Which GTX 570?

[bovinda]

Right now is not a good time to purchase a GPU IMO. My advice to you is to try to find something on sale that suits your needs. I've been seeing the 1gb GTX 460s go for around $100 lately, and a pair of them in SLI would crush the 570 for less money. Even a single GTX 460 can handle just about any game out there at moderately high settings.

Thanks you guys for the explanations. That's another thing I was wondering about...if I should just wait. The 28nm GPUs are just a few months off, right? And I feel like there haven't been any advances in the GPU market for most of the last year in the price range.

Well...two questions. Is micro-stutter much of an issue with SLI set-ups anymore?

And two...the games I'm most interested in are Skyrim and BF3. Would two 460 GTXs be able to handle those at 1920x1200 at ultra settings?

 

[SickBeast]

I don't know about Skyrim, but BF3 runs very nicely on my GTX 460s in SLI at 1920x1200. I use a blend of "high" and "ultra" settings, and can use "medium" post AA. HBAO bogs me down a bit but I have a feeling that you would be fine with it using 1gb cards (mine are 768mb). I tend to use SSAO as it gives me a more consistent experience.

With 1gb per card you may in fact be able to run the game on Ultra, and even if you can't, you might just have to turn the textures down to "high".

I have heard that Skyrim needs a lot of VRAM, so if you're really interested in that game it might benefit you to go with a 2gb AMD card.

I don't notice much micro stutter if any. What I find happens in games is that I'll get the odd "dip" in FPS, say every minute or two (but often it doesn't happen at all). I figure it's just the system transferrring data over the PCI-E bus to load up the VRAM with new scenes.

The 28nm GPUs are right around the corner, yes.

If I were in your position I think I would go with a single GTX 460 1gb, see how it goes, and if you want more power just grab another one if they're cheap enough. You can always find one used as well; they are very popular cards.

 

[SZLiao214]

Whatever you choose just make sure i has a non reference cooler. The difference in sound and temp is huge.

 

[bovinda]

All right, thanks for the advice. I will look into the 460 - it looks like I could get a combination of Zotec 460s right now that would run as fast or faster than the 570 for about $60 less. Thanks for the help.

 

[Dadofamunky]

All right, thanks for the advice. I will look into the 460 - it looks like I could get a combination of Zotec 460s right now that would run as fast or faster than the 570 for about $60 less. Thanks for the help.

I think that's a good option at this point.

 

[peonyu]

I would get a Gtx 480 over a 570 at this point in time, alot of sites are selling 480s for cheap [relatively] now. A 480>570 in performance overall, and the build quality of the card itself is superior on the 480. 570's are not built well if they are reference units. The Vrms are weak.

 

[toyota]

I would get a Gtx 480 over a 570 at this point in time, alot of sites are selling 480s for cheap [relatively] now. A 480>570 in performance overall, and the build quality of the card itself is superior on the 480. 570's are not built well if they are reference units. The Vrms are weak.

the 480 is not faster overall than the 570. in fact the 570 easily beats it in newer games like BF 3 while using over 50 watts less. sure the 480 is more robust but you would need to oc just to match the stock 570. so in the end you will be using close to 100 watts more just to get gtx570 performance. that better be one heck of a low price for the gtx480 to make sense.