5970 or GTX 480

[clok1966]

The PSU will be Corsair HX 1000W...

I will only use a single card...because of the heat and power issues. My main use for the rig is software development...and I need a stable setup.

software development? much better cards then gameing cards for that. I would think you would be more interested in multi monitor setups, pure CPU speed and stuff like that. I do understand gameing cards are the best "do all" cards but they are not the best for development work.

BUT if you want singel card and "right now" the 5970 will be it, of course my guess is the 480 will be put on a multi GPU card too 490? if you wait a few months.

 

[Nemesis 1]

This is Funny. My daughter sells a workstation PC . That we won't even consider selling to peeps unless they have 2 seperate 20amp 115 plugins. 1 Highend system with Fermi is another PC I wouldn't sell without 2 20amp 115v seperate line wall sockets

 

[Zebo]

Hi, Zebo. Long time no see...

What kind of problems did you have with your dual GPU card and which card did you have?

Since my GTX 280 FTW from EVGA kicked the bucket (BTW, I'll never buy an air cooled FTW card again, they are overclocked too aggressively with reference cooling, and the failure rate is outrageous), I've been running a GTX 295 single PCB version.

In fact, I kinda like this card because:
a) microstuttering is not an issue, it seems blown out of proportions by German journalists,
b) the card performs WAY better in many games, with a clearly visible advantage in terms of smoothness/FPS (Fallout 3, LotRO DX10, Crysis, etc.) and image quality (8*AA is often "free"),
c) it's actually quieter than the 280 FTW - the fan has a more pleasant sound and the card is stressed less often

but there are minor, yet annoying issues sometimes like e.g. a bug in Fallout 3 where the daytime sky with HDR flickers with every elevation change or mouse panning movement in SLI mode.

Therefore, my next setup will be single GPU again. The 480 disappointed me - I don't care so much about power draw but noise and heat simply suck and performance ain't that stellar, either, especially in older, yet demanding games like Crysis. I'd gladly buy a powerful single GPU card with large VRAM for GTA IV but I have literally nothing compelling to upgrade to.

I was wondering what your X2 issues were.

Hi there, well I'm on my second 295 and I have a 7950GX2 still sitting around here somewhere as well. (I guess I should send it in and see what I get back after it failed I bought a 8800GTX and forgot about it) The 295 is single PCB watercooled edition from EVGA. Great card very fast and no stuttering only issue is huge fail rates. When I bought it for $559 refurb at newegg it only had 2 stars but I took a chance anyway with it and had to use warranty after 6 days. Been running strong for about 4 months now (crosses fingers). My take is based on NV and ATI x2's reports is there is simply too much heat on board causing major thermal cycling (this is when traces heat up above 100C and cool back down over and over again) and eventually cards fail. This is sometimes fixed by 'oven trick' which is just remelting solder joints. Sometimes it won't fix it. Either way if your x2 fails you have no video and that sucks! Took almost two months turn around for me. Two cards prevents no video problem if you have failure on any one card. You still have one card to play with.

IMO the HD 5850 is the card to have... cheap, good performance, low power, low noise, low temps and if you get two you beat both top cards 480 and 5970. Up to 50% in one case and 1-3% the other and significantly cheaper than 5970..

EDIT: only reason I didnt go two cards in the past and I water cool for silence. This means two expensive $100+ waterblocks in addition to cards cost or two of the more expensive hydrocopper editions. But I'm changing my mind even there. Air folks no brainier, two cards over x2's.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Do what I do and have a separate gaming PC.

That way the 8+ hours a day you're working you can use a quiet system, and only turn on the noisy gaming PC when you're ready for some games.

Either use the switching on your monitor or buy a KVM switch.

 

[tweakboy]

Get the AMD/ATI 5890 dual gpu and call it a day

 

[MegaWorks]

Do what I do and have a separate gaming PC.

That way the 8+ hours a day you're working you can use a quiet system, and only turn on the noisy gaming PC when you're ready for some games.

Either use the switching on your monitor or buy a KVM switch.

