gtx 460's in sli vs 5870 x fire @ 5760x1200, triple monitors. Sli' Gtx 460 wins again

[happy medium]

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/17/geforce_gtx_460_sli_vs_radeon_hd_5870_cfx_5760

They should have used the $260 gtx 460 2GB model,
$520 vs $720.

 

[solofly]

Even if it lost I'd still choose Nvidia's multi GPU configuration due to its superior stability... (it takes a special kind of talent to f'up drivers 3 months in a row)

 

[RussianSensation]

In 5 months since the release of Fermi, it looks more and more like mildly overclocked GTX460 competes with 5850 for less $ and GTX470 competes pretty well with the 5870 for $100 less. NV driver team did a great job.

Despite this fact though, ATI has not lowered prices at all. This means that consumers are still buying ATI cards with no signs of slowdown.

My intuition tells me that the increased power consumption and noise of 470/480 Fermi cards are too much of a deterrent regardless of their currently superior price/performance ratio (i.e., perhaps requiring larger cases and new power supplies). Surely though, GTX460 sales must have affected 5850's sales?

The list of D11 games in which 5850/5870 are significantly slower compared to the similar priced 470/480 is getting pretty extensive now:

STALKER: CoP
Metro 2033
Battleforge
Lost Planet 2
Just Cause 2

This leaves just Dirt 2 and BF:BC2 where ATI's current pricing is justified. It's almost shocking to me that ATI has not lowered prices yet.

 

[OCGuy]

Damnit I have been avoiding throwing two of these on my SLI board.

 

[tweakboy]

Compare it with 5970, compare 480 with 5970 dual gpu single pcb,, that will eat 480SLI for lunch.

 

[TheUnk]

Compare it with 5970, compare 480 with 5970 dual gpu single pcb,, that will eat 480SLI for lunch.

haha 5970 crossfire is complete garbage in eyefinity so it can't eat anything for lunch.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=19927&start=30

That guy, johnnyvd, has two 5970s and DiRT2 runs at a lower quality and FPS than sli 480s. Sad indeed.

 

[Grooveriding]

Useful benches, all three games are unplayable on both setups.

Why bench such a huge res on inadequate cards.

These hard benches are getting more and more worthless.

 

[Wreckage]

It's funny that ATI AMD pimped Eyefinity as the latest and greatest thing. NVIDIA was able to just patch it into their drivers and even support it on the GTX2xx series.

 

[Keysplayr]

Useful benches, all three games are unplayable on both setups.

Why bench such a huge res on inadequate cards.

These hard benches are getting more and more worthless.

In Metro 2033's case, I'd agree. The graph spends most of it's time below 30fps.
But BFBC2 and AvP? Spend most of their graph above 30, especially in the AvP bench. So, in this case, 1 out of the 3 games is below playable.
And I actually really like H's approach to benching. Always have since they changed up.
I'm even going to adopt their methods when I bench in the future.

 

[OCGuy]

Compare it with 5970, compare 480 with 5970 dual gpu single pcb,, that will eat 480SLI for lunch.

No...just.....no.

 

[Keysplayr]

It's funny that ATI AMD pimped Eyefinity as the latest and greatest thing. NVIDIA was able to just patch it into their drivers and even support it on the GTX2xx series.

Not really. While NV did a nice job catching up here, Eyefinity can be run on a single 5xxx card and can have more than 3 screens when paired up.
ATI and NV each have their own pros and cons here.

Wreckage, sorry for the edit, meant to quote. Nothing was changed.

 

[Keysplayr]

Compare it with 5970, compare 480 with 5970 dual gpu single pcb,, that will eat 480SLI for lunch.

Now I am starting to believe this is on purpose.
Tweakboy, you see here in these benches a pair of GTX460's taking on and beating (albeit slightly) a pair of 5870's in Crossfire. 5870 Crossfire is FASTER than a 5970. A pair of GTX460's will therefore beat the 5970 even worse. Now talk about a pair of GTX 480s, and what happens?

:::: jepeordy music :::: :::: waiting for light bulb to go on ::::

 

[brybir]

Now I am starting to believe this is on purpose.
Tweakboy, you see here in these benches a pair of GTX460's taking on and beating (albeit slightly) a pair of 5870's in Crossfire. 5870 Crossfire is FASTER than a 5970. A pair of GTX460's will therefore beat the 5970 even worse. Now talk about a pair of GTX 480s, and what happens?

:::: jepeordy music :::: :::: waiting for light bulb to go on ::::

You presume that their is a filament to pass current through in order to heat up and produce light.

