From GTX 260 to GTX 470

M

Matas

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
438
Though I'm happy with my GTX 260 (65nm/192sp), I can play majority of games at decent rez.and good in-game options, I have an option to upgrade it to GTX 470 for ~70$. Is this upgrade worth the price?
 
I went from a GTX260 to a GTX460 and it was noticeable, even at 1440x900.
 
Ok guys, thanks for your answers:) but now I got another option: new XFX 6950 2GB for another 70-80$ over GTX 470. Maybe it's a better deal? I don't know with XFX warranty policy. That 6950 is purchased abroad and it have buying cheque. After registration on XFX site will I be able to get a warranty?
 
So if I'm understanding you correctly your saying for about 140-150 extra now you can get a 6950? I really don't know if that's worth it or not. I'm sure we can get some of the amd guys in here to tell you what you should do. I really am not 100% sure where that card stacks up against the competition. Plenty of amd guys around here, I'm sure someone will help you out.
 
beware of the heat difference though, you could heat your room with one of those 470's
 
Going from gtx 260 to 470 for 70 bucks in a steal. Going gtx 260 to 6950 for 150 bucks, still a good deal.....but not as good a deal. Really it comes down to how much performance you want. If it were me, and I could afford the 6950 for $150 bucks and my old gtx 260, I would do it in a second. If I only have 70 bucks to spend, I would walk away with the gtx 470 very satisfied. Either way you are going to have a video card that blows away your old one.
 
Understood. For real I have and can spend 150$ for XFX 6950, but here I'm looking for the best bang of the buck. HD6950 2GB has a good chance to become HD6970 after BIOS flash, so it have bonus performance. Any idea about XFX warranty?
 
XFX is the only company to offer double lifetime warranty for the life of the product. Their RMA process is a little slow, because they want to get the card and test it before they issue an RMA, but they are a good company with the best warranty in the business. That being said, a 6970 BIOS flash would void the warranty because it changes the voltages on the board. To save the card, most people just try for a shader unlock and overclock, which still technically voids the warranty, but it's a lot more difficult to see that than an incorrect BIOS version number. There's also no guarantee that it's unlockable, so don't base your decision on an unlock/overclock.
 
And how to unlock that shaders without 6970 BIOS flash? As I understand, after registering that XFX 6950 I should get lifetime warranty, or I am wrong? It is purchased in Europe, has buying documents, S/N.
 
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No doubt, get the GTX 470. I don't think though that it is smart to upgrade from GTX 470 to HD 6950.
 
what res are you playing? your old cpu would really hold back a 6950 or gtx470 in many games. only reason to get the 470 is because it is cheap.
 
That's not a bad price. I'm assuming you mean to sell / trade your gtx 260 and the difference would be $70. However, it's really up to you. If you're happy with the performance you have now then its $70 down the drain. You will almost definitely be upgrading to a better card than the 470 for next-gen games, so its really all about what you want right now.
 
Yes, that 70$ difference comes from selling my GTX 260. Cause that XFX 6950 is gone, I will go with GTX 470. CPU is upgraded to PHII 955BE and monitor is U2311H with 1920x1080 native.
 
Yeah the GTX470's a good 80% faster than your current GTX260, whereas the HD6950 is around 110% faster. More, but not enough more to justify twice the upgrade cost. Out of curiosity, what does an HD6850 set you back as an upgrade cost? That's 70% more performance, and HD6850s are pretty cheap these days.
 
samuelmorris said:
Yeah the GTX470's a good 80% faster than your current GTX260, whereas the HD6950 is around 110% faster. More, but not enough more to justify twice the upgrade cost. Out of curiosity, what does an HD6850 set you back as an upgrade cost? That's 70% more performance, and HD6850s are pretty cheap these days.
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I used a gtx470 for a few weeks and it wasnt remotely close to 80% faster than my old 192sp gtx260 even in very gpu intensive games. and yes i know some of that was because of my cpu but again even in cases where my cpu was not an issue it was 40-50% at best.
 
^100 percent correct. Theoretical performance increases on 3dmark is not real life performance increases.
 
cannondale06 said:
I used a gtx470 for a few weeks and it wasnt remotely close to 80% faster than my old 192sp gtx260 even in very gpu intensive games. and yes i know some of that was because of my cpu but again even in cases where my cpu was not an issue it was 40-50% at best.
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About a 50-70% increase is accurate. I had 3 gtx 260 core 216's before my 3 470's and that's roughly what i saw across the board. Sometimes a little more but overall that's about right. Overall it's a nice boost but not zomg 100% + boost. Still very nice especially in games that run in DX11.
 
