So it's time for a new videocard...

D

Dwango

Gawd
Joined
Feb 23, 2011
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682
My 8800 GTS 512 blew a memory chip a week ago and is now kaput. Turns out that when you don't pay attention to your temps for awhile it can bite you in the ass (logs show that the 8800 was hitting temps near 90c, oops). Luckily enough the mATX board I bought last year to replace my old DFI board (which blew a memory voltage chip, sensing a theme?) has a chipset with a built in 8300 so the computer is still usable but not in any sort of fun way.

So I am in need of a new card. I am not planning to update anything else on this system for now. It's running 8GB of RAM which is as much as the MB supports and a Black Edition dual core AMD chip (Athlon II I think) that runs at 2.8GHz stock but is currently riding around the 3GHz mark, so I know I am going to be CPU limited. The two cards I am looking at are the Radeon 6850 or the Nvidia 460 GTX. I have no loyalty to either brand so whatever works. My buddy runs a 5800 series Radeon and is having a bitch of a time with Brink so I am now leaning in the 460 direction. So does anyone have experiences with these two cards?

Related question: you can get a vanilla 460 for $160 or so but you can also get the OC specials for around $210 (MSI's Hawk Talon Attack, which looks really sweet), the question being, are these OC cards worth the extra dollars?

Thanks for any insight. :D
 
I don't want to go too cheap since this card will probably be carried over to my next system upgrade (if it survives long enough).
 
Dwango said:
I don't want to go too cheap since this card will probably be carried over to my next system upgrade (if it survives long enough).
Click to expand...

The card he listed is pretty good. I wouldn't worry about it not being able to keep up with a new system. If you absolutely need to stay current though, go with a 6950 1gb/2gb (depending on your screen resolution). They really are the sweet spot in price->performance.
 
Nvidia has decided to make it harder on me by releasing the new 560 GTX (sans Ti) just as I was thinking the 6870 was looking pretty good. Bastards! :p

I want my frames back! It turns out the built in 8300 doesn't like to play much beyond about 1440x900 and even then it's a stretch (my monitor's native 1920x1200 is, of course, slideshow territory). I'm thinking maybe I lowball this box and turn it into a server or a straight folding/torrent box and build from scratch on my next box in the fall sometime (Bulldozer will be out by then surely, right?).

EDIT: Well I decided to pull the trigger on this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604

It's my first time trying an EVGA card so crossing my fingers (it's got a "lifetime" warranty so how bad could it be). Hopefully it will be fast enough to carry me into my next build out.
 
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I'm not sure why you did that. The 6870 and 560 aren't even in the same price bracket. 6870's go for well under $200 while the 560gtx is going for about $250. For less than you paid, you could have had a 6950, which beats the 560gtx by a good amount.

Just my opinion.
 
Mostly it had to do with the drivers. I have two friends with PCs running AMD cards (one is running a 5770 and the other is running some other 5xxx series card, a 5800 something I believe). While most of the games we run have played fine, every now and again one comes along that AMD's drivers don't like for some reason or other and then these two friends of mine have to dig through workarounds and various bug-fixes in an attempt to get things working the way they should have from the get go. Having had several older cards in the Radeon series (first Radeon 64MB, 8500, 9800, x700 pro) I have had to employ these fixes in the past as well. Sometimes they were painless and sometimes required some effort. After watching the two of them playing with hotfixes and workarounds for the past week to get Brink playing correctly, I decided I would rather stick to the green side of the isle.

I came very, very close to getting a 6950 1GB card. But since, in the end, all this new card has to do is survive and be faster than an 8800 GTS 512, I am sure I will be pleased (and would have been either way).
 
The thing is that both sides have "bad" drivers. Personally I haven't had issues with either, but its safe to say that for ever thread where people complain about AMD drivers, there is one complaining about how bad Nvidia drivers are.
 
Dwango said:
Nvidia has decided to make it harder on me by releasing the new 560 GTX (sans Ti) just as I was thinking the 6870 was looking pretty good. Bastards! :p

I want my frames back! It turns out the built in 8300 doesn't like to play much beyond about 1440x900 and even then it's a stretch (my monitor's native 1920x1200 is, of course, slideshow territory). I'm thinking maybe I lowball this box and turn it into a server or a straight folding/torrent box and build from scratch on my next box in the fall sometime (Bulldozer will be out by then surely, right?).

EDIT: Well I decided to pull the trigger on this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604

It's my first time trying an EVGA card so crossing my fingers (it's got a "lifetime" warranty so how bad could it be). Hopefully it will be fast enough to carry me into my next build out.
Click to expand...

Let me know what you think of that card, I was highly considering it, but I am thinking of going with this one instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...30610&cm_re=gtx_560_ti-_-14-130-610-_-Product
 
lloose said:
The thing is that both sides have "bad" drivers. Personally I haven't had issues with either, but its safe to say that for ever thread where people complain about AMD drivers, there is one complaining about how bad Nvidia drivers are.
Click to expand...

I am not blacklisting AMD or anything like that, just stating it as I see it in the here and now from my on the ground perspective. You're right, there are bugs in both drivers. I can only state from the experiences that I have had and seen with my own eyes. And yes, it's just one game and I have no doubt everything about it will be fixed shortly and that's cool. When I go to build my ground up box in the fall I'll certainly be looking both sides over again and maybe Nvidia's drivers will be crapping out on something I really want to play and it'll push me the other way.

I will report back on the card when I get it. We'll see what kind of speeds it can be pushed into. Just noticed that EVGA is giving a free copy of 3DMark 11 Advanced away if you register the card so bonus, I guess.
 
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