My assumption would be that in his case, the filament is already broke. No amount of waiting or wishing will make it ever produce light.

 

[Grooveriding]

In Metro 2033's case, I'd agree. The graph spends most of it's time below 30fps.
But BFBC2 and AvP? Spend most of their graph above 30, especially in the AvP bench. So, in this case, 1 out of the 3 games is below playable.
And I actually really like H's approach to benching. Always have since they changed up.
I'm even going to adopt their methods when I bench in the future.

Going to have to disagree on this one. I think the idea of how Crysis felt playable at 30fps has been taken too far.

I find about 50fps or higher in most games to be playable. I have all three of those games and all of them are not smooth at 30fps or so. Which is where the average lies for those benchmarks.

They seem to be continuing to make pointless benchmarks to try and make a point. What good are these benchmarks to anyone who is interested in buying a video card ? They're not playable frames from either setup. And people who play at these high resolutions they keep benching are likely not going to even be interested in buying either setup.

I had 5870CF at my resolution and after seeing how wrong those last benches they did were with their BFBC2 numbers compared to what I was getting, their benches hold no water for me anymore.

You want to bench those cards, lets see them at 1920x1200, 1680x1050 with some AA turned on. And lets see more than those 3 games again and again. Do the full round, Crysis, Metro, any source game, MW2, Farcry 2 etc.

I guess every site cannot be at the quality level of anand when it comes to good reviews.

 

[v8envy]

As Keys pointed out, eyefinity is useful with one card. Not everyone wants to pay a SLI certification premium for their motherboard. E.g, my first revision UD3R X58 board will do Crossfire, but in theory should have SLI support disabled. So if I wanted 3 monitors I'd be limited to the ATI solution, there is no way to do that with any NV product.

Still, that corner case doesn't change the indisputable fact that NV is the value champ in enthusiast mainstream, enthusiast performance and high end.

I think the stagnant ATI prices have less to do with demand keeping prices high and more with AMD simply not making any more of the cards in preparation for the 6 series launch anticipated shortly. Much like what happened with the GTX2xx series leading up to the Fermi launch -- they got much more expensive than the more fully featured, lower power usage and faster alternatives from the competition.

 

[brybir]

It's funny that ATI AMD pimped Eyefinity as the latest and greatest thing. NVIDIA was able to just patch it into their drivers and even support it on the GTX2xx series.

My understanding from previous press releases was that Nvidia actually had their version of multi-monitor support ready for a while but for some reason decided not to release it, but then when AMD released their implementation, Nvidia decided to roll out what they had already developed.

 

[Hauk]

You presume that their is a filament to pass current through in order to heat up and produce light.

My assumption would be that in his case, the filament is already broke. No amount of waiting or wishing will make it ever produce light.

 

[golem]

As Keys pointed out, eyefinity is useful with one card. Not everyone wants to pay a SLI certification premium for their motherboard. E.g, my first revision UD3R X58 board will do Crossfire, but in theory should have SLI support disabled. So if I wanted 3 monitors I'd be limited to the ATI solution, there is no way to do that with any NV product.

Still, that corner case doesn't change the indisputable fact that NV is the value champ in enthusiast mainstream, enthusiast performance and high end.

I think the stagnant ATI prices have less to do with demand keeping prices high and more with AMD simply not making any more of the cards in preparation for the 6 series launch anticipated shortly. Much like what happened with the GTX2xx series leading up to the Fermi launch -- they got much more expensive than the more fully featured, lower power usage and faster alternatives from the competition.

I tend to believe this too. If AMD is still supply constrained, it makes sense that the would switch what waffer allocation they have to stockpile the newer cards. I guess we won't know until the market share data comes out for this quarter or until the ATI refresh cards actually launch.

 

[brybir]

In 5 months since the release of Fermi, it looks more and more like mildly overclocked GTX460 competes with 5850 for less $ and GTX470 competes pretty well with the 5870 for $100 less. NV driver team did a great job.

Despite this fact though, ATI has not lowered prices at all. This means that consumers are still buying ATI cards with no signs of slowdown.

My intuition tells me that the increased power consumption and noise of 470/480 Fermi cards are too much of a deterrent regardless of their currently superior price/performance ratio (i.e., perhaps requiring larger cases and new power supplies). Surely though, GTX460 sales must have affected 5850's sales?

