GTX480 versus ATI HD5870

[brianos007]

Hello Simmers outthere.

I was wondering is it really worth switching from a ATI HD 5870 to a GTX480.

I am always the black sheep when building a new rig.

The last one i build.Te 5870 was available you had to look hard to get hold of one .

There was a rumour about the GTX480 coming out but not available yet.

When i was building my new rig.

Are the prestations so spectacular over the 5870 and is it worth switching???

The 5870 is a nice card with low power consumption and heat.

The GTX480 is a high power consumer and produces a lot of heat .

I am curios in the fps on a non tweaked cfg.Ore sliders to the right please

Lets say Take seattle as a example.Take the default cessna place yourself at runway34R (100 traffic,100%rex weather,lets say 12 am)No vehicles cars and ships.

I need to be 100% before switching and burning 600 euros

I think Somme of you 480 guys out there are willing to do the test.

Ho want to come forward with his FPS

[alainneedle1]

I don't have a test cause I always used Nvidia cards but if I were you I'll wait a little more for the 485,,,,should be out soon.

I am building a new rig and I am waiting for this card and the i7 990x to complete my new setup.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/geforce-gtx-485--gf100-pcb-spotted/

[Spirit Flyer_old]

I was wondering is it really worth switching from a ATI HD 5870 to a GTX480.

The 5870 is a nice card with low power consumption and heat.

The GTX480 is a high power consumer and produces a lot of heat .

I think Somme of you 480 guys out there are willing to do the test.

Hi Brian,

You ask a tough question to answer without raising the ire of others. The ATI 5870 is a great card and has it's strong points but is weak in FSX compared to the Nvidia 480 GTX. There are a number of my friends in the Backcountry Prop Club, and others that write on various forums, that have switched from the 5870 to the 480 GTX and are very glad they did. I don't recall anyone that regretted doing so. On the other hand, I don't know of a single FSX flight simmer that has switched from a 480 GTX to a 5870.

As many others who own 480 GTX's will testify, noise and heat from the air cooled video card is not a problem. It runs well at 30C under it's maximum temperatures, at a modest fan speed under full FSX load in my computer, and that is at 32C ambient room temperatures. As other 480 GTX owners will tell you, heat and noise are an non issue while running FSX. Many will state that it operates at levels not a lot different from other high performance cards.

The record as to the general performance of the ATI 5870 and the 480 GTX is listed in the findings from hundreds of benchmark tests (that I don't think stray far from what occurs in FSX). It indicates that there is a clear performance distinction in the 480 GTX's favour, as displayed in the link provided by Tailgunner, found here:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

If anything, the performance difference between both these cards within FSX may be even more significant when the rendering variance in heavy weather and cloud cover is taken into consideration. By most accounts, in all the FSX forums, the 480 GTX handles such weather conditions greatly superior to what the 5870 is able to do. Finally, with the higher quality settings that better remove shimmering and jaggies in the 480 GTX, as compared to the same in the ATI 5870, the decision as to which card to buy or to keep becomes obvious.

Is it worth waiting for the 485 GTX instead of buying the 480 GTX? Well, some think so, but I fail to see the advantage since I operate my 480 GTX overclocked nearly 20% above specs with the blessings of the manufacturer using the software they provided and encourage me to use. A friend of mine with water jackets on his 480 GTX's in SLI is running them almost 35% overclocked at 950mhz. According to reports of 485 GTX specifications being leaked, the maximum performance enhancement over the 480 GTX will be somewhat less than 10%. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that my 480 GTX is running about 10% better than what the 485 GTX will do out of the box.

The 480 GTX is a great overclocker, but we do not know if that will also be a characteristic of the 485 GTX. In any case, the 485 GTX is not going to be here for a long time yet, and it may even be quite a bit longer still before it might become available in significant numbers. As was the case of the first months with the 480 GTX, the prices will almost certainly jump sky high, so many may have to wait an additional long period of time, perhaps weeks and months after the initial release, for the prices to decline. That is a long time from now.

It seems to me that if you want to have great performance anytime soon with the greatest amount of certainty, with the least amount of risk, get the best video card that has come along ever for FS, the 480 GTX. My time is too valuable for me to sit on the sidelines waiting needlessly.

