Why you guys always recommend ATI cards?

donfarrell

I'm just curious.
Like nvidia has features such as PhysX support, Pure Video, GPU Direct, 3D Vision Surround and CUDA.
What had ATI got besides but slightly cheaper?

Nothingbetter2d

ATI cards cost half as much as Nvidia do

Nvidia cards only show better performance if the game was optimised for nvidia cards... otherwise ati do just as good and in some cases better

ShadowHearth

Because it fits better price wise.

Low end pc: 6670 6770

Mid/highish: 6850 6870

High end: 7950 7970

Just ati is better bang for your money and generally lower on power requirments.

I personally own system with 6870 and gtx 570. I am not a fanboy as you can see, but I stil think 6870 is better product.

deconduo

donfarrell wrote: »

I'm just curious.
Like nvidia has features such as PhysX support, Pure Video, GPU Direct, 3D Vision Surround and CUDA.
What had ATI got besides but slightly cheaper?

About a year ago it was much closer but in general AMD offer better value for money. The 6670, 6770 and 6870 outperform all of NVidia's similarly priced cards. The Dirt3 and TF III 6950s can be unlocked which gives it the edge over the 560 Ti. The GTX 570 is the only NVidia card that can compete. Above that the 7950 makes the GTX 580 obsolete, and the 7970 is unopposed.

Everything you mentioned, while nice, mostly just amounts to gimmicks. CUDA is nice for people who would actual use it, but is useless for a gaming PC. On top of that AMD cards are less power hungry and scale better in crossfire.

If Nvidia priced their cards more competitively then it would be a lot closer, but for now AMD are just better value. Its the same with CPUs, Intel's offerings are better than AMD's price for price across the board.

nesf

It's to make up for all the Intel chip recommendations they make.

Serephucus

^ LOL.

If the 7770's price is any indication though, they might not be value leaders in three month's time.

uncle_sam_ie

deconduo wrote: »

Everything you mentioned, while nice, mostly just amounts to gimmicks.

PhysX is cool though if the game supports it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=M2LsFIPIYok

deconduo

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

PhysX is cool though if the game supports it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=M2LsFIPIYok

There's only 3 decent games that use it, and it doesn't add much. Its a gimmick.

briany

Serephucus wrote: »

^ LOL.

If the 7770's price is any indication though, they might not be value leaders in three month's time.

The 7770's current price point vs. it's reported performance don't really tempt me. The 6850 is still tipped to be ATI's leader in the mid end price performance category. The 7770 does have some efficiency and crossfire plus points though so it could be closer if you're going by price/power/performance.

glynf

I switched to from green to red for one reason-Eyefinity. Havent looked back since, dont think I could get used to one screen again. Was at a friends house & was playing Burnout paradise on his TV (he's a console only type:o), and it felt weird, like I was playing with blinkers on.

Far as I know, Nvidia surround requires two GPU's, while Eyefinity can be ran off anything from a 5770 up without the requirement of a second card.

deceit

glynf wrote: »

I switched to from green to red for one reason-Eyefinity. Havent looked back since, dont think I could get used to one screen again. Was at a friends house & was playing Burnout paradise on his TV (he's a console only type:o), and it felt weird, like I was playing with blinkers on.

Far as I know, Nvidia surround requires two GPU's, while Eyefinity can be ran off anything from a 5770 up without the requirement of a second card.

This is the same for me, I switched Amd and since the hd5870 havent changed back but the next lot of nvidia gpus will support 3 screens on one gpu. I will see by then which are better before I buy. There is only one issue with Amd cards (Drivers), other than that they are fine.

glynf

deceit wrote: »

This is the same for me, I switched Amd and since the hd5870 havent changed back but the next lot of nvidia gpus will support 3 screens on one gpu. I will see by then which are better before I buy. There is only one issue with Amd cards (Drivers), other than that they are fine.

True, drivers are a bit slack, esp. re. crossfire. Single cards are not an issue though, been using eyefinity off the last 3 cards I've had (5970, 6970 & 7970) and no problems except one.

Thats getting CCC to recognise some displayport to DVI converters can be a pain in the arse, occasionally an issue when i install new drivers.

deceit

glynf wrote: »

True, drivers are a bit slack, esp. re. crossfire. Single cards are not an issue though, been using eyefinity off the last 3 cards I've had (5970, 6970 & 7970) and no problems except one.

Thats getting CCC to recognise some displayport to DVI converters can be a pain in the arse, occasionally an issue when i install new drivers.

