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

[MagickMan]

82c with after market cooling, I'm paying attention. Same temps as the Palit gtx 470 non reference running Furmark.

Sure its not the 72c you claimed. Next time be more specific. There is a big difference when your claiming 72c when gaming and comparing it to gtx designs using furmark.

Most gtx 4xx designs are in the low 80's when gaming.

Here, this will help.

My 5850 @1050MHz is almost dead silent at full load, you definitely can't hear it over any of the other 120mm Gentle Typhoons in my case. As for heat, it games at 72-75C, that's 20C cooler than NV's flagship.

It games at 72-75C, can't get any more clear than that. Here, I'll pull up that chart with gaming temps again.

There, Crysis at 94C with a stock 480, while I'm sitting at 74ish with a massive OC. 20C, that's quite a bit.

 

[MagickMan]

MagickMan this all goes back to person saying that the gtx480 uses too much power. yet he then says that he could overclock a 5850 to beat the gtx480. first off there is no way you could oc the 5850 enough(on air) to beat the gtx480 in most games. next by the time you modded enough to be right at 480 performance levels it would also be at 480 power consumption levels therefore defeating the whole point of that guys post.

No, it wouldn't be "up there" at 480 consumption levels, and that's my point. At 1050MHz it's still 70W less, equals the performance of a 480 in a few games, and in the others it's fast enough that no one could tell the difference. Plus, add a some quiet cooling and you can't even hear a thing over your normal case noise, only way to do that with a 480 is to put it under water.

Hell, the entire point of this thread shouldn't be, "is the gtx 470 now the better buy over the 5850?" It should be, "Does NV make anything that's better than the 5850?"

 

[lopri]

Well, I didn't read the whole thread but heat output, depending on individuals, matters when choosing computer parts. I dumped the original HD 4870 because of that. Dumped 780i board and got a P45 board. Heck I even dumped i7-920 and X58 last summer. Power usage wasn't an issue because my PSU was strong enough but I couldn't stand the heat. (FYI during the summer time I set air conditioning for my room @68F)

Video cards, CPU, motherboards can easily raise the room temperature by 2~3C and when you have more than one system in your room, you can immediately feel the warmness when you enter your computer room from elsewhere in the house.

Back on 470 - I think it is very possible that silicon quality vary in a wide range. We know NV had a great difficulty with these chips, and yields being what they're known to be, one chip might have a very different power/thermal characteristic to the next.

 

[toyota]

No, it wouldn't be "up there" at 480 consumption levels, and that's my point. At 1050MHz it's still 70W less, equals the performance of a 480 in a few games, and in the others it's fast enough that no one could tell the difference. Plus, add a some quiet cooling and you can't even hear a thing over your normal case noise, only way to do that with a 480 is to put it under water.

Hell, the entire point of this thread shouldn't be, "is the gtx 470 now the better buy over the 5850?" It should be, "Does NV make anything that's better than the 5850?"

at 1050 a 5850 is not beating a gtx480 though. it would take another 100-150mhz to beat the gtx480 and at that point yes it would consume similar power.

 

[MagickMan]

at 1050 a 5850 is not beating a gtx480 though. it would take another 100-150mhz to beat the gtx480 and at that point yes it would consume similar power.

I'll admit that it would be close, but you'd be talking about >1.4v. That's a lot of juice. As it is, it's close enough that it doesn't matter and it's cheaper, cooler, quieter, and saves a little cash on your elec bill.

My whole point was, get a 5850, buy a nifty cooler, OC the doggy doo out of it, and enjoy your high-performance gaming in silence.

 

[SlowSpyder]

MagickMan this all goes back to person saying that the gtx480 uses too much power. yet he then says that he could overclock a 5850 to beat the gtx480. first off there is no way you could oc the 5850 enough(on air) to beat the gtx480 in most games. next by the time you modded enough to be right at 480 performance levels it would also be at 480 power consumption levels therefore defeating the whole point of that guys post.

Maybe I was incorrect in saying that it would beat a 480, I probably should have said it would match it. And it would be using less power while it matched it.

I was under the impression that a 1GHz 5850 was faster than a 480 (and in some cases it is I'm sure, but not overall). I apologize, that was an error on my part. But I still am quite confident that a 1GHz 5850 that will likely 'match' a 480 will use less power in doing so. AMD's architecture is just more efficent in general it seems. Nvidia is faster, but at the cost of efficiency.

Again, I apologize about being wrong, I should have researched more before I opened my mouth. But I still hold to the belief that it'll use less power/put out less heat while matching the 480 (which may or may not matter to different people).

 

[HumblePie]

I have two 5870's in CF that I have yet to OC. Waiting to switch to a better board for crossfire than this Rampage II Extreme so I can put some better cooling in. There just isn't enough space between the PCIe slots.

