worth the $$ to get 5830/GTX460 over 5770?
By
catwhowalksbyhimself,
Posted on: 2010-08-26 14:12 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
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A technical explanation can be found here.|
Originally Posted by Lobster
[edit2: I just noticed the GTX465 is about the same price as the 1GB GTX460... it's older but appears to benchmark better? Can someone clarify, as I'm obviously way out of the vid card loop.]
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In short, the 460 is using a newer core architecture. It requires significantly less power, so it has fewer heat issuers, therefore the cooling solution paired with the card is correspondingly quieter.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Do note, however, that the only available drivers for the 460 conflict with CoH and for some folks, like me, that means the game won't work at all. That may be something you want to consider.
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Originally Posted by Lobster
I'm looking at getting a new card (like, hopefully SOON). It looks like the ATI 5770 is a sweet spot price/performance wise. What I want to know is: is it worth the extra ~$50 for 5830 or $60/80 for a 768 or 1GB TGX460? How much of an improvement, just in CoX, will going to the various cards get me? I assume it will be noticeable.
My system: XP Intel Core 2 Dual Core 6400/2.13x2 2GB RAM Nvidia GF 9600 GT |
In CoX, not so much. The 5770 can basically run City of Heroes with all Ultra Mode features sans Ambient Occlusion cranked up at 1920*1200 and the maximum GUI selectable draw distance. On your system you'll actually be limited by the processor and system memory long before you are limited by the RadeonHD 5770.
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It's old, I know. But it generally runs CoX "fine" (ultra mode at defaults). That being said, I'd like to run with Ultra mode turned up quite a bit higher and still have it be playable. Eventually I'll move to W7 & upgrade the rest of the system, but no money for that at the moment, and upgrading the card seems the simplest fix...? [edit: Also I would prefer to run in a dual monitor setup - game on one, junk on the other (running the game in windowed mode if necessary) - do either NVIDIA or ATI do this better than the other currently?] |
ATi's Eyefinity and Hydravision modes are significantly more advanced than Nvidia's 3D Surround Vision modes, as Eyefinity and Hydravision can be run on a single 5x00 series graphics card, while Nvidia 3D Surround Vision requires leveraging their SLI technology, so you'll need 2 Nvidia GTX graphics cards to get the same feature set as a single RadeonHD 5x00 card. Even then, if you are running in a Windowed mode, you'll actually get less performance on the "off" monitors with Nvidia .
Unless you are planning on driving a game across 3 monitors at once, this high end feature disparity may not mean anything to you.
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| [edit2: I just noticed the GTX465 is about the same price as the 1GB GTX460... it's older but appears to benchmark better? Can someone clarify, as I'm obviously way out of the vid card loop.] |
Because the GTX 465 is a binned GF100 it carries all of the problems of the GF100, such as a power draw that will make 700watt power supplies whimper, and the ability to surpass an operating temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Unless you have a case that is Fermi-Certified and a Fermi-Certified power supply, you probably will not be able to run a GTX 265 at all without either burning it out from overheating, or burning out the rest of the system from it's insane power draw.
The GTX 460 is the card you'd actually want if you were buying the Nvidia badge. It's the first respin of Fermi Nvidia has been able to get produced in volume. As a respin it fixes many of the original Fermi chip's problems. It uses much less power, puts off a lot less heat, and in 2x SLI rendering modes, can keep up with the RadeonHD 5870 in 2x Crossfire mode.
The problem with the GTX 460 is that is a part released nearly 10 months after the competitors High End flagship part. Now, if you drop by... say.... Techarp and check out their list of Desktop GPU's, you'll find something that's actually rather disturbing: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=0
Every time there's been a 10 month separate between graphics cards, the next mid-range card generally out-powers the previous High End graphics card.
Quick case in point:
RadeonHD 2900: May 2007: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2007/...on_hd_2900_xt/Now, if you are buying right now... the GTX 460 is an amazing card. If you run it in 2x SLI, there isn't a single game either on the market, or one that we know is scheduled for release, that the 2x SLI GTX 460 can't run at full details in Triple-Screen Resolutions.. providing you have a more powerful processor than a Core 2 Duo.
RadeonHD 3870 / 3850: November 2007 :: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2007/...hd_3800_series
Time Difference: 5 months
Performance Difference: Huge
RadeonHD 3870: November 2007
RadeonHD 4870 / 4850: June 2008 :: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/...d_4800_series/
Time Difference: 8 months
Performance Difference: Huge
RadeonHD 4870: June 2008
RadeonHD 5870: September 2009: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/...o_card_review/
Time Difference: 13 months
Performance Difference: Huge
RadeonHD 5870: September 2009
Geforce GTX 460: July 2010
Time Difference: 10 months
Admittedly, those examples are mostly from ATi. They still largely hold up on the Nvidia side across the 6x00, 7x00, and then 8x00 series graphics cards. The example sort of breaks there on the Nvidia side since it wasn't until the GTS 250 and GTX 260 that mid-range priced parts from Nvidia actually had as much rendering power as the former high-end part, the 8800 GTX and Ultra parts.
