4770 VS 5670 for value and noise level?

[brett42]

Hi,
My current setup is a 8600gt, Athlon X2 at 2.2ghz, 2GB DDR2 667, GeForce 6150. I have a PSU with dual 18A 12V rails if needed.

Want to play: Borderlands, Bioshock, Fallout 3 at 1920x1080, lower settings, no AA/AF is fine as long as they are playable.

I'm in Hawaii, where shipping gets pretty high, so I'm mostly looking in Amazon. I can get an XFX 4770 for $112 or a Sapphire 5670 for $93. It looks like either would meet my needs. I know the 4770 is faster, but my main priorities are value and idle noise. The 4770 idles almost 20w hotter in the benchmarks I've seen, but it also has a dual-slot cooler. Either in general, or with knowledge of these specific cards, would either be noticeably louder?

Also, I've seen gaming benchmarks where an Athlon II gets large improvements over the AM2 X2 I have now, but those benchmarks are usually run with very high end GPUs. Am I correct in assuming that I would still be mostly bottlenecked at the video card with a 4770 at 19x10? If not, would an Athlon II have trouble with the slower hypertransport on my AM2 motherboard?

Any advice would be appreciated, alternative suggestions or anything I may be missing would also be fine.

 

[brybir]

1.My guess would be that generally the 5670 will be more on the quiet side, BUT, you really need to read reviews on any individual card to see what the noise characteristics are because it really varies from card to card based on what cooler design is used by each company.

2.As to your question about Athlon X2 --->2 Athlon II you can take a look at this review on anandtech

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3572&p=9

In that review they compare a 2.8ghz Athlon X2 with the newer Athlon II X2, and you can check out the differences.

My take would be that if you are gaming at 19*x10* that you are first going to be bottlenecked most by the GEforce 6150, and the move to a 5670 would be a big upgrade in that sense. Your CPU will not limit you that much with a 5670, although it will some, but not as much as the 6150 is right now.

3. Whether an AM2 board will take a AM2+ processor is often determined by your motherboard. You need to identify the brand and the model number (you can use CPUZ, google for it, or look on the board itself) and check what processors it supports and whether you need to update the bios or not.

 

[toyota]

yes that cpu is going to noticeably limit any decent card but a 1920x1080 you might as well get the 4770 since its a little faster overall. just dont expect to get the most playable experience in every game because that cpu that will struggle with some games especially on higher settings.

 

[brett42]

Hi,
The Geforce 6150 is the motherboard, it's basically an nforce4 with an IGP. I have a discreet 8600gt installed now, but it's pretty slow at 19x10. I don't remember the model number, but the newest BIOS does have the Athlon II 255 on the supported list, so it should be OK with AM3 if I do need an upgrade, though I'm not sure how much an AM3 CPU on an AM2 motherboard degrades performance.

I had thought that most cards were based on some kind of reference design for each GPU, I'll start looking into reviews for the specific models.

 

[LoneNinja]

I would recommend the 4770 over the 5670 for gaming at the resolution. As to noise level you'll need to find reviews on specific cards as the manufacturers usually use different cooling solutions. You should also upgrade that cpu, my X2 5000 @ 3.0Ghz limited my fps in some games when paired with a 4670, not dramatically, but it did.

 

[Termie]

This might throw you for a loop, but the 4770 can actually be had for less than the 5670 at Newegg. For gaming, the 4770 is clearly superior. The 5670 is ridiculously low power, but the 4770 is also considered very lower power, so that shouldn't be the deciding factor unless you're not going to game much.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127452

Granted, shipping to Hawaii looks to be about $18, but it's still only $110 shipped and it's a nice cooler. Might be a wash if Amazon ships for free to Hawaii.

 

[blanketyblank]

Sorry, but $112 seems really high for a 4770 to me. That card should be under $90 since its performance is about on par with an 8800/9800 GT (have you considered these). Personally I'd go with the 5670 since it's a $20 price difference and should be able to play games like FO3 at low at those resolutions just fine. It's almost playable at max at 1680 x 1050 with 4AA so dropping those should give you playable frame rates.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/01/14/ati-radeon-hd-5670-review/4


is newegg, tiger direct, or any other store an option? Lots of items at newegg have free shipping, but I'm not sure if it's to hawaii. Possibly ebay might work as well.

also try looking at one of the nvidia cards that are roughly on par with the 250.
http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-GeForce-...095863&sr=8-10

Also might want to check local stores. I just saw the 9800GT at bestbuy for $74 while the GTS 250 was $170. It's quite a discount considering they are almost the same card.

 

[brett42]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm starting to think the $20 more for a 4770 might be worth it.

That MSI 4770 from Newegg does come out a few bucks cheaper with faster shipping. That cooler looks good, and it looks like the ATI drivers let you manually set fan speeds, so I can just turn it down and let it idle a few degrees hotter if the noise bothers me.

Would a 9800GT have any major advantages at the same price? They seem to benchmark about even, and they draw more power.

Local stores are pretty much out. This town just has a Walmart and an Officemax, which mostly have bad selections at ridiculous prices. Any reputable online store would be fine, but it's hard to beat Amazon to Hawaii when you add the cost of shipping.

 

[blanketyblank]

Well I suggest the nvidia cards since within the 70-100 bracket their old top of the line cards become competitive with the ATI offerings. For instance you can sometimes find them in the 70-80 range.
Like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125288

It depends a lot on what cooler you get in terms of sound though. What would be very good if you can get it though is a 4850 or 4830 for under $100, but it's tough to find them now. I've also seen 4870s for 100 at MicroCenter, but that was rare and I doubt you can get that in HI.

Once you're going over $110 there are deals on the 5770 which make it awefully difficult to beat. For example this one ends up at $135, and it will smoke the others in terms of performance and power usage is also pretty low.
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1850107