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Geek Culture / Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 vs ATI HD 4970

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Gencheff
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 16:29
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I have a dilemma here.I can't decide which one of these video cards to buy.I'm leaning a little towards the ATI HD , but for these prices I need some advice.Right now I have an Nvidia GeForce 8800GT and I'm happy with it , but it's getting old.Never had a Radeon , so I have no base for comparison.

Please share your experience with radeon video cards and give some advice.
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Van B
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 16:37
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The major thing these days, is that the nVidia card will have 3D support (like, configuring any game to work in stereo 3D) and also it will allow for better physics, as PhysX comes as standard on nVidia cards.

For those reasons alone, I stick with nVidia these days - I did have a ATI3850 or some horrible thing, not much slower than an 8800 but it is things like hardware physics that can make a big difference, and in future your gonna want to go 3D proper.


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Syncaidius
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 16:37 Edited at: 15th Jul 2010 16:40
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I'd say go with HD 4970 since its future proofed for the next what... 5 - 7 years? and if you check benchmarks on a lot of sites, it wins by quite a large amount over the GTX 480.

But then, if your happy with your 8800GT and it runs everything you want it to, theres not really any reason to upgrade anytime soon.

EDIT:
Quote: "For those reasons alone, I stick with nVidia these days - I did have a ATI3850 or some horrible thing, not much slower than an 8800 but it is things like hardware physics that can make a big difference, and in future your gonna want to go 3D proper."


The only problem with this is, theres only a select few games that actually support Physx due to the fact its limited to nvidia users when it comes to hardware accelerated physics. Most of them still use Havok physics engine.

EDIT 2:
blehhh, I have no idea why I read 4970 as 5970 haha, ignore everything above, except for the physx part.


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Mazz426
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 16:38
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well the 4970 isn't compatable with DX11, which'll be very prominent in upcoming games, the 480 is but is way too expensive, try looking at a 5770 or a GTX 460 which just came out, they're compatable with DX11 and the 460's high range version is about £250, much cheaper than the 480

zbrush 3D model thread:http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=166698&b=3
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Gencheff
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 16:50
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Lets put price aside.Both cards are expensive,but are affordable.

I agree about the PhysX thing,although something bothers me with the Nvidia.You know these advertisements in games."Nvidia,meant to be played".I'm guessing the company pays the developers to optimize the games for nvidia better,which leads me to the thought that they may be somewhat weaker than ATI's

Correct me if im wrong.
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SikaSina Games
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 17:33 Edited at: 15th Jul 2010 17:34
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I changed my ATi 4550 to an nVidia GT 240 simply because ATi's shader support and lifespan is crap. I've had this 240 for almost 4 months now and my ATi began showing artefacts in SPORE and Supreme Commander, but my nVidia is fine. Along with the fact that ATi cut support for Pixel Shader 3, so no wonder Crysis worked surprisingly well, because the piece of basura had to scale it down to Pixel Shader 2. Plus I can actually use MP22 characters from FPS Creator without having them look crappy in lit environments or the utmost invisible.

Plus, new nVidia cards like my GT 240 have PureVideo HD installed on them, which upscales SD movies into HD quality without quality loss. I attached a screen of SAW III (no gore or anything) on my ATi and then my nVidia. Just take a look at the change in focus and facial features on Amanda (the bird the camera's focused on ). The ATi pic was running on 1080i with no upscale (because ATi cards don't have a HD Video upscaler) and the nVidia is on 1824x1020p with PureVideo HD. The reason why I had to use 1020p is because 1080i cuts out parts of my screen for some odd reason.

