Q: max-OC'd FTW GTX460 vs max-OC'd XFX Vapor Chamber 6850, which wins? Answer inside.

[happy medium]

I would phrase it differently if your point is price/performance. You are clouding the issue by phrasing it that way. Why not make this poll instead:

Which Three Year Ownership Plan would you prefer:

1. HD6850 at $180 without rebate.

2. GTX460-1GB at $180 after rebate, plus an additional $50 in electricity costs above and beyond the HD6850.

3. Neither because this poll was set up to air some sort of weird beef Happy Medium has with Blastingcap despite Blastingcap not knowing or caring who Happy Medium is, other than his continual personal attacks as to Blastingcap's character.

You may also find disagreement that the GTX460 is 15% faster in actual gameplay situations rather than canned benchmarks (see, e.g., the HardOCP review).

One thing I wonder: why is this so personal with you? I don't know you, you're just some dude in Philly. I would prefer it if you would be less personal, like swearing at me and hurling insults like "sunk to a new low" which implies that I was low to begin with and am low now.. for what, point out power draws? My math was accurate. Read my OP in this thread. I think it was a fair summary. RS gave me kudos for the suggestion at the end of it, too.

I want to see if people want 15% more performance or 15 less watts in a video card. Plain and simple. I'm not gonna educate them about there electric bill. I dont want to perswade them either way. Just keeping it simple.

 

[blastingcap]

I want to see if people want 15% more performance or 15 less watts in a video card. Plain and simple. I'm not gonna educate them about there electric bill. I dont want to perswade them either way. Just keeping it simple.

Have you considered a career in politics, i.e., professional obfuscation?

 

[happy medium]

Ha , they locked it that fast.
Now I cant even ask a SIMPLE question here.
WHats next? I (who made the thread) never mentioned anything about this conversation or IF it even had anything to do with it.
Amazing.

Well I made my point. 🙂
Keep the spin up buddy. You honestly think 11 watts or 15 watts is worth arguing about vs performance/ price ?

 

[Gloomy]

^lol

i'm gonna make a new thread for this subject with a poll.

Titled
would you rather have 15 less watts or 15% more performance in a video card for the same price.

Hows that blastingcap?

 

[blastingcap]

Ha , they locked it that fast.
Now I cant even ask a SIMPLE question here.
WHats next? I (who made the thread) never mentioned anything about this conversation or IF it even had anything to do with it.
Amazing.

I applaud mods for not letting you start these personal "polls" whenever you disagree with someone. Come on, we can be more mature than this. I haven't cussed at you or insulted you or put up polls whenever I disagreed with you (or anyone else); please try to return the favor.

This would have been my response before it got locked:

DId you hit the panic button and crapping on my thread?

Plain and simple guys 15 more performance or 15 less watts.
I will do the averages later.

How is this threadcrapping? I simply linked to the main thread for anyone who a) is wondering about how this "poll" got started in the first place, and b) wants to know about the cost of electricity in greater detail. I also voiced my displeasure at your starting this thread for personal reasons.

Ha , they locked it that fast.
Now I cant even ask a SIMPLE question here.
WHats next? I (who made the thread) never mentioned anything about this conversation or IF it even had anything to do with it.
Amazing.

Well I made my point. 🙂
Keep the spin up buddy. You honestly think 11 watts or 15 watts is worth arguing about vs performance/ price ?

I presented information that people might not be aware of re: the cost of electricity. I did it using the SAME EXACT DATA SET (hardwarecanucks) that you cited to. My recommendation in the first post of this thread was that you can't go wrong either way. I think the vast majority of people would agree with me, and I don't need to make a poll to have that feeling, because virtually all reviewers out there agree with me, including Anandtech's own reviewer Ryan Smith, and Brent Justice at HardOCP, the two biggest and best review sites out there for GPUs.

 

[Idontcare]

Guys I'm only going to say this once, keep it civil.

If you take it personal or make it personal then you are going to be on a collision course with the business end of a moderator's keyboard, in addition to the fact it probably isn't exactly the most fun for you to be all agitated and frustrated while trying to post in the first place so why let yourselves get to that point?

I've locked the poll thread for reasons that are self-explanatory if you read the mod edit/post in the thread.

Come together like rational adults, resolve your differences amicably and with civility, keep the personal digs out of your posts and this thread.

Moderator Idontcare

 

[happy medium]

^lol

I meant in the NEW thread.
I just wanted to see peoples reaction and it was simple. Nobody in there right mind buys card because it might save them x$ over a three year period because it uses 15 less watts ,when its is 15% slower (when overclocked) for about the same price. Thats just dum!