Still, one would expect that with such a delay between products, one would expect the Geforce GTX 460 to perform significantly better than a binned part from it's competitor, specifically the RadeonHD 5830. The only reason the 5830 is on the market is because AMD just filled in a price-gap back in February rather than lowering the price on it's 5850 graphics card.
In single GPU modes, the base 768meg GTX 460 can't outrun a stock 5830. The more expensive 1gb GTX 460 performs between a 5830 and a 5850, parts that are from a chipset design that is significantly older and has not been tweaked or modified.
The panic inducing part of this is that AMD has said they won't be doing a product refresh on the 5x00 series parts. They'll be going to a new architecture with the RadeonHD 6x00 series. What's more, board partners are saying AMD will role out this new GPU series on the 1 year anniversary of the launch of the 5870. That's next month.
The GTX 460 is a good card. In multi-gpu modes, it's an outstanding card. It is, however, competing against a graphics card that AMD could pull from the market at any time and never notice, the 5830; and a graphics that was originally scheduled to be at $200 till AMD realized just how good it was under actual games, the 5850.
Which, incidentally, is why AMD's pretty ho-hum against the GTX 460's 2x SLI victories. With a 10 month product separation, they probably expected the GF104 to just blitz their older Evergreen architecture.
On your system, my recommendation would be: don't buy right now.
When you can afford to upgrade the rest of your computer, there will likely be much better offerings to be had in the $200 price bracket, at least from AMD/ATi.
Until you upgrade the rest of your computer, the computer itself is going to be a bottleneck on pretty much any game that will push the 5770 or any higher graphics card.
Thanks for the replies and je_saist, WOW, what a reply.
re: GTX 265: Wasn't even on my radar, I know nothing about that one.
re: upgrades: I will be upgrading the rest of the system eventually, hopefully inside the next 6 months. Right now, I can probably afford to upgrade the card - cards generally last me about ~2 years. I will probably grab an athlon x4 or x6 - whatever is sweet in the $150-180 price point when I can afford to do that. So, figure I'll want the card I get to play well with that as well.
From your description, it sounds like the 5770 will do exactly what I need, and I can save that extra $$ that I would spend on a 5830 (your wording, and the other poster who mention the NV driver issues, seems to support the ATI option, which is what I was leaning toward as well). I don't really play any games that are more intense than CoX (yet, GW2 will be the next "new" game I pick up).
If I get a Crossfire-ready mobo, I can always pick up a second 5770 to bump up my performance in a year, instead of say, a brand new card? (Or does it require an exact match on cards...which could make things difficult in a year).
What I'm not sure of at the moment is how big my PSU is at home, as I may need to upgrade that as well.
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That would be me mistyping a 2 instead of 4. Fixed. |
Originally Posted by Lobster
Thanks for the replies and je_saist, WOW, what a reply.
re: GTX 265: Wasn't even on my radar, I know nothing about that one. |
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| re: upgrades: I will be upgrading the rest of the system eventually, hopefully inside the next 6 months. Right now, I can probably afford to upgrade the card - cards generally last me about ~2 years. I will probably grab an athlon x4 or x6 - whatever is sweet in the $150-180 price point when I can afford to do that. So, figure I'll want the card I get to play well with that as well. |
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| From your description, it sounds like the 5770 will do exactly what I need, and I can save that extra $$ that I would spend on a 5830 (your wording, and the other poster who mention the NV driver issues, seems to support the ATI option, which is what I was leaning toward as well). I don't really play any games that are more intense than CoX (yet, GW2 will be the next "new" game I pick up). |
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| If I get a Crossfire-ready mobo, I can always pick up a second 5770 to bump up my performance in a year, instead of say, a brand new card? (Or does it require an exact match on cards...which could make things difficult in a year). |
First, the no. Right now multi-gpu rigs do nothing for City of Heroes. There's no guarantee that Crossfire or SLI will ever be supported under the City of Heroes game
Second, the first yes. ATi's crossfire is not as... restrictive as Nvidia SLI. With Nvidia SLI will only run when you have two cards from the same vendor. With ATi crossfire? Well... AMD typically just bases Crossfire support on model:
As long as you have the right model of chip, even if it's the not the exact same model, ATi Crossfire will still largely give a performance boost in supported games.