Further explaining the benefits, nVidia uses CUDA (Blu-Ray copying, editing and enhanced viewing) and PhysX (GPU based Physics) while using almost half the amount of CPU than ATi cards. Also, nVidia's control panel allows for advanced quality settings for games of your choice, and then initial graphics settings for new or unedited games. SDO you could configure Crysis to optimize performance whilst maintaining quality, but have Left 4 Dead 2 run on the highest settings with nVidia 3D enabled. ATi's Catalyst Control has barely any of that and also locks up and freezes, whilst also taking your awesome quality games away by freezing them and displaying artefacts. Why? Because ATi's so-called "optimisation option" does nothing but slows down the game instead of speeding it up.

So, if you want top quality graphics and HD Video, go nVidia. If you want reasonable performance and a long obsolescence span, but dodgy graphics and benchmarks, go ATi. nVidia also like to lie to you about your GPU capability too; my GT 240's memory is shown on the box at 1GB GDDR3 DirectX 10.1 yet my PC shows it as 2.2GB GDDR3 with maximum support for DirectX 11....

-SSG

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Asteric
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 17:43
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See i can say the direct opposite, what make of Ati card was it? I have a Sapphire 4850, supports Pixel Shader 3, had it for 6-7 months and its still working like a beast.

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SikaSina Games
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 18:06
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Mine was the Sapphire Radeon, and I never overclocked it nor tuned my games up past it's limit .

-SSG

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Gencheff
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 18:28
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Alright , I'm stuck between two choices.

1.Keep my current configuration and buy a Radeon HD 5970 and add another 4GB Ram or

2.Buy a new PC with a Nvidia GTX 480 with the following config.

Intel i7 @ 3.2 GHZ
12 GB Ram
2x2TB Hard Drive
+the GTX 480 ~1500mb

But the new pc will come around 3000$ and thats a lot of money...

Any suggestions?
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SikaSina Games
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 18:48
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YOu don't really need 2 2TB HDDs, one is fine. The GTX 480 should do but what are your current specs along with the PSU measurement and motherboard?

-SSG

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Bugsy
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Posted: 15th Jul 2010 21:42
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raid is faster performance. maybe get 2 300 velociraptors? 10000 rpms.

I suggest 23 gags of REM and a GTX 495
jk

I would go with the GTX 480 system. ATI has the raw power but nvidia has the drivers, and the reliability, and the support, and the majority of games optimised for it, and the physX, and other things.

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bond1
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Posted: 16th Jul 2010 07:49
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Quote: "I would go with the GTX 480 system. ATI has the raw power but nvidia has the drivers, and the reliability, and the support, and the majority of games optimised for it, and the physX, and other things."




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"bond1 - You see this name, you think dirty."
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charger bandit
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Posted: 16th Jul 2010 09:56
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Gencheff: OMG that is the most overpowered pc I have ever seen. 6 GB of RAM is more than enough for todays standards. 1tb HDD is good enough. If you want speed,buy an SSD hard drive. Graphics card,definately GTX 470. Forget your little Radeons,they are crap.


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Lemonade
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Posted: 16th Jul 2010 11:06 Edited at: 16th Jul 2010 11:07
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Go with Nvidia. While I have never used an Ati card, I have only heard bad things about them.

Also, DX11 Nvidia cards implement hardware accelerated tessellation, which will help alot in newer games.

And I agree with charger bandit. Get a SSD if you want performance.

...12 GB of RAM?

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Gencheff
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Posted: 16th Jul 2010 14:43
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yes 12,the configuration they're offering me is built like that...I'm not the one choosing each component.It's a full package lol.But anyway I think i'll go with the nvidia though,I had only nvidias in the past and I was happy with the performance so why not.

Thanks to everyone for the help
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Indicium
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Posted: 16th Jul 2010 19:37
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Can't believe I'm on a game design forum and i'm reading that you don't need 6gb of ram.

From UDK....

Quote: "Recommended PC Hardware Specs for Developers

Windows Vista 64-bit SP2 or Windows 7 64-bit
2.0+ GHz multi-core processor
8 GB System RAM
NVIDIA 8000 series or higher graphics card
Plenty of HDD space"


.... you do the maths.

Rawwrr. Sig Fail.
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