is it worth it to spend the dough on a 5970?

Or should I go with a 5870 or spend an extra hundred on a gtx 480?

Im buying a Corsair 750w PSU with this

Also running a q6600 @ 2.4mhz that I will overclock when I get my new case (haf932), 3 GB of ddr2 that I will upgrade to 4 as well

depends on your resolution, if 1680x1050 or lower then get a 5870 or GTX480 in that order, if higher than 1680x1050 then you can justify the 5970.

I am at 1680x1050, Ill probably go 5870 and then if I need more in the future Ill just buy another 5870 cheap and run crossfire How could a 5870 do on Crysis max with medium AA at that resolution?maddogmark25

I get a minimum of 37FPS and mostly over 50FPS. At 850/1200 all very high 2AA, it can handle 4AA but it might be a bit lower, but still smooth. I would say 90% of the time in crysis it will be over 45FPS, easily. The 5870 runs crysis very well, you will be impressed, no slowdowns at all. The 5870 makes crysis really fun to play. But I am also running a i7 at 3.7 so that might affect frames maybe slightly, but not much. At that res the 5870 would be your best choice especially for crysis. The 5870 is very smooth in crysis at that res.

Thats what I was thinking too, looks like Ill go with the 5870 now and another one in the future when its cheap FWIW I am coming from an 8800GTS 320MB, aka the crappy pre-redefined versionmaddogmark25

Don't forget, SLI scaling works much better than Crossfire, so if you were to SLI a 480.....

^what he said

If you're going to have dual gpu's in the future, go for nvidia, the scaling is amazing

[QUOTE="maddogmark25"]Thats what I was thinking too, looks like Ill go with the 5870 now and another one in the future when its cheap FWIW I am coming from an 8800GTS 320MB, aka the crappy pre-redefined versionAmith12

Don't forget, SLI scaling works much better than Crossfire, so if you were to SLI a 480.....

and create nuclear fusion in the process... :P I know 480's scale better, but I am on the fence as to whether the extra 200 bucks investment is worth it, with how much hotter it will be and how much more power it will use

Where are you located? Last time I checked, the GTX 480 is cheaper than the 5970...

Where are you located? Last time I checked, the GTX 480 is cheaper than the 5970...

ravenguard90

5870, not 5970

seems like 5970 will be overkill on my monitor

[QUOTE="ravenguard90"]

Where are you located? Last time I checked, the GTX 480 is cheaper than the 5970...

maddogmark25

5870, not 5970

seems like 5970 will be overkill on my monitor

yeah, right now a 5970 is overkill for 1680x1050 alot. and crossfire 5870 will run on your corsair 750 watt PSU, but SLI GTX480 won't even come close to running on that PSU.

A 5870 is already overkill for all resolutions except the highest one - 2560x1600. Even a 5850 is overkill for 1680x1050.

and create nuclear fusion in the process... :P I know 480's scale better, but I am on the fence as to whether the extra 200 bucks investment is worth it, with how much hotter it will be and how much more power it will use

maddogmark25

Its not that hot, and doesn't run anywhere near 100c or whatever the reviewers said. I have a 470, and it peaks at 72c, when running F@H, 3DMark Vantage and unigine benchmark for 2 days straight, just to measure the temps. When idling, it sits at 35c, which is 10c below my old 8800GTS 512, and a measly 2c more at load.

The 480 will probably peak at 75-80c and a SLI will probably add another 5c, get over it, its well within the safe operating temps, and last time I checked 20-25c below what the reviewers said.

GTX4 series are a MAJOR disappointment. (not to mention EXTREMELY inefficient). I would urge you going with an ATI card, (or waiting to see the next lineup or refresh cards)

and Im not even a fanboy, Im running on dual overclocked 8800gt's in sli right now.

I would get the 5970 only if you can get an aftermarket solution for it as well. That way, the VRM heat problems would be fixed, and you could actually get the full potential of the card through overclocking.

If not, then I wouldn't do it. In terms of brute horsepower in performance, the 5970 is bar-none the king, but one of the key features of the card, which is DX11 tesselation, cripples the card substantially at its stock clocks. If newer games come out with full-blown tesselation in the future, then you will most definitely regret spending so much money on this card.

I would save your money, and recommend waiting for what ATI and nVidia have to offer in their next round-up of cards. Your money would be better spent then if a new card comes out that provides the same level of performance as the 5970, but with much better DX11 tesselation performance compared to other cards out now (and hopefully, at a similar price that the 5970 is at now too :P).

