Good 5970 vs. 480 reviews? Who's the peoples' champ

[Keysplayr]

Hmmm. . . $125. Conveniently just a bit more than the difference between a 480 and a 5870

That's 125-200. GTX480 is probably going to be considered in a class by itself. It's faster and about $80-100 more expensive than a 5870, and slower and 125-200 cheaper than a 5970.
I think the proper competition to compare to the 480, is a highly overclocked 2GB 5870 since those seem to be going for the same price as a 480. Either that, or AMD refresh, lets call it 5890 for now, with 2GB.

 

[Madcatatlas]

haha

I think you are very correct, the 480 is considered in a class by itself, not for price or performance reasons though

a 5890 is imo very unlikely, as the 58xx have so many versions and they are competitive and selling like icecream on a warm sunny day.
More likely the "competition" will be the next card AMD launches later this year, as that will probably be closer to the 480 launch than the 480 was to the 5xxx launch.

very interesting all of it

 

[Grooveriding]

I think the best bet now if you are in the market for the high end and willing to spend cash is a straight up choice, if you are willing to spend $1050 and have a PSU to support it, get GTX 480 SLI. If that is too much cash and you are looking at a 480, just spend the extra $100 or so and get a 5970, it is leaps and bounds faster than the 480.

My assumption is that if you have $520 or so to burn on what is essentially a luxury item, you have $640 to burn on the 5970 over the 480. Whereas 480 SLI is an almost $500 jump over 5970 and sort of takes it into another purchasing bracket of a different consideration.

The problem with Nvidia's current offerings, is contrasting their price in respect to 480 SLI and 480, as well as the extra half video card life cycle in their release vs the competition. They don't offer near enough performance.

And the 470 is a total non contender. Ther price and performance makes it worth tossing them in the garbage, just buy a 5850 and overclock it to the moon.


My 2 cents.

 

[Keysplayr]

I think the best bet now if you are in the market for the high end and willing to spend cash is a straight up choice, if you are willing to spend $1050 and have a PSU to support it, get GTX 480 SLI. If that is too much cash and you are looking at a 480, just spend the extra $100 or so and get a 5970, it is leaps and bounds faster than the 480.

My assumption is that if you have $520 or so to burn on what is essentially a luxury item, you have $640 to burn on the 5970 over the 480. Whereas 480 SLI is an almost $500 jump over 5970 and sort of takes it into another purchasing bracket of a different consideration.

The problem with Nvidia's current offerings, is contrasting their price in respect to 480 SLI and 480, as well as the extra half video card life cycle in their release vs the competition. They don't offer near enough performance.

And the 470 is a total non contender. Ther price and performance makes it worth tossing them in the garbage, just buy a 5850 and overclock it to the moon.


My 2 cents.

470 a non contender, yet it can exceed a 5970 when SLI'd for about the same price.
5970 is going for 699 and up to 719.00 that I have seen on average. That would place dual GTX480's at 300.00 over 5970, not 500. If you don't have a PSU that could push the 2x480s, then I can see the 500.00, but I'm fairly certain a 5970 needs a decent PSU to. 2x470's costs just about the same. For a bit less money and less performance one can go 2x5850 as well.

Bold above: You don't think a GTX480 offers near enough performance because it is late. Because of the time it actually launched, you feel that it should be pitted against what would be an AMD refresh by now, am I correct? That's fine. In that case, even with a "5980" released now with 2GB and clocked to 1000MHz, it would just about equal a GTX480, now. And not in all things.

So, I think if GTX480 was released back in September along with the 5870, it would have been viewed as a faster card all around. If you think it should be compared to an AMD refresh which should have been out already IMHO, it competes on a more even level. And considering an overclocked 2GB 5870 costs about the same as a GTX480 and offers similar performance in most cases, I think the GTX480 is priced right where it's supposed to be, and it looks like AMD thinks so too. Or at least the board partners do.

 

[Qbah]

470 a non contender, yet it can exceed a 5970 when SLI'd for about the same price.
5970 is going for 699 and up to 719.00 that I have seen on average. That would place dual GTX480's at 300.00 over 5970, not 500. If you don't have a PSU that could push the 2x480s, then I can see the 500.00, but I'm fairly certain a 5970 needs a decent PSU to. 2x470's costs just about the same. For a bit less money and less performance one can go 2x5850 as well.