Insofar as flying at Seattle airport and testing FPS as if it was on your computer, that is impossible. The only way to do that is with your own computer, for anything else is likely to be very misleading. There are simply too many compounded variable factors, from software applications to hardware drivers installed to provide meaningfully accurate information to help you decide whether it is worth it. So is it worth it for you? I don't know. It certainly would be for me.

Good luck Brian. I look forward to following what you decide, whether you stay put or leap forward and wish for you all the best in any case.

Kind Regards,

[alainneedle1]

Great answer Stephen, I would have to disagree with you on the 10% better perf. for the 485 compare to the 480 because we are not only talking about core clock speed been higher than the 480 but the shaderreinheiten (german for Stream Processors) at 512 for the 485 compare to 480 for the GTX 480 so IMHO the end result should be more in the 25% gain (also depending on the core clock).

Since the Zotac already has a card at default 756MHz on air (they are not advertising this card as been overclock) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500166  I'll be surprise not to see some 485 in the 800Mhz but we will have to wait and see. I think the price of the 485 should not be higher than the 480 the day they came out since the 480 is already cheaper than their released day so this is telling me the 485 is soon to be released but again I may be wrong.

[brianos007]

Hi Stephen.

Long live Ebay

Tonight ill put it for sale.

In all my previous flight computers i build i was using nvidia cards.(Im in FS since the beginning)

The problem was when i build my new rig i had no choice the 480gtx was not released yet and the 5870 was sparsely available so i went for the ati 5870

Very nice card(not for Fsx) but when it sees a cloud ore even thinking of seeing one the fps drops like hell.

For me that's not acceptable.

Thanks for the explanation Stephen tonight i will order the 840Gtx

Grtz

[4L0M]

Very nice card(not for Fsx) but when it sees a cloud ore even thinking of seeing one the fps drops like hell.

Hello Brianos007,

If you use Bojote's shader3 mod, then clouds are a now pretty much a non-issue on newer ATI cards...

[brianos007]

I will give it a try

Thanks

[timmo32]

very good points in this topic about the ATI5870 and the GTX480 cards ,i myself have made the switch from a ATI 5870, to the new gtx 480 card,ive notice less dip in frames when decending into cloud with the new gtx 480 card,and maybe 10% more frames also from the GTX480 card,but im running it totally stock with no tweaks,the ATI 5870 is a great card and does run slightly cooler compared to the GTX480 card and there is a shader mod you can add to it so it helps render clouds better as explained in this topic,im very happy with both cards really,but my opinion is that the new GTX card allows better texture rendering with scenery,goodluck in choosing your card mate.

[brianos007]

Thanks Timmo.

The 480 Gtx is ordered and will arrive tomorrow

Lets hope i will not be disappointed but i don't think so.

Finally a answer from a guy ho had the 5870 before switching to the 480GTX and noticed the difference.

I don't expect miracles because the 5870 was a nice card exempt from the weather issues.

And im fed up of tweaking my

cfg to make things work

I let you guys now of my experience with the 480 gtx.

Lets hope it will be positive otherwise i eat the card for breakfast

Grtz

[gheeD]

Yes,  i am fed up with tweaking too. I got almost identical machine with Stephen, so i tried his FSX.cfg that he has tuned with tweaks, and it gave me around 10-15 fps more. ^^ No need to do tweaking myself.

[Atomic_Sheep]

I haven't really checked out/compared the top end ATI vs NVidia cards but my 2c would be... yes NVidia are better for FSX but in the way of top end cards, I don't think the difference will be noticable, what I will suggest is that an ATI 5890 or whatever their new 2Gb video card is... will be a much better card to compare to the NVidia ones and personally, I think I'd go for the ATI card simply because of the 2Gb as this will give u a larger headroom in the way of multi monitor setups if I'm not mistaken. So to summarise, 480 vs 5870, I'd probably go 480 but I'd go the 5890 vs the 480.

EDIT: Just read your comments regarding clouds... interesting... after watching some youtube videos, I felt that the top end ATI were providing sufficient performance in comparison to NVidia.

[brianos007]

Fellow simmers outthere.

I could wait and drove 250 miles to get the 480 gtx i ordered last night.

I am fed up with the 480 is the card to go for.