 

[happy medium]

How is this threadcrapping? I simply linked to the main thread for anyone who a) is wondering about how this "poll" got started in the first place

Its my thread, I never asked you too.
If you read my OP in my thread I wanted to keep it simple.
I didnt want it to be clouded by OUR opinions. Get it?

Just a simple question without you derailing the thread. 15% more performance or 15 less watts , with cards using 190 watts.

Its a shame we will never know ,but I'm willing to bet it would have been a landslide for 15% performance.

Its not my opinion that the gtx460 is 15% faster when overclocked.
It's not my opionion that it uses 15 more watts then the 6850.

But it is Blastingcaps opinion about how much it will cost you.
I don't think he can tell everyone how much extra it would cost ya a year now could he?
The answer is simple NOT VERY MUCH and most of us don't care about 15 watts.

 

[blastingcap]

Its my thread, I never asked you too.
If you read my OP in my thread I wanted to keep it simple.
I didnt want it to be clouded by OUR opinions. Get it?

Just a simple question without you derailing the thread. 15% more performance or 15 less watts , with cards using 190 watts.

I already said what I said about how I didn't like how you phrased your "poll." I felt it clouded the issue. I stand by that. Mathematics is not a matter of opinion.

Happy I will take mercy on you and not respond to you further in this thread unless I am provoked. This is because I don't want you to get even more infractions than you already have. Have a good night.

P.S. Happy Halloween!

 

[notty22]

I will not even concede the gtx 460 uses more watts at idle. Vs the 6850 or 6870.
There is going to be some variance in cards and test methods that also help make this minutia , cost of life , argument moot.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/26.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/27.html

At what point do you stop enjoying your hobby ? What about the satisfaction of actually having the hardware to game , and not being paralyzed by the fear of paying your electric bill, or maybe even buying, god forbid a game ?

 

[Madcatatlas]

3 people were dumb and 3 were not dumb then. Great poll.



the question of powerdraw and powersavings is really a simple one. But everyone twists it to suit ones own agenda or argument.

I would state it as follows:
THese are mostly graphics cards ment for gaming. Even when they are not. they are still measured very much by how much power they need to operate under load, ie computer farms/server environments etc.

As a gamer, i dont use my computer in idle state. It happens ye, that i do like this, browse the net. But say im playing 5 hours a day. Id like to know the number and differance for that only. When my computer is idle, it shuts itself down, absolutely no powerdraw aside from some led lights blinking on and off in a slow interval.

I doubt anyone is ignorant of the positive and negative sides of this generation of graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD. Most would say AMD flat out won this round of performance per watt aswell as performance/cost with their Radeon 5xxx series
An honorable mention goes to Nvidias GTX460 for 3 months of best performance per cost and pretty good performance per watt aswell.

 

[Lonyo]

I meant in the NEW thread.
I just wanted to see peoples reaction and it was simple. Nobody in there right mind buys card because it might save them x$ over a three year period because it uses 15 less watts ,when its is 15% slower (when overclocked) for about the same price. Thats just dum!

How do you work this 15% slower when overclocked thing out?
I was somewhat selective (I picked games I play/use engines I care about), and the average difference at my resolution based on AT graphs between the GTX460 OC (850MHz) and HD6850 (stock) was about 15%. Add in some HD6850 overclocking and the gap reduces, so it's 15% at best, and less once you overclock the 6850. Of course I was somewhat selective (Crysis, SC2, Mass Effect 2, BFBC2) but that's because those are the only games listed that I play.
And that's assuming you get 850MHz on your GTX460.

Given that the GTX460 OC uses 55w more than a 6850 stock, that's a lot of overclocking to use up 40w (my efforts so far have come nowhere near that).

For someone playing a lot of Civ 5, then a GTX460 would be a no-brainer, but like everyone should realise, different people have different priorities.
Also I'm on a 400w PSU, which is more than enough for my slightly overclocked 6850 and overclocked C2Q, but less power use is always nicer. Still nowhere near pushing any limits, most I've seen is 270w from the wall in MSI Kombustor. Add a load more to that and it starts to raise eyebrows though.


Idle wise, both use more power for dual monitors, which everyone should have, so the numbers are meaningless.
I get +20w at idle from having 2 monitors hooked up to my 6850.

 

[happy medium]

3 people were dumb and 3 were not dumb then. Great poll.



the question of powerdraw and powersavings is really a simple one. But everyone twists it to suit ones own agenda or argument.

