Zygoptera on 6/7/2010 at 14:42
So my 7600GT finally gave up its unequal battle with my habit of playing every game no matter what at 1440x900 and died in a blaze of pixellated glory. Its timing is impeccable as I have a wodge of cash coming in later this week, and terrible in that the cash ain't enough to fully replace my computer which is what I'd like to do, and I have done zero research on anything post 4x00 ATI/ 9x00 nVidia. As my only alternative card is a PCI non E Geforce2 (and I'd need a VGA-DVI converter for it too) I really need an interim purchase, preferably one that can be transferred to a new Win7 rig with minimum fuss and provide reasonable performance for the next 2 years, though a cheap second hand purchase might fit the bill too.
My quick few hours research suggests that a 5770 (~260$NZ) is the best bet as the similarly priced alternatives are DX10 (48x0 and 260s) or are considerably more expensive (58x0, 4x0s; the 5830 is about 370$NZ as a comparison), my budget could stretch to around 5850 level (~450$NZ) but I probably don't need the added performance. No power limitations as I have a near new 650W Corsair PSU, for use in the new computer.
As I say, I haven't really had much of a chance to check as much as I'd like and will have to make a choice more quickly than I'd like, so if anyone has any suggestions for alternatives/ comments on my reasoning they would be appreciated.
Sulphur on 6/7/2010 at 17:48
The 5770 should see you through for some time, though the added performance of the 5850 really makes it the card to get if you want semi-reliable future proofing.
Also, how important is DX11 to you? Not many games use it at the moment, performance dips with tessellation, and I don't see it having much immediate relevance. The reason I ask is because the 4890 has an average of 7-10 FPS gain (cue cliched (
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5770,2446-7.html) Crysis benchmark linky, click ahead to see performance in other games) on the 5770 if you can get it at a similar price. Two years could see anything happen, though.
Zygoptera on 7/7/2010 at 00:21
DX11 is not critical, it just feels that buying dx10 is 'wasting' money a bit, especially since I will be getting win7 fairly soon. Ideally I would wait until nVidia has its full range of cards out, but it's not practical now.
Unfortunately it seems the availability of 4890s here is really poor (4870 only a bit better) and practically I'd have to be looking at either a 4870 or 260, dx10 wise. They both seem to be roughly equal price performance wise to a 5770. While the budget could stretch to buy a 275 practically I'd just stump up the few extra $$ for a 5850.
TBE on 7/7/2010 at 10:39
I just dropped (
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161317) this ATI 5770 into my machine, and it's stunning. I went from a 9500GT 1 GB to this 5770, and the difference is A LOT!
The explosions with flames and things look really cool now. Smoke is better, and the performance is way better. Have almost every game set to near the highest settings without any stuttering at all. All that on a 24 inch monitor too. I maxed out the resolution in every game, I couldn't do that with the 9500 GT.
I think you'll like it fine. Just make sure you hook up all your case fans when you put everything back together, or you'll wonder why your new video card has the fan going at 100%, and really loud. LOL, lesson learned here.
ZylonBane on 7/7/2010 at 20:15
Quote Posted by TBE
The explosions with flames and things look really cool now.
Well naturally, since that model adds dedicated Explosion and Flame pipelines, and supports trilinear Really Cool rendering.
june gloom on 7/7/2010 at 22:16
My 7600GT shat the bed right around this time two years ago. So I bought an 8800GT and it's pretty much been an amazing workhorse, and it's far cheaper than anything else.
Definitely make sure your power supply is up to snuff, no matter what card you put in. Learned that the hard way.
Sulphur on 7/7/2010 at 22:51
Interestingly enough, my own 7600 GT gave up the ghost after around two years of service. Haven't had any other card go bust on me so far, so I wonder if this is some sort of trend.
After taking a look at some more benchmarks, the 5850 seems to be a mixed bag. In some games it performs with close to a ~10 FPS advantage on the 4890, and in others the gap is far larger, and in others yet performance is almost the same. And the nvidia parts seem to perform pretty similarly in their respective price ranges.
So... I dunno if that THG benchmark is completely accurate, but going with that for the time being: in summary, if an average of 15-20 FPS gain doesn't mean much to you (the 5770's performance is almost always decent, around the 60 FPS mark at 1680x1050 sans AA for games which aren't Crysis or World in Conflict) you're better off plumping for the 5770 and moving to the next generation of DX11 cards as and when they arrive. The next bunch of cards is bound to be faster at doing that DX11ing thing and get you better overall performance than anything out right now. The 5770's performance isn't earth-shattering by any means, but few of the titles dotting the PC landscape at the moment are what we'd call demanding. Slightly conservative settings and resolutions should see you through games like Metro 2033.
Jason Moyer on 11/7/2010 at 17:19
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Well naturally, since that model adds dedicated Explosion and Flame pipelines, and supports trilinear Really Cool rendering.
On a serious note, he did move from Nvidia to an ATI card, and regardless of what I read about the relative rendering quality of each, ATI still blows Nvidia out of the water quality wise. I went from an x1950 to an 8800gt a few years ago and I'm still not entirely used to how shitty most games look.
Also, to the original poster, get a 5770HD. It's not much more expensive than an 8800GT, it's faster (especially at high resolutions), and it uses far less power than anything comparable performance wise.
Sulphur on 11/7/2010 at 17:21
Huh? Quality differences have been negligible between nvidia and ATI for years now.
