HD5870 vs GTX295

[Setix]

Hey guys,

I'm building a new rig and have come down to shopping for graphics cards, so heres my question.

What would be the better buy in terms of performance, reliability and support?

2 x hd5870's in crossfire or 2 x gtx 295's

I'm not looking for fanboi replies or biased responses. I am really interested in an actual logical, well reasoned argument debating one or the other. These cards will be OCed, liquid cooled on a x58 Classified motherboard.

I do know that the "end of life" order has gone out on the Gt200b chips. So I am concerned about getting a replacement if a card blows out. But havent heard much about the new Fermi chips in regard to gaming performance.

Any help?

[Splave]

if you can find 1 5870 youd be lucky lol

[Setix]

if you can find 1 5870 youd be lucky lol

Newegg is expecting a shippment at the end of this week, so who knows...but if NVidia has a better card releasing early next year I might just wait

[TheGreenFoX]

I would take two 5870.
Reason 1. Fewer GPUs gives better overall performance.
Reason 2. DX11
Reason 3. Fewer watts

[zalbard]

Wait I guess.
295 isn't the best buy in any case since it only supports DX10, is a dual GPU, so the more you add the worse it scales, and more importantly, it is already VRAM volume limited in a few cases.

[billdavis]

if you can find 1 5870 youd be lucky lol

i just bought 2 more yester day. you need to camp newegg they come up randomly in groups of 5 or so

[Piotrsama]

The 5870s are very good OCers.

[Splave]

i just bought 2 more yester day. you need to camp newegg they come up randomly in groups of 5 or so

spam my pm box next time you see some rofl

[Setix]

I suppose I'll wait until Fermi and Hemlock are released and we actually see some benchmarks. Its not critical at this juncture, I have other parts I can buy in the mean time.

how many games are actually using Physx?

[MetalWaterBox]

I would take two 5870.
Reason 1. Fewer GPUs gives better overall performance.
Reason 2. DX11
Reason 3. Fewer watts

PLUS they are cheaper

[zalbard]

I suppose I'll wait until Fermi and Hemlock are released and we actually see some benchmarks. Its not critical at this juncture, I have other parts I can buy in the mean time.

how many games are actually using Physx?

PhysX is unimportant, not many games use it, and even less are going to do so since DX11 Compute Shaders and OpenCL implementation is going to work for both vendors, and not just one.

[Chickenfeed]

Depending on the games played and whether you are into F@H or not, I'd say for single card, a 295. However given the investment involved with 2 cards at this point, 2 5870s hands down. You'll have roughly half the power consumption not to mention much less noise as well as better scaling ( 2 5870s will scale more consistently and have less issues than a 3-4 gpu setup ) Don't forget to take into account the resolution you plan to play at as well. 2 5870s should spank any upcoming games (as well as current games) at 1920x1200 with 8x AA where the same setup should be fine with 2560x1600 with no to 4xAA well into the future ( assuming VRAM doesn't become a limitation )

The only real incentive I personally have in choosing an Nvidia gpu right now are their drivers and overall game performance. They still put AMD to shame in this regard ( I'm talking their control panel, profiles as well as multigpu scaling across more titles )

[texasreefer]

I agree.....ATI is awesome, but nVidia overall game performance has always had less hitches. On the other hand, my bud just got his second 5870, and it perform almost equal to my 4870X2s in crossfire e.g. I hit 30k in 3dmark 06 and he hits 29.4k, I hit 24.7k in Vantage he hits 23.7k. That's just a generalization, but he has an I7 @ 4.2 and I'm at 4.4.

I wouldn't necessarily go with a gtx295 at the moment, considering the next generation nVidia chips are coming out (and I'm kind of excited to see what they're going to put out). nVidia always seems to match or exceed what ATI puts out. If you get a 5870 now you would have no problem getting rid of it for as much as you paid or just a bit less, can't say the same of a 295.

[Carfax]

4.4ghz and you're on air? What voltage are you using, and what are your temps?

[Jor-El]

PLUS they are cheaper

Exactly. The performance difference isn't even close to being comparable to the price difference. This is a no-brainer if you ask me except to the most die-hard fans of the green guys.

[dan7777]

I agree.....ATI is awesome, but nVidia overall game performance has always had less hitches. On the other hand, my bud just got his second 5870, and it perform almost equal to my 4870X2s in crossfire e.g. I hit 30k in 3dmark 06 and he hits 29.4k, I hit 24.7k in Vantage he hits 23.7k. That's just a generalization, but he has an I7 @ 4.2 and I'm at 4.4.

I wouldn't necessarily go with a gtx295 at the moment, considering the next generation nVidia chips are coming out (and I'm kind of excited to see what they're going to put out). nVidia always seems to match or exceed what ATI puts out. If you get a 5870 now you would have no problem getting rid of it for as much as you paid or just a bit less, can't say the same of a 295.

24k with crossfire in vantage seems low i get 26k with a 295 physx on with it off i get 22k i7 @ 4.2

[Jamesrt2004]

24k with crossfire in vantage seems low i get 26k with a 295 physx on with it off i get 22k i7 @ 4.2

exactly somethings off, 5870 normally withn 10% of 295, not 2 5870 loosing to it.. lol somethings off, but oh well

ims ure drivers and all that poo will be fixed soon tho im still waiting for nvidia, to have a look and just for pricedrops really

[spajdr]

I would take two 5870.
Reason 1. Fewer GPUs gives better overall performance.
Reason 2. DX11
Reason 3. Fewer watts

2. but what games? dirt 2 is coming soon and thats pretty much all, before it get widely used, nvidia will have his card released too and who knows how it will perform, maybe better
Heaven benchmark shows nice performance hit when tesselation is in action.

