470 or 5850?

[feerof]

I'm planning on upgrading from my 3870 to either a gtx470 or a hd5850 this summer.

I play games, however I don't play often, but I'd like to play all the games available with 3d and with the highest settings possible... I am very fond of the 3d technology within the nvidia cards. My question is, does the ATI have 3d technology in their cards? I'm thinking about using the red/cyan stereoscopic glasses, however if I really like 3d gaming, I may go for the 120hz monitor with the flickering glasses.

I also would like to do some folding when I'm not in the house, or when I'm sleeping or w/e. I know the nvidia cards are in favour of this, however how do the ATI cards do in this realm?

I'd like to go for the cheaper choice, but if the final product turns out to be better then the other even if it's more expensive by ~10% I will definitely go for that card.

Thanks!

*also* I know that drivers affect the efficiency of the cards... so if i were comparing the gtx470 w/ forceware 257.21, and the hd5850 w/ catalyst 10.6, how would they square off?

[_dangtx_]

if it wasnt for pure folding numbers, id say go 5850. smaller heat/power footprint, same stuff except a couple games(tesselation)

3d wise, hmm..no idea

[Arinoth]

3D is a gimmick that will leave you with headaches and if you're a gamer like me, the inability to consume alcohol and game the occasional time. ATI is all about eyefinity, which is panoramic gaming.

[Pine]

+1 to Arinoth. I'm fairly sure you won't be able to game for more than 10 minutes without your head exploding with 3D glasses. The 5850 is the better bang for your buck choice, overclocks beautifully and cools great. The 470, I believe the 470 takes more power, produces more heat and I'm not sure on the overclocking situation, but it IS more expensive for a slight performance boost (and sometimes it performs worse than the 5850 - at higher resolutions, and in a few other situations).
Definitely go for the 5850.

[Delavan]

Seem like the OP's post is strongly biased towards the GTX470. He's well aware of ALL the advantages of the GTX470 over the HD5850

I'm not sure on that, but it "almost" seems like a troll...sry OP if you're not.
I suggest that you go with your heart and buy what you think best..get your GTX470...fold, play 3D game with the glasses and stuff.

You NEVER mentioned anything about ATI strenghts...

[Dr_BenD_over]

The 470 isn't worth the price premium IMHO.

[rjbarker]

..........you can bang around the pro's n con's all day long........it really boils down to price / performance ratio......BUT...please define price / performance ratio?....you simply cannot define this as the exact same for "everybody" as whole....price / performance ratio is going to differ from person to person, as each persons "Budget" is different...........

When I purchase any Card it simply boils down to how much I'm willing to spend for an expected level of performance....thats how I define price / performance ratio....nothing worse then spending a little less than what you could have spent (if you dug a bit deeper) and not being extremely satisfied with the end result (performance)........

Also you'll get tons of "biased" opinions...those already having 5850's will swear by em ,while those having 470's will swear by em, as they all have to justify thier "decision".......

[0o0]

While reading this, keep in mind I'm also somewhat nvidia 'biased' as people tell me, but I have my reasons...

gtx470 doesn't get incredibly hot, and it doesn't cost that much either. It consumes a bit more power, not sure if that's a big to you or not (probably not because you're building a high end pc that consumes so much that the difference is nothing). The 470 comes with a physx processor, 5850 does not. 5850 overclocks to [nearly] 5870 speeds, haven't heard how the 470 overclocks yet. The 5850 has a tiny hole in the back for exhaust, while the 470 has a entire pci slot. Biggest thing is that the 470 has a physx processor, and you don't get physx with ati unless you do it on a cpu that bottlenecks the entire system, or you crack the drivers (while getting headaches) and buy another $50 nvidia card. Oh and as for tesselation, ati's 5800's are a big flunk with it. Enabling tesselation puts a HUGE hit on ati, while nvidia's hit is much more reasonable. Just like how reviewers don't enable physx in benchmarking (to make ati look better than they are), they usually don't benchmark tesselation either because ati sucks so much with tesselation.

and about 3d, personally my eyes can't watch 3d with those colour filtering glasses. I haven't tried nvidia's 3d vision yet, but if you can, try it out first. If your eyes can watch stuff on it without stress, I'd say go for it. Everyone's different. I'd say get the 470 :)

[Helix]

Originally Posted by 0o0

Just like how reviewers don't enable physx in benchmarking (to make ati look better than they are)

They don't enable it to be able to compare cards on even terms. With it on, it's like comparing apples to oranges.

[Pine]

The 5850 vs 470 exhaust isn't a factor, since the 5850's temps are better. Not every game supports PhysX, but a fair bit do.

Originally Posted by 0o0

Just like how reviewers don't enable physx in benchmarking (to make ati look better than they are)

Just like how reviewers don't enable Eyefinity in benchmarking (to make nVidia look better than they are)
Honestly, I think the OP already has his heart set on something, and it's not particularly the 5850...(but I'd encourage the 5850)