Now or later... GTX 580 or it's succesor?

[Aceman.au]

Hey TPU... Ive been an ATI boy all my life with computers... And at the moment have a 5970... It puts out a lot of FPS, but is very buggy (drivers do bugger all to fix) with crashes (BSOD and driver)... I've decided Im going to get an Nvidia card next, should I wait for the next series (after the 5XX) or get a 5XX now?

 

[erocker]

There's always going to be a new card later. The 580 will give you about the same performance as the 5970 but without the problems. If you have the means, go for it.

 

[20mmrain]

Hey TPU... Ive been an ATI boy all my life with computers... And at the moment have a 5970... It puts out a lot of FPS, but is very buggy (drivers do bugger all to fix) with crashes (BSOD and driver)... I've decided Im going to get an Nvidia card next, should I wait for the next series (after the 5XX) or get a 5XX now?

I would personally wait still to see what ATI brings. From one ATI fan to another. I have owned allot of Nvidia cards as well bud. I can tell you from experience the Driver issues don't go away with switching brands.

It's just the price of using the latest technology. I actually switched from two 5850's to two GTX 470's then to two GTX 460's. The Nvidia cards had just as many Bugs for me as the ATI cards did.

I am now back at ATI with a couple of 6870's which I might add are running awesome and with much better driver stability as well as scaling.

But if you insist on going with Nvidia I would wait and possibly pick up a couple of GTX 570's. They will out perform the GTX 580 by allot and you will probably pay about as much as you did for your 5970.

Otherwise if you insist on doing it to stay with a single card solution.... I would wait till the next gen. Because you 5970 is more powerful then a single GTX 580 and it probably won't be worth your time to upgrade until the next gen releases in terms of performance. Unless you play that many games that are Tessellated. If that's the case that might be the only way I would consider it worth it right now.

But there is always waiting for the GTX 590/595 as well Duel Chip

 

[Aceman.au]

I know issues wont be solved by changing brands but I want to try something different... Curse you, you guys have created doubt in my mind

 

[Lionheart]

I would wait for mid december and see AMD hopefully release the HD6970 cards

 

[mdsx1950]

Wait for the HD69xx series before you decide on a GTX5xx. I personally own two HD5970s and i haven't come across so many problems. :S

 

[HTC]

Wait for the HD69xx series before you decide on a GTX5xx. I personally own two HD5970s and i haven't come across so many problems. :S

Agreed: if nothing else, the release of these should bring prices down, be them AMD's offerings (if nVidia's perform better) or nVidia's offerings (if AMD's perform better).

 

[Aceman.au]

Wait for the HD69xx series before you decide on a GTX5xx. I personally own two HD5970s and i haven't come across so many problems. :S

yeah my CoD4 will randomly stop and my PC needs to be turned off... In League of legends redlines appear in squares all over my screen then my PC blue screens with atikmpag.sys being the crash problem...

 

[claylomax]

Wait for AMD.

 

[Stak]

Well ill also just wait for 69xx series. But if you want just better dx11 performance, you should buy 5xx series cards as Nv just has a better tesselation engine. 580 doesnt beat the 5970 at most dx10/9 games, but when you look at dx11 games it performs equal or better. At unigine with normal tesselation even the 480 beats it.

BUT, as not that many games use tesselation/dx11 ill indeed just wait for ati to make their next move . Me/myself will always stick to the greenies. But i also see that ati has good cards. So im pretty neutral right now.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

yeah my CoD4 will randomly stop and my PC needs to be turned off... In League of legends redlines appear in squares all over my screen then my PC blue screens with atikmpag.sys being the crash problem...

Probably just an isolated case. Lots of factors, bad driver installation, conflicting background apps, bad vcard, OS updates, etc. etc. Blaming the GPU would be not fair, since you dont see the whole world ranting about such an issue with an ati card.

 

[JrRacinFan]

+1 to everyone in the thread.

I myself also agree with already having a 5970 the only way you can greaten yourself in gaming is with a 2nd even if you look past the few bugs. Oh and don't forget nVidia can have bugs too!

 

[qubit]

The other posters have pretty much said it, but I'm gonna chip in anyway.

I think you would do well to get the 580, but only after AMDs new top cards have been released and the 580 has dropped a bit in price.

