Gefore 480 GTX vs Radeon 5870

[Maizel]

Hello guys,


Currently I;m looking for a replacement for my 285 GTX and I'm doubting between Nvidia's 480 GTX and the 5870, mainly because of the upcoming Shogun 2 Total war.

I prefer a one card solution, since CF and SLI give noticable 'lag' when playing on lower FPS.

My first question is: Does anyone of you know what cards the warscape engine 'prefers'? Ati's or Nvidia?

Secondly, help me decide.

I'll sum up what I've gathered from several benchmarks

5870: -Good steady performance, -about 25% cheaper than the GTX 480, -runs cooler, -better drivers (currently)

GTX 480:- great (on most games) performance, but on some games less than the former.- Probably blows everything out of the water on any DX 11 game with tessilation. - runs very hot with a higher power consumption. -Drivers not as good as ATi's yet.


I'd like to add, that I'll probably continue playing on 1680 x 1050, for the forseeable future, and would like to futureproof in the graphics department as much as possible.

How will the 5870 hold up versus the GTS 480 in 1.5 years? How wild they hold up against eachother in Shogun 2 Total wasr (based on what we've seen with E:TW and N:TW). Do you guesstimate both of them will be able to max it out?


Thanks for the input guys!

[Jaketh]

in the long Run the 480 is better when more DX11 games come out, and the thing about the 480 running hot is a myth, all the consumer reviews ive read on Newegg say that the card doesnt run any hotter then my 260 under load

[Maizel]

Does anyone know whether the Warscape engine seems to have a preference towards either ATI or Nvidia cards? Since seemingly, the 4xx series has a lot in common with the 2xx series.

[Jaketh]

Does anyone know whether the Warscape engine seems to have a preference towards either ATI or Nvidia cards? Since seemingly, the 4xx series has a lot in common with the 2xx series.

doesnt really matter, both cards will run the game maxed, it depends on your CPU to keep it from lagging when there is massive amounts of troops on screen

[Freddie]

I think it's a good idea that we should now re-examine the Radeon 5000 series vs Geforce 400 series now Nvidia have got a few driver revisions under their belt and have recently launched there much publicised 257 Beta Drivers that are meant to unlock the beast that is Fermi.

HD5870 Vs GTX480 (257 Drivers)

The only card thats worth looking at is the GTX470 and only if you live in America/US and even there it's not that a compelling buy, if you live in outside that market ATI has the market sown up at nearly every price point, I mean here in the UK you can get a HD5870 for less then what you would pay for a GTX470 and GTX465 costs more then a HD5850.

[Maizel]

I think it's a good idea that we should now re-examine the Radeon 5000 series vs Geforce 400 series now Nvidia have got a few driver revisions under their belt and have recently launched there much publicised 257 Beta Drivers that are meant to unlock the beast that is Fermi.

HD5870 Vs GTX480 (257 Drivers)

The only card thats worth looking at is the GTX470 and only if you live in America/US and even there it's not that a compelling buy, if you live in outside that market ATI has the market sown up at nearly every price point, I mean here in the UK you can get a HD5870 for less then what you would pay for a GTX470 and GTX465 costs more then a HD5850.

True, I;m from the Netherlands, and the situation is the same here.

But lets assume money is less of an issue than the performance of the cards. Undoubtly the 480 is a better choice for the future, when there's more dx 11 games.

But will it hold up ti the 5870, in DX 9/10, since alot of (upcoming games) don;t seem to have any big dx11 features.

[Freddie]

DX11 is a really promising API but hardware has to come a long way before it can match it's potential (not to mention software), just remember these are generation 1 products, it will take a couple of attempts at least before both AMD and Nvidia know how to properly cope with DX11 visuals.

[Maizel]

They're both fine cards, but from what i've read the 5870, still beats the 480GTX at some games, and has a more consistent performance overall.

I think I'm just trying to get an idea of how big the chance is that the 480GTX will preform worse in games like S2:TW (which is unlikely to have much DX 10 features, let alone DX11) , than the 5870.

Anyone any views on that?

[mrcrusty]

They're both fine cards, but from what i've read the 5870, still beats the 480GTX at some games, and has a more consistent performance overall.

I think I'm just trying to get an idea of how big the chance is that the 480GTX will preform worse in games like S2:TW, than the 5870.

Anyone any views on that?

The GTX 480 will be marginally better. Like maybe 5-10% better. It will perform worse in games that prefer the ATI cards, but as a rule, the GTX 480 is better than the HD 5870.

Considering the prices outside the US for Nvidia cards, no way it's worth it. Forget the whole power draw, heat and noise issues with the Nvidia cards as well, on price/performance alone, Nvidia sucks hard if you live outside the states.