Once you use an active display cable then there isnt really any issues. I bought three of them so never run short of them :P. Yea only in eyefinity have I ever had issues (little line on movement on screen sometimes.) other than that its perfect. I wish they would fix it though as its been there for ages.

Dublin_Gunner

I find people give drivers a lot more grief than warranted in general. There might be the odd issue that effects you or your setup, but drivers from both AMD and Nvidia are about as good / bad as each other TBH so I would never let drivers be a deciding factor.

Price / Performance AMD have had the edge IMO. If the 560/560ti could be had for the same price as the 6850/6870 Nvidia would get a whole lot more recommendations.

As for the new 7750/7770 - they are currently pointless due to the price range they occupy, and the relatively low performance level they give.

I would never recommend one of those over a 6850/6870 which give far better performance for a similar price.

And Nvidia have nothing competitive in that lucrative 150 price range.

The 560 is hit and miss depending on the price you can get one for, and the 560ti is just too expensive for what you get - on price it competes with the 6950, and TBH the 6950 is a no brainer.

Nothingbetter2d

my dad's has a single ati 6970 card that has 3 screens running off it.

uncle_sam_ie

The Nvida 570 GTX is a great card and priced about the same as the 6970. It's also a good card to overclock.

ShadowHearth

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

The Nvida 570 GTX is a great card and priced about the same as the 6970. It's also a good card to overclock.

I got one and I am sort of kicking myself for not taking 6970 instead. 570 is still nice card, but I wanted to go sli or cf on a future. With gtx 570 is very crap. I will be pushing it with 750w psu even at stock speed, where's 6870 CF will draw waaaaaay less power and better scale at CF.

Still good card for single gpu setup, not south for sli. Plus 6970 has an advantage of eyefinity.

Monotype

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I got one and I am sort of kicking myself for not taking 6970 instead. 570 is still nice card, but I wanted to go sli or cf on a future. With gtx 570 is very crap. I will be pushing it with 750w psu even at stock speed, where's 6870 CF will draw waaaaaay less power and better scale at CF.

Still good card for single gpu setup, not south for sli. Plus 6970 has an advantage of eyefinity.

Is that a typo? Crossfire 6870s would be less but the power consumption of the 6970 is pretty much level with the 570.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_570_Direct_Cu_II/21.html
All the results are within a few watts of each other, with the 570 having a lower maximum. It also uses less power in HD video tests.

Here's some other sites which demonstrate similar results. A little higher in the second one but the xbitlabs one demonstrates HD video again.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-570-oc_5.html#sect0
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/39912-evga-geforce-gtx-570-superclocked-review-19.html

ShadowHearth

Sorry, it is typo. I ment 6970 CF

I've always used Nvidia cards myself and was never happy with the image quality on ATI/AMD cards, any time I had one I didn't like it.

Nonetheless, Nvidia cards have taken a serious slide in reliability. There's the well known GeForce 8 failures, but even recently I bought a GT440 for a PC and started getting "Driver stopped responding and recovered" errors. Replaced the card and it's now fine. My cousin also got a GTX460 for a new build - same issue. Even Firefox's GPU acceleration was causing timeout errors.

ShadowHearth

Interesting chart m8. The one I checked 6970 CF had way better power consumption then gtx 570 sli.

Maybe multi gpu setups would differ alot from single gpu power consumption?

Monotype

It could happen that certain tasks will be better optimised in SLI or crossfire and have lower power consumption. Average power draws could change too and for one or the other and be related to drivers.
The maximum is still going to stay the same (x2) and this is what you should always consider when picking a PSU to suit.

It's hard to find a review directly comparing SLI 570 directly to crossfire 6970. It would be foolish to compare two reviews too as they could be measuring them at different points, with different applications and with different motherboards/CPUs/configurations.

I find that techpowerup are one of the most reliable for actual graphics card consumption as they test the consumption of the card itself and not the whole system at the wall (which adds in PSU inefficiencies and everything).

deconduo

Monotype wrote: »

It could happen that certain tasks will be better optimised in SLI or crossfire and have lower power consumption. Average power draws could change too and for one or the other and be related to drivers.
The maximum is still going to stay the same (x2) and this is what you should always consider when picking a PSU to suit.

It's hard to find a review directly comparing SLI 570 directly to crossfire 6970. It would be foolish to compare two reviews too as they could be measuring them at different points, with different applications and with different motherboards/CPUs/configurations.

I find that techpowerup are one of the most reliable for actual graphics card consumption as they test the consumption of the card itself and not the whole system at the wall (which adds in PSU inefficiencies and everything).