Bold above: You don't think a GTX480 offers near enough performance because it is late. Because of the time it actually launched, you feel that it should be pitted against what would be an AMD refresh by now, am I correct? That's fine. In that case, even with a "5980" released now with 2GB and clocked to 1000MHz, it would just about equal a GTX480, now. And not in all things.

So, I think if GTX480 was released back in September along with the 5870, it would have been viewed as a faster card all around. If you think it should be compared to an AMD refresh which should have been out already IMHO, it competes on a more even level. And considering an overclocked 2GB 5870 costs about the same as a GTX480 and offers similar performance in most cases, I think the GTX480 is priced right where it's supposed to be, and it looks like AMD thinks so too. Or at least the board partners do.

I guess if you're dropping $700 for graphics, $100 more seems ok, if you really want to go green. But your power assumptions are way off:

A single GTX470 takes just a bit less than a HD5970. I could probably get away with a HD5970 on my HX520. It's possible a GTX480 is pushing it too much (and it's so much slower...). 2xGTX470 suck 200W more at load in Crysis than a HD5970. Hence you need a beefy PSU for them.

My bottom line is: the GTX480 is a fine card. It would be a great card if it launched last year. It is the fastest single GPU. But we were led to believe it will be the best thing under the sun and it most definitely is not. Hot, power hungry and just a bit faster than ATi's HD5870. A HD5970 blows it out of the sky in speed. So we were fooled, again, by nVidia. You could get almost as good for less (HD5870) September last year. Or a product that's a lot faster when the HD5970 launched (November 2009!). Now we have mid-April 2010...

 

[dust]

So, I think if GTX480 was released back in September along with the 5870, it would have been viewed as a faster card all around. If you think it should be compared to an AMD refresh which should have been out already IMHO, it competes on a more even level. And considering an overclocked 2GB 5870 costs about the same as a GTX480 and offers similar performance in most cases, I think the GTX480 is priced right where it's supposed to be, and it looks like AMD thinks so too. Or at least the board partners do.

Yep, that would make sense, I guess an honest opinion should be based on that assumption.

Regarding the 470's against the 5970 it is true, however the 5850's do offer nearly the same
performance for even less money.

Edit: You stated that yourself, I haven't noticed.

 

[SlowSpyder]

470 a non contender, yet it can exceed a 5970 when SLI'd for about the same price.
5970 is going for 699 and up to 719.00 that I have seen on average. That would place dual GTX480's at 300.00 over 5970, not 500. If you don't have a PSU that could push the 2x480s, then I can see the 500.00, but I'm fairly certain a 5970 needs a decent PSU to. 2x470's costs just about the same. For a bit less money and less performance one can go 2x5850 as well.

Bold above: You don't think a GTX480 offers near enough performance because it is late. Because of the time it actually launched, you feel that it should be pitted against what would be an AMD refresh by now, am I correct? That's fine. In that case, even with a "5980" released now with 2GB and clocked to 1000MHz, it would just about equal a GTX480, now. And not in all things.

So, I think if GTX480 was released back in September along with the 5870, it would have been viewed as a faster card all around. If you think it should be compared to an AMD refresh which should have been out already IMHO, it competes on a more even level. And considering an overclocked 2GB 5870 costs about the same as a GTX480 and offers similar performance in most cases, I think the GTX480 is priced right where it's supposed to be, and it looks like AMD thinks so too. Or at least the board partners do.

You point out that the 5970 is going for above MSRP when comparing it to dual GTX480's but you ignore the fact that the GTX470 is going above MSRP when trying to compare two of them to the price of a 5970.

Not to mention if we're going to talk about dual cards, the 5850 is going to be a much better choice as it's very, very nearly as fast as the GTX470 and is much cheaper. Even if the GTX470's were at the MSRP of $350 the 5850's will save you a lot. 5850's overclock like mad and when we're talking multiple cards it's very possible that differences in electic use could translate in to tangible differences in power use bills.

