Is the gtx 470 now the better buy over the 5850?

[Xarick]

With anands current review we see the new drivers putting the 470 faster or as fast as the 5870. It no longer competes with the 5850 which is noticeable slower most times. The 470 can be had for as low as $330 and the $5850 as low as $290. $40 diff. The 470 also gives you cuda, physx and transparent AA. So it would appear the 470 is now the card to recommend. Thoughts?

 

[HurleyBird]

I think its a good alternative, but I wouldn't call it a better buy. 5850 is just so much more efficient in terms of noise and heat, that more than offsets the features advantage and some of the performance advantage in my opinion, especially during summer.

If you're actually thinking about buying one yourself, I think you've missed out. The smart thing to do was buy a 5870 or 5850 at launch. Unless you need a card *right* now, you should wait for SI.

 

[yh125d]

I'd say 5850 is definitely a better buy than 465, and 470 is probably a better buy than 5870, but 5850 vs 470 is still a bit cloudy. It's a bit easier to choose 470 instead of 5850 now, but it's not a given either way.

 

[MagickMan]

In value, taking into consideration efficiency, heat, and OCing (which can vary quite a bit), it's still 5850>470. Buy a reference 5850, find it's max OC, then sit back and enjoy. I'm not saying the 470 is awful in that respect, it's better than the 465 or 480, but it isn't the best.

 

[tviceman]

I'd say 5850 is definitely a better buy than 465, and 470 is probably a better buy than 5870, but 5850 vs 470 is still a bit cloudy. It's a bit easier to choose 470 instead of 5850 now, but it's not a given either way.

Agree with this 100%. There are more advantages to the gtx470 over the 5850, but it's up to the purchaser to decide whether or not it's worth the $50-60 price difference.

In value, taking into consideration efficiency, heat, and OCing (which can vary quite a bit), it's still 5850>470. Buy a reference 5850, find it's max OC, then sit back and enjoy. I'm not saying the 470 is awful in that respect, it's better than the 465 or 480, but it isn't the best.

470's OC pretty well too (albeit probably not quite as good as a 5850), so unless cooling is an issue this is kind of a moot point.

 

[FragKrag]

The power consumption doesn't matter very much for me since I'm much more about heat and performance. The decision between GTX 470 and HD 5850 has gotten a bit harder because of the new drivers (and I assume Nvidia will continue releasing better drivers), but I definitely wouldn't buy a GTX 470 until a cooler can bring that beast to the mid 80s (85-87) at load.

I'd say the 5850 is still the better buy if you take overclocking into consideration because it seems like every 5850 can run at least 850mhz, if not 900+ mhz whereas if you overclock the GTX 470 currently, you get even higher noise levels, power consumption, and temperatures ><

I thought the GTX 470 was a passable card when it was released, and the new drivers improve it even more!

Another thing for people building new computers (in the USA) to consider is that the GTX 470 has some really amazing combo deals on Newegg. Some combos can save up to $70 :>

 

[MagickMan]

470's OC pretty well too (albeit probably not quite as good as a 5850), so unless cooling is an issue this is kind of a moot point.

Not at all, because when you OC the 470, power consumption and temps climb through the roof and it quickly becomes an unattractive scenario, unless you're only benchmarking. No one wants to flog an OCed 4x0 card for 6 hours of gaming, the room becomes a sauna and you stress all of your other components. Not worth it.

 

[HurleyBird]

470's OC pretty well too (albeit probably not quite as good as a 5850), so unless cooling is an issue this is kind of a moot point.

The issue for me is that the heat is going to get much worse when overclocked. My HD5870 already can make me uncomforable on a warm day with certain games, OCed GTX470 would be awful for me. Of course, in winter heat isn't that much of an issue, but it is today.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

They are both good cards. In the end for me the speed difference wasn't worth the extra heat and increase on the electric bill. 75&#37; of the time I'm using the computer I'm not gaming. It's either watching movies, netflix, surfing the web, etc... Having a low power card that could put out little heat and not use much power was a big deciding factor for me. If my computer was an all out gamer I'd probably go for a gtx 480 but for me it's just overkill. Don't get me wrong though the little 5850 can do some serious kick ass gaming when the time comes. I am truly 100% satisfied with my purchase. That's why I recommend the 5850. I don't have an allegiance to nvidia or ati. The 5850 just gets it done.

 

[yh125d]

Not at all, because when you OC the 470, power consumption and temps climb through the roof and it quickly becomes an unattractive scenario, unless you're only benchmarking. No one wants to flog an OCed 4x0 card for 6 hours of gaming, the room becomes a sauna and you stress all of your other components. Not worth it.