So, second yes, if you get a Crossfire compatible motherboard, you can just drop in a 57xx series card sometime in the future.
Also, don't worry about the motherboard being optimized for multi-gpu performance. HardOCP recently ran a 2x SLI Geforce GTX 480 setup against an x4/x4 motherboard (equivelent to a PCIE-gen-1 x8/x8) setup... and even in the Triple-Screen 3D Vision Surround resolutions the x4/x4 PCIE bus pretty much did nothing to the frame rates: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...x16x16_vs_x4x4
So if you pick up a motherboard with a 16x/8x PCIE Gen 2, or even 8x/8x PCIE Gen 2 configuration, you will not experience a performance difference in single monitor resolutions.
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| What I'm not sure of at the moment is how big my PSU is at home, as I may need to upgrade that as well. |
From a pure power draw, if you can run a 9600 GT, the 5770 should also run.
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Gotcha!|
Originally Posted by je_saist
That would be me mistyping a 2 instead of 4. Fixed.
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| Depending on your resolution, this may be your best bang-for-buck. A 5770 should be able to drive these games with most options turned on in 1680*1050, even against a Core2. |
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Yes, Yes, and No. First, the no. Right now multi-gpu rigs do nothing for City of Heroes. There's no guarantee that Crossfire or SLI will ever be supported under the City of Heroes game |
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| Second, the first yes. ATi's crossfire is not as... restrictive as Nvidia SLI. With Nvidia SLI will only run when you have two cards from the same vendor. With ATi crossfire? Well... AMD typically just bases Crossfire support on model: |
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For this you'll just have to yank open the side of the case and look. From a pure power draw, if you can run a 9600 GT, the 5770 should also run. |
. Although.... DUH I just pulled up my invoice from Newegg from 4 years ago, looks like I've got a 450w. In your opinion, is $30 more for a 5830 worth it? Given what I've got now, what I'm shooting for, and that the most graphics intense things I'll be running are things like SC2, Guild Wars 2 & CoX would it be a noticeable bump?
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Honestly, on a Core2 Duo... I'd have a really hard time justifying any more powerful card over a 5770.
Case in point, I've got an Asus F3Ka laptop. This laptop came with a Turion64 x2 TL-60 @ 2ghz, a Mobility RadeonHD 2600, and has a native screen resolution of 1280*800.
With the default settings under the DX11 API, Unigine's Tropics 1.3 Benchmark posts a score of 226.
With the default settings under the OpenGL API, Tropic's 1.3 posted a score 197.
Even when I dropped to the Incredibly low resolution of 640*480, I only scored 357 under the OpenGL API, and 406 with the DirectX API.
With Shaders set to low, OpenGL scored 344, and DirectX scored 323.
If the system was GPU limited, turning down the Shaders or lowering the resolution should have improved performance... only it didn't. The system isn't limited by the GPU, at least under Unigine. The benchmark is largely limited by the processor.
Most modern games are going to be like that on a Core 2. Your processor is going to prevent you from scaling up resolutions and details long before a 5770 graphics card becomes a bottleneck.
* * *
Now, if you are buying for the future, I have problems recommending the 5830 right now. It's a binned market filling part. I'm not saying I know what AMD's product roadmap looks like, but the 5770 is going to put less of a dent on your wallet now, and you probably won't be thinking man, if I had just waited a couple of weeks before buying.
The 5770 isn't a bad card either. With the right processor, it will do 1920*1200 in pretty much every-game either on the market or known to be hitting the market over the next year.
Thing is, a good 5770, if you shop carefully in the US, will be around $130 like this Sapphire that I'm linking too.
A good GTX 460, if you shop carefully in the US, will be around $100 MORE at $230, such as this EVGA model, or this Asus Model.
A 5830 is about $70 more than a 5770, such as this Sapphire model at $200, or this $190 Asus if you use the mail in rebate.
Basically, I'm not convinced that long term, you are going to be better off getting something more powerful than a 5770. You'll save around $60~$70 straight out between the 5770 and 5830, money that you could turn around later for a better processor or a second 5770.
Now, if you are buying for the future, I have problems recommending the 5830 right now. It's a binned market filling part. I'm not saying I know what AMD's product roadmap looks like, but the 5770 is going to put less of a dent on your wallet now, and you probably won't be thinking man, if I had just waited a couple of weeks before buying.
The 5770 isn't a bad card either. With the right processor, it will do 1920*1200 in pretty much every-game either on the market or known to be hitting the market over the next year.
Thing is, a good 5770, if you shop carefully in the US, will be around $130 like this Sapphire that I'm linking too.
