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Crunch time: Radeon 5870 v GTX 480


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It's getting to that time, time to put the pension on the line and buy.

The 480 is written up well, seems to perform excellently, and benefits from the 1.5 gig on-board RAM.  I like the anti-aliasing performance which is much superior to the 200 series and should give a sharper picture.  But it also seems to run very hot.  It is possible in the mid $900 mark to get one with a pre-fitted additional heat sink that does drag temps down to tolerable levels

On the other hand the ATI Radeon 5870 appears to perform well with less by way of heat problems.

On which should I spend the government's money

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'Running hot' is IMO a lame argument... When the chip is designed to run up to 105 C and settles at 80 C with stress tests - where's the problem ? It works or it doesn't.

As soon as the water cooled models are available, i'll get a 480 OC, no question. Can't wait...  :)

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It's the same question people asked last year.

"Should I buy the i7 or a quad core?"

How many people now have i7's?

The 480's have been out for a while and whilst no new technology is problem free, there are enough buyers to say yes, it's worth every penny, myself included.

At the end of the day, it's your money and your decision. WE, the users can only pass on our own experiences.

Frank

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I own a 5870 and after seeing John's video diary of the 480 running the upcoming Concrete scenary I would recommend the 480 ahead of the 5870. Whilst the 5870 is good, the anti-aliasing advantage of the 480 combined with what seem to be better framerates than the 5870 (my system like John's is an i7 920 (4ghz [his is 4.2]) clearly shows the 480 as the winner unless there is something I am missing. If I had to decide again I would get the 480.

Hope this helps,

Steve

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Thanks everybody.  I am quite happy to call this resolved and not continue the debate.  I have searched the various hardware forums and places like Guru3D and apart from heat they rate the Fermi better.

It may be a little while before I change my details, but the heat's rising!

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I personally have O/C my GTX480 Core 700 - 843, Shader 1400 - 1685, Memory 3700 - 4400.  I'm using MSI.Afterburner.  Have done quite a lot of hours flying at these settings without a problem.  The MAX temp I have recorded thus far is 89c.  All on air cooled.  I do have an aircon in this room though.  So also having my CPU and GTX O/C, one would imagin extreme temps.  But not so. Check sig for spec.  I have nothing but prase for the 480.  I am using nhanser 32AA, Trans 8S.  No cfig tweeks what so ever.  Lovin it.

Lynchie

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'Running hot' is IMO a lame argument... When the chip is designed to run up to 105 C and settles at 80 C with stress tests - where's the problem ? It works or it doesn't.

As soon as the water cooled models are available, i'll get a 480 OC, no question. Can't wait...  :)

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=015-P3-1489-AR&family=GeForce%20400%20Series%20Family
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'Running hot' is IMO a lame argument... When the chip is designed to run up to 105 C and settles at 80 C with stress tests - where's the problem ? It works or it doesn't.

As soon as the water cooled models are available, i'll get a 480 OC, no question. Can't wait...  :)

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=015-P3-1489-AR&family=GeForce%20400%20Series%20Family

Yep, that one, but it's not available in Europe yet (have to buy it there to save the VAT).

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I'm running a GTX 285 on a Win 7 64bit rig with a 930 o/c at 4ghz - would the upgrade to a 480 be worthwhile, do you think?  I don't mind spending the cash if there's bang for buck, but if it's be a "minor" upgrade I'll wait till the prices drop.  Cheers.

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I'm running a GTX 285 on a Win 7 64bit rig with a 930 o/c at 4ghz - would the upgrade to a 480 be worthwhile, do you think?  I don't mind spending the cash if there's bang for buck, but if it's be a "minor" upgrade I'll wait till the prices drop.  Cheers.

If you want higher AG and Higher AA, then YES!

There are sceneries (Large areas & certain airports like YBBM) that will still require a very fast CPU to run smoothly, but the gtx 480 will make 90% of the scenery look amazing and run great.

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I got a Gigabyte 5870 Super Overclock Edition with my new system and it runs quite well, even with AA turned on, but like jgutteri, I got it for eyefinity so if you are after multiple displays, the ATI is the way to go, for better performance (and a higher price tag) go with the NVIDIA.  However I have found that the 5870 has decent performance for its price which I am quite happy with.

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