I just burned a hole in my wallet 650 dollars big.

I tried everything since the beginning of microsoft flight sim.

My 5870 was even better without the cloud issue.

With a clean fsg the 5870 is better than the 480gtx and i know i own both and tested both.

Sch.....t i am pi....ed

Sorry guys i need a drink

Il be back

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Fellow simmers outthere.

I could wait and drove 250 miles to get the 480 gtx i ordered last night.

I am fed up with the 480 is the card to go for.

I just burned a hole in my wallet 650 dollars big.

I tried everything since the beginning of microsoft flight sim.

My 5870 was even better without the cloud issue.

With a clean fsg the 5870 is better than the 480gtx and i know i own both and tested both.

Sch.....t i am pi....ed

Sorry guys i need a drink

Il be back

Holy Smokes Brian, that sounds terrible! Don't panic, it will all be OK, I promise you.  Something isn't quite right. Did you make certain that the ATI drivers are completely cleared from your system? What Nvidia driver did you install?

Kind Regards,

[brianos007]

Hi Stephen

The Ati drivers are removed.

I installed the latest nvidia drivers from the site of nvidia.258.96

The weather thing is gone but when i get close to a site like seattle frame drop from 40 to 17.

My fsc is french no tweaks.

What i think is the cpu is the bottleneck I7930 oc 4.2

I think i must get higher

Stephen i see you oc 4.35

Can you give me your bios settings

Heat is no problem i use a antec 900 with 7 vents.

I can find the settings my self but a little hint wil go a long way.

Grtz

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Hi Stephen

The Ati drivers are removed.

I installed the latest nvidia drivers from the site of nvidia.258.96

The weather thing is gone but when i get close to a site like seattle frame drop from 40 to 17.

My fsc is french no tweaks.

What i think is the cpu is the bottleneck I7930 oc 4.2

I think i must get higher

Stephen i see you oc 4.35

Can you give me your bios settings

Heat is no problem i use a antec 900 with 7 vents.

I can find the settings my self but a little hint wil go a long way.

Grtz

Brian,

Several things:

I am really sorry that you have had an initial poor experience with the 480 GTX. I promise you that you did indeed make the right decision and you will be glad for it when we get it all sorted. There are a lot of smart and caring people on here that will jump in and help in every way they can.

Yes, overclocking is really necessary for a smooth FSX flight and I have lowered my overclock for the summer months to 4.2 as well. I guess I will need to post everything I can think of that might just be relevant to you and those who need some ideas.

Please give me a few hours and I will see if I can compile the information from my computer and others that might help, or at least give you a head start on the road to satisfaction with your new 480 GTX. The last thing I would ever want to do is steer someone in the wrong direction.

Kind Regards,

[brianos007]

Thanks Stephen.

Appreciate it .

i am running 4.2 also

Problems are to be solved.

Maybe some interesting CFG tweaks may help.

No worries my friend take your time

Gtz

[alainneedle1]

brianos007, si je peut me permettre.....did you test your card with another game? I hope you did not get a defective card but it can happen......make sure the card is OK by stress testing it.

I have read a lot of thread in other forums and according to all the post the GTX 480 is by far the best card for FSX.

Ne désespere pas on est ici pour t'aider.......so hang in there and I am sure Stephen will find a solution for you.

By the way how was that drink........

[brianos007]

Hi Alain.

The card is ok i have run a benchmark and its faster than my 5870 only a few % but faster.

Your french is ok but i am from the dutch speaking part of Belgium.

Immagine a country 300 square miles in diameter and we speak 3 languages.

The drink was very nice my nerves game back to acceptable levels.

I am sure the problem wit Fsx and my 480 will be solved.

One thing i am sure the card is not defective.

I am testing on a non tweaked Cfg.

Maybe thats the problem.

Grtz

[alainneedle1]

Hi Alain.

The card is ok i have run a benchmark and its faster than my 5870 only a few % but faster.

Your french is ok but i am from the dutch speaking part of Belgium.

Immagine a country 300 square miles in diameter and we speak 3 languages.

The drink was very nice my nerves game back to acceptable levels.

I am sure the problem wit Fsx and my 480 will be solved.

One thing i am sure the card is not defective.

I am testing on a non tweaked Cfg.