Now, as far as driver troubles go, your card gets its performance from internal Crossfire - and dual GPU solutions of all flavours are known to have driver and scaling problems. I reckon this is the root cause of the problems.

Now, 20mmrain has said how he has seen a similar amount of bugs from both brands. I have actually seen fewer with nvidia and recommend them instead (I also much prefer nvidia's control panel). And the hair-pulling part is that we're both right!

Your best bet is probably to go with a single GPU solution of either brand and avoid duals.

Something I would strongly recommend you do is to buy your card online, where you have the right to try it out and change your mind (and will be a lot cheaper too, of course). This way, you can try it for a week and if you don't like it, simply return it.

If you do like your new card, then you can get some of your money back by selling your old one, perhaps on TPU.

 

[Over_Lord]

There's always going to be a new card later. The 580 will give you about the same performance as the 5970 but without the problems. If you have the means, go for it.

dunno why he wanna upgrade, HD5970 > GTX580

 

[Flibolito]

Single card solution is the way to go if you want to avoid and kind of driver/game issues. Dual card setups are just not really popular for game developers to really put the programing finesse into it since they are a small part of the market. I usually go for one very powerful GPU setup and 1920x1080 performs perfectly on my setup. The gtx 580 is a killer card but I would also wait and see what AMD brings to the table. SLI/CF is for extremely high resolution and/or multi-monitor setups.

In my experience I would take a gtx 580 over a 5970 any day of the week.

 

[erocker]

dunno why he wanna upgrade, HD5970 > GTX580

Read his post again.

 

[mdsx1950]

yeah my CoD4 will randomly stop and my PC needs to be turned off... In League of legends redlines appear in squares all over my screen then my PC blue screens with atikmpag.sys being the crash problem...

That's strange. I play alot of CoD4. It has never crashed for me. Which drivers are you using and is your card overclocked?

 

[Aceman.au]

That's strange. I play alot of CoD4. It has never crashed for me. Which drivers are you using and is your card overclocked?

Only my CPU is overclocked by 0.2 GHZ... Im using the latest drivers which I think is 10.11

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Well you can always try and score the 580, see if it still gives you problems. Keep both cards, and sell whatever whichever card you dont want later on. But with that, like they say, I advice to wait for 6970 release.

 

[micropage7]

Only my CPU is overclocked by 0.2 GHZ... Im using the latest drivers which I think is 10.11

0.2 is not reach about 10%, so it should be fine

 

[Frizz]

It is fair to say that even if you decide to wait something better will be lurking around the corner right after, that is technology for you. Now in this case, we are very close to the release of the 69xx series so waiting would be the best, +10 to everyone in this thread.

Come and join the club I think alot of TPU members are itching for a GPU upgrade right now, but yeah we are all to stay in rehab before we make the decision to jump to a GTX580 or 6970

 

[mdsx1950]

Only my CPU is overclocked by 0.2 GHZ... Im using the latest drivers which I think is 10.11

Oh ok. Did the same probs occur on earlier drivers? I'm running 10.8 atm. Didn't have a need to update. You should try rolling back on the drivers and give it a shot.

P.S- Sorry for going off topic.

 

[mlee49]

Interesting question, how would the 570 hold up to a 5970?

 

[mdsx1950]

Interesting question, how would the 570 hold up to a 5970?

It should be the same like how the GTX480 is compared to the HD5970.

 

[20mmrain]

I know issues wont be solved by changing brands but I want to try something different... Curse you, you guys have created doubt in my mind

See boss I am not alone. With so much coming out so close I would just hold off a little longer. I love Radeon cards. But I also love a good video card and while I tend to lean towards ATI/AMD I have also owned a lot of really bad ass Nvidia cards (i.e. GTX 470's GTX 460's 8800 GTX's GTX 285 even loved my 220 GT )

But my point is that duel cards always had a little bit of problems. GTX 295, 4870x2, 5970, 9800GX2

If you are looking for a single GPU solution I would wait. Because for all you know Radeon could bring out the 6970 it could perform 28k in Vantage and be $399.00 in price. I doubt it but it could happen. Then you would be kicking yourself in the ass for not waiting.

If you had to wait months I would would say go now and buy. But you only got a couple of days left.