What have i gotten myself into? Chasing the holy grail with graphics cards....

I am being pulled into the abyss. This whole ati vs nvidia graphics cards is giving me a headache. I just wanted to upgrade toa decent single graphics card to run my games in 1080p with full graphic effects and decent AA turned on. I dont mind spending some money, but i dont want to go broke. I eliminated the Ati 5970 from my choices. What is left is essentially the ati 5870, or either the gtx 470 and gtx 480. I just ordered the 5870 from Tiger Direct. But now i am having second thoughts. I have read hundreds of posts from several forums and they all just degrade into this horrible fanboy jibberish and i can no longer separate fact from fiction. Can anyone say anything that will make me feel good about my purchase.....or have i made a mistake?

I have a I7 920 processor, 750 watt psu, 9 gigs ddr3 ram, win7 64-bit and game on a 54in plasma tv. I currently have a gtx 260. The reason for upgrading was because i had to scale back resolution and graphics options for some new games like Just Cause 2 and Battlefield BC2. I dont need super high resolutions above 1080p or dual monitor gaming.

Will i be fine with the 5870?

5870 is fine and regarded by everyone except nVidia fanboys to be superior to the fermi. Fermi is slightly more powerful, but it also consumes a lot more power and generates a lot more heat.

I myself went with a 5970 though :P

I've had my 5870 since last October, and absolutely love it. I game at 1080p as well, and have yet to play a game I couldn't run at max detail settings without issue. I play Bad Company 2 with all settings maxed out (which includes some DX11 effects on capable hardware), 2xAA. It runs like butter, never a slowdown. Crysis and Warhead both run like silk on all max settings with 2xAA on. The best part is that it costs $100 less than the GTX 480, uses up to and sometimes over 100 watts less under load, and actually beats it in Crysis Performance.

I think you'll figure out pretty quickly that you made the right decision once you start gaming with it. :)

5870 is fine and regarded by everyone except nVidia fanboys to be superior to the fermi. Fermi is slightly more powerful, but it also consumes a lot more power and generates a lot more heat.

I myself went with a 5970 though :P

gameguy6700

I love Nvidia for their "The way its meant to be played" program, it usually means better optimization of the port. But the 5xxx generates less heat and is cheaper, so your call.GazaAli

[QUOTE="gameguy6700"]

5870 is fine and regarded by everyone except nVidia fanboys to be superior to the fermi. Fermi is slightly more powerful, but it also consumes a lot more power and generates a lot more heat.

I myself went with a 5970 though :P

GazaAli

When's the last time you had an ATI card? Before I got my 5870, my previous 8 GPUs were all Nvidia (2003-2009). While I generally had a very good experience with Nvidia cards, even I had to acknowledge that the 5800 series were the superior choice this generation. Nvidia's cards are better at CUDA tessellation (Unigine benchmark), and at dealing with SOME DX11 features in very EARLY titles. Neither the GTX 400 series of the 5800 series are particularly good with DX11, so let's leave that as the virtual non-factor that it is this generation. It just doesn't matter right now, that's not where the battle is being fought this round, no matter how much Nvidia fanboys point at it. Anybody can make a GPU faster when it costs $100 more and uses 100 watts more power under load.. that's neither efficient or impressive. The Nvidia "the way it's meant to be played" program doesn't always work out for them either.. look at Crysis/Warhead performance on the Fermi cards versus the 5850/5870. These were extremely Nvidia-friendly games until the 5800's came out. Somehow the 5800's beat the GTX 400's in that game, along with a few others.. all while costing significantly less, using way less power, and running cooler.

[QUOTE="gameguy6700"]

5870 is fine and regarded by everyone except nVidia fanboys to be superior to the fermi. Fermi is slightly more powerful, but it also consumes a lot more power and generates a lot more heat.

I myself went with a 5970 though :P

GazaAli

My first build I had an x800 pro. Then my second rig, a laptop, had a 9800m GTS. Now my new build has a 5970. I just choose whichever hardware gets me the best performance within my budget (this time I had no budget so I splurged on the 5970). I don't give a **** about ATI or nVidia, I just buy the better card that's out at the time I'm making a rig/upgrading. Like it or not, fermi is a failure. Ridiculous heat generation (96C average which means you need a waterblock to actually keep that thing at reasonable temperatures), ridiculous power draw, DX11 performance is no better than the 5xxx cards, and it costs more money, all for what? Maybe 2% better FPS than a 5870 in some games? Also, "the way it's meant to be played" is a marketing scheme, not an actual feature. nVidia just pays developers to slap that logo into the start-up screens for their games and boxes, just like Intel does (and for the record I'm running an i7 so I'm hardly biased against Intel). It does not mean that the game actually does run better on nVidia cards.

I'm also not being biased when I say that everyone except nVidia fanboys considers the 5870 to be superior to fermi. Look at the latest Steam hardware survey, Fermi isn't even on the list. Instead it's covered by "other" in the GPU section which makes up a whopping 2%. Then there's the fact that XFX refused to produce a fermi card this gen. And then you can just read, well, every major hardware forum on the web.

[QUOTE="GazaAli"]I love Nvidia for their "The way its meant to be played" program, it usually means better optimization of the port. But the 5xxx generates less heat and is cheaper, so your call.RayvinAzn

And please lets not rage and start making crap claims. the "Its meant to be played" program is far from a hoax. The latest being Batman AA, and DMC 4 just to name two. I think we all know these two games were great on Nvidia cards. It may be a hoax in certain situations, this is a possibility since i did not play all the games that had the logo, but there are games that are far from being a hoax.GazaAli

I don't think hoax is the right word for this type of thing. That would mean that the scheme doesn't even exist. The "the way it's meant to be played" program is, by and large, just a big marketing scheme with very little actual benefit. It's good advertising with very occassional substance.

whatever you get, be it a 5870/gtx 480, you will be pleased, both offer amazing performance.

This generation of DX11 cards are going to be outdated when DX11 is really taken advantage of. There are only a few games out there that support DX 11 features, and those that do take a big hit in the FPS department when the DX11 effects are turned on. That being said, go with the 5870. Amazing card for a great price.

This generation of DX11 cards are going to be outdated when DX11 is really taken advantage of. There are only a few games out there that support DX 11 features, and those that do take a big hit in the FPS department when the DX11 effects are turned on. That being said, go with the 5870. Amazing card for a great price.

CuDDKiDD

[QUOTE="CuDDKiDD"]

This generation of DX11 cards are going to be outdated when DX11 is really taken advantage of. There are only a few games out there that support DX 11 features, and those that do take a big hit in the FPS department when the DX11 effects are turned on. That being said, go with the 5870. Amazing card for a great price.

Timbury

5870 is a champion...

So, what i really gather from all of this, i basically bought a hold over card that will do "ok" until games that really use D11 intensively come out. I will probably need to get another card late next year? This is what i mean by chasing the holy grail...it never stops. I know most of that attitude is in my head, but i am never satisfied if i know i am being held back from some features. I try to get the latest card so i can stay ahead of the curve for a few years, but that curve just keeps getting shorter and shorter.

I think that the 5850, 5870, 5970, GTX 470/480 will be good cards for at least a couple of years.. Able to play the vast majority of games with maxed out settings at high resolutions for that period. Since I tend to upgrade my GPU every 12-18 months, I'm ok with that.

A 5870 is far from a "hold-over" card. It's the highest-end single-GPU card from a completely new series (as of last September). It has DX11 support, which makes it a completely new generation. If I were going to call something a "hold-over" card, I'd say that would be the HD4000 series, since they had the same feature set as the HD3000 series, with incremental performance improvements.

I can't speak for all the 5870 cards out there but mine is a total kick butt S.O.B. when it comes to gaming, even at the standard 850/1200 settings. So whatever you get you will probably like it. I think if you are into gaming then the 5870 is what would be most preferred. I was second guessing myself at first too, but I am really pleased with my card.