UPDATE: 5850 vs 5870 vs 4870 CF

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
If you are buying now, the 5850 is hands down the way to go IMO. The 5870 demands far too much of a premium given the relatively small edge it has in performance.

As far as what the nV boards are going to do, it is likely they will be a bit faster and a bit more expensive then the ATi parts, but that is just a guess based on what we know about the part. They may come out far slower then ATi, they may be way ahead, the may be obnoxiously expensive.... well, I guess it is a safe bet they won't be insanely cheap

haha, true. Although, I do think that nvidia learned their lesson last time and will price their cards according to what the market will bear this time at least.

Originally posted by: ChorniyVolk
Well what kind of performance impact are we talking? Last time I checked, AA can cut a huge number of frames down, and at 1920x1200, how many jagged edges will I really see, and even then, how clear will they be unless I'm looking for them?

And aside from eyefinity, anything else? I'm not dogging ATI by the way, just in case it comes off that way.

and 5850 CF destroys a 5870 you say? By how much? I'll gocheck the anandtech benchmarks, but that sounds interesting. On the other hand, 560 bucks instead of the 380 I planned on, that hurts man, that really hurts.

EDIT: Hmm, seems you're right about 5850 being better in price : performance than the 5870 as far as price increases between them and the 5850 to 5870, factoring in an MSRP of $260, that is, which I got wrong originally.

Hmm, well now I'm confused.

5870/50 does a much better job of AA implementation than previous gen cards. in fact, 4xxx was a big improvement over g92/94/etc and even outperformed gt200 with 8xAA +. 5870/50 continues to improve upon this, to the point that the more AA you run on it the more it outperforms all comers. If you end up going with either 5870 or 5850 then you owe it to yourself to at least try out AA, I suspect that you won't be able to see any performance slowdown and will probably see at least a small amount of IQ improvement.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: OCguy

Why does that sound like a commercial?

Why do you sound like a troll?

Originally posted by: happy medium
GPU PhysX games

Heres the real (Stiil incomplete) much longer list of Physx games.

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_all.html

None of those games supports hardware GPU PhysX acceleration and will run fine with ATi hardware and game consoles with all the PhysX effects turned on which most of them are enabled by default or cannot be disabled (Like Havok).

Why is Need for speed Shift on that list and not on the list he posted then?

The list he posted is outdated?

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: happy medium
Why is Need for speed Shift on that list and not on the list he posted then?

The list he posted is outdated?

http://forum.needforspeed.com/...posts/list/314721.page

Did Need for Speed Shift supports GPU PhysX acceleration?

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/po...st/313448.page#3005168

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: happy medium
Why is Need for speed Shift on that list and not on the list he posted then?

The list he posted is outdated?

http://forum.needforspeed.com/...posts/list/314721.page

Did Need for Speed Shift supports GPU PhysX acceleration?

I'm not totally sure but I turn it on (physx) when I play it.

Let me check?

 

[videogames101]

5850 is best card for the price right now, hands down.

Also, lol @ those of you who think a proprietary physics engine is a good reason to buy a video card...

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: happy medium
I'm not totally sure but I turn it on (physx) when I play it.

Let me check?

Good, but that doesn't mean that is using your GPU for PhysX calculations, EA never said that would be supported, please enlight us if you can.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: happy medium
I'm not totally sure but I turn it on (physx) when I play it.

Let me check?

Good, but that doesn't mean that is using your GPU for PhysX calculations, EA never said that would be supported, please enlight us if you can.

I take it my fps will drop when I turn it on if it works?
I have to switch to windows 7, I have it installed on the other drive. I'll try it .

 

[Wreckage]

Sounds like it does
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/306188.page

If you do not have an Nvidia card, geforce 8 or higher, the PhysX processing gets shunted onto your processor and maxes it out, effectively bottlenecking your system regardless of resolution or settings.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
You could wait for Nvidia's next card, but chances are they launch the high-end part first, which has a estimated die size of roughly 500mm2. That means it will be EXPENSIVE.

