Image quality GTX570 vs HD6970

[Skurge]

Watching movies looks better on my 6870. But my 570 looks better in games except GTA4 and Borderlands due to mlaa.

Doesn't SSAA work in GTA4?

 

[evolucion8]

The only thing that you can expect from him is AMD bashing, no matter if the article was made 2000 BC, that's his agenda.

 

[Bearach]

I've been using nVIDIA cards right from their TNT2 range (before that I used 3Dfx!!), and I can honestly say that people whom are saying about ATi's lower quality should actually use the cards in games.

Trust me, when I got my GeForce 2 Ti, and a friend had just bought a Radeon, I made fun of him... I really was a fanboi back then, but as I got older... (jeez, I'm getting old now) I thought, it's time to try something new.

Recently my 9800GT bite the bullet after years of wonderful gaming and it was still giving me okay frame rates in most games! So I thought about either a GTX460, or a 6850. Where I was the 6850 was cheaper and yet was more powerful.

Thus my choice to try the 6850, I mean... you hear such dribble about their drivers, their image quality and I'm glad I did try this time. So far I'm really happy with what I got, it's playing all my games, all above 30fps and with "BETTER" image quality (even at same settings).

Though I'm not sure about nVIDIA's newer generation, my poor 9800GT was hands down not as good visuals (in the same games, same settings), compared to my new 6850. As others have said, it's more blurred, and I myself prefer sharpness in textures.

That's not just in a few select games, it's in all games and when people said ATi are more colourful, that's true also, though you can compensate (to some degree) with nVIDIA using Digital Vibrance.

Remember this is "my opinion" and thus far, ATi do what I prefer, textures that are sharp, but either way, in games you won't be disappointed with both really, as in some games it's marginal.

I will still recommend nVIDIA, as will I now recommend ATi to people too.

(Sorry if it's incoherant, having a few drinks... to help with a nasty cold!)

 

[load81]

Doesn't SSAA work in GTA4?

Don't know now. Its installed on my downstairs 6870 rig because I read that mlaa does alot for the image quality in gta4 without much performance hit.

 

[evolucion8]

I've been using nVIDIA cards right from their TNT2 range (before that I used 3Dfx!!), and I can honestly say that people whom are saying about ATi's lower quality should actually use the cards in games.

Trust me, when I got my GeForce 2 Ti, and a friend had just bought a Radeon, I made fun of him... I really was a fanboi back then, but as I got older... (jeez, I'm getting old now) I thought, it's time to try something new.

Recently my 9800GT bite the bullet after years of wonderful gaming and it was still giving me okay frame rates in most games! So I thought about either a GTX460, or a 6850. Where I was the 6850 was cheaper and yet was more powerful.

Thus my choice to try the 6850, I mean... you hear such dribble about their drivers, their image quality and I'm glad I did try this time. So far I'm really happy with what I got, it's playing all my games, all above 30fps and with "BETTER" image quality (even at same settings).

Though I'm not sure about nVIDIA's newer generation, my poor 9800GT was hands down not as good visuals (in the same games, same settings), compared to my new 6850. As others have said, it's more blurred, and I myself prefer sharpness in textures.

That's not just in a few select games, it's in all games and when people said ATi are more colourful, that's true also, though you can compensate (to some degree) with nVIDIA using Digital Vibrance.

Remember this is "my opinion" and thus far, ATi do what I prefer, textures that are sharp, but either way, in games you won't be disappointed with both really, as in some games it's marginal.

I will still recommend nVIDIA, as will I now recommend ATi to people too.

(Sorry if it's incoherant, having a few drinks... to help with a nasty cold!)

Good story. And hope you get rid of that cold soon!! I just got my flu shot yesterday and I feel lightheaded.... :awe:

 

[Wreckage]

Old news. You need to find an article that's using current drivers. This doesn't apply any more.

It's from December. That's hardly old news. In fact it's very recent news.

