6850CF vs GTX480

[jellyrole]

I'm upgrading my GPU and was wondering what route you guys think I should go with. I game at 1920x1200 and play a ton of different games.

Heat/power are not a factor.

I can trade my GTX550 Ti for 2x 6850's + I pay $120 or I can get a GTX480 for $125 and keep/sell my GTX550.

[DarkOCean]

option #2 since is cheap and you get money for that 550 later.

[Flibolito]

yeah do the 480 they are strong to this day, especially with a little OC on them

[cdawall]

The GTX480 is still a pretty fast car. Keep the GTX550 and run different SLi with it.

[MxPhenom 216]

Get the GTX480 and run the GTX550ti as a PhysX card. Would come in handy if you plan to play Borderlands 2

[Wrigleyvillain]

Heh I went from 6850 crossfire to a 480 and play at your res. My main motivation was needing a little more VRAM, especially for 4X MSAA in BF3. Finding 480s for $200 plus the NV drivers also handling MSAA better in that game sealed the decision. Even though the 6850s are technically a bit more powerful with proper scaling. If those cards had more than 1GB I'd probably still be running them.

So without finding a great deal on used 6850s or something I'd say 480 too as it's still pretty much the best overall bang for buck right now esp given the 1.5GB frame buffer.

I may go 7850 2GB Crossfire next...

[jellyrole]

I just picked up a GTX480 and a Sabertooth motherboard for $200 shipped.

[Wrigleyvillain]

eBay?

[Durvelle27]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/302?vs=309

[yogurt_21]

Originally Posted by Durvelle27

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/302?vs=309

that's what I thought, 6850 cf is faster, go with that.

[Black Mesa]

Originally Posted by yogurt_21

that's what I thought, 6850 cf is faster, go with that.

But the Vram limitation at that power level is a real imbalance and bottleneck which is why with the extra half gig of Vram on the 480 it's the better choice. Plus it's not like the 480 was far behind seems like it has most of the power of the 6850s in CF.

[Wrigleyvillain]

^ Agreed.

[Flibolito]

If the 480 temps can be kept in check they overclock well and gain alot from it.

[Black Mesa]

Originally Posted by Flibolito

If the 480 temps can be kept in check they overclock well and gain alot from it.

I think at around 800Mhz is when it starts matching the GTX 580 so ....

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Black Mesa

But the Vram limitation at that power level is a real imbalance and bottleneck which is why with the extra half gig of Vram on the 480 it's the better choice

My 6870s in crossfire work pretty well. The only thing it doesn't let me do with 1Gb of VRAM is use AA at 8x on the newest games.

[Mindweaver]

Go with the GTX480. My GTX480 isn't that far behind my 2x 5850 CF. If 1gb of vram was enough I'd say go with the 6870's, but It's nice having the extra ram in games. You don't have to worry about CF issues on games that are not supported. Plus, you're getting to sale your 550 or keep it for physx.

[Black Mesa]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

My 6870s in crossfire work pretty well. The only thing it doesn't let me do with 1Gb of VRAM is use AA at 8x on the newest games.

Ya I was pretty upset myself when I had my 6870 about the AA filtering and not cause it was bad or anything because the quality was second to none but more so that fact that I could not crank it to the max because the card would just bog down even in old games at full AA/AF settings but 4x was sexy enough. Also I don't think it was Vram limitation that held you're 6870 back in newer games it's just that you taxed the capabilities of the GPU to the max.

[darkangel0504]

6850 cf ~ gtx 580

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Black Mesa

Also I don't think it was Vram limitation that held you're 6870 back in newer games it's just that you taxed the capabilities of the GPU to the max.

You don't go from 70FPS to 2FPS because you're just taxing your GPU more by jacking up the AA.

[Black Mesa]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

You don't go from 70FPS to 2FPS because you're just taxing your GPU more by jacking up the AA.

Well that's how it went in STALKER SOC I went from triple digit fps to single digit fps then when I cranked up the AA/AF to the max everything else being = and the Vram usage was still only around 700mb and I was getting single digit frame rates because the GPU was maxed out not the memory or Vram. The radeons have high IQ.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by Flibolito

If the 480 temps can be kept in check they overclock well and gain alot from it.

Same for that entire series the GTX470/480 clock damn good. With a Zalman VF3000F mine clocked to better GTX570 performance.

[Black Mesa]

Originally Posted by cdawall

Same for that entire series the GTX470/480 clock damn good. With a Zalman VF3000F mine clocked to better GTX570 performance.

Considering that the GTX 480 is pretty well on par with the GTX 570 that's not a very good OC. IMHO people now in days blow OCing way out of proportion.

[Flibolito]

My GTX480 is running 962MHz for 2 years now which is a huge overclock. It got the exact same FPS than my 580 did @900MHz. So yes overclocking is huge for the 4xx series, that's why I still have it and replaced the 580 with a 680 not the other way around. The 480 will be replaced by a GTX780.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by Black Mesa

Considering that the GTX 480 is pretty well on par with the GTX 570 that's not a very good OC. IMHO people now in days blow OCing way out of proportion.

Sorry mine was a 470 I didn't specify.

[yogurt_21]

vram isn't an issue in most situations and the power and heat savings actually favor crossfire 6850's. I have 3 480's, 2 of them currently run in sli on my rig. The fastest solution is also the quietest solution is also the cheapest to run is also more likely to last longer.

it's a no brainer. vram utilization is and has been 100% bullcrap on these forums.

"look my (insert vram monitor here) shows 3GB of usage in (insert any game that doesn't need anywhere near that much here) so that must mean that everyone needs 4GB of vram"

were that true it would show up in W1z's reviews...it doesn't, not unless you're using eyefinity for 3 monitor resolution scaling. The op, and pretty much 99% of those asking the questions on here don't. At the standard 1080p, 1GB is enough. at 2560x1600, 1.5GB is enough. the only time you need more is for eyefinity over 3 monitors.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...rofile/22.html

1gig midrange cards being more than enough at 1920x1200 a larger resolution that the standard 1080p.

You'll see drop off in card design limitations

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...rofile/14.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...rofile/17.html

but none of it is memory related.

(should be noted that in the above we're looking at the single 6850 results, crossfire of course will offer an average of a 65% improvement over the single card in most cases)


look at the 7850's in the links below.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...lQueen/18.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...lQueen/16.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...lQueen/21.html

seriously if the memory mattered the royalqueen version would be far behind the standard 2gb version in all high resolution tests. When in REALITY it only falls behind in the eyefinity resolution and occationally by a small amount at 2560x1600 (though it's only 2% behind overall at that resolution).

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...lQueen/28.html


Just like in windows if you have 8GB of memory you'll likely see windows use most of it when doing something intesnive, its how modern applications work. This doesn't mean you need that much, if someone with 4GB wants to do the same things they can do so with little performance loss except for those super rare situations.

STOP WITH ALL THE GPU MEMORY BULLCRAP!