The list of D11 games in which 5850/5870 are significantly slower compared to the similar priced 470/480 is getting pretty extensive now:

STALKER: CoP
Metro 2033
Battleforge
Lost Planet 2
Just Cause 2

This leaves just Dirt 2 and BF:BC2 where ATI's current pricing is justified. It's almost shocking to me that ATI has not lowered prices yet.

AMD's pricing decisions are probably based on supply and demand, not expected future sentiment. In any event, if the rumors are true, we should see significant AMD price drops as we get closer to SI release in November.

Far as I can tell, 5850/5870 pricing is steadily decreasing over the past few months. On Newegg today you can get the following cards:

5850 = $269
460 = $229
470 = $269

If you look in my sig, you can see that the 460 and the 5850 are pretty close competitors in most benchmarks, yet the 5850 is commanding a ~17% price premium. In crude terms you can consider that the extra price the market is giving AMD for its products for whatever reason including AMD having a 7-9 month lead in on the DX11 enthusiast hardware which creates mindshare in a brand, all the garbage slinging at Nvidia is certain to deter some potential customers and some other reasons that consumers care about like eyefinity.

In the end, 5850 prices ARE coming down, cheapest one on Newegg is $269 which is significantly below what it was a few months ago. It will keep coming down and eventually will compete very well with the 460.

 

[brybir]

For the mods:

Why is the "percentage symbol" showing up in posts as "&#37"? Anyone else noticing that on posts with "percentage symbol" inserted?

 

[Lonyo]

It's funny that ATI AMD pimped Eyefinity as the latest and greatest thing. NVIDIA was able to just patch it into their drivers and even support it on the GTX2xx series.

For 8 or so months, it was the latest and greatest thing.
NV was able to "simply" patch it in, in only 8 months, even though something possibly broadly similar to their method had been around and coded by "some random dude" years earlier. (Software TripleHead/SoftTH).

Triple monitor gaming through Eyefinity wasn't the latest and greatest thing on release, it had been done before, but the relative ease and widespread support was new. NV just managed to catch up months later.


The best thing is that both ATI and NV now have almost robust support for surround monitor gaming, rather than requiring users to resort to "hack" methods (although those methods are actually more flexible, at least than Eyefinity, I don't know whether Surround from NV requires the same resolution on each screen).

Given that 3+ years ago I was running a 20" widescreen LCD flanked by two 5:4 LCDs for surround gaming, this "new" stuff is nothing more than refinement of old ideas.

 

[Markfw]

For the mods:

Why is the "percentage symbol" showing up in posts as "&#37"? Anyone else noticing that on posts with "percentage symbol" inserted?

Its a known problem.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=30318833#post30318833

 

[Acanthus]

In 5 months since the release of Fermi, it looks more and more like mildly overclocked GTX460 competes with 5850 for less $ and GTX470 competes pretty well with the 5870 for $100 less. NV driver team did a great job.

Despite this fact though, ATI has not lowered prices at all. This means that consumers are still buying ATI cards with no signs of slowdown.

My intuition tells me that the increased power consumption and noise of 470/480 Fermi cards are too much of a deterrent regardless of their currently superior price/performance ratio (i.e., perhaps requiring larger cases and new power supplies). Surely though, GTX460 sales must have affected 5850's sales?

The list of D11 games in which 5850/5870 are significantly slower compared to the similar priced 470/480 is getting pretty extensive now:

STALKER: CoP
Metro 2033
Battleforge
Lost Planet 2
Just Cause 2

This leaves just Dirt 2 and BF:BC2 where ATI's current pricing is justified. It's almost shocking to me that ATI has not lowered prices yet.

After you factor in a power supply upgrade, the nvidia cards arent as attractive.

I skipped the GTX480 specifically for that reason, im waiting for the die shrunk version.

 

[OCGuy]

After you factor in a power supply upgrade, the nvidia cards arent as attractive.

I skipped the GTX480 specifically for that reason, im waiting for the die shrunk version.

Huh?

 

[RussianSensation]

Huh?

I think the PSU requirements are set to compensate for poor quality units that majority of pre-built systems ship with. I am running a Core i7 860 @ 3.9ghz (which consumes a lot more power than Acanthus' CPU) and a GTX470 @ 750mhz, which consumes more power than a GTX480, on a 520W.

Even then you are looking at about 440 W at full load.
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/palit_geforce_gtx_470,11.html

The Corsair 520, which Acanthus has, is actually rated at 520W, which leaves a decent reserve. I suppose for those with much inferior PSU units, the 480 is out of the question. This is why I have been recommending Corsair PSUs for a while (and in general not to skimp on this important part of a computer build).