas
What about the GTX 275? According to the chart, it would have quite a bit of performance over the 5770. I've had unpleasant experience with ATI in the past, so I'm dubious of going that route. Sure, I'd need to upgrade my PSU, but the power requirement isn't that much more than what I use now.
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Yes, there are minor issues with COH. You're going to need to mess with the Catalyst Control Center in order to have FSAA back in COH. However, once I got past that, I'm really happy with the performance of the card, and it DOES run quieter and cooler than the GTX 260.
In Windows XP you'll have a few issues that a new driver should fix (the COH loading screens get corrupted if you alt-tab out of the game; doesn't affect the game at all, just the loading screens) and in Windows 7 you also have a few issues that are probably Aero's fault and would appear on a NVIDIA card anyway (I dumped Windows 7 last night and went back to XP, and they're gone).
If you don't miss messing with the Catalyst Control Center a bit, the 5770 is an excellent buy.
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Pretty much the only "new technology" out is DX11, which is currently only supported by ATI's 5xxx series. Nvidia's Fermi is supposed to as well, but won't be out until at least March (if then), is likely to only be introduced in the enthusiast price range at that point, and may still have technical problems reducing its quality then.|
Originally Posted by Rodoan
The market's always tweaking things and coming out with the "latest and greatest", but are there any new advancements, things we've not seen that might be coming out by early 2nd quarter that would suggest one wait to get a vid card?
I'm toying with replacing my rig, too, and although I know legacy and business systems pretty well, I'm not so much up on bleeding edge gaming stuff. In addition to Going Rogue, I'm looking to tinker with several of the new MMO's and expansions on the horizon (Star Trek, DC Universe, Star Wars, etc.) so I'm wondering how the cards stack up to those games special needs as well (such as je-saist's comment "The GTX card isn't DX11 / OpenGL 3.2 compatible". that kind of info is quite helpful) |
ATI's 5xxxs may get a "Version 2" release around the same period, adjusting anything they found to be a problem with the original models from August.
The short answer is there's nothing killer you'd be missing if you bought a card now rather than in four months.
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It was stated that if it's ready and it makes sense to do so, they could release Ultra mode separately. (Made a specific note on that in the wiki, too.) So if Ultra mode were ready, say, Feb 10th, and GR doesn't look like it's hitting 'til May 36th (dates obviously made up,) they could plop Ultra mode and a few tweaks into a patch and release it.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
I'm having to go back and check that massive thread on this, but I don't think Ultra-Mode isn't actually part of the (retail) Going-Rogue Expansion.
As I understand the situation, Ultra-Mode will be arriving with, and was paid for with, the Going Rogue development monies. However, the art assets and mode will be available even if you don't actually buy the expansion as both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles will be receiving graphical enhancements. |
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New zones, new content, "neutral" starting, letting people swap sides.... nah, nothing to offer there at *all.* |
Originally Posted by Wuigly Squigly
If they take out Ultra-Mode from the (im guessing 50 buck expansion) and just give it as part of i17, or even delay it for 6 months, I hope the rest of GR is pretty good
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So this is quite the thread and I am not a technical kind of dude. I too am interested in upgrading my video card. I am looking at a Radeon 5770, but a friend tells me that ATI has problems in CoX because of openGL or something. I don't know what any of that means, so I am just gonna ask: are the Radeon cards a safe bet for CoX? I assume they will be OK with GR too, if they are OK with the current game.
edit: ok so there is an antialiasing problem? If I don't use AA is everything cool?
I'm trying to see if there's a good upgrade option worth the investment from my nVidia GeForce 8600 GT. My main reasons for wanting to upgrade is so I can be ready for Going Rogue when it comes out. I know system requirements for the new graphics haven't been listed yet, but I'm sure the higher end cards out at the moment would suffice.
My current specs are:
Dual Core E6750 @ 2.66GHz
3GB RAM DDR3 1066
PSU - 500W ATX12V V2.01
I know I may need to upgrade the PSU, but currently what I'm looking for is a good GFX card suggestion. I was thinking of the GTS 250, but I'm not sure how much better my FPS would be from that. Any ideas?
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.