[QUOTE="maddogmark25"]

and create nuclear fusion in the process... :P I know 480's scale better, but I am on the fence as to whether the extra 200 bucks investment is worth it, with how much hotter it will be and how much more power it will use

Amith12

Its not that hot, and doesn't run anywhere near 100c or whatever the reviewers said. I have a 470, and it peaks at 72c, when running F@H, 3DMark Vantage and unigine benchmark for 2 days straight, just to measure the temps. When idling, it sits at 35c, which is 10c below my old 8800GTS 512, and a measly 2c more at load.

The 480 will probably peak at 75-80c and a SLI will probably add another 5c, get over it, its well within the safe operating temps, and last time I checked 20-25c below what the reviewers said.

He doesn't need to "get over it" because from where I'm standing he's not "under it" at all. He asked for card recommendations and most people recommended the 5870, and I have to agree. Efficient, more than powerful enough, and can be overclocked or CF'd for added performance in the future to breathe new life into his machine when it starts to show age.

Now if you want to suggest the 480 that's fine, but it's not really necessary and would incur extra, needless costs. (Such as necessitating that he purchase a new PSU if he ever wants to get two 480s in SLI config.)

[QUOTE="maddogmark25"]

and create nuclear fusion in the process... :P I know 480's scale better, but I am on the fence as to whether the extra 200 bucks investment is worth it, with how much hotter it will be and how much more power it will use

Amith12

Its not that hot, and doesn't run anywhere near 100c or whatever the reviewers said. I have a 470, and it peaks at 72c, when running F@H, 3DMark Vantage and unigine benchmark for 2 days straight, just to measure the temps. When idling, it sits at 35c, which is 10c below my old 8800GTS 512, and a measly 2c more at load.

The 480 will probably peak at 75-80c and a SLI will probably add another 5c, get over it, its well within the safe operating temps, and last time I checked 20-25c below what the reviewers said.

I would get the 5970 only if you can get an aftermarket solution for it as well. That way, the VRM heat problems would be fixed, and you could actually get the full potential of the card through overclocking.

If not, then I wouldn't do it. In terms of brute horsepower in performance, the 5970 is bar-none the king, but one of the key features of the card, which is DX11 tesselation, cripples the card substantially at its stock clocks. If newer games come out with full-blown tesselation in the future, then you will most definitely regret spending so much money on this card.

I would save your money, and recommend waiting for what ATI and nVidia have to offer in their next round-up of cards. Your money would be better spent then if a new card comes out that provides the same level of performance as the 5970, but with much better DX11 tesselation performance compared to other cards out now (and hopefully, at a similar price that the 5970 is at now too :P).

ravenguard90

VRM heat problems? What VRM heat problems?

Running at Temps that high would reduce the shelf life of the card =_= . A 5970 does the job better and with more efficiency , Nvidia's Fermi series so far is a major disappointment with their high prices , power comsumption and heat .But seeing that u play on 1600 X 1050 , Go for a 5870 , it should last u quite awhile . (I play on 1600 X 900 with a 5870 and it steamrolls games).Kyozumi

I blew the $700 for a 5970 when building my rig. I'm currently running at 1920x1080 but will probably upgrade to 5760x1080 pretty soon. The card is great, runs Crysis everything maxed (including 8x AA) at around 60 FPS give or take 15 FPS depending on whats going on. Same for Metro 2033 (actually Metro fairs better, it's usually 60+ FPS as long as I keep the DX11 settings off, but even with them on the FPS is still 45). So far my only regret with getting the 5970 is that when I tried to overclock by a mere 10MHz my PC nearly died. Had to pull out the CMOS battery to get it to boot again and even then my PC hasn't been acting completely normal since. I'm going to try to attempt it soon though since I think it may have been a problem with one of the programs I was using and not the card itself (wouldn't surprise me if it was the card though, I have terrible luck when it comes to getting hardware from good batches).

I'd get three 5870s and run them in CrossFireX ;)

VRM heat problems? What VRM heat problems?

MaoTheChimp

Apparently, the stock heatsink of the 5970 does not cool one set of the VRM's very well due to the poor placement and structure of the heatsink for them. This inadequate cooling solution causes the VRM's to overheat, thus causing the card to throttle. However, if you can remedy that problem (hence why I said an aftermarket solution is highly recommended), then you could easily get to the same core speeds of two 5870's, and probably even more. The problem can be read into in more detail in Anandtech's article.

[QUOTE="MaoTheChimp"]

VRM heat problems? What VRM heat problems?

ravenguard90

Apparently, the stock heatsink of the 5970 does not cool one set of the VRM's very well due to the poor placement and structure of the heatsink for them. This inadequate cooling solution causes the VRM's to overheat, thus causing the card to throttle. However, if you can remedy that problem (hence why I said an aftermarket solution is highly recommended), then you could easily get to the same core speeds of two 5870's, and probably even more. The problem can be read into in more detail in Anandtech's article.