Despite it's power/heat/noise issues, the GTX480 can make sense for some people since is is the fastest single GPU you can buy. But the GTX470 is really a terrible buy... it's over priced, will give you pretty much the same game play experience as the 5850, heat/power/noise compared to the 5850 are all not in it's favor, and it doesn't appear to overclock anywhere near what the 5850 can do.

I just don't see any real compelling reason to buy a GTX470.

 

[yh125d]

Hmmm. . . $125. Conveniently just a bit more than the difference between a 480 and a 5870

I know where you're going with this and you're going to be disappointed


I wouldn't really consider the 5870 to be a direct competitor to GTX480. It doesn't really have a direct competitor right now. Like keys said, its a $80-100 difference, and a direct competitor for it would be a refresh OCd 5870 (5890), or possibly a 5850x2 card



We all know ATI never aimed to compete for top single GPU halo card with 5870. It wasn't their strategy last gen and it isn't this gen either. I'm sure they fully expected to be 20-25% slower on their top single GPU card, the only reason they wound up being only 15% behind was the foibles on part of NV and TSMC

 

[Grooveriding]

470 a non contender, yet it can exceed a 5970 when SLI'd for about the same price.
5970 is going for 699 and up to 719.00 that I have seen on average. That would place dual GTX480's at 300.00 over 5970, not 500. If you don't have a PSU that could push the 2x480s, then I can see the 500.00, but I'm fairly certain a 5970 needs a decent PSU to. 2x470's costs just about the same. For a bit less money and less performance one can go 2x5850 as well.

Bold above: You don't think a GTX480 offers near enough performance because it is late. Because of the time it actually launched, you feel that it should be pitted against what would be an AMD refresh by now, am I correct? That's fine. In that case, even with a "5980" released now with 2GB and clocked to 1000MHz, it would just about equal a GTX480, now. And not in all things.

So, I think if GTX480 was released back in September along with the 5870, it would have been viewed as a faster card all around. If you think it should be compared to an AMD refresh which should have been out already IMHO, it competes on a more even level. And considering an overclocked 2GB 5870 costs about the same as a GTX480 and offers similar performance in most cases, I think the GTX480 is priced right where it's supposed to be, and it looks like AMD thinks so too. Or at least the board partners do.

5850 and 470 are on par, they trade blows back and forth, both taking benchmarks over the other. The 5850 is the better buy, it also overclocks to 5870 performance levels, which raises it well above the 470.

I've seen 5970s going for $650 US.

I said nothing about comparing it to an ATI refresh, I'm comparing the 480 to the 5870 with six months of extra time to come to market, which equates to half a video card life cycle, and it offering a relatively small performance advantage.

And again as I stated before, if you want to lay down $1050 or so, 480 SLI is the way to go, if you want to spend $520 on a 480, spend $650 and get a 5970 which crushes it.

 

[MrK6]

And again as I stated before, if you want to lay down $1050 or so, 480 SLI is the way to go, if you want to spend $520 on a 480, spend $650 and get a 5970 which crushes it.

I agree with your points, but if you want to lay down $520 on a GTX480, lay down $520 on 5850 CF and crush it for even less than a 5970 .

 

[BenSkywalker]

5850 and 470 are on par

Overall, the 470 is closer to the 5870 then the 5850. Someone consolidated all of the bench numbers in another thread.

I've seen 5970s going for $650 US.

Even at $650, it's a bad deal. CF 5850s are a much better option. ATi's highest end card sucks for value. nV's highest end card sucks for value. Intel's top CPU sucks for value. AMD's top CPU sucks for value. If you don't see the truth in all those statements, you are a fanboy of the company you take issue with.

 

[Madcatatlas]

Even at $650, it's a bad deal. CF 5850s are a much better option. ATi's highest end card sucks for value. nV's highest end card sucks for value. Intel's top CPU sucks for value. AMD's top CPU sucks for value. If you don't see the truth in all those statements, you are a fanboy of the company you take issue with.

+1

 

[tincart]

Even at $650, it's a bad deal. CF 5850s are a much better option. ATi's highest end card sucks for value. nV's highest end card sucks for value. Intel's top CPU sucks for value. AMD's top CPU sucks for value. If you don't see the truth in all those statements, you are a fanboy of the company you take issue with.

I'm not sure about this. Poisoning the well seems a poor strategy for trying to establish your point.