Its strange, some reviews seem to put them close together, yet others show the 570 having a much higher consumption:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4239/36072.png
http://cdn5.tweaktown.com/content/3/7/3741_42.png

I wonder why there's such a large variance between reviews.

ShadowHearth

deconduo wrote: »

Its strange, some reviews seem to put them close together, yet others show the 570 having a much higher consumption:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4239/36072.png
http://cdn5.tweaktown.com/content/3/7/3741_42.png

I wonder why there's such a large variance between reviews.

that it m8. there is a huge gap between 600W and 770W :eek:

Monotype

Wow, that's a fairly big chuck of a gap.

I'm not sure I'd trust anandtech entirely with some of their charts. I previously tracked some of their figures back to reviews where they had taken them from and it seems that they don't use the same systems to test, and they measure at the wall. I suppose it's a lot to ask them to test them all on the exact same system as they probably don't have the cards in their hands all at the same time. The test equipment that techpowerup refers to is most likely expensive as well.

I wouldn't rule out bias in any of these sites either. We'll have to get our own testing equipment to be sure!

deconduo

Monotype wrote: »

I wouldn't rule out bias in any of these sites either. We'll have to get our own testing equipment to be sure!

Coming soon: Boards.ie tech reviews :pac::pac::pac:

Serephucus

I actually really like that idea...

donfarrell

deconduo wrote: »

Monotype wrote: »

I wouldn't rule out bias in any of these sites either. We'll have to get our own testing equipment to be sure!

Coming soon: Boards.ie tech reviews :pac::pac::pac:

I'd read the **** out of them

Tea_Bag

NTMK has 2 6970s, and headshot has 2 gtx570s. I'd donate a PC as a test bench, and throw in my 6990 to show what real power consumption is all about . this could actually work.

sure I've been looking into getting a power meter for a while now.

ShadowHearth

Like I said lads. It's weird with how much power gtx 570 sli takes. Way less then 6970 in some reviews... I sow on YouTube fella having safe setup on 650w 2xgtx 570.

Genghiz Cohen

deconduo wrote: »

Coming soon: Boards.ie tech reviews :pac::pac::pac:

A wise man once said not to trust site reviews...

Dublin_Gunner

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

A wise man once said not to trust site reviews...

yes, it's a much more viable and reliable option to just buy every new piece of hardware and test it yourself... :rolleyes:

Most reviews give the performance of hardware at exactly the same levels. There is no reason to not trust any reputable site's reviews.

I personally always look on Guru3D.com, Anandtech.com and Bit-Tech.net

3 very reputable sites.

Monotype

Tea_Bag wrote: »

NTMK has 2 6970s, and headshot has 2 gtx570s. I'd donate a PC as a test bench, and throw in my 6990 to show what real power consumption is all about . this could actually work.

sure I've been looking into getting a power meter for a while now.

Hmm... I could imagine that...
-Hey, thanks for the loan of the cards
-You're welcome... hey what are these blackened scorch marks on the cards?!
-Well, we had to test the absolute power limits when we really pushed the card... OKbyenow!
:pac:

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

Most reviews give the performance of hardware at exactly the same levels. There is no reason to not trust any reputable site's reviews.

I personally always look on Guru3D.com, Anandtech.com and Bit-Tech.net

3 very reputable sites.

There's very good reason not to trust any individual site. Any one could get a good/bad card and test platforms/situations can vary a lot. A review can skew results easily by picking certain games, resolutions or various settings to favour a card. Most sites will get the sample cards for testing for free/loan and even if they don't have a direct affiliation with a company, they will be aware that if they slaughter a product, they won't get repeat samples. It happens quite a bit in the games review world, apparently.

Look at the three sites you mentioned. The GTX 570.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4239/36072.png
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-570-review/8
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/07/nvidia-geforce-gtx-570-1-3gb-review/9

Anandtech: 446W
Guru3d: 396W
Bit-tech: 330W

That's a range of 116W.
Anandtech used furmark which would be good for finding an absolute maximum. Bit-tech and Guru3d believe that furmark doesn't reflect the true draw of a card for games - which is fair enough but why not have both for a better idea? There's still a lot of variance as they are on different systems (although guru3d tries to factor that in). Nevertheless, all three sites are measuring the power consumption at the wall and so there's a lot more factors to think about than the card itself.


Edit: I'm not saying not to trust any of those sites, I'm just saying not to trust any individual review + it's hard to get get a good estimate of graphics power consumption.

