Video Cards

[cobra96]

i was really curious as to which video card would be the best bang for the buck...ATI HD series or the Nvidia 200 series...and how much memory show i get with either one...i know ATI has GDDR5 and Nvidia has GDDR3...which is better?

[Matty]

Im pretty sure GDDR5 is faster running memory and probably capable of more but it also depends on the motherboard, if its compatible with it or not.. I know that my motherboard can only support up to Gddr3

[Wraith]

Your motherboard cannot determine whether the video card's ram is supported. Your motherboard probably supports DDR3. The video card handles it's memory on its own and as long as the motherboard supports the video card's minimum requirements for the slot interface, it should work.

Best bang for the buck is ATI in my opinion, but it depends on your price range.

I really don't like Tom's Hardware after the whole Intel buying them bs even if they have tried to restore balance and remove bias in the past couple years. However, there's one thing they still have which is helpful for people looking for video cards:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2404.html

That is September's and doesn't take into account the release of the Radeon 5000 series (which, if you have the money, you would want). However, that release will drive prices down on the previous generations high and middle end. I bought an HD4870 for ~100, which I don't think it too far a stretch today and it should play any game out there at decent settings.

[gcountach]

i was really curious as to which video card would be the best bang for the buck...ATI HD series or the Nvidia 200 series...and how much memory show i get with either one...i know ATI has GDDR5 and Nvidia has GDDR3...which is better?

Clearly the 5 one... it's a bigger number!

As of right now, the fastest is the Radeon 5870 and it has the price tag to go with that title. When you start asking about bang for buck, it starts to get a bit fuzzy. The link provided by Wraith is defiantly a good read through if you are serious about buying a video card. What all are your computer specs? I ask because you seem more concerned about memory amounts of the card than you do benchmark scores. Not saying it's not worth noting when buying a video card, but it's not the major factors.... Those are (allow me to pull these out of my rear end):

1.) Price. You already know this though.
2.) Power Requirements. My 8800GTX requires 2 PCIe connectors (equivalent to 4 molexes total). If you don't have a power supply to provide the necessary connections, guess what else you're buying...
3.) Size. If you have a fullsize case, you will most likely not need to worry or care. If you are sporting a mini-tower, it matters to you. My 8800GTX fits into my fullsize with maybe 1-2" max to spare on the end, and that's only because the hard drives face the door. Also keep in mind that some video cards (like my 8800GTX, I SWEAR I'M NOT BRAGGING!) require 2 slots in your computer. That means you need to make sure the video card slot and the slot beside it won't be needed.
4.) Host computer's specs. A new video card in an older computer can be problematic for a couple of reasons. One is some older computers use AGP slots instead of PCI-e. (those are nearly phased out I'd say though. I'd still make double sure I have a PCI-e slot though). PCI-e does not fit in a PCI slot, so you will need a PCI-E slot to get a decent video card. Second is the computer's CPU type/speed and RAM. You can think of a computer is only as fast as its slowest component. If you put a 5870 in a computer with only 256mb of DDR2 and a celeron (or whatever Intel is calling their reject line now), you will not get the desired results. It's like building a racing motor. You don't use cast rods and crank and then put on a multi-thousand dollar supercharger on top!
5.) BENCHMARKS!!! If two video cards are comparable in price, something has to designate one as better than another. These are benchmark results which are all over the internet. You will just have to search the net for "Radeon 4870 benchmarks" and/or "GeForce 285 benchmarks". You should only take the results of those benchmarks as worth using if they compare the equivalent-ranged ATi product to the equivalent-ranged GeForce product with equal benchmark settings on both. This isn't handicap racing, only the straight up results matter.

So, I've provided this long winded reply without answering your question. :)

[KEN]

I don't want to make any promises but for people looking to spice up the graphics in MWO.... our engine software will be supporting DX10 and DX11. Our beta's and gold release will be built around DX9 and DX10 and OpenGL, but future updates could mean DX11 support for sure.

I went with a dual crossfire ATI HD setup. It was a nice step up over my single 8800GTS. Which was a GREAT card for its time and still is.

[Matty]

Thats what i almost found myself buying Ken. I was about to buy either an nVidia SLY or ATI SLI but on the same shelf i seen the nVidia 295 GTX which was very capable of running the same stuff but with one PCI-e slot, which is all my mobo can support. All in all, a great choice, how are the crossfire cards for heat?

[KEN]

Thats what i almost found myself buying Ken. I was about to buy either an nVidia SLY or ATI SLI but on the same shelf i seen the nVidia 295 GTX which was very capable of running the same stuff but with one PCI-e slot, which is all my mobo can support. All in all, a great choice, how are the crossfire cards for heat?

I built my own system so I got a HUGE custom copper tower. Cooling is not an issue on my system so it wouldn't be fair to say they run as cool as can be. My pci-e cards are on the top and bottom sides of the mo board, and my regular pci slots are in between them, so they are very far apart from each other.

[Matty]

Interesting, Copper tower? That sounds pretty sweet. My system tends to reach about 50-60 degrees when under load, but its generally around 28-32 under normal running conditions with low fan speeds. As for the GPU, that little guy can get up there but ive only seen it reach over 90 degrees a couple of times

[cobra96]

i will be building my own...specs i want are as follows...Coolermaster Tower...Intel Quad core or i7...3GB DDR3 or DDR2 ram...SLi/Crossfire capable 750W PS...pci-e 2.0 mobo capable of SLi/Crossfire...running XP or 7

[gcountach]

UPDATE: Found non-syntheic benchmarks. Adjusting the rating chart..

I went looking for some benchmark results for you, here's what I see so far. My results are based off This Link (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_5870/1.html).