You're playing with the word "value" and I think we need to define that better so we're not equivocating. The way I see you talking about value involves relating performance to cost, correct? A person looking for value of this type is looking for:

(A) The best price to performance ratio

but we need to add a couple qualifications

(B) In a current product line
(C) Relative to the specific needs of the user

The need for B is obvious. Some older products offer much better price/performance ratio than the current generation since their prices have been slashed. We need B to rule out those products that have a good ratio but simply aren't in the running for because they are too old to count anymore.

The need for C is related to the point I was posting earlier. Value is partially dependent on the kind of thing I'm looking for. A 5850 offers me NO value at all if I am not in the market for a video card or if it lacks the feature or level of performance I am looking for. If I am in the market for the highest-performing product out there, then once again, there is NO value in a 5850, it does not have what I am looking for.

In short: There are other prudential reasons for purchase that modify the meaning of "value" even if it is taken as (A).

Admittedly, the market for those people looking for best-in-class is small. A small group does not imply a negligible group, nor does it imply a group of "fanboys". It simply identifies a group of people who have a different (C) than you do.

 

[yh125d]

I'm not sure about this. Poisoning the well seems a poor strategy for trying to establish your point.

You're playing with the word "value" and I think we need to define that better so we're not equivocating. The way I see you talking about value involves relating performance to cost, correct? A person looking for value of this type is looking for:

(A) The best price to performance ratio

but we need to add a couple qualifications

(B) In a current product line
(C) Relative to the specific needs of the user

The need for B is obvious. Some older products offer much better price/performance ratio than the current generation since their prices have been slashed. We need B to rule out those products that have a good ratio but simply aren't in the running for because they are too old to count anymore.

The need for C is related to the point I was posting earlier. Value is partially dependent on the kind of thing I'm looking for. A 5850 offers me NO value at all if I am not in the market for a video card or if it lacks the feature or level of performance I am looking for. If I am in the market for the highest-performing product out there, then once again, there is NO value in a 5850, it does not have what I am looking for.

In short: There are other prudential reasons for purchase that modify the meaning of "value" even if it is taken as (A).

Admittedly, the market for those people looking for best-in-class is small. A small group does not imply a negligible group, nor does it imply a group of "fanboys". It simply identifies a group of people who have a different (C) than you do.

He's not "poisoning the well", he's completely right. 5970 -is- bad value. Most high dollar cards are. As he said, 5850 xfire is better in pretty much every metric.

 

[Grooveriding]

Overall, the 470 is closer to the 5870 then the 5850. Someone consolidated all of the bench numbers in another thread.



Even at $650, it's a bad deal. CF 5850s are a much better option. ATi's highest end card sucks for value. nV's highest end card sucks for value. Intel's top CPU sucks for value. AMD's top CPU sucks for value. If you don't see the truth in all those statements, you are a fanboy of the company you take issue with.

I agree with this statement, I hadn't even taken into account 5850 CF. Considering it is even faster than the 5970 once overclocked, and on price par with the GTX 480, even more reason to lay another coat of lacklustre paint on the 480 card.

If folks want to buy 480s, more power to them. I'm not wanting to put them down. But if you're only buying one 480, it just doesn't make sense unless you are brand biased. If you're buying two I can see the reasoning, it's incredible performance, but a single one offers nothing. 5850 CF negates it, yes it's multi-gpu, but I'm not seeing any issues with my multi-gpu setups, my current one and my 285 SLI both were problem free.

 

[tincart]

He's not "poisoning the well", he's completely right. 5970 -is- bad value. Most high dollar cards are. As he said, 5850 xfire is better in pretty much every metric.

You clearly didn't read the rest of my post. Particularly, the part where I made an argument. If you have something to contribute in that area, please do. I'm afraid that simple contradiction is a poor substitute for actual arguments.

And to further clarify: I am not arguing against 5850CF vs. 5970 comparisons alone. Whether or not there is value in that particular case does nothing to establish the more general claim that ALL highest end products are poor values.

 

[yh125d]

You clearly didn't read the rest of my post. Particularly, the part where I made an argument. If you have something to contribute in that area, please do. I'm afraid that simple contradiction is a poor substitute for actual arguments.