Also, to make note, the original MSRP of the 5850 was $259 and not $280. Anyone that managed to get it at $259 or less via bing at the time got a deal that is hard to match today.

 

[Tempered81]

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?

They are both good buys, and both cards can overclock. The 470 has better overall stock performance than the 5850, but not as good as the 5870.

The 470 also gives you a little more video memory and performance, and gives you (imo better) drivers and game support. The drawbacks are the fan speed, heat generated, noise level and power draw (inherent drawbacks with all the GF100 chips)

I'm not crazy about physx or cuda and consider both to be gimmicks. Both the gtx400 and hd 5800 series are good and the 5850 and 470 being the best deals out of both camps for high end.

IMO, I would choose the 5850, but you can't go wrong on the 470 either. I would also buy second hand for ~250 for the 5850 and maybe ~325 for the 470. I would also choose the reference designed board + cooler. If I had the money I would go for the 5870 or 480, and If i really had the cash - maybe 5970 or 480sli 5870cf.

Out of your choice between the two - 5850 or 470 - I would go with the 5850.

 

[Hauk]

I have two 5870's in CF that I have yet to OC. Waiting to switch to a better board for crossfire than this Rampage II Extreme so I can put some better cooling in. There just isn't enough space between the PCIe slots...

Let go of that mobo for more space between PCIe slots? Not me. Best board I've owned. Reference design 5870's? Give em a nice fan profile with Afterburner and take em to 900 or so. No aftermarket cooling needed. Great config on a great mobo..

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I'm not sure either the 5850 or 470 is a good buy at the current retail prices but might be as good as they get for a while.

 

[Dark Shroud]

I'm not sure either the 5850 or 470 is a good buy at the current retail prices but might be as good as they get for a while.

Around September ATI is releaseing their new Southern Islands / 6000 series cards. So either way current card prices will go down. Nvidia won't be able to EOL their current GTX series cards again just to save money.

 

[MagickMan]

Let go of that mobo for more space between PCIe slots? Not me. Best board I've owned. Reference design 5870's? Give em a nice fan profile with Afterburner and take em to 900 or so. No aftermarket cooling needed. Great config on a great mobo..

Nah, aftermarket cooling is not needed at all, the stock ref coolers work well. But, it is nice to run at full load without any noise at all.

 

[Axon]

Having used the 470, I'd say the noise is no worse than any other high end video card (though to be fair, I haven't gotten my grubby fingers on a 5850 as of yet). The 470 performed well, however, though I don't know if it jumps performance over my 4890 enough to justify its price.

I'd say the 5850 at $280 is your best bet for a single GPU. Two...well, what I've seen shows SLI scaling quite well this generation.

 

[konakona]

If you really think 470 is indeed better than 5850 (probably is, performance-wise) and can live with increased noise & heat output, it is to your best interest to return that 5850 as soon as it arrives. I would do that for peace of mind alone, the price difference isn't all THAT big after all. 470 does have substantially higher scaling when it successfully overclocks (On a related note, how well do they overclock on average? Just curious.) Sounds like you already know which you prefer, and then there is a whole "OMG ATi drivers suck" scare thing. Why did you even get a 5850 after all?

 

[MagickMan]

Might as well lock this thread, the resident troll has managed to derail it a second time.

Not yet, I'm still waiting for an apology from Happy for this statement:

So much for 72c load temps.......Ok you can stop bullshitting now.

but now he's strangely silent. :\

 

[3DVagabond]

See, there's just not one answer to the question of which is a better value. It depends on your gaming habits, eye candy settings, resolution, and also the rest of your system. Read this review at [H]OCP. With the settings they used the 5850 is clearly the superior card. It beats the 470 in every "apples-to-apples max playable settings" comparison they did. In the 2560*1600 comparisons it dominated.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/06/01/gigabyte_r585oc_video_card_review/1

I'm sure someone can point you to a review where the 470 consistently beats the 5850. So, what are you going to do? Read a lot of reviews and find ones that most mirror your games and settings.

For me, these two cards are close enough that it comes down more than just FPS. See, I have a 500W-80+ PSU and a mid tower case w/ only 2 fans. I wouldn't even try a 470 in my setup.

 

[SirPauly]

Certainly appreciate Kyle's method but it is a small sampling. For example with no AA in Aliens vs Predator -- AMD has an advantage but with x4 AA -- roles are reversed in a big way. This data, how would one know by using this data? Why would a 30 inch monitor owner buy a 5850 or 4870? If there was a poll this price-point, owners may have 22 and 24 inch montiors.

In BattleField, nVidia owners can add transparency AA to this title -- how would anyone know?

 

[Grooveriding]

It's an interesting market in video cards at the moment for sure. I can't remember ATI having the fastest video card for this long, well, ever.

The offerings from both companies being so close in performance, makes it a difficult decision for the OP. It lends it's self to discussions of price, heat and unique features etc.