Which driver was it "fixed" in or was it a hotfix? Post a link or a review.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Nvidia profiling system their using with the drivers are the plus for me. Any driver not doing too well in the image quality is a bit of due to the fact that every game is coded differently you can tweak it. I love Nhancer

 

[3DVagabond]

It's from December. That's hardly old news. In fact it's very recent news.

Which driver was it "fixed" in or was it a hotfix? Post a link or a review.

You really should keep up with what's going on. apoppin has told me I'm not welcome at ABT, but I know they've done a follow up. Maybe, if it's not too hard, you could find it yourself.

From your own link though,

This is Mass effect, 16xAF and Trinlinear filtering enabled in the configuration file. We are in the spaceship and have positioned ourselves with a surface area where the optimization should show really well. Yet we have a more complex scene with nice textures and lots of colors, much less bland then the simple example shown previously. This time just a Radeon HD 6850 with the optimization on and off and a GeForce GTX 580.

We have a hard time spotting differences as much as you do, and while making the screenshots we increased gamma settings to 50% and applied a resolution of 2560x1600 to try it look more visible.

Do you spot the difference ? Probably not, that is the rule we life by here at Guru3D, if you can not see it without blowing up the image or altering gamma settings and what not, it's not a cheat. And sure, we know .. this game title is not a perfect example, it however is a good real world example.

Yeah, real crappy IQ. LOL They even increased gamma and used as high a res as possible and still "Do you spot the difference? Probably not" is their quote.

 

[evolucion8]

You really should keep up with what's going on. apoppin has told me I'm not welcome at ABT, but I know they've done a follow up. Maybe, if it's not too hard, you could find it yourself.

From your own link though,



Yeah, real crappy IQ. LOL They even increased gamma and used as high a res as possible and still "Do you spot the difference? Probably not" is their quote.

Don't worry, he has no credibility here with his shill propaganda. Like I said before, AMD tends to sharper textures more, that's why they may shimmer a bit more than nVidia's AF approach, but I still liking the sharper approach more than the blurry approach, specially on far distances where nVidia tends to blurry details away.

PS: Did appopin told you that? Wow that's rude, he should clarify here just in case if it was a confusion or something.

 

[BFG10K]

I'd doubt it, since most websites don't even comment on it. Three screenshots doesn't show anything, no matter how much one would love to believe it. And it's nice to dismiss drivers in some attempt to validate said testing .

I’m sorry, but you’re flat-out wrong with this comment. The AF tester shows objective proof of AMD’s AF problems. You might pretend it doesn’t exist but that doesn’t change reality.

I realize it’s difficult for to accept that your favorite vendor has IQ issues but again, the findings are mathematically provable. Put the two vendors against perfectly rendered 512xAF done on the ALUs, and nVidia’s hardware implementation comes closer to it than AMD’s does.

What's funny is you didn't mention that those tests also showed that AMD's AF was overall far superior to NVIDIA's, especially in "sharpness," since NVIDIA blurred the heck out of most textures to give the illusion of uniform transition. Interesting.

AMD’s AF is not “far superior” to nVidia’s. I couldn’t find a single instance where the angle invariance made a difference, but I found several instances where AMD’s hardware had visibly more shimmering than nVidia.

As for the sharpness, AMD simply uses a slightly negative LOD. It looks better in screenshots but causes more aliasing during motion. If you really want the same thing on nVidia then just use a slightly lower LOD bias. Of course anyone that understands IQ clamps the LOD to stop this behavior.

Either way, sorry to derail your thread OP, just wanted to make sure you aren't reading poor sources .

What “poor sources” might those be? AMD admitted the 5000 series has hardware problems, the very same problems I described in my article when the series launched. Now a similar testing methodology has shown the 6000 is better but still has some issues. My track record speaks for itself.

 

[BFG10K]

I'm not trying to be pedantic here but: is the IQ in the Nvidia 4XX and 5XX series identical? The article linked shows a 470 being tested.

nVidia’s AF has been unchanged since the 8000 series launched back in 2006. So yes, the 4xx series is the same as the 5xx series.

 

[Brakner]

Wow I stirred the pot it seems.