Actually they realistically can't launch only the super highend part. They wouldn't get hardly any sales or ROI from that. They would need to launch at least a mid-range part also, like ATI did with the 5870 and 5850.

And actually, since NVidia doesn't play bandwidth restriction games the way ATI has, NVidia could easily release a card for $199 that performs as well as the 5850 and CRUSHES the 5770. Doing that would completely control the mid-range gaming enthusiast market. But we'll see if they're actually capable of doing it.

um, what did they do with gt200? right, they only launched the high end part. In fact, they only in the past few months came out with anything based upon gt200 other than high end parts. gts 250 is a rebadge 9800gtx+, which is a 9800gtx, which is a slightly upgraded 8800gts 512...you get the point.

Having said all of that, they are definitely due for a midrange upgrade.

What card is nvidia going to push out for $199 in the jan-mar time frame? even if they decide to kill their margins and charge only $199 for a gtx 360 or equivalent card, how hard would it be for 5850 to drop down to $199 or $179? when you look at 4850 selling for less than $100 today and still not getting eol'd then it seems realistic to assume that 5850 can sell for quite a bit less than $200 and still make sense for amd. By the way, nvidia's stated strategy is top end first, then midrange later on, so don't expect a true midrange rollout from them until later in 2010. By then 5830 should be here to bridge the gap between 5770 and 5850.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Sounds like it does
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/306188.page

If you do not have an Nvidia card, geforce 8 or higher, the PhysX processing gets shunted onto your processor and maxes it out, effectively bottlenecking your system regardless of resolution or settings.

Since its known that ATi has slowdown issues with that game, the only way to know exactly is playing the game with an nVidia card and disabling PhysX to test it plus using Rivatuner to monitor CPU usage.

 

[rpglord]

Originally posted by: ChorniyVolk
Mentioned twice, but no worries, res is 1920x1200.

So I'll keep the AA question as is, but I'll change the 60FPS question: What games won't be able to reach 60 FPS with an overclocked 5850 at that res without AA, and how many of them will not be able to reach that due to a bottleneck by my cpu (an i7 920 running at 4GHz)?

Now hit me with that bad news, I'm assuming the list is short (and by assuming, I mean praying).

There is lots of games which wont reach 60 fps even with 5870 if you put all other settings on max,and only disable AA
Some of them :
Crysis
Armed Assault 2
Cryostasis ( only when physx is enabled...so I dont know how this fit into list since you asked about radeon card )
There is even more games which can reach 60 fps,but not stay at 60 fps through entire game
Basically,you underestimate today's games. They can be pretty demanding...Reaching constant 60 fps should not be a goal since you do need crossfire/sli solution for that
Why not be satisfied with 30 fps ? Pretty much every game can reach that on new radeons,even with AA enabled.
You don't really get any benefits for running game at 60 fps. Just use vsync and you get same effect ( no screen tearing )

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Sounds like it does
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/306188.page

If you do not have an Nvidia card, geforce 8 or higher, the PhysX processing gets shunted onto your processor and maxes it out, effectively bottlenecking your system regardless of resolution or settings.

Well maybe EA should use a real physic engine instead physx.

Here's just some of the physx bugs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoAPkmqod-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOzxUuF6tM8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSn45WouSjw

 

[cbn]

It will be up to 50% more powerful and probably cost 75% more money.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Just learning
It will be up to 50% more powerful and probably cost 75% more money.

Do you mind picking my lottery numbers for me if you are right?

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: happy medium

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: OCguy

Why does that sound like a commercial?

Why do you sound like a troll?

Originally posted by: happy medium
GPU PhysX games

Heres the real (Stiil incomplete) much longer list of Physx games.

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_all.html

None of those games supports hardware GPU PhysX acceleration and will run fine with ATi hardware and game consoles with all the PhysX effects turned on which most of them are enabled by default or cannot be disabled (Like Havok).