OP if you can wait till September, wait and see how ATI's cards are doing then, you may be able to get in on what early 58XX series adopters did with having current performance levels for the past nine months vs nv just offering it for the past two months.

 

[HumblePie]

From some of the reviews depicting overclocking results here was the conclusions I saw.

GTX 470 and 480 don't overclock that well.

A GTX 470 doesn't overclock to the performance of the 480 without water cooling on average.

A 5850 on the stock reference cooler will overclock with 1-3% of the overclocked performance of a 5870.

An overclocked 5870 and 5850 will exceed the stock performance of a GTX 480 and can sometimes match the performance of an overclocked GTX 480.



Obviously some games are more skewed to ATI or NVidia for performance. If you play only some particular games it is usually best to match up the video card for the best performance in that game. If you are looking for the best bang for the buck and have no qualms about overclocking then the 5850 still can not be beat for it's price. That's pretty much the conclusions I've seen, but I could be wrong.

 

[toyota]

From some of the reviews depicting overclocking results here was the conclusions I saw.

GTX 470 and 480 don't overclock that well.

A GTX 470 doesn't overclock to the performance of the 480 without water cooling on average.

A 5850 on the stock reference cooler will overclock with 1-3% of the overclocked performance of a 5870.

An overclocked 5870 and 5850 will exceed the stock performance of a GTX 480 and can sometimes match the performance of an overclocked GTX 480.



Obviously some games are more skewed to ATI or NVidia for performance. If you play only some particular games it is usually best to match up the video card for the best performance in that game. If you are looking for the best bang for the buck and have no qualms about overclocking then the 5850 still can not be beat for it's price. That's pretty much the conclusions I've seen, but I could be wrong.

and what reviews did the gtx470 not oc well in? a gtx470 will oc by 20% in most cases and thats with no voltage adjustment. I am too lazy too look back through reviews but I know that if anything the gtx470 was considered a GOOD overclocker.

a 5850 would have to oc to around 950 to match a 5870 and I doubt it does that without some extra voltage in many case. also just because the 470 cant oc to 480 levels doesnt it mean the 5850 is better. it just means there is a bigger performance difference to start with between the 470 and 480 then between the 5850 and 5870. a 480 is priced 150 bucks above the 470 afterall.

 

[tincart]

With anands current review we see the new drivers putting the 470 faster or as fast as the 5870.

This seems to be a stretch. On anands review the 470 wins some and loses some against a 5870.

A quick look at the performance summary at Techpowerup for their 465 review still shows the 5870 well ahead of the 470 over a wider range of benchmarks. It also appears as though the 470 was benchmarked with the 257.15 drivers while the ATi cards are still listed with the 10.3 drivers as opposed to 10.3a or better.

A cursory review of other current reviews that include a 470 and 5870 seems to confirm this. A sample size of one is not large enough.

 

[Grooveriding]

This seems to be a stretch. On anands review the 470 wins some and loses some against a 5870.

A quick look at the performance summary at Techpowerup for their 465 review still shows the 5870 well ahead of the 470 over a wider range of benchmarks. It also appears as though the 470 was benchmarked with the 257.15 drivers while the ATi cards are still listed with the 10.3 drivers as opposed to 10.3a or better.

A cursory review of other current reviews that include a 470 and 5870 seems to confirm this. A sample size of one is not large enough.

Yeah, about all I see is the same farcry 2 bench being posted again and again and again.

 

[tweakboy]

Get the 5970 and youll be set for years to come in gaming.... gl

 

[tincart]

Yeah, about all I see is the same farcry 2 bench being posted again and again and again.

Of course. Who plays anything else?

 

[3DVagabond]

Certainly appreciate Kyle's method but it is a small sampling. For example with no AA in Aliens vs Predator -- AMD has an advantage but with x4 AA -- roles are reversed in a big way. This data, how would one know by using this data? Why would a 30 inch monitor owner buy a 5850 or 4870? If there was a poll this price-point, owners may have 22 and 24 inch montiors.

In BattleField, nVidia owners can add transparency AA to this title -- how would anyone know?

I'm by no means saying Kyle's review is the definitive comparison. Actually, because it's an HD5870 review it's skewed more in favor of the HD5850. He's showing the performance at the HD5850's highest playable settings, not the GTX-470's.

My point is you have all these opinions one way or the other. "The 5850 is the hands down best bang for the buck", on one side of the isle. "The GTX-470 is so roxor it out performs the HD5870", from the other camp. It depends on your settings, your resolution, your games and gaming preferences, the rest of your hardware, do you care about efficiency and power usage, etc... Anyone who just recommends one flat out over the other without qualifying anything is likely a fanboi, or very short sighted.

Given the choice between the 2 I know which one I would choose. Might very well not be the best one for you though.