Excellent advice, I game on a separate PC when I'm done I switch back to the other PC using a KVM switch. For your work PC buy the cheapest part, I suggest an AMD setup.

 

[Blue Shift]

Get the AMD/ATI 5890 dual gpu and call it a day

tweakboy, you're amazing. It takes years for ATI to plan, develop, and manufacture a new product... Whereas for you, it takes only as long as thinking up a number between 5000 and 6000. They should hire you.

 

[MegaWorks]

Get the AMD/ATI 5890 dual gpu and call it a day

LOL!! Why do you have to bring up the 5890 on every thread?

 

[biostud]

What resolution will you be gaming at?

 

[tweakboy]

I dont think 480 SLI can be the dual gpu red beast,,, imo thx,

 

[Moshi]

I just installed my Sapphire 5970 from Newegg a couple days ago and here is my setup:

Gigabyte X58A-UD5
Core i7-920 @ 4.0ghz
Sapphire Radeon 5970
Antec TPQ-850

In my case, I have 7 hard drives so I didn't really think going CF or SLI was a wise choice for me. I wanted the most powerful single card solution possible, and the 5970 was it.

To give you some perspective, if you have some nice airflow, it idles at 40C and has a TON of overclocking headroom (with a little added voltage). Despite its mild clock speeds, you can easily match 5870's (850/1200) numbers. Even OC'd, with good airflow it peaks in most games in the 70's and low 80's, which is safe for this card.

It wasn't the doomsday be all end all solution I expected, like for example it still struggles in 1920x1200 Crysis with everything Enthusiast and 8x AA (max everything) producing just around 30fps. I actually switched everything back to Gamer to a more playable 40-50fps. It was kind of a kick to the ego just having spent so much on a card and not being able to max everything out. But hey, it's a lot better than the Radeon 4850 I replaced.

Fan noise is quite bearable imo, and I personally think I made a good choice. Sure I spent $699, but it's better than spending $1000, having to get a new PSU, and possibly a new case (I stuck mine into an Antec 900 - yes it's possible!).

Bottom line, just like the other nice folks have been saying, if you're gaming at at beyond 1920x1200 and you want everything maxed, money is no issue, you can power and cool it...then go with the Fermi's....otherwise, the 5970 is a solid bet.

 

[Tempered81]

I just installed my Sapphire 5970 from Newegg a couple days ago and here is my setup:

Gigabyte X58A-UD5
Core i7-920 @ 4.0ghz
Sapphire Radeon 5970
Antec TPQ-850

In my case, I have 7 hard drives so I didn't really think going CF or SLI was a wise choice for me. I wanted the most powerful single card solution possible, and the 5970 was it.

To give you some perspective, if you have some nice airflow, it idles at 40C and has a TON of overclocking headroom (with a little added voltage). Despite its mild clock speeds, you can easily match 5870's (850/1200) numbers. Even OC'd, with good airflow it peaks in most games in the 70's and low 80's, which is safe for this card.

It wasn't the doomsday be all end all solution I expected, like for example it still struggles in 1920x1200 Crysis with everything Enthusiast and 8x AA (max everything) producing just around 30fps. I actually switched everything back to Gamer to a more playable 40-50fps. It was kind of a kick to the ego just having spent so much on a card and not being able to max everything out. But hey, it's a lot better than the Radeon 4850 I replaced.

Fan noise is quite bearable imo, and I personally think I made a good choice. Sure I spent $699, but it's better than spending $1000, having to get a new PSU, and possibly a new case (I stuck mine into an Antec 900 - yes it's possible!).

Bottom line, just like the other nice folks have been saying, if you're gaming at at beyond 1920x1200 and you want everything maxed, money is no issue, you can power and cool it...then go with the Fermi's....otherwise, the 5970 is a solid bet.

5970 is a great card. It's the fastest. About that Crysis 30FPS thing, drop the 8xAA to 2X or 0XAA when on Enthusiast or Very High. Those modes automatically apply the games Edge detect AA to the foliage and a lot of the world content. I guess it just depends on whether you like 30FPS with 8x samples or 45FPS with 2x samples. For crysis, either of those is playable.