And to further clarify: I am not arguing against 5850CF vs. 5970 comparisons alone. Whether or not there is value in that particular case does nothing to establish the more general claim that ALL highest end products are poor values.

You're arguing against the use of "value". You're complicating a very simple metric for no good reason.


And it's not just a claim, it's a well known fact that the top end cards are almost always bad value. Theres always some cheaper card thats better value with the same features (5850 is a better value than 5870, has all the same features)

Its the same for every market. The best value is always in the midrange. It's a very simple concept.

 

[evolucion8]

Overall, the 470 is closer to the 5870 then the 5850. Someone consolidated all of the bench numbers in another thread.



Even at $650, it's a bad deal. CF 5850s are a much better option. ATi's highest end card sucks for value. nV's highest end card sucks for value. Intel's top CPU sucks for value. AMD's top CPU sucks for value. If you don't see the truth in all those statements, you are a fanboy of the company you take issue with.

I agree except that the top AMD CPU based on the AM2+/AM3 processor known as the Phenom II X4 965 offers the best bang for the buck in terms of platform costs compared to Intel's platform costs, but funny enough, the Athlon II X4 635 offers 70% performance of the X4 965 and yet is almost twice cheaper.

 

[tincart]

You're arguing against the use of "value". You're complicating a very simple metric for no good reason.

No, I am not arguing against the use of value. Once again, I'm going to have to ask you to actually read what I wrote. My point is that there are various ways that people judge value. In some cases, the "value" argument that I was critiquing is relevant and in other cases, "value" means something different depending on the agent who is doing the valuing.

Since "value" is a "simple metric" according to you: Please provide me with a concise definition that includes ALL relevant modalities, including those I mentioned, within one concise statement that avoids equivocating between relevant alternatives. It's a simple metric, so my request should be very easy for you.

And it's not just a claim, it's a well known fact that the top end cards are almost always bad value. Theres always some cheaper card thats better value with the same features (5850 is a better value than 5870, has all the same features)

Yet another fallacy here, argument from tradition doesn't really tell you anything. Even IF we traditionally understand top end cards as a bad "value," that says nothing about whether that tradition is valid. You still need a supporting argument and you are still providing nothing but empty rhetoric.

Its the same for every market. The best value is always in the midrange. It's a very simple concept.

Again, what you require to establish this is a concise definition of the kind of "value" you are talking about. I am confident that, as I have repeatedly pointed out, that definition will be, in principle, relative to a specific set of needs and not representative of ALL people looking to buy a video card.

 

[yh125d]

I have never seen someone take such a simple question as "what is a good value" and convolute it and complicate it so much.


It's not rocket science, I don't need to write a 40 page treatise on it

 

[tincart]

I have never seen someone take such a simple question as "what is a good value" and convolute it and complicate it so much.

It's not rocket science, I don't need to write a 40 page treatise on it

Admission of defeat accepted. Thanks for playing.

 

[MisterDonut]

I have concluded (as I have been since release) that Fermi was invented by none other than the great George Foreman. This is his version of subliminal advertising. Two things that computer gamers want: A good GPU + grill. This man has brought both into the case of a computer. Cook a steak while playing Crysis. Is that not heaven? Well done . GTX 480 George Foreman Edition. /end.

 

[Shilohen]

Admission of defeat accepted. Thanks for playing.

Got a degree in philosophy maybe? Anyway, great posts, I enjoy reading them, which is nice considering we lost Idontcare. Welcome on the forum.

 

[tincart]

Got a degree in philosophy maybe? Anyway, great posts, I enjoy reading them, which is nice considering we lost Idontcare. Welcome on the forum.

A very good guess. Yes, I may have some sort of degree in philosophy.

 

[shangshang]

Admission of defeat accepted. Thanks for playing.

LOL I always get a giggle when i see a debate on the net that is so one-sided that it leaves the other person frustrated as he tries to unpeel the abstraction layers of the former.

==
BTW, this is not a diss any lesser debater out there. Debating and arguing is a process that one could only get in a college environment (real world working environment tend to dumb you down; use sledgehammer approach, lol). If you're not used to debating, you'll lose to a good debater even if you may have greater technical knowledge of the topic.