470 or 5850?

[Bond007]

If you care about folding go 470, if not go 5850

[Arinoth]

Originally Posted by rjbarker

^^^^ The OP's already stated he's building a "higher end" Rig...so obviously he's going to have a decent PSU......with that said even a lower end PSU is more than enough for a 470.....in most cases just about everybody building a new gaming Rig is going to go minimum 650W PSU...so really Power consumption is a moot point ;)

Exactly how is extra power or heat outputted both into the case and into the 'room' a moot point? Some people are going to be on a budget for their electrical bill, or would like to keep their electrical bill where it is. You throw in a higher consumption item in your house and run it quite a bit your electrical bill go up, i saw this last summer when i was folding during the summer.

Same thing goes with heat, not everyone will have an air conditioned room for the summer and some people keep their pc's in their bedroom. I don't know about you, but i don't like sleeping in 30C+ room because i ran my computer all day and i have to wait several hours for my room to cool down.

You have to remember we have members from all walks of life and income here. Just because the OP has the money for a higher end system does not mean that he didn't save up his money over a while and this is where he is spending his spare money.

As we always have to take into consideration are the externals to all situations, not just look at it as an enclosed system of just gpu/computer.

[rjbarker]

^^^ Get the Cards that bests suits you...seems Folding is a Catch 22, as the nVidia Cards certainly are the better choice for Folding, but according to Arinoth if your Folding the 470 is gonna kill you on the Power Consumption end of it........I see your running a Corsair 750W...so you'll be covered regardless of your decision.........stick to my guns though..for $60 more and far better performance overall I'd go 470...but thats me..

[feerof]

I love the responses, so far my impressions are that:

1. Go for the 5850 if not folding
2. Power and heat are the biggest issues
3. 3d is a gimmick

1. I'm probably going to fold, but only during those sweet contests, however now that i think about it, it's not worth it.

2. yes... I'm aware of that.

3. I don't believe it's a gimmick... I see the potential uses of 3d, however the initial cost of getting a 3d system is just not worth it in my eyes. I just came home from a friends place to test his stereoscopic glasses with his gtx 295, it impressed me at first, but the colours come out funky because of the red/cyan filters... so it kind ruined the whole 3d experience. I would consider the 3d vision technology, but it is just way too expensive.

Now to say I'm an Nvidia fanboy is pulling the strings because I don't even own a decent nvidia card... lol other than my ... AGP rage 128mb graphics card in my p3 computer...

Yes i agree that my original post is biased towards nvidia, but can someone educate me on why ati doesn't have the features that nvidia has? Why can't it fold as great as an nvidia card, why can't it have the 3d feature, why can't it have tesselation?

Thanks

[Teaplant]

All graphics cards are capable of tessellation so long they run DirectX11. The current Fermi cards do it a little bit better than ATI's current lineup which is what people are getting at.

nVidia's cards probably do better folding thanks to CUDA. I could be wrong since I don't care about folding but its what I imagine the reason to be.

The choice right now depends on how much you care about raw performance vs everything else. nVidia's cards are definitely the most powerful single GPU cards right now. The 5850 is weaker but is far more efficient in basically all fronts of heat/noise/power consumption/cost per performance. Ultimately, you're the guy who has to make the choice but I'll let you know that you won't be disappointed from the card you choose since they're both very good.

Personally I wouldn't really bother with PhysX. Ignoring stuff fairly dated stuff like Mirror's Edge, any game that actually requires the a single 470 to actually work (that is running at settings where it won't simply churn out triple digit FPS) will simply scream in pain with PhysX on.

[Pine]

if you're going to overclock on the stock cooling, then the heat of the 470 might actually be a problem. If not, then the heat probably won't.
Also, ATi has the most powerful single GPU card: The 5970; It is, afterall, a single card, one graphics processing unit. Heh, heh.