Speed Rating Chart (with lowest price on newegg):
1.) GeForce GTX 295 ($450 after rebate)
2.) Radeon HD 4870 X2 (N/A - Couldn't find on newegg)
3.) Radeon HD 5870 ($380)
4.) Radeon HD 5850 ($260)
5.) GeForce GTX 285 ($320)
6.) Radeon HD 4890 ($115)
7.) GeForce GTX 275 ($205)

Of course, there's a lot of different submodels... I don't even know them all.

Here's a link that gives some comparison FPS' for 295 and below. Still looking for a good benchmark that compares the newest Radeons to 295/285's with actual FPS scores: http://www.techspot.com/review/139-geforce-gtx-295/page4.html

Once again, there's this site to compare different classed video cards, but it seems to have not been updated since the 285: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/index.php

Here's another decent site to check out. It actually does FPS instead of synthetic benchmarks, so you can actually see what sort of performance you can expect. Once again, it appears to suffer from the inability to be updated beyond 285 series: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards,1.html

Bottom line from what I can tell so far: Best Bang for buck goes to 5850. It's only about ~20% slower than the $380 video card, and it's still holds its own against the 295. You may want to focus your search on looking for reputable reviews of that video card and see what people think about their 5850 and/or driver support for it.

[cobra96]

great info...i might just pick up the 4000 HD series for a 100 bucks a piece and run crossfire if i need it...that way im payin 200 or so for 2 really good cards...plus my most intensive game would be fallout 3 and i ran it pretty good on a single 9800GT in a cramped overheating laptop...that same laptop played crysis on high settings with tolerable lag...but the card was runnin at 90C

[Chaul]

My assumption was that GTX 295 is still on top in performance because it's kinda two graphics cards bolted into one. However, you should be able to beat that easily with 5870 or even 5850 in Crossfire setup, because 5870 does not fall behind GTX 295 much at all - it's around the same general class in performance depending on benchmark.

I was looking at this rough list (general classification, where differences are not sorted within class). They don't really have any benchmarks to back the list, and the rest of the page is all in Finnish... but I trust their experience on maintaining the list which they have done for a few years.
http://www.jathardware.com/2/video.html#lista

But, I'm still getting the 5870 in a few weeks, because it's a single chip design, newer, and better bang for the buck than the 295.

[gcountach]

great info...i might just pick up the 4000 HD series for a 100 bucks a piece and run crossfire if i need it...that way im payin 200 or so for 2 really good cards...plus my most intensive game would be fallout 3 and i ran it pretty good on a single 9800GT in a cramped overheating laptop...that same laptop played crysis on high settings with tolerable lag...but the card was runnin at 90C
From what I've seen, 5850 is faster than 2 4000's any day of the week and is only about 50 bucks more. Plus there is less chance of problems as you don't have to hope the drivers properly support game X in crossfire. If (what am I talking about, WHEN) it ever lags behind, you can always throw in a 2nd one later when they go down in price and keep the computer chugging for a while longer. Once you put in a SLi/Crossfire system, the only upgrade beyond that requires throwing both out....


My assumption was that GTX 295 is still on top in performance because it's kinda two graphics cards bolted into one. However, you should be able to beat that easily with 5870 or even 5850 in Crossfire setup, because 5870 does not fall behind GTX 295 much at all - it's around the same general class in performance depending on benchmark.

I was looking at this rough list (general classification, where differences are not sorted within class). They don't really have any benchmarks to back the list, and the rest of the page is all in Finnish... but I trust their experience on maintaining the list which they have done for a few years.
http://www.jathardware.com/2/video.html#lista

But, I'm still getting the 5870 in a few weeks, because it's a single chip design, newer, and better bang for the buck than the 295.
From what I was seeing, the 5870's and even 5850's were holding their own against the 295. The 5850, despite being the "mid-range" of the series, is comparable it appears with the 295. You can see some benchmarks here for it: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_5870/7.html. Appears the 295 outperforms time and again when you get up into the highest settings/resolutions, but the fact it's almost twice the cost as a 5850 should be considered....

[cobra96]

yeah but will i honestly be needing a $300 card or a $100 card to run my current (Fallout 3, SimCity4, and CIV4) and future games (MWO)...no i wont...yeah it will get outdated in a couple years but so will my games...plus i have a PS3 for all the "BIG" titles like BFBC2 and MW2

[Pie]

The 9800 is an excellent card. Imagine if you had two? And you can get them for about $130 a piece. I'm still using an 8600GT only thing I'm not happy with is the small amount of video memory. Of course I'm biased against ATI though. I'm sure they have some nice cards. I just don't like having to buy a new one every 3 months.

[KEN]

From what I was seeing, the 5870's and even 5850's were holding their own against the 295. The 5850, despite being the "mid-range" of the series, is comparable it appears with the 295. You can see some benchmarks here for it: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_5870/7.html. Appears the 295 outperforms time and again when you get up into the highest settings/resolutions, but the fact it's almost twice the cost as a 5850 should be considered....

I was ready to replace my 2 x ATI 4870 series crossfires with one 5870 until the real reviews started coming in from people who do more then benchmark the card for 10 seconds in each game. The 5870 cards get extremely hot after 2 hours of hardcore game play and shut down. This turned me off a bit considering I am developing a video game and our engine works in real time when working on the game. Think I will hold out for them to improve these cards a bit. If I was a regular casual gamer I would definitely pick it up and I definitely haven't missed Nvida's ridiculous prices for their latest tech.

[Matty]

If youre shopping for a videocard, i recommend the return/Refab section. I picked up my video card, regular 560. plus tax and got it for 100 less, all because of a simple power cord was missing, and is usually found with a few extra cables with the purchase of your MoBo or PowerSupply