UPDATE: 5850 vs 5870 vs 4870 CF

[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).

 

[SlowSpyder]

Personally, there's no way I'd wait for Nvidia's next card if I was ready to buy now. The 5850 is just too attractive at it's price for the performance you get, and is loaded with features. I could see waiting if we knew more about Fermi, but we don't know how fast it'll be... though I'm confident it will be faster than the 5870, we can't even say that for certain. It's quite possible Nvidia will focus more on GPGPU performance since that is the direction they are trying to go, and gaming performance won't be faster than a 5870. We don't know how much it'll cost. We dont' know when it will be released.

If we knew it'd be competitively priced, faster, and be here in 45 days, then it makes sense to wait if you don't need to upgrade right now. But as it is now, I don' think we know enough to say that it's even worth waiting for.

If Physx is a must-have, you can always used the money you save on a 5850 vs. the 5870 and buy an Nvidia card to run Physx with the 'hack'.

Just my $.02.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Yeah, I'm thinking that's the best option.

I doubt I'd need the full difference for the physx card though. What card should I get for physx? Anything that can process physx fine at $20-$30? Or will I have to go up to $40-$50 for the 9600GSO? That'll be enough to process physx, right?

 

[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.

 

[scooterlibby]

Kind of pertinent - http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16089/1/

This might be a good card if you want to take up only one PCI-e but still have a dedicated card for physx. Personally, I am waiting for Fermi to make my decision between the red or green team.

 

[OCGuy]

We really dont know much about the next gen nV card, so anyone here pretending they know what would be better/worse than 5XXX..well....yea.

 

[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.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: OCguy


We really dont know much about the next gen nV card, so anyone here pretending they know what would be better/worse than 5XXX..well....yea.

Well we do know that it will support DX11 and PhysX. So you get the best of both worlds.

While there are really no DX11 games there are plenty of PhysX titles available.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Have a powercolor 4850 and a friend of mine as a couple - running fine so far.

If you are waiting for Fermi, you might still have to wait a few months.

If you had a modern part like a 4870 or GTX260, I would wait, in your situation I probably wouldn't.

Anyway how many hours game play is batman:AA?

 

[evolucion8]

You have two options;

You can buy a cheap nVidia or ATi card like the GTS 250 or Radeon HD 4850 and wait until Fermi arrives, surely it will be faster, but as seeing the tendency with past GPU wars, it shouldn't be much faster, I expect like 30% better performance which it isn't bad, but does it worth your wait?

Or buy an HD 5850 or HD 5870 and no more worries plus DX11 and the fastest single GPU currenty, that's gonna stay like that for many months from now on, If I can enjoy so many games with ultra high details and lots of AA in all my games like Batman AA, Resident Evil 5 and Crysis with my HD 4870, imagine what can you do with the HD 5800 series.

 

[miteethor]

I had the opportunity to play Batman AA on both an SLI 8800GT and an ATI 5870. My computer is about 3 years old (Core2 Duo 8400 3.0 Ghz not overclocked)

I played the first half with the Physx:
The paper stuff is cool. You walk everywhere and paper flaps around. There are piles of paper and if you punch it it will flutter around. You can also break tiles but you barely notice that for the most part. There is 1 scene where you are walking down a hallway and it looks like all of the walls are crumbling down in a shower of 1000s of particles. There's also a scene with Scarecrow where there is paper flying everywhere and it's kind of cool looking.

HOWEVER

The Phys-X is BUGGY. Several times it would break on me completely and paper would be broken, floating up in the air. Once it stopped working I had to completely exit the game, sometimes disable/re-enable the Phys-X just to get it to work.

During the fight with Bane I apparently took longer to finish than I was supposed to, because Bane kept breaking parts of the wall creating so much trash on the ground my computer locked.

The particles themselves are kind of fakey-looking. Like once it becomes detached, it's more like a low-rez blob of nothing - it doesn't have the same texture clarity of the original part it came from.

So overall the Phys-X is kind of cool, but REALLY buggy, very gimmicky, and if you didn't know it wasn't there you wouldn't miss it. I finished the game on an ATI5870 and didn't miss the stuff that I knew wasn't there because the game is just awesome anyway.

On a side note, I benched Crysis in Very high on my old rig in 1680x1050 and 4xAA caused about a 12% performance hit. My understanding is the new driver coming out today fully supports their new AA, and before today the 58xx series was only partially supported in the drivers. Also, you may think you don't see anything but when you are rendering lots of parallel lines or meshes, fences, screens, etc you will see popping no matter what you do, but the AA will certainly help it.

 

[betasub]

:thumbsup: Nice summary, evo!

OP seems to be thinking it through too much. If a card is needed now, go for one of evo's two options based on your current gaming requirements now.

 

[nOOky]

It's like anything else. You can keep waiting and waiting, because something new is coming out soon. Or in the meantime you can be enjoying what you have and not stressing out over numbers.
If money is no concern, I'd buy an nvidia GTX285, on the ATI side I'd get a 5850. I'd overclock either one. DX11 isn't an issue right now. If Batman is the only game you will play then probably nvidia. If you don't care about PhysX like most people, play a variety of games, then get the ATI for it's higher framerate and lower cost. Heck, you can buy the 5850 and a decent PhysX card for the same price as a GTX285 and run the driver hack.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: OCguy


We really dont know much about the next gen nV card, so anyone here pretending they know what would be better/worse than 5XXX..well....yea.