[Full Speed]

I almost got a 470 instead of the 5850 I have now. 3D was the main reason I wanted to go for it. If you want to go 3D I'd go all the way, with the shutter glasses and everything. I went for the 5850 because of the cost of a 3D monitor, a 470, and that 3D kit. I feel a little regret, but if I did spend all of that money I'd probably regret that a lot more. If you don't mind spending the money on it, I'd go for it. Also, 3D doesn't give me headaches or anything, but I know a lot of people who do get them.

[ilya]

I got a Zotac GTX470 a few weeks ago, mostly for folding purposes, but also so I could have a 3 monitor setup/DX11/gaming potential.

To the blind fanboys that say heat is not an issue, IT IS. It's just not necessarily as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be. Stock volts on my card were 950mV, I've seen that number as low as 937mV and as high as ~1V. So theoretically I should have a decently binned chip.
Well I had to replace one of the cheaper USB cables I had touching the rear exhaust vent of the card. (it was only rated for 35*celsius IIRC so it was really just my own stupidity but you get the point of the heat issue) I also can't stick my hand back there when I'm folding because it simply kicks out that much heat.
With heat usually comes fan noise, but the stock fan profile is pretty weak. The fan doesn't ramp up past 40% until it heats 70*. 30 minutes of Furmark will easily push past 100* at high resolutions. A slightly more aggressive fan profile solves this, however it gets unbearably loud during intense usage. (folding/Furmark, I haven't ran any intense games on this yet)
What I ended up doing was I replaced the thermal paste with MX-3 and then removed the shroud. I found 2 old Intel stock coolers with the Sanyo Denki fans on them and paper clipped them to the heatsink. Undervolted, they're bearable in terms of noise, while providing MUCH better temps. The problem is my case temps rose about 7* so I ended up installing 3 more intake fans.
Right now, the GPU core temps sit at 84-87* while folding and I get 15k PPD with 778core 949mem 1062mV. (haven't completely fine tuned the OC) So the heat/noise CAN be managed even if you're on a budget, although it's not easy since it heats up my room as well, the biggest issue is whether or not you can handle the power consumption.

If you're really just getting a card to game with, I'd say go for the 5850, if Folding is important and you can afford ~5-15 bucks a month on your power bill+potential aftermarket cooling costs, (depends on your pricing/usage) get the 470.

[Lpfan4ever]

Originally Posted by Pine

Also, ATi has the most powerful single GPU card: The 5970; It is, afterall, a single card, one graphics processing unit. Heh, heh.

Wat

I'm going to follow the trend here. from what I've seen, the GTX470 edges out in raw performance, whereas the 5850 comes out ahead in everything else (power draw, heat, price, etc). There's also the Folding side of things, but I believe you stated that the card wouldn't be used for Folding unless it was a contest, so that arguement is thrown out of the window. If you're dead set on 3D then NVIDIA's the only way to go. Another thing being tossed around is tesselation. I'm pretty sure that, although these cards can do it, we're not going to be seeing many games make use of it until probably the next batch of cards come out (ATI 6000's, NVIDIA GTX500's, whatever the hell they'll be called).

All in all, here's what I see:

Benefits - GTX470:
- More powerful
- Folding
- CUDA
- 3D

Benefits - 5850:
- Most likely cheaper
- Less heat, power draw
- Eyefinity on a single card

You ultimately make the decision, so see what you really want most out of the card and see what fits in the best.

[headsh0t]

Originally Posted by feerof

1. I'm probably going to fold, but only during those sweet contests, however now that i think about it, it's not worth it.

If that's the only time you're going to be folding, that won't be very much. Maybe a couple of days, every couple of months...

Not saying that there's not lots of contests which there IS, just that if you actually say you'll be folding, it should mean on a regular basis. Plus you already said it's not even worth to do it during the contests, so I don't think you'll be folding. You could also just fold on your CPU for any contests instead of GPU.

I agree with lpfan that we won't be seeing heavy tessellation use until at least the next batch of cards are out.