Savoy said:
About a 50-70% increase is accurate. I had 3 gtx 260 core 216's before my 3 470's and that's roughly what i saw across the board. Sometimes a little more but overall that's about right. Overall it's a nice boost but not zomg 100% + boost. Still very nice especially in games that run in DX11.
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50% was the most I got in any game and that was Just Cause 2 in the most demanding benchmark. heck even Crysis was barely 30% better at the settings I was using. you can look at reviews on techreport and techpowerup and see many games are not even but 30-35% better with a gtx470 over a gtx260. but yeah just over 50% would be the average increase at 1920x1080 with an i7 cpu though.
 
TPU's tests and the likes vary by about 30-50% on the HD4870, which was a bit faster than the 192-core GTX260, so overall you're looking at around 40-60% on the release drivers. It's my understanding the drivers improved the performance of the 470s a fair bit, so it's more like 50-70% plus nowadays. 80% is the figure I recalled from ages ago.
 
cannondale06 said:
50% was the most I got in any game and that was Just Cause 2 in the most demanding benchmark. heck even Crysis was barely 30% better at the settings I was using. you can look at reviews on techreport and techpowerup and see many games are not even but 30-35% better with a gtx470 over a gtx260. but yeah just over 50% would be the average increase at 1920x1080 with an i7 cpu though.
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You got it right at the end. Look st my sig an ocI7 at 1080p is what I run and yes thats exactly the gains I saw on average. 50-70% sometimes more is what I saw.
 
This is vs.a 192-core GTX260 of course. Versus the 216-core I would have said 50-60% for the 470.
 
samuelmorris said:
This is vs.a 192-core GTX260 of course. Versus the 216-core I would have said 50-60% for the 470.
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Sam I had 3 EVGA gtx 260 core 216's SC's when I built this rig 2 years ago and then last april when fermi launched I replaced those 3 with the 3 you see in my sig. My results are directly what I have seen over the time I have owned them. The tri sli scaling is pretty fuckin awesome in case anyone was wondering. It honestly goes from pretty good to downright great pending on the game/engine and driver optimizations etc. Just a heads up for ya.
 
samuelmorris said:
Yeah exactly. The OP's 260s were the noticeably slower 192-core version.
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Ya true that. In fact the reason I picked up the 260 c 216 OC's was because they benched right behind the vanilla 280's at the time. Fps in games were only a few behind the 280 and yet were alot cheaper so to me it was a no brainer. The 260's were nice cards for the money without a doubt. All in all I love my 470's although I make no bones about how I wish they would run a bit cooler and consume a bit less juice. I've said that since day 1. That doesn't take away from the performance though which is why I got em. These 3 will hold in this build until I do a new socket 2011/28nm kepler build Q1 of next year more than likely. At which point this machine will become a backup gaming rig across the room here. ;)
 
The power/heat/noise issue is one I take fairly seriously for new purchases, but in terms of upgrade purposes I totally understand. I kept my 4870X2s for ages when there were quieter alternatives because there wasn't anything good enough value to warrant replacing them. Price is the deciding factor for most people. Buying a 470 at the time was a bad idea if you wanted a quiet system, but to someone who already has them, there's little reason to spend more just for quiet, you want some performance out of it too.
 
For me when Fermi launched last spring the choice was between 2 x 480's or for the same money(50 bucks more at launch) 3 x 470's. Since I had such a great experience with the 3 260's I went for tri sli again and got alot more performance for the money and I don't regret it one bit. It was the right move since nvidia's tri sli scaling has been great in all the games I've played;and I've played a ton of different games. Too me the noise isn't important but I do factor thermal/power into the equation when I make a buying decision. I'm expecting kepler to be a nice (hopefully 28nm should in theory at least provide this) compromise between moderate power consumption/heat and great performance. We'll see.
 
I went from a GTX 260 to a GTX 470 at 1600x900 and I saw a decent increase in frame rates and even bigger increase in F@H. I did it more so for DX11 games and I was happy with the results. However, if all of the games I was playing were DX10 I would have stuck with the GTX 260 to be honest.
 
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