It's funny when you compare the HD5970 to the ASUS ARES and other 4GB dual 5870 cards, it really doesn't make that much difference since going from 1gb -> 2gb isn't showing any kind of improvement. Like you said, it can easily be overclocked to 850/1200, and I've even seen a few at 1000/1300 benching with the stock cooler. For all practical purposes, the 5970 is the fastest card out, and looks to be for a long time. Even when next generations come out surpassing it, it will still have a good chance in future games & benches just because of it's brute power. I could see it pulling 25 fps on Crysis 4 at 'High' settings. ;-P

Just look how the 4870X2 is still holding up, and it's going on 2 years >

 

[Moshi]

I agree! It will live for a long time like the 4870X2. I'll try lowering the AA a bit on Crysis, and bringing down the settings to Gamer from Enthusiast worked wonders and still made things look really good!

I am using MSI Afterburner to control voltage on the GPU, but I can't seem to find one that will let me control the memory voltage. ATI seems to have pulled all of their tools. Sapphire's own Redline utility fails at 64 bit OS.

Anyways, not to detract from the OP's dilemna. 5970 rocks!

 

[Rubycon]

5970 and 480s are failures waiting to happen. too much heat and power into a small area. Get two 5850s just as fast as 5970 , cheaper, quieter and if something happens you still have one card while other is in the mail. I will never buy another x2 card after many issues.

My 5970 plays solitaire just fine. I don't know what you were doing over there.

 

[tweakboy]

Very neat you can now turn on AA to like 16x and not get a performance hit ,, hmmmm

 

[nOOky]

Hi,

First let me apologise that my first post is a lame vs. question. But I need some advice...

I am building a new no limit(s) rig. I will use it for software development and of course some gaming

Mobo will probably be: Asus P6T6 WS Revolution
CPU: Core i7 980-X

Should I go for ATI 5970 or Nvidia GTX 480?

Thanks!

Single card, no limits, and available right now? ATI 5970.

 

[Rubycon]

Single card, no limits, and available right now? ATI 5970.

Not really. They are quite hard to find at any price.

 

[CitanUzuki]

you can get one right now at newegg

 

[nOOky]

Yep, you just have to shop around.

 

[pmv]

Do what I do and have a separate gaming PC.

That way the 8+ hours a day you're working you can use a quiet system, and only turn on the noisy gaming PC when you're ready for some games.

Either use the switching on your monitor or buy a KVM switch.

Makes a lot of sense. This Dell is crap for gaming but its whisper quiet.

Only drawback is when you forget which PC the keyboard is connected to and accidentally delete files or God knows what on one when you think you are typing on the other.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Honestly Bing Shopping is actually pretty good in addition if MS is will to give you cash back why not use it.

 

[Madcatatlas]

Id get the single GPU card tbh. Not because its better, but because its better in SLI/Crossfire than the dualgpu cards are. So the important bit for me would be getting a great singlegpu card and then having the option of SLing/Crossfiring that later on for better scaling.

Obviously if i had a motherboard with 1 gpu slot, id get the best card to jug in there.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Newegg dropped the sapphire 5970 price to 689 with free shipping. Still $90 over msrp but they have it and the diamond if you want one now. I was going to get one but decided to get the 480 instead.

 

[Attic]

i vote 5870, plenty of performance with less noise/power/heat.

480 and 5970 are performance champs though.

 

[apoppin]

Do what I do and have a separate gaming PC.

That way the 8+ hours a day you're working you can use a quiet system, and only turn on the noisy gaming PC when you're ready for some games.

Either use the switching on your monitor or buy a KVM switch.

*everything* i do PC, is done on my notebook - *except gaming*
- you have the absolute best of both worlds - super-low power and you can use your regular display from your laptop with no sacrifices at all

Then when i fire up 5870 CrossFire ... or 4870-X3 Trifire .. or GTX 480 for gaming (or benching), i don't feel at all wasteful and can enjoy the experience. Plus the savings on my power bill is a consideration