[Freddie]

Just for the record if S2:TW follows the same path as other Total War games it will be based on the ETW engine which means it's going to be DX9 but even though it's DX9 it will still tax currant hardware due to the nature of the game (lots of unit's, physics, path-finding, effects, smoke etc). After S2:TW comes out hopefully CA UK will get there backsides into gear and gives a brand new engine based on DX11. CA seem to follow a rule of evolution-revolution, evolution is games like Shogun 1, Rome and Empire where theres a brand new engine in place whereas revolution are Medieval 1 & 2 and Shogun 2 are games that use an tweaked and optimised engine of the previous game, which is fair enough as it means they can get 4 or 5 games out the door (with expansions) using the same graphics technology.

[Big Boss]

Just for the record if S2:TW follows the same path as other Total War games it will be based on the ETW engine which means it's going to be DX9 but even though it's DX9 it will still tax currant hardware due to the nature of the game (lots of unit's, physics, path-finding, effects, smoke etc). After S2:TW comes out hopefully CA UK will get there backsides into gear and gives a brand new engine based on DX11. CA seem to follow a rule of evolution-revolution, evolution is games like Shogun 1, Rome and Empire where theres a brand new engine in place whereas revolution are Medieval 1 & 2 and Shogun 2 are games that use an tweaked and optimised engine of the previous game, which is fair enough as it means they can get 4 or 5 games out the door (with expansions) using the same graphics technology.

You forgot Napoleon TW. If it follows the same path it will be a new Engine, and from what CA is saying about it sounds like it might me.

[Dewy]

Just for the record if S2:TW follows the same path as other Total War games it will be based on the ETW engine which means it's going to be DX9 but even though it's DX9 it will still tax currant hardware due to the nature of the game (lots of unit's, physics, path-finding, effects, smoke etc). After S2:TW comes out hopefully CA UK will get there backsides into gear and gives a brand new engine based on DX11. CA seem to follow a rule of evolution-revolution, evolution is games like Shogun 1, Rome and Empire where theres a brand new engine in place whereas revolution are Medieval 1 & 2 and Shogun 2 are games that use an tweaked and optimised engine of the previous game, which is fair enough as it means they can get 4 or 5 games out the door (with expansions) using the same graphics technology.

No they probably won't use DX11 till most users upgrade to windows 7 as XP can't use DX10 or 11. Or they make an abstract layer which from what I have seen CA don't have the best programmers so they probably won't make an abstract layer

[Dewy]

DX 11 game with tessilation

Don't know why people are like omg DirectX 11. OpenGL has had tessellation for years now

I'll go with 5870 if you want great performance. 480 if you don't mind the 480 using about 30% more in power which costs alot more in the long run. If you care about PhysX get the 480

[HansDuet]

GTX480 is the better but more expensive card.

I'd say get it for the long run. If your cooling sucks and you care about green values go 5870. Both are overkill atm.

[atraps]

Wait, your looking at GPUs now for a game that's coming out in around a year?

[Maizel]

Wait, your looking at GPUs now for a game that's coming out in around a year?

Yes. I have the money now, I'd like tp spend it on some hardware, befroe schoolrelated stuff comes up.


Beside, it's doubtful there will be products by then that are much faster than the 480GTX. And if there are, they're probably more than that much more expensive as well.

[Maizel]

but even though it's DX9 it will still tax currant hardware due to the nature of the game

That leads me to beleave the 5870 will be a better buy, as far as S2:TW is concerned, since the 5870 is usually on par with the 480GTX when it comes down to dx9?

[Freddie]

That leads me to beleave the 5870 will be a better buy, as far as S2:TW is concerned, since the 5870 is usually on par with the 480GTX when it comes down to dx9?

It's not as black and white as saying GTX480 better at DX11 HD5870 better at DX9 you have to look at indivdual benchmarks for games, there DX11 games where the HD5870 is just as good as a GTX480 (BF2:BC2, Dirt 2) but falls behind by quite a margin in games like Metro 2033, the same goes for DX9 games. I wouldn't worry about it to much, overall there's not much between them, yes the GTX480 is faster but then again it costs more but that doesn't mean it's more future proof. Frankly I wouldn't get either card a HD5850 can be overclocked to HD5870 levels and despite having fewer stream processors performs just as well as it's bigger brother and costs £100/$100 less. If you not comfortable with overclocking and just want performance out the box then get a HD5870 form a AIB that gives at least a 3 year warranty (like Asus).

No they probably won't use DX11 till most users upgrade to windows 7 as XP can't use DX10 or 11. Or they make an abstract layer which from what I have seen CA don't have the best programmers so they probably won't make an abstract layer

True but that might be sooner then you think, the December steam hardware survey (which is hardly scientific) showed Windows XP (DX9) accounts for less then half the user base now so there more users now to justify developing for DX10/11.

[Phier]

I'm personally thinking about setting up an SLI system, and the 470 isn't badly priced in the US.

Are there any good reviews for SLI/crossfire comparisons?

I currently have two 8800 GT's in SLI and I find a very large difference between 1 and 2 cards.

[Maizel]

Based on what you guys know about the two cards, and the engine S2:TW will be based on, how do you expect these cards will fare? (with an i7 at 3.2 and 6gbs PC 12800)

Or should I try to hold on to my money for the unlikely event something much faster gets released in the same aproximate pricerange?