Maybe thats the problem.

Grtz

I was under the impression you spoke French since you said your CFG is in French, I was born and raised in Quebec Canada so my native language is French....anyway I'm sure you'll like the card after all the little bugs are ironed out.

[brianos007]

Under the impression my friend Alain . 

I speak french but dutch is my mother tongue.

With Somme help of you guys i think the problems will be solved

Grtz

[Spirit Flyer_old]

With Somme help of you guys i think the problems will be solved

Grtz

Hi, I copied as much data as I could from my system for you to take a look at and try out as you are able and willing.

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=24742.0

Between all of us I am sure we will have you up and humming along nicely in no time!

Kind Regards,

[brianos007]

Thanks Stephen i will take a look at it try them out and report back.

Appreciate it

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Thanks Stephen i will take a look at it try them out and report back.

Appreciate it

How are you doing with that magic video card of your? Hope it is getting better by the day!

Kind Regards,

[brianos007]

Hi Stephen.

Looked at all your settings.Thanks anyway for the great work you did.

When you where testing the cards you used fair weather settings and not the real weather from Rex2?

This is making a big difference in FPS.

AA was not checked did you set it in the card control panel?

With the new drivers nhancer dos not work anymore.

So what i did for the moment i have run driver cleaner and found a lot of leftovers from my Ati drivers .

After this was cleaned i refreshed my CFG.

I will start using your CFG settings today and hope for the best.

The 480 gtx is a very good card but i think a bit of an overkill.I think your better of with the 470 GTX.

I had the luxury testing The Ati HD 5870 also.

The only weak point is clouds.I did not us the shader 3 tweak maybe the cloud problems were solved then.

The 5870 is a very good card almost as good as the 480

The 480 gtx is a lot better when flying in to heavy weather.

First serious test

Parked at seattle RW34r with the default cessna.(High noon like in the movie :D

Al scenery sliders to the right except water 2xlow.

50%air traffic 15% road vehicles all the rest of.

Rex2 real weather massive clouds (al settings in rex2 max)

Frames locked at 50fps

Result 22 Fps.

My mood is getting better

Stephen its getting better

Will put the cfg tweaks today and see Wat happens.

I think the more you overclock the better the 840 will perform.

Im running a stable 4.2 ghz. i think if you go higher you still get better performance.

I looked also at your bios settings man you are running high voltages.Mine are a lot lower.Otherwise if you like i send pictures of my bios settings.

Can you not go lower it must be possible i am running the same I7 930 and memory and asus board and also 4.2 ghz solid as a rock.

I will start overclocking the card with The Msi program and see Wat happens.

Temperatures of the card are super around 50°c in my antec 900 case.

I have a 120mm fan blowing from the side directly on the card.

If anybody have heat problems this is the case to go.

Tonight i will tell you the outcome of the tweaks and performance of the card

Grtz.

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Hi,

I am glad it is working better for you. If you scroll down a bit on this thread http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=24742.0 where I put all my specifications you will see that I lowered my voltages a bit. They are only that high because they are needed for my particular CPU to pass the brutal OCCT stress test for stability. I have posted a detailed explanation of my reasoning, right or wrong, there as well. It is great that your CPU will hold at a lower voltage. Each one is different in that respect, and how they behave under extreme test conditions.

I use the direct fsx profile provided and explained by Nick Needham right here: http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=34873 using the quality 8xAA quality settings that can be downloaded here: http://gex.flight1.net/NVIDIA_Profiles_C8xQ.zip. You must carefully read and follow his instructions on how to crack open the Nvidia Control Panel in order to modify the 257.21 driver succesfully.

These direct settings give an equal or higher quality rendering in FSX than Nhancer was able to do in it's latest release. I understand a new version of Nhancer is coming, but it is unlikely that it will produce better results than this fantastic workaround. I use Rex 2.0 also and usually fly in multiplayer with real weather and although heavy weather might nip a frame or 2, it does not have much of a negative effect. beyond that.

Keep plugging away at it and it will get better and better! I am relieved that it is at least starting to work like it is supposed to.

Kind Regards,

[brianos007]

Hi Stephen.

The 480 gtx is rocking now

Damn you can overclock this card

Thanks for everything its going better and better now.

