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GFX card for MMOs
Hi All
I'm looking at buying a new graphics card to replace my aged 8800 GT.
I'd like something that will:
Run all the new MMOs coming out, specifically: Guild Wars 2, Earthrise, Jumpgate: Evo, etc (see sig)
Cost under £600
Be able to handle games - MMOs in particular - for a little while to come
I was looking at either an:
ATI HD5970
Nvidia GTX 480
Anyone know if these will do the job?
Also, is anything better due on the horizon to replace these, given that none of the games I want the card for are actually out yet?
Thanks,
Aryas
Playing: Ableton Live 8
~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
Comments
If all you want is a card that can handle games for a little while to come, then your 8800 GT can already do that. I'd also worry about being processor bound if your processor is as old as your video card. Newer architectures will need a different processor socket, so you'd have to replace the motherboard, in which case, you'd need new memory, too.
If you're looking at a Radeon HD 5970 or a GeForce GTX 480, those both have a TDP around 300 W, so you'll need a seriously strong power supply, too--and likely need to replace what you already have. You'll also need a ton of airflow through your case, and for a GTX 480, a non-reference cooler, as the reference cooler (dubbed "GrillForce" by some, for reasons that are obvious if you see it) simply can't handle the card.
To answer your question more directly, if you're looking for a high end card right now, I'd wait for the upcoming Radeon HD 6870. It should launch in about two months, and beat a GeForce GTX 480 at nearly everything. It may or may not catch a Radeon HD 5970 in average frame rates, but having a single GPU card means no worries about CrossFire scaling, and it should also be cheaper and use less power than a 5970.
Yep, Quizzical just summed it up right there.
Still, I second a need to see the rest of your system specs before making a serious recommendation.
Thanks for the feedback.
It's interesting to hear that ATI are releasing the 6 series but I'm guessing demand will make them harder to find than fish teeth at launch.
My system is ok. I have an air-cooled i7 930, Asus mobo, 6GB RAM and a 750w PSU. I'm currently using a Spinpoint HD but plan to upgrade to an SSD (soon-ish).
The case I have is semi-modded to boost cooling, so I don't have an issue with hot cards. That being said, the reason I'm using an 8800 GTX is because I burnt out my 9800 GX2 overclocking it in a cramped SG03 mATX build.
I guess the question I'm asking now is: Should I hold out for the ATI 6 series cards?
I've also heard there's all sorts of driver issues with ATI cards - particularly the 5970. Is this just when you overclocked them though, or does it affect it all the time?
Thanks,
Aryas
Playing: Ableton Live 8
~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
I hope you're not still using the Silverstone SG03 case, as trying to put a 300 W card in there would not be a smart idea.
It sounds like you replaced much of the computer, while keeping the old video card? By the time the Core i7-930 launched, the GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce 8800 GTX were long since off the market, and the GeForce 8800 GT had long since been renamed to the 9800 GT.
What power supply are you using? There are 750 W power supplies that should handle a 300 W video card just fine, and there are 750 W power supplies that I wouldn't trust to run any electronics that aren't purely decorative.
If you're going to get an SSD, make sure you understand what you're getting. It's not like hard drives, where any two hard drives you can get will have performance in the same ballpark, even if some are noticeably faster than others. Rather, SSD performance varies wildly, with some beating others in various speed tests by an order of magnitude or more.
I'd expect the Radeon HD 5970 to have more driver issues just because it's two GPUs in CrossFire, rather than a single card. The GeForce GTX 480 and Radeon HD 5870 (and 6870) should have no such issues. The 6870 drivers might be rough at launch, though, just because it's a new architecture. AMD and Nvidia both make pretty good video drivers, though. It's Intel drivers that are the ones to avoid.
I'd expect pretty good launch availability for the Northern Islands cards. It should be better than Evergreen for several reasons. First and most importantly, it's made on the same TSMC 40 nm bulk silicon process. When Cypress launched, that was a new process that wasn't understood that well, and TSMC didn't have much capacity. Now TSMC has a lot more capacity online, and AMD understands the process much better. If TSMC will sell AMD 10,000 40 nm wafers per month (for example), then TSMC doesn't care how they're divided between Cypress, Juniper, Redwood, Cedar, Barts, Cayman, Bobcat, or whatever else AMD wants to produce.
AMD knows full well that the launch of the Radeon HD 6770 and 6870 will probably cause demand for a new 5770 and 5870 to drop precipitously. AMD has probably already scaled back production of Juniper and Cypress to make way for Barts and Cayman, so they can have plenty of Northern Islands cards available for a hard launch. AMD can't stop the old cards entirely, as companies that make pre-built computers sometimes take a while to refresh their lineup, and the Northern Islands-based FirePro, FireStream, and Mobility Radeon cards won't launch for quite some time yet, and the dies that didn't meet those specifications can still go into cheaper Radeon (5750, 5830, and 5850) cards.
Second, there will probably be less demand because it's not such a perfect time to buy a new computer as when Evergreen launched. That had everything line up for the launch of Windows 7, so it wasn't just a new generation of video cards. It was also new processors at the same time, at both the high end (Intel's Lynnfield) and low end (AMD's Athlon II), updated firmware to support TRIM in solid state drives, and so forth. Furthermore, Nvidia didn't show up because Fermi was delayed, so the people who would have bought an Nvidia card if they were available had to go looking for an AMD card, which boosted demand. It was a new process node, and the first DirectX 11 cards, both of which are a big deal, and Northern Islands doesn't offer such new benefits. This time, it's just new video cards. While new processors are coming, that's next year, and people who wait until then to upgrade won't compete for the first Northern Islands cards to show up in stores.
Third, AMD priced their Cypress cards too aggressively, which is why they jumped in price not long afterwards. But it did mean that they were too good of a deal at launch, so they couldn't keep them in stock. Even adjusted for inflation, the Radeon HD 5850s tend to be more expensive today than when they launched about a year ago (at $260). That's unheard of in the tech industry. I doubt that AMD will make the same mistake with Northern Islands. And it was a mistake: if you can sell everything you can produce for $300 or for $260, it's a mistake to offer it for $260.
I know several 5970 owners, and almost every single one of them has driver-specific and game-specific issues, usually in the form of serious problems with crossfire scaling (either only one GPU will be utilized, or both will be, but will cap at 50% load). For what recent problems I've had, myself, with Ati drivers (which ended up being caused by poorly written Asus Xonar drivers), I have never had the problems with a 2-card crossfire config that my friends with 5970s often have across a variety of systems.
I think there's certainly a place for dual-GPU cards in certain kinds of systems (where actually getting something like two 5870s is infeasible), but they're still buggier in implementation than actual discrete dual-GPU solutions (though admitedly better than previous implementations). For the moment, I think it's something to stay away from, pending a little more time to figure the technology out.
I, for one, certainly can't wait to see how the 6870 performs, though.
I can attest to this. Over the years I lost hundreds if not thousands of dollars of components from my PSUs.. the ones I would buy thinking bigger is better and if they are expensive it must mean they have quality.
In fact, with my limited experience in building my own gaming machines.. I've decided that this is one of THE most important steps one can take in building a machine from the ground up... or upgrading or what have you..
Get the experts advice on what is a quality, dependable PSU!
Hopefully, in another month or so when *I* start my own rebuilding... Quizzical will still be around for me to ask.
Good luck!
Edit: Changed PCU to PSU.. wonder if that was my problem all along?