[texasreefer]

Carfax......I have a DO stepping I7 my voltage is at 1.365, my idle temp is 32C and load 58C, my QPI is at 210 and Mult at 21......believe it TRUE Copper baby. Oh yeah, and my X2s idle at 40C.


Dan7777 ..... Thanks, that has to be it then. You get 4k just by enabling physX, Vantage does not scale right with ATI. These are my scores. Those are the scores that my buddy with the 5870s is posting, he says he's overclocking the shissnit out of those cards. The thing that threw me off the most was that he was hitting 26+k with one card, then when he added the second only got a little over 3k boost. I've been using and building since the damn AMD anthalon days and when FX processors were the shoot, I don't think I'm missing anything.
I seemed like I got more of a boost than that when I was using an HD3870 and went into crossfire.

The 295 is still the top benchmarker, and I have no reason to make up numbers as I am not trying to sell anything. Right now the only thing I can think of to fix it is to figure out how to run physx....I've been looking for a cheap 9800gt to run CUDA. Only problem is DAMN....these things Still aren't cheap. I can't find one for less than 99 USD...that says a lot for nVidia. If you guys can show me a different way to set up Vantage...or maybe a patch that I haven't found, I'd definitely be allll ears to that. I have win 7 in the mail, and I'm looking for a used 9800gt on Ebay. I just reaally hate having to do all that just to boost up a benchmark.

[Carfax]

Carfax......I have a DO stepping I7 my voltage is at 1.365, my idle temp is 32C and load 58C, my QPI is at 210 and Mult at 21......believe it TRUE Copper baby. Oh yeah, and my X2s idle at 40C.

No offense dude, but I have to see some evidence to believe that. It's not the clockspeed that makes me raise an eye brow, it's the temps.

The True Copper is a great heatsink, but it is equaled and even outperformed in many cases by the Prolimatech Megahalems which I have in my system, and my load is around 75C at 4ghz @ 1.28v.

Most air cooled rigs I've seen have similar temps at that clockspeed.......but nothing like what you're saying. Those temps seem more likely on a high end water cooling set up.

Although admittedly it could also be that you keep your computer in a very cold environment..

[Jamesrt2004]

No offense dude, but I have to see some evidence to believe that. It's not the clockspeed that makes me raise an eye brow, it's the temps.

The True Copper is a great heatsink, but it is equaled and even outperformed in many cases by the Prolimatech Megahalems which I have in my system, and my load is around 75C at 4ghz @ 1.28v.

Most air cooled rigs I've seen have similar temps at that clockspeed.......but nothing like what you're saying. Those temps seem more likely on a high end water cooling set up.

Although admittedly it could also be that you keep your computer in a very cold environment..

tbh its better then most high end watercooling setups on here.. lol

[One_Hertz]

No offense dude, but I have to see some evidence to believe that. It's not the clockspeed that makes me raise an eye brow, it's the temps.

The True Copper is a great heatsink, but it is equaled and even outperformed in many cases by the Prolimatech Megahalems which I have in my system, and my load is around 75C at 4ghz @ 1.28v.

Most air cooled rigs I've seen have similar temps at that clockspeed.......but nothing like what you're saying. Those temps seem more likely on a high end water cooling set up.

Although admittedly it could also be that you keep your computer in a very cold environment..

You have a horrible mount. Back when I was on air my QX9650 @ 4ghz @ 1.36 volts loaded at 60C (quad prime) on my standard TRUE (high teens ambient temp). His temps make sense just fine.

[texasreefer]

I'm at work at the moment, but I have no problems with proving my temps or anything that I post. In fact I have posted some screen shots in the air cooled section, as well as, the water cooled section since my rig is a hybrid setup. BTW the TRUE copper with Noctua fans, and the push/pull mounts, and the LGA 1366 special mounts....set me back almost 250USD. Not exactly pocket change. I can boot up and bench at 4.5 Ghz also, but I don't like having my voltage at 1.44v.

PS - no offense taken...that's what we're all here for, awesome discussions on what nobody at home seems to know anything about.

[Helloworld_98]

You have a horrible mount. Back when I was on air my QX9650 @ 4ghz @ 1.36 volts loaded at 60C (quad prime) on my standard TRUE (high teens ambient temp). His temps make sense just fine.

you can't really compare a Core 2 CPU to a Core i7 Bloomfield when it comes to temps.

[texasreefer]

No offense dude, but I have to see some evidence to believe that. It's not the clockspeed that makes me raise an eye brow, it's the temps.

The True Copper is a great heatsink, but it is equaled and even outperformed in many cases by the Prolimatech Megahalems which I have in my system, and my load is around 75C at 4ghz @ 1.28v.

Most air cooled rigs I've seen have similar temps at that clockspeed.......but nothing like what you're saying. Those temps seem more likely on a high end water cooling set up.

Although admittedly it could also be that you keep your computer in a very cold environment..

Here you go...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=231276