Yes, this is the problem. For 470vs5870, the difference is only like 35-40w, which isn't that substantial. Definitely enough to live with, but the problem comes with overclocking. With the 470 having a 25-40w headstart, and being a high leakage chip (which means among other things that it gains power consumption when OCd faster then a lower leakage chip, is my understanding), it gets to the point where you don't really want to push anymore due to power/heat sooner than you would with an inherently more efficient card


Though I'd still probably buy a 470 over a 5870 if I were buying today

 

[mingsoup]

I think its a good alternative, but I wouldn't call it a better buy. 5850 is just so much more efficient in terms of noise and heat, that more than offsets the features advantage and some of the performance advantage in my opinion, especially during summer.

If you're actually thinking about buying one yourself, I think you've missed out. The smart thing to do was buy a 5870 or 5850 at launch. Unless you need a card *right* now, you should wait for SI.

What is SI? Is waiting now a more attractive option? Same boat.

 

[Xarick]

southern islands. I suspect that Nvidias drivers are going to widen the gap. New partners are going to released better cooling. Eventually you will have a faster card with good cooling and power will be the only issue. Nv released an extremely good card in the 470 that most wrote off too soon.

 

[Grooveriding]

I think its a good alternative, but I wouldn't call it a better buy. 5850 is just so much more efficient in terms of noise and heat, that more than offsets the features advantage and some of the performance advantage in my opinion, especially during summer.

If you're actually thinking about buying one yourself, I think you've missed out. The smart thing to do was buy a 5870 or 5850 at launch. Unless you need a card *right* now, you should wait for SI.

This nails it. 5850 is probably the better buy over 470 if you care about cost, as it's cheaper and performance difference between the two is small enough you will not notice a difference.

That said, 5850 was the card to buy, because you could of bought one nine months ago for $280 and enjoyed the performance it offers for the past nine months. This vs buying a 470 now and getting the performance you could have had nine months ago for $280, now at $350 nine months later.

ATI's new cards are out in September. If you need to buy now, weigh the options and pick one, if you can wait, wait. There are always new cards coming out, but right now ATI is ahead in release cycles and you'll get better performance and value buying their cards at release.

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

The power consumption doesn't matter very much for me since I'm much more about heat and performance. The decision between GTX 470 and HD 5850 has gotten a bit harder because of the new drivers (and I assume Nvidia will continue releasing better drivers), but I definitely wouldn't buy a GTX 470 until a cooler can bring that beast to the mid 80s (85-87) at load.

My card at 800core/1600shader/975mem@1v runs ~70-72C under load and gaming for a few hours. Most games that don't even use the full potential run about 55-60C. I have a Galaxy 470. Plain jane nothing super special Best Buy purchased card.http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Galaxy+-...0470&amp;cp=1&amp;lp=1

I was getting a bit tired on my 4890 not quite playing the games as smoothly as i would have liked @1920x1080. I was quite happy when everything runs silky smooth with max settings now. BC2, MW2, Batman all run quite nice. I will say i think Physx does NOT add a LOT to the games visuals but little things here and there are extra bonuses in my book. I REALLY hope developers stop with this PhysX only stuff and start producing OpenCL effects. It seems very silly to cut one group out of getting the same effects, small or not, because they have a different branded card.

I think developers need to focus more real physics for the game engines and have the GPUs do some real work crunching numbers to make the games way more interesting. I love running around in Red Faction blowing stuff up and seeing buildings collapse but its noticeably unreal in a lot of scenarios. Mafia II video seems like they are working on sprucing up the physics which looks like it would be very interesting. I just hope they don't cherry pick the one building that was designed to be shredded while the rest of the world is unbreakable.

 

[toyota]

My card at 800core/1600shader/975mem@1v runs ~70-72C under load and gaming for a few hours. Most games that don't even use the full potential run about 55-60C. I have a Galaxy 470. Plain jane nothing super special Best Buy purchased card.http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Galaxy+-...0470&amp;cp=1&amp;lp=1

70-72C under load with some games only at 55? I am calling BS on that. are you running the fan at its deafening 100% setting because no way in hell you have a stock cooler gtx470 with the voltage increased and a massive 800/1600 oc and getting temps like that. no other reviews can get temps like that even at stock voltage and clocks. I just packed up my gtx470 because the temps and power consumption were ridiculous.

 

[Petey!]

The power consumption doesn't matter very much for me since I'm much more about heat and performance. The decision between GTX 470 and HD 5850 has gotten a bit harder because of the new drivers (and I assume Nvidia will continue releasing better drivers), but I definitely wouldn't buy a GTX 470 until a cooler can bring that beast to the mid 80s (85-87) at load.

My 470 hardly ever breaks 82C with the fan on auto (around 57-60&#37 in an Antec 900 case without a sidefan. With the fan set to 60% while gaming and a 100mhz OC, it hovers around 80. It's virtually silent over the stock fans at low, and works pretty well.

I think even more so then before the 470 is clearly an easier choice then the 5850. Of course thats assuming u live in NA, where they're priced pretty closely. In Europe it's another thing since I've read their NV prices are quite a bit higher comparatively, in which case 5850 is a no-brainer.