Why is Need for speed Shift on that list and not on the list he posted then?

If there is an error with the list, then that is not my fault. It is compiled by NZONE and not myself. They keep a separate list for GPU accelerated PhysX games and one which utilizes PhysX whether it's GPU assisted or just software based.

The link I linked to and the one you linked to goes back and forth. Just click on the link at the bottom of the linked page (if that makes sense to you folks). Basically go to the link either I or happy medium linked to. Now go to the bottom of the page. There's a link to jump back and forth between GPU accelerated PhysX games and software PhysX games.

If we want to do software PhysX then we could throw in the list of software Havok games which is pretty much just as large.

Need for Speed Shift utilizes software based PhysX. This is the same argument Wreckage has been throwing out when hyping PhysX and trashing Havok. He posts the NZONE list which lists every single game that utilizes PhysX and doesn't care if it's hardware accelerated or not. I mean, there's iPod games on that list. If we're going to argue GPU PhysX then lets post the proper list. If we're going to argue software PhysX then someone can go post an equally impressive list of games that uses Havok.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: Just learning
It will be up to 50% more powerful and probably cost 75% more money.

Do you mind picking my lottery numbers for me if you are right?

75% more money would be $665. (Nvidia has launched around this MSRP many times before)

It also may not be 50% faster even though it has 50% more bandwidth and 50% more xtors. Factor in that HD5870 will probably drop in price by the time GT300 launches (affecting the GT300 launch MSRP)

Still I think this will be an expensive Video card. Since it will be the top GPU price will likely not scale linearly with performance either. Nvidia will be justified in getting premium pricing.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
...Keep in mind though, that if you get the 5870 now at current pricing, and Fermi comes and destroys it, you won't get nearly what you paid for the 5870...

...I have to stress again the fact that the PhysX driver hack may not always be doable, or prevented in future driver revisions...

Oh noes... I bought a 5870!!!

I feel so...
...so afraid...
...so uncertain
...so doubtful...


The 5870 has actually gone up in price since I bought mine, due to low availability. Not that this is a good thing for buyers or ATI.

However, the OP could realistically buy a 5870, try it out for a bit, and sell it with very minimal loss. I actually did that with a 4870 X2 last year. I think I 'rented' that card for about $20-30. It all worked out... Newegg/ATI made a sale, I got to test out both of the top cards and decide which one I preferred, plus the buyer got an almost brand new 4870 X2 at a slight discount.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
...Keep in mind though, that if you get the 5870 now at current pricing, and Fermi comes and destroys it, you won't get nearly what you paid for the 5870...

...I have to stress again the fact that the PhysX driver hack may not always be doable, or prevented in future driver revisions...

Oh noes... I bought a 5870!!!

I feel so...
...so afraid...
...so uncertain
...so doubtful...


The 5870 has actually gone up in price since I bought mine, due to low availability. Not that this is a good thing for buyers or ATI.

However, the OP could realistically buy a 5870, try it out for a bit, and sell it with very minimal loss. I actually did that with a 4870 X2 last year. I think I 'rented' that card for about $20-30. It all worked out... Newegg/ATI made a sale, I got to test out both of the top cards and decide which one I preferred, plus the buyer got an almost brand new 4870 X2 at a slight discount.

DUDE!! I didn't mean it THAT way.
This guy is looking to dump whatever he gets now when Fermi comes out. Possibly. Just seems like a lot of cash to spend on something you'll dump in a few months.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
[DUDE!! I didn't mean it THAT way.
This guy is looking to dump whatever he gets now when Fermi comes out. Possibly. Just seems like a lot of cash to spend on something you'll dump in a few months.

I agree 100%. Keep what you have if you don't mind waiting 2-3 months and then get whatever best suits your needs/wants.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
DUDE!! I didn't mean it THAT way.
This guy is looking to dump whatever he gets now when Fermi comes out. Possibly. Just seems like a lot of cash to spend on something you'll dump in a few months.