Dublin_Gunner

Monotype wrote: »

Edit: I'm not saying not to trust any of those sites, I'm just saying not to trust any individual review + it's hard to get get a good estimate of graphics power consumption.

Which is pretty much what I was getting at too.

There seemed to be suggestions not to trust ANY site, whereas I was trying to suggest looking at a few reputable sites to form an opinion.

Relative performance of the cards would be the same across any reputable site mind you, even if the actual performance figures differ.

Monotype

So far, techpowerup is the only one that I've seen with power consumption for cards done properly, i.e., actual card measurement as well as including both peak+maximum draw.

If anyone knows a site which can back up their results, it would be very much appreciated.

deconduo

Monotype wrote: »

So far, techpowerup is the only one that I've seen with power consumption for cards done properly, i.e., actual card measurement as well as including both peak+maximum draw.

If anyone knows a site which can back up their results, it would be very much appreciated.

Xbitlabs do it as well with some reviews, but not all. For example:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/asus-eah6870-directcu_4.html#sect0

Whats nice is that they give the current draw through each part, as well testing Idle/Video/Game/Stress test.

Genghiz Cohen

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

yes, it's a much more viable and reliable option to just buy every new piece of hardware and test it yourself... :rolleyes:

Most reviews give the performance of hardware at exactly the same levels. There is no reason to not trust any reputable site's reviews..

:rolleyes:

Monotype

deconduo wrote: »

Xbitlabs do it as well with some reviews, but not all. For example:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/asus-eah6870-directcu_4.html#sect0

Whats nice is that they give the current draw through each part, as well testing Idle/Video/Game/Stress test.

Yeah, I saw one of those a while back but had forgotten. That's interesting the way it's broken up.

teflonbilly

Back on the topic of better features, I do have to wonder, and since I dont have them, can a 6970 really push 3 1920x1200 monitors in AAA titles with maxed features on its own? I run 2 gtx 580s with 3 gigs of ram each and that is enough. Sure it pulls a lot of power, but I ahve a 1250w PSU so no worries there, but I can't imagine one 6970 or even a 580 being strong enough to do that. the new 7970 would be a different story for sure.

I am hoping to see some interesting numbers whent he Keplar products show up. Would be fun to see how the prices drop. I think we will see a dramatic drop from AMD since they are very high currently.

srsly78

Single 6970 can push 7680x1600 in less demanding games like Skyrim. Can't run stuff like BF3 or other games at decent framerate with 3 monitors tho. Also have to turn off AA at silly resolutions.

Serephucus

teflonbilly wrote: »

Back on the topic of better features, I do have to wonder, and since I dont have them, can a 6970 really push 3 1920x1200 monitors in AAA titles with maxed features on its own? I run 2 gtx 580s with 3 gigs of ram each and that is enough. Sure it pulls a lot of power, but I ahve a 1250w PSU so no worries there, but I can't imagine one 6970 or even a 580 being strong enough to do that. the new 7970 would be a different story for sure.

I am hoping to see some interesting numbers whent he Keplar products show up. Would be fun to see how the prices drop. I think we will see a dramatic drop from AMD since they are very high currently.

1250W is overkill. You could just about manage four off that. Anyway, I don't think a 6970 can. I remember looking it up a while back, and most new titles were getting 30FPS average, and that was with some AA as well.

I doubt AMD's prices will drop. Initial reports are that the 690 will have an RRP of $999. The 680 is looking like $650, so that's at least €550, potentially €600. Even if the 680 murders the 7970, AMD don't necessarily have to drop their prices much, if any, to remain competitive.

Now, this is all going off very early rumours, so it could all be bollocks, who knows...

nesf

teflonbilly wrote: »

Back on the topic of better features, I do have to wonder, and since I dont have them, can a 6970 really push 3 1920x1200 monitors in AAA titles with maxed features on its own? I run 2 gtx 580s with 3 gigs of ram each and that is enough. Sure it pulls a lot of power, but I ahve a 1250w PSU so no worries there, but I can't imagine one 6970 or even a 580 being strong enough to do that. the new 7970 would be a different story for sure.

At that resolution you're really not going to be worried about value and really only worried about performance, in that case the Nvidia offerings make a lot of sense.

teflonbilly

1250 is not overkill. Without knowing hte rest of the specs of my pc its hard to call. But in my case its true that i dont pull nearly that power. But my PSU never runs its fan. its silent. It stays in its most efficient area at around 50-60% output, so I get more efficiency,a nd no noise for only a little more cost when I purchased. My entire computer runs at 23db when measured from one meter away and everythign running at max durnig stress testing.