I would state it as follows:
THese are mostly graphics cards ment for gaming. Even when they are not. they are still measured very much by how much power they need to operate under load, ie computer farms/server environments etc.

As a gamer, i dont use my computer in idle state. It happens ye, that i do like this, browse the net. But say im playing 5 hours a day. Id like to know the number and differance for that only. When my computer is idle, it shuts itself down, absolutely no powerdraw aside from some led lights blinking on and off in a slow interval.

I doubt anyone is ignorant of the positive and negative sides of this generation of graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD. Most would say AMD flat out won this round of performance per watt aswell as performance/cost with their Radeon 5xxx series
An honorable mention goes to Nvidias GTX460 for 3 months of best performance per cost and pretty good performance per watt aswell.

It was 11 more watts under load and 15 more watts idle by the way.
He made a big deal of it like it should be a reason to buy a card thats slower, and runs hotter.
And people let him get away with it!

 

[blastingcap]

I will not even concede the gtx 460 uses more watts at idle. Vs the 6850 or 6870.
There is going to be some variance in cards and test methods that also help make this minutia , cost of life , argument moot.

At what point do you stop enjoying your hobby ? What about the satisfaction of actually having the hardware to game , and not being paralyzed by the fear of paying your electric bill, or maybe even buying, god forbid a game ?

I already anticipated your using these numbers; see my response earlier in this thread. And this thread is about GTX460 vs 6850, which seems to degenerate into a price/perf discussion a lot.

1. This thread is NOT about "is $17 per year important in the grand scheme of things?" It's more like: which card will give me better bang for the buck overall when overclocked: GTX460 vs 6850?

2. Although I agree that $17/year isn't much in the grand scheme of things, that is a separate topic that belongs in another forum.

3. And if you follow the same logic, how about this question: "is the marginal increase in performance of the GTX460 important in the grand scheme of things?"

4. So, please be consistent in your reasoning.

5. For the nth time, my conclusion remains the same: it's hard to go wrong either way. If you can't agree with that, then let's agree to disagree.

Edit: I see that He Who Shall Not Be Named twisted what I said. I never said the 6850 is a better buy than the GTX460 overall, and in fact I said that all in all, the GTX460 has slightly better price/performance, earlier in this thread. Just for the record. This is because I think about my usage patterns and it's not as high as $17 because I am good about turning stuff off when not in use. But for some people, especially those living in higher-electricity-cost areas, wattage can add up after a while when left on 24/7. New York at almost 20 cents/kWh makes my own rate look good in comparison. Wow. To repeat, my electricity cost analysis is here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30686718&postcount=77 Average among all states--without considering how many people live in each one--is 12 cents/kWh, not far from my hypothetical example using 13 cents/kWh. But the weighted average is probably higher because most of the cheap-power states are low-population. And this is in a DOWN economy with relatively cheap inputs (of coal/gas). So I think 13 cents is a pretty fair estimate of how much it costs in the U.S. on average right now for one kWh of electricity. Probably higher elsewhere, like in Europe or Africa, of course.

And as for heat that is a complex issue due to different coolers, plus heat must flow somewhere no matter how cool the GPU itself gets, so overall wattage is what one is looking at to measure the delta in room temperature. Some coolers even blow that hot air right back into the case, where it warms the CPU. Ugh.

 

[happy medium]

How do you work this 15% slower when overclocked thing out?

Hey I admit my math is bad but did you read the review in the op?
The 2 overclocked cards at maximum overclock. The gtx460beat the 6850 by a good margin. The 6850 was overclocked to 1010 core too.

 

[happy medium]

Although I agree that $17/year isn't much in the grand scheme of things, that is a separate topic that belongs in another forum.

So your still gonna argue that $1.50 a month is too much to pay for a faster,cooler running card?
And most people dont pay 13 cent a kw either. SO for someone like me it would be 65 cents a month if I ran my computer 24 hours a day.

 

[notty22]

I already anticipated your using these numbers; see my response earlier in this thread. And this thread is about GTX460 vs 6850, which seems to degenerate into a price/perf discussion a lot.

1. This thread is NOT about "is $17 per year important in the grand scheme of things?" It's more like: which card will give me better bang for the buck overall when overclocked: GTX460 vs 6850?

2. Although I agree that $17/year isn't much in the grand scheme of things, that is a separate topic that belongs in another forum.

3. And if you follow the same logic, how about this question: "is the marginal increase in performance of the GTX460 important in the grand scheme of things?"