A good GTX 460, if you shop carefully in the US, will be around $100 MORE at $230, such as this EVGA model, or this Asus Model.
A 5830 is about $70 more than a 5770, such as this Sapphire model at $200, or this $190 Asus if you use the mail in rebate.
Basically, I'm not convinced that long term, you are going to be better off getting something more powerful than a 5770. You'll save around $60~$70 straight out between the 5770 and 5830, money that you could turn around later for a better processor or a second 5770.
Ahh I was comparing a $200 Gigabyte 5830 to this 5770 @ 170/150rebate.
That Sapphire looks like a winner though. Done.
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For reference, outside of Diamond Multimdia, nobody makes a bad ATi card. Gigabyte is a decent manufacturer, but it's not why I wouldn't buy that particular model. Tango Down is MSRP'd at $40 through ATi right now. The Gigabyte Card offers an instant $10 off and a $20 mail-in-rebate. So you'll pay about $150+ shipping for the Gigabyte HD 5770.|
Originally Posted by Lobster
Ahh I was comparing a $200 Gigabyte 5830 to this 5770 @ 170/150rebate.
That Sapphire looks like a winner though. Done. |
This Sapphire 5770 Model comes with an instant $30 off the $180 price point, a $15 Mail-In Rebate, AND the Tango Down game. So, you could have the exact same GPU, for $135+shipping.
What's the difference between those two sapphire models? I think the one I ordered was the -3L?
I doubt I'll ever touch that game, but the reviews looked pretty solid for the Sapphire at that price, I just wasn't familiar with that brand name (although I think I recall you saying in another thread that they were the reference board makers or something?).
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Honestly? The fan.|
Originally Posted by Lobster
What's the difference between those two sapphire models? I think the one I ordered was the -3L?
I doubt I'll ever touch that game, but the reviews looked pretty solid for the Sapphire at that price, I just wasn't familiar with that brand name (although I think I recall you saying in another thread that they were the reference board makers or something?). |
The one I originally linked to, the 100283-3L uses a fan mounted on top of the GPU.
The second one, the 100283L, has the fan at the rear of the card and the card is fully ducted.
Ducted fans cost a few bucks more than non-ducted fans. Are they worth it? Well, depends on whether or not you are intending to overclock the system or not.
Anyways, Sapphire is basically the closest you can get to an AMD First Party card. They do pretty much all of AMD's prototype boards, and typically handle the stuff that is manufactured as an AMD part. Case in point, when AMD lost the HDMI class-action lawsuit over the x1x00 series cards, it was Sapphire that was tapped to send out replacement graphics cards.
That's the problem with a question like this. Between their "sales" and rebates which seem to change daily in some cases (found a one day rebate recently) it's tough to say whether or not item A's increased performance is worth the price increase.
$135 after rebate for an HD 5770 is a steal.
Now across a wide range of game benchmarks, the HD 5830 is roughly 10% faster than the HD 5770 at 1920x1200 while the 768MB GTX 460 is roughly 20% (techPowerUp). With the stock 768MB GTX 460 or the HD 5830 at around $200, then the HD 5770 should be roughly less than $170 to get a better performance for the dollar.
But bang for the buck is only one metric. What if that extra 20% improvement in framerate moves you from choppy to smooth or allows you that extra boost in game settings or resolution? Is the extra power/heat and extra fan noise for dispersing that heat worth the performance and/or money? Both the HD 5830 and 768MB GTX 460 (they couldn't give it it's own name variation could they 
) both use 25-30 watts (25%) more than the HD 5770.
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I'm looking at getting a new card (like, hopefully SOON). It looks like the ATI 5770 is a sweet spot price/performance wise. What I want to know is: is it worth the extra ~$50 for 5830 or $60/80 for a 768 or 1GB TGX460? How much of an improvement, just in CoX, will going to the various cards get me? I assume it will be noticeable.
My system:
XP
Intel Core 2 Dual Core 6400/2.13x2
2GB RAM
Nvidia GF 9600 GT
It's old, I know. But it generally runs CoX "fine" (ultra mode at defaults). That being said, I'd like to run with Ultra mode turned up quite a bit higher and still have it be playable.
Eventually I'll move to W7 & upgrade the rest of the system, but no money for that at the moment, and upgrading the card seems the simplest fix...?
[edit: Also I would prefer to run in a dual monitor setup - game on one, junk on the other (running the game in windowed mode if necessary) - do either NVIDIA or ATI do this better than the other currently?]
[edit2: I just noticed the GTX465 is about the same price as the 1GB GTX460... it's older but appears to benchmark better? Can someone clarify, as I'm obviously way out of the vid card loop.]
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