I do think prices will drop though. its pretty rare to see a md or nvidia hold their pricing so high when both companies are competing at the high end. Currently Amd is the only game in town with their new releases, but when Nvidia comes along both companies will want to secure more sales and I can't see the prices staying high.

Serephucus

teflonbilly wrote: »

1250 is not overkill. Without knowing hte rest of the specs of my pc its hard to call. But in my case its true that i dont pull nearly that power. It stays in its most efficient area at around 50-60% output, so I get more efficiency,a nd no noise for only a little more cost when I purchased.

Yes it is. Even if you have a 2600K, overclocked to 5.0GHz, you'd still be using less power than my CPU, by anywhere up to 100W. Even if you have six hard drives, odds are you're using less power than my older, less efficient hard drives. I've run my system, with SLI 580s, at 970 core each, from an 850W unit. I could run my current system from an efficient 550W unit quite easily.

And even if you get the highest efficiency at 70% load or whatever, we're talking at most about 3%. Unless you're gaming twelve hours a day, or folding or something, your computer is going to spend most of its time drawing about 150W, meaning you'll end up paying for that extra wattage through your ESB bill, probably about an extra €5 a bill, if not more, which completely blows your argument out of the water.

I'm just saying this because it's something I learned myself quite recently. I was running a single 580 - and for a while SLI 580s - from a 1200W unit, and it just wasn't needed.

Tea_Bag

Serephucus wrote: »

Yes it is. Even if you have a 2600K, overclocked to 5.0GHz, you'd still be using less power than my CPU, by anywhere up to 100W. Even if you have six hard drives, odds are you're using less power than my older, less efficient hard drives. I've run my system, with SLI 580s, at 970 core each, from an 850W unit. I could run my current system from an efficient 550W unit quite easily.

And even if you get the highest efficiency at 70% load or whatever, we're talking at most about 3%. Unless you're gaming twelve hours a day, or folding or something, your computer is going to spend most of its time drawing about 150W, meaning you'll end up paying for that extra wattage through your ESB bill, probably about an extra €5 a bill, if not more, which completely blows your argument out of the water.

I'm just saying this because it's something I learned myself quite recently. I was running a single 580 - and for a while SLI 580s - from a 1200W unit, and it just wasn't needed.

guilty...

I'm running a 6990 (stock) + 2500K (4.6Ghz), single HDD and SSD off an.... antech true power 1200W

wasn't by choice, but it was either that, or throw it into my server PC, which draws like 50W under Max load.

was gonna sell it on, but i figured my next upgrades will be monitor/water/6990CF (maybe not in that order, and i don't have €1400 I'd need for it all, but one can dream)

anyway, no point in selling now and have to rebuy a €200 PSU later to run 6990CF.
its also a decent psu that is efficient enough at my loads, and if I'm not gaming, the PC is off.

deceit

Tea_Bag wrote: »

guilty...

I'm running a 6990 (stock) + 2500K (4.6Ghz), single HDD and SSD off an.... antech true power 1200W

wasn't by choice, but it was either that, or throw it into my server PC, which draws like 50W under Max load.

was gonna sell it on, but i figured my next upgrades will be monitor/water/6990CF (maybe not in that order, and i don't have €1400 I'd need for it all, but one can dream)

anyway, no point in selling now and have to rebuy a €200 PSU later to run 6990CF.
its also a decent psu that is efficient enough at my loads, and if I'm not gaming, the PC is off.

I'm going to be as bad as you if not worse . I will be running a 2500k overclocked to 4.5ghz, a hd6870, 1 ssd, 1 hd, a pump and and a few fans on a 1500watt power supply as of friday :P

Serephucus

Dear god, why?! I hope you've got four 580s on order.

ShadowHearth

Serephucus wrote: »

Dear god, why?! I hope you've got four 580s on order.

Its not the 580s he needs! its BRAINs he should be after!

deceit

Serephucus wrote: »

Dear god, why?! I hope you've got four 580s on order.

Nope, none of them But as soon as the sr-3 is released I will be building a rig around that and you can see on the pics section I have the watercooling set up ready for it minus a few bits.
The psu is not as bad as the cooling set up with 2 rx360s and a 480mm rad so no matter what goes in the machine it will be overkill. Even with an sr-3, two cpus and 4 gpus it would cool them without any issues.

Serephucus

What are you planning to put in it, as a matter of interest?

ShadowHearth

Serephucus wrote: »

What are you planning to put in it, as a matter of interest?

washing machine with toaster and a few wifes toys to recharge i guess!