4. So, please be consistent in your reasoning.

5. For the nth time, my conclusion remains the same: it's hard to go wrong either way. If you can't agree with that, then let's agree to disagree.

If you look back, we came to this same conclusion. I have just disagreed with the whole, electric, cost of life 'angle'.
I believe I am consistent. I also adjust my behavior in life, for certain things that reflect common sense. I DO leave the power saving features of my o/c cpu on. As example.

 

[Lonyo]

Hey I admit my math is bad but did you read the review in the op?
The 2 overclocked cards at maximum overclock. The gtx460beat the 6850 by a good margin. The 6850 was overclocked to 1010 core too.

In the 2 games they tested that I care about, it was 2fps difference at most (BFBC2 and SC2), while using 26w less power.

AvP at my res (1920x1200), the 6850 wins.
Dirt 2 you finally have a 15%+ difference.
Just Cause 2 is <10%.
Lost Planet 2 is back to 15%+
Metro 2033 is a tie (~1fps)

So yes, in 2 games of the 7 tested the difference is 15% or a bit more, in one it's 1 bit under 10%, and in the other 4 it's close enough to be pretty much a tie.
Hardly a flat 15%, or even an average 15%.

 

[blastingcap]

If you look back, we came to this same conclusion. I have just disagreed with the whole, electric, cost of life 'angle'.
I believe I am consistent. I also adjust my behavior in life, for certain things that reflect common sense. I DO leave the power saving features of my o/c cpu on. As example.

Okay good, we agree that it's hard to go wrong with either card. :thumbsup: Time to play some video games to celebrate. 😉

 

[Idontcare]

So your still gonna argue that $1.50 a month is too much to pay for a faster,cooler running card?
And most people dont pay 13 cent a kw either. SO for someone like me it would be 65 cents a month if I ran my computer 24 hours a day.

I've posted on this general topic before and my sentiment then was that if the electrical costs associated with the power-consumption of your choice of GPU represents a make-or-break decision based on the financial aspects then one should really question whether or not they can truly afford to be spending their time and money on the hobby in the first place.

On the other hand some people really do just get a real emotional charge out of feeling like they snagged the best deal possible, or a real feeling of satisfaction from knowing they analyzed their choices to the nth degree and if they could save a penny then they take that option.

Meaning the cost-savings portion of the decision matrix becomes a hobby in its own right.

If you talk to some hard-core F@H people you'll know what I'm talking about.

 

[happy medium]

AvP at my res (1920x1200), the 6850 wins.

ok 10&#37; average, still doesn't change the fact. 11 to 15 watts is hardly a difference.

?

Tie?

 

[DaveSimmons]

It was 11 more watts under load and 15 more watts idle by the way.
He made a big deal of it like it should be a reason to buy a card thats slower, and runs hotter.
And people let him get away with it!

Actually 15 more watts of waste heat at idle matters more to me than the $17/year in power.

The only real gripe I have with my 4870 is that is heat in both idle and under load, giving me the choice of noisy a fan or letting it cook itself and heat up the case. My particular model (PowerColor 512MB) runs at a minimum 500 MHz even in 2D.

Sure it's my gaming system and I'm too lazy to watercool so I know I need to put up with some noise, but it annoys me enough to consider buying a 6850 just for a little quiet.

 

[Keysplayr]

The pettiness of these arguments has reached absurd levels.
People pushing the 15 watts less are pushing AMD, and people pushing 15&#37; more performance are pushing Nvidia. And they have no idea why each are doing so.

 

[happy medium]

The pettiness of these arguments has reached absurd levels.
People pushing the 15 watts less are pushing AMD, and people pushing 15&#37; more performance are pushing Nvidia. And they have no idea why each are doing so.

The title of the thread is gtx460 overclocked vs 6850 overclocked ,who wins.

I said after reading the review posted the gtx460 won every test at a normal 1900x1080 resolution.

Blastingcap said it doesen't because in three years the 6850 will make up for the performance by using less electricity. :whiste:
A whole 11 watts less at load. Then he said yea but it uses 15 less watts at idle. 🙂unbelievable.

I went off basically. Whats next the 6850 is better because its lighter and uses higher gloss paint?

 

[3DVagabond]

Is there another review, besides the HC one in the OP that we are talking about? I see no game benches @ 1900*1080. Besides, the thread title specifies 2 specific cards and no particular resolution.

What I get from the review is, with games, if you are willing to O/C the 460 starts off faster and drops off as resolution and AA increases. No clear winner, really.

As far as the power usage goes. If you are truly concerned with power usage then don't O/C.