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

70-72C under load with some games only at 55? I am calling BS on that. are you running the fan at its deafening 100% setting because no way in hell you have a stock cooler gtx470 with the voltage increased and a massive 800/1600 oc and getting temps like that. no other reviews can get temps like that even at stock voltage and clocks. I just packed up my gtx470 because the temps and power consumption were ridiculous.

Fan is @ 75% speed, and well the game that I have found to not really use the gpu much is Heroes of Newerth. For some reason the card uses 18-28% of the GPU, which I don't understand at all, but that is why it only hits like 60C. Real big company games use the GPU to the max and its when its just over 70C. I have an antec 900 with some pretty good airflow. The Galaxy 470 I have seems to have a pretty solid cooler on it. I just remember stock speeds had furmark running ~67C or so. Now furmark hits ~79/80C.

 

[toyota]

Fan is @ 75&#37; speed, and well the game that I have found to not really use the gpu much is Heroes of Newerth. For some reason the card uses 18-28% of the GPU, which I don't understand at all, but that is why it only hits like 60C. Real big company games use the GPU to the max and its when its just over 70C. I have an antec 900 with some pretty good airflow. The Galaxy 470 I have seems to have a pretty solid cooler on it. I just remember stock speeds had furmark running ~67C or so. Now furmark hits ~79/80C.

now how do you figure that your gtx470 can do that yet no one elses on the planet can? it just doesnt add up and the fact that you increased the voltage and have a very high oc makes it even more impossible. my gtx470 temps mirrored what basically all review sites got which was 90 C plus in furmark even at stock voltage and clock. every game was in the mid to upper 80 C range with Crysis pushing over 90 C. again that was at stock voltage and clocks. with just a little voltage increase furmark shot to 100 C unless I put the fan on 100%. even tweaktown had to run their fan at 100% in their 470 overclocking review while using additional voltage.

 

[Dark Shroud]

southern islands. I suspect that Nvidias drivers are going to widen the gap. New partners are going to released better cooling. Eventually you will have a faster card with good cooling and power will be the only issue. Nv released an extremely good card in the 470 that most wrote off too soon.

Drivers are not fairy dust, they cannot over come hardware limitations. Yes some of the heat issues have been fixed, such as plugging two monotors into one card. That does not chance the fact that the 470 is a high leakage die harvested card. On top of that Nvidia has been putting poision into their driver releases.

You can buy 5850s for under $300 that can be over clocked to match the 5870 without issue.

 

[OCGuy]

Yes, it is.

 

[tviceman]

Not at all, because when you OC the 470, power consumption and temps climb through the roof and it quickly becomes an unattractive scenario, unless you're only benchmarking. No one wants to flog an OCed 4x0 card for 6 hours of gaming, the room becomes a sauna and you stress all of your other components. Not worth it.

The issue for me is that the heat is going to get much worse when overclocked. My HD5870 already can make me uncomforable on a warm day with certain games, OCed GTX470 would be awful for me. Of course, in winter heat isn't that much of an issue, but it is today.

I personally have never felt the ambient temperature of a room being warmer with two 100 watt light bulbs being on vs. one one hundred watt light bulb. And a 100 watt lightbulb will put out more heat than the difference between a gtx470 and hd5850.

 

[HurleyBird]

There's a difference. That 100w buld is further away from you, probably on the ceiling. Add to the fact that warmer air rises and you can see why its easy not to notice the disapation of a light buld so much. Your computer on the other hand is under your desk, and as heat rises from it, it rises through where you are sitting.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I personally have never felt the ambient temperature of a room being warmer with two 100 watt light bulbs being on vs. one one hundred watt light bulb. And a 100 watt lightbulb will put out more heat than the difference between a gtx470 and hd5850.

I don't know why there are so many comparisons to a light bulb and a videocard. I've never even felt my house warm up with every light in the house on. Start playing crysis for about 2 hours and you can feel the heat throuhout the house.

 

[toyota]

I personally have never felt any room being warmer with two 100 watt light bulbs being on vs. one one hundred watt light bulb.

And a 100 watt lightbulb will put out more heat than difference between a gtx470 and hd5850.

well as someone who just went back and forth between a gtx260 and gtx470 I can most certainly feel the difference. while gaming my system with the gtx470 used around 100 watts more and my legs and feet immediately noticed it. after extended gaming there was almost like a pocket of hot air in that part of the room. sure the whole room probably didnt heat up but this room at 22x12.5 feet is pretty big.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I'd take a 5850 over 470 any day. The room I game is in already quite warm in summer. An overclocked 5850 will probably give you near 480 performance, maybe faster.

That's not to say the 470 is a bad buy, depending on your circumstances, budget, and performance goals it may be the best choice. It may not. I think the 5850 trumps it (and the 5870 and 480) in bang for the buck.