Glad i made the swich

Gtz.

[jnrjim67]

Hi guys just on a side note picked me up a Gigabyte GTX 480 today and all I can say WOW WOW WOW, this thing is fantastic under FSX and pretty much any game out there, played Arma II OA bloody smooth, play metro 2033 bloody good too and as for FSX I have it at 8xs Combined AA with Nhancer it bloody smooth over YMML  pity I gotta stay with 197.75 to have nhancer but its worth having the extra tweaks that nhancer offers, unfortunately no new nhancer release for 250+ drivers yet but there apparently coming soon.  This video card is worth every penny its that good and as for the heat it does get hot but it aint that bad and as for the fan sound not that bad either pretty much the same as my previous card GTX 295.

Anyone even contemplating one of these cards  I dare say do not hesitate there the card for FSX thats for sure. I can see why so many guys here have raved about them pretty much you guys convinced me to buy after reading various posts and I tell you what best spent money on a hardware component for my computer in a long time. 

[gheeD]

Hi guys just on a side note picked me up a Gigabyte GTX 480 and all I can say WOW WOW WOW, this thing is fantastic under FSX and pretty much any game out there, played Arma II OA bloody smooth, play metro 2033 bloody good too and as for FSX I have it at 8xs Combined AA with Nhancer it bloody smooth over YMML  pity I gotta stay with 197.75 to have nhancer but its worth having the extra tweaks that nhancer offers, unfortunately no new nhancer release for 250+ drivers yet but there apparently coming soon.  This video card is worth every penny its that good and as for the heat it does get hot but it aint that bad and as for the fan sound not that bad either pretty much the same as my previous card GTX 295.

Anyone even contemplating one of these cards  I dare say do not hesitate there the card for FSX thats for sure. I can see why so many guys here have raved about them pretty much you guys convinced me to buy after reading various posts and I tell you what best spent money on a hardware component for my computer in a long time.

You REAALLY should try Nick_n AA tweak, it works perfectly and has all the best IQ settings just one click away.. And it works on 258.96, and theres pretty good improvement between old 197.xx series and 25x.xx drivers.

[jnrjim67]

Hi ya gheeD thanks for the info will head on over to his forums and get the AA tweak and give it a go.

Cheers

Jim

[brianos007]

Hello guys. Anybody problems with this link.

Myn is dead

http://gex.flight1.net/NVIDIA_Profiles_C8xQ.zip.

[ptgar1]

gday guys, just a quick question for the guru's out there..

I'm currently still rocking fs9, but have had a taste of fsx and want more, more, MORE!

The main reason for me not switching over is lack of funds, and my seemingly below par machine..

Currently I have a Q6600 OC'd to 3.2ghz, 4gb RAM, p5e deluxe mobo, and a ATI 512mb HD4870.. (ATI Catalyst OC'd to its max..)

Now I can run FSX at kinda decent frames, but touch a city, and its game over unless i slide all the sliders wayy down..

I was wondering, due to my lack of funds, if anyone can see light at the end of the tunnel for me?

I was reading this post and it got me thinking that if I were to invest in a kick arse GFX like the 480, I could get the sim up and running at a decent level.

I'm not looking for perfection, but seemingly, when I run FSX now, the GFX card is by far the biggest speed bump?

I've employed all the tweaks etc, and get frames between 10 and 25  at best.. Hopefully someone can tell me if they believe that this jump is a good idea/overkill for my system. If the 480 will be bottlenecked too much by the cpu, what other options do I have? (Also, I thought that if I do invest in a 480 now, i could bit by bit - obviously needing a new mobo, upgrade over time but not have to worry about the gfx card again.. Flight sim is the sole reason for this computer exisiting!)

Cheers guys!

[gheeD]

for GTX480, you do need a very powerful cpu so that there wont be any bottlenecks. I'm not sure if i7 930 is enough, atleast for fsx. And anywhere else i get decen't over 30 fps with all maxed, but when i get close to portland and seattle, frames go down to high tens and low twenties. On max that is. Very dense and unlimited frames i get anything between 20-30 fps.

So GTX480 definitely is capable of running fsx in max settings, but you shouldn't wait fs9-like smoothness, becouse fsx is still really hard on frames.