I don't think he's looking to dump whatever he gets when Fermi comes out. Ideally, I get the impression that he wants to keep whatever he buys. However, I get the impression that he's approaching the situation with the realistic expectation that whatever video card he buys something better will eventually come along. If that just so happens to be Fermi (whenever that is supposed to happen), he isn't opposed to selling the 5870.

either way... It's doubtful that anything that comes it in a while will drop in value the way a high end NVIDIA card did between 2008 and 2009. I've bought and sold a number of cards (both NV and ATI) over the past few years, I can tell you without a doubt that the GTX 280 lost the absolute most value of any card I've every owned over a generation. I seriously considered keeping the GTX 280 as my 'in between card' (what I now use a 7900GS for) because I could only sell it for so little.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
...Keep in mind though, that if you get the 5870 now at current pricing, and Fermi comes and destroys it, you won't get nearly what you paid for the 5870...

...I have to stress again the fact that the PhysX driver hack may not always be doable, or prevented in future driver revisions...

Oh noes... I bought a 5870!!!

I feel so...
...so afraid...
...so uncertain
...so doubtful...


The 5870 has actually gone up in price since I bought mine, due to low availability. Not that this is a good thing for buyers or ATI.

However, the OP could realistically buy a 5870, try it out for a bit, and sell it with very minimal loss. I actually did that with a 4870 X2 last year. I think I 'rented' that card for about $20-30. It all worked out... Newegg/ATI made a sale, I got to test out both of the top cards and decide which one I preferred, plus the buyer got an almost brand new 4870 X2 at a slight discount.

DUDE!! I didn't mean it THAT way.
This guy is looking to dump whatever he gets now when Fermi comes out. Possibly. Just seems like a lot of cash to spend on something you'll dump in a few months.

If the OP is worried about depreciation maybe he should be considering HD5850? Overclocked HD5850 @ 1000 Mhz core is 6% stronger than a stock HD5870 anyway.

 

[lopri]

Those bouncing car videos are hilarious.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: ChorniyVolk
Also, kind of related, there's a deal for 2 4870s and a PSU (which I'd sell) for $270, do they generally surpass the 5850? Benchmarks have them winning and losing.

Then again, I'd be using an extra slot, risking potential trouble with a dual GPU set up (if that's a problem that still exists), won't have eyefinity support or DX11. Yeah, probably not worth it.

Anyway, so yeah, just wondering about the AA, the list of 60FPS allergic games, and what cards you guys would recommend for physx processing.

Are your HD 4870's 512MB or 1GB version? If they're the 1GB version are as fast as a single HD 4870X2 which is often slighly faster than the HD 5870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?ItemList=Combo.273279

1GB

So what do you think?

and damn, this thread exploded, will have to go through it now.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: ChorniyVolk
Can it run it at all? I was mainly looking at Batman AA

nvidia's $129 card out today outperforms amd's 5870 because of the hardware physix capability etc etc.

you can hack amd cards to run physix unless you're on win 7.

Wait, what's that about a $129 card outperforming the 5870?

And yes, I'll be using Windows 7.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Alright, so going by what you guys are saying, as was talked about earlier ITT, this is the best option for me: 5850 overclocked with cheap nvidia card for physx processing. Would like some comments on that CF 4870 1GB option though.

Alright, so I'm left with a few questions once more:

Fuck 60 FPS, what games are like to dip below 30FPS with that set up assuming my cpu isn't bottlenecking the game (which I really doubt would be the case, for obvious reasons)? AA on or off?

What card should I get for physx processing? Is the lack of suggestions implying that the 9600gso is my best choice?

Also, somewhat related, that Super AA stuff that the 5000 series implements, is that exclusive to ATI, or is it just a DX11 feature? I like the idea that I can turn it on and old games look delicious, that's a justifiable use of AA. Is that the default AA that is also to be used in newer games? And with the 5000 series, AA won't take that big a chunk off of performance, you say?