I decided to go with the MSI GTX570 OC since I also went with a Silverstone FT02, as I said I am more concerned with quality and quietness than speed. The FT02 can lower your video card temps by as much as 10 degrees so I chanced going for the OC version ( plus it was same price $349 CAN )

Thanks all

Brak

 

[3DVagabond]

Wow I stirred the pot it seems.

I decided to go with the MSI GTX570 OC since I also went with a Silverstone FT02, as I said I am more concerned with quality and quietness than speed. The FT02 can lower your video card temps by as much as 10 degrees so I chanced going for the OC version ( plus it was same price $349 CAN )

Thanks all

Brak

Seems like you picked the best 570 and the best case for what you want, quiet and cool. :thumbsup:

 

[Brakner]

Seems like you picked the best 570 and the best case for what you want, quiet and cool. :thumbsup:

Thanks I am driving the guys at NCIX nuts! I called them 3 times late Friday changing my components because of Anandtech threads and one in the HDD section on another board… I didn’t realize the 2TB WD Caviar Black was faster than 2 x 1TB ones. (something about double the platters and actuators) but that’s another thread and another debate heh.

Also the annoying p67 Sandy Bridge sata 3 issue didn't help ( at least they actually told me when I called ) I decided to go with the board anyway and swap it out for free in a month.

Now I have to call them again on Monday and change the video card

 

[apoppin]

PS: Did appopin told you that? Wow that's rude, he should clarify here just in case if it was a confusion or something.

It was nothing like that. There was a certain attitude that is very unwelcome at ABT forum. All posters are welcome and i made that very clear in our exchange.

In commenting on BFG10K's IQ evaluation, the AMD graphics rep admitted there were issues with AMD's IQ in the last few driver releases that have been greatly improved with the latest.

I just wanted to touch base and ensure that you were aware that we did make IQ changes in our latest Catalyst Driver release on the 26th January that addresses the issues you pointed out in the article above [BFG10K's IQ analysis].

i pointed out to him that my very latest articles pointed out that AMD Graphics' IQ returned to normal with the latest Cats, and we agreed.

 

[evolucion8]

It was nothing like that. There was a certain attitude that is very unwelcome at ABT forum. All posters are welcome and i made that very clear in our exchange.

In commenting on BFG10K's IQ evaluation, the AMD graphics rep admitted there were issues with AMD's IQ in the last few driver releases that have been greatly improved with the latest.


i pointed out to him that my very latest articles pointed out that AMD Graphics' IQ returned to normal with the latest Cats, and we agreed.

Is 3DVagabond = gstanford???

 

[3DVagabond]

It was nothing like that. There was a certain attitude that is very unwelcome at ABT forum. All posters are welcome and i made that very clear in our exchange.

I'll send you a PM to remind you of the conversation. I don't want this to become off topic.

 

[3DVagabond]

Is 3DVagabond = gstanford???

??? gstanford ???

 

[evolucion8]

??? gstanford ???

Ok, never mind.

 

[apoppin]

I'll send you a PM to remind you of the conversation. I don't want this to become off topic.

The way we each remember it is very different. There must be some mix-up/missed-communication. i am sorry to have offended you and i will state unequivocally that you are very welcome at ABT. PM sent.

As to image quality, it is very close between Nvidia and AMD. Some people prefer one over the other and 99% could never tell the difference. In game, it is pretty hard to tell unless there is visible texture crawling and shimmering - and those are hard to see in screen shots; just video.

The last couple of Cat drivers including 10-12 - which BFG10K tested - were the worst for shimmering and IQ issues that i have seen in a long time. Some of Warhead's foliage shimmered irritatingly.

As of the very latest Catalyst 11-1/11-1a, AMD has fixed some of their noticeable issues and shimmering which particularly plagued 68x0 and it is much reduced on HQ settings.

 

[3DVagabond]

The way we each remember it is very different. There must be some mix-up/missed-communication. i am sorry to have offended you and i will state unequivocally that you are very welcome at ABT. PM sent.

Let's consider it sorted out. I can accept it was a misunderstanding. Sorry for it ending up a public call out. Thanks for responding. :thumbsup: