Been out of the loop for several months, educate me

[strep3241]

I have been out of the loop of new hardware for several months now since I have not been looking to buy anything and did not have much time.

I noticed both Nvidia and ATI have new cards out now. Sorry if this has been asked before but how does the ATI 6870 compare to the Nvidia GTX 580? Why is the 6870 so cheap compared to the 580? Is the 580 that much better? Even the 5870 is still more expensive than the 6870. If you were a gamer, which one would you buy?

 

[Avalon]

Depends on your budget. The 6870 wasn't meant to compete with the GTX580, and performs about the same as a 5870, give or take 5% or so. The competitor to the GTX580 will be the 6970, which has not been released yet.

If you're gaming at 1680x1050 or lower, I wouldn't recommend anything higher than a 6850/6870. If you're playing games at 1920x1200 or greater, then the GTX580 would be a capable card.

 

[strep3241]

Wait, the 6870 performs about the same as a 5870? Then what was the purpose of coming out with a new card if it performs the same as the old card?

 

[betasub]

May I recommend AnandTech's GPU section? All is revealed there...
http://www.anandtech.com/tag/gpus

And there are plenty of reasons to bring out a new model with similar performance to the old model: improvements in power requirements, cooling, cost of manufacture, market price, features... (and, of course, marketing hype for new stuff!).

 

[dguy6789]

AMD changed their naming scheme around. The 6870 is their new mid range card. You must wait until later(probably December) for the 6970 to come out which is the 5870 successor. The 6990 will be the 5970 replacement.

 

[KingstonU]

AMD's plan is sound: a 6000 line that fills out all the gaps in performance and price points that the 5000 didn't address correctly. However, their shift in naming schemes has confused everyone but those who had read in depth about their plan what they achieved with the 6000 series.

 

[RussianSensation]

A single GPU competitor to GTX580 will be HD6970 from AMD. This card should launch in December (NDA lifts December 13th). If you do not want to wait, GTX580 is the fastest single GPU-card at the moment.

If you are playing at 1920x1200 or below, HD6870 or a GTX470 or a GTX460 FTW edition are much better price/performance cards if you are ok with using 4AA instead of 8AA or higher. Those cards will run you about $220-$270.

Also, if you are comfortable with running dual GPUs, then HD6850 in CrossFire, HD6870 in CF, or GTX460 in SLI could also work for you.

It all depends on the rest of your system specifications (how fast your CPU is), the resolution you game at, your power supply and what games you play.

 

[Seero]

I have been out of the loop of new hardware for several months now since I have not been looking to buy anything and did not have much time.

I noticed both Nvidia and ATI have new cards out now. Sorry if this has been asked before but how does the ATI 6870 compare to the Nvidia GTX 580? Why is the 6870 so cheap compared to the 580? Is the 580 that much better? Even the 5870 is still more expensive than the 6870. If you were a gamer, which one would you buy?

6870 < 5870 in terms of speed, but better utilization of power draw. If you are looking for the latest beast from AMD, 6970 will be what you are looking for. By the way, ATI is no more.

Nvidia's Fermi didn't have a perfect start, 480 was forced to disable 5% of the parts to make it run. 580 is technically "Fermi done right." It is faster than 480 and use less electricity, and quieter than 285.

If you are looking for the fastest single GPU solution, then you are looking at 6970 or 580, and 6970 will be out really soon. If you are looking for price/performance, then you are should look and 68xx from AMD and GTX 460 from Nvidia. Don't even think of 465, it is garbage.

 

[Skurge]

Don't even think of 465, it is garbage.

Or the 5830.

 

[bryanW1995]

A single GPU competitor to GTX580 will be HD6970 from AMD. This card should launch in December (NDA lifts December 13th). If you do not want to wait, GTX580 is the fastest single GPU-card at the moment.

If you are playing at 1920x1200 or below, HD6870 or a GTX470 or a GTX460 FTW edition are much better price/performance cards if you are ok with using 4AA instead of 8AA or higher. Those cards will run you about $220-$270.

Also, if you are comfortable with running dual GPUs, then HD6850 in CrossFire, HD6870 in CF, or GTX460 in SLI could also work for you.

It all depends on the rest of your system specifications (how fast your CPU is), the resolution you game at, your power supply and what games you play.

did nvidia get to you, too?

@op: ftw isn't worth $50 more than a regular gtx 460 or nearly the same price as gtx 470 for that matter. if you like nvidia gtx 460 is ~ 90% of gtx 470 but much cheaper; if you like amd get 6870 for midrange. if you're buying high end now gtx 580 is really the only option, 5970 is still have xfire problems and will likely get less and less attention going forward as amd transitions to 6xxx.

 

[RussianSensation]

did nvidia get to you, too?

What do you mean? I recommended at least 4 AMD setups in my reply. I am not thrilled recommending HD6870 when the cards keep going out of stock. Newegg's lowest price on 6870 is now $275 vs. $220 for GTX470 by MSI. AMD needs to put the foot on the gas and deal with these supply issues because their cards are great.

 

[Rezist]

There's some decent deals on the GTX460 768mb cards as well, they do lose alot of performance but they have a good price.