Well we do know that it will support DX11 and PhysX. So you get the best of both worlds.

While there are really no DX11 games there are plenty of PhysX titles available.

GPU PhysX games

There's the whopping list of games utilizing GPU accelerated PhysX. You can wait till the GT300/Fermi comes out if you want if there's a game you feel you really want/need to play with PhysX enabled. No one has a clue when the GT300 will be out and those who know are under NDA's.

And contrary to what Wreckage says, there is a DX11 title already out. That is Battleforge which was updated to support DX11 in September of 2009. This little fact has been pointed out to Wreckage on at least three occasions on these forums. Depending on where you live, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, which has DX11 support, is already released as of Oct 2 2009 and will be released to the rest of the world on the first quarter of 2010.

Dirt 2, another DX11 title, will be released before the end of the year. Alien vs Predator, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online are all scheduled for Q1 of 2010 as well. That's not including the TBA games like Crysis 2, F1 2010, Gengis Khan, Grid 2, and game engines like Frostbite 2 (Battlefield), CryEngine 3, Vision Engine, and Unigine

DX11 support will benefit all gamers regardless of whether you use ATI or nVidia while PhysX is nVidia only (hack aside). The fact is DX11 adoption and support in games has been at a much faster rate than PhysX adoption and by early next year, there will be nearly as many games that support DX11 as there are games that support PhysX.

Call of Pripyat looks very good between DX10 and DX11. Granted some of the effects are subtle.

 

[yh125d]

I'd go for a 5850 now and OC it a bit. Stick with that til fermi comes out. When it does, assess your situation. If you're happy with the solo 5850 (at your res and since you don't use AA it canmax out most games easily) stick there. If you want more juice, compare between adding a second 5850 for ~$225 or so hopefully (there could be a price drop by then and maybe some rebates), vs. selling the 5850 for ~$200 maybe and buying a GTX380 or whatev they name it

 

[ZimZum]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
If you are buying now, the 5850 is hands down the way to go IMO.

+1

 

[Rezist]

I'd go with the 5850 personally. However if you want to wait for Fermi I'd try to save up atleast 599.99. This si the highest price possible for it, 499.99 is probably more realisitc and you will be covered. Also we won't know when it's actaully available. It could be anywhere from January to March.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: akugami

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: OCguy


We really dont know much about the next gen nV card, so anyone here pretending they know what would be better/worse than 5XXX..well....yea.

Well we do know that it will support DX11 and PhysX. So you get the best of both worlds.

While there are really no DX11 games there are plenty of PhysX titles available.

GPU PhysX games

There's the whopping list of games utilizing GPU accelerated PhysX. You can wait till the GT300/Fermi comes out if you want if there's a game you feel you really want/need to play with PhysX enabled. No one has a clue when the GT300 will be out and those who know are under NDA's.

And contrary to what Wreckage says, there is a DX11 title already out. That is Battleforge which was updated to support DX11 in September of 2009. This little fact has been pointed out to Wreckage on at least three occasions on these forums. Depending on where you live, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, which has DX11 support, is already released as of Oct 2 2009 and will be released to the rest of the world on the first quarter of 2010.

Dirt 2, another DX11 title, will be released before the end of the year. Alien vs Predator, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online are all scheduled for Q1 of 2010 as well. That's not including the TBA games like Crysis 2, F1 2010, Gengis Khan, Grid 2, and game engines like Frostbite 2 (Battlefield), CryEngine 3, Vision Engine, and Unigine

DX11 support will benefit all gamers regardless of whether you use ATI or nVidia while PhysX is nVidia only (hack aside). The fact is DX11 adoption and support in games has been at a much faster rate than PhysX adoption and by early next year, there will be nearly as many games that support DX11 as there are games that support PhysX.

Call of Pripyat looks very good between DX10 and DX11. Granted some of the effects are subtle.

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

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

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Or buy an HD 5850 or HD 5870 and no more worries plus DX11 and the fastest single GPU currenty, that's gonna stay like that for many months from now on, If I can enjoy so many games with ultra high details and lots of AA in all my games like Batman AA, Resident Evil 5 and Crysis with my HD 4870, imagine what can you do with the HD 5800 series.

Why does that sound like a commercial?

 

[yacoub]

5850. no reason to get a 5870 unless you're running, like, dual 30" displays.

 

[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.

 

[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.

Originally posted by: ChorniyVolk
9600gso until Fermi is released? Sorry guy, but I think if the nvidia card is worth it, selling the 5870 would be more sensible. A hold-me-over card would have to be something that wouldn't completely bottleneck my system like that. I think I will go with the selling the card option, again, if nvidia's is that much better.

But maybe I can pick up a $40 9600gso for physx with the workaround, unless there are better (cheaper?) options.

Haha, um, er, yeah, thanks for the advice. I think that I might try using my 9600 gso for phsyix when dragon age comes out...uh, just to check it out of course...I have a feeling that I will be eating my anti-nvidia slanders here very soon...

btw, if you do end up getting a 9600gso, make sure to get the 96 sp, 192 bit version. that is just an artificially cut down 8800gt. I just found out that my 9600 gso is one of those, I think I'll oc it and see how high it will go.

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

+1

 

[bryanW1995]

dp

 

[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).

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Oc the 5850 to 950MHz and it's on par with a 5870. And depending on the price of new nvidia cards, you can sell a HD 5870 for a lot more then $200. Hardware depreciates fast, but not that fast

er, gtx 280 much?