GTX 580 vs. ATI 6970?

[mattag08]

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card and these are the two cards that are in the running. The GTX 580 benchmarks better in almost every way, but I know the 6970 has 512MB more VRAM. I've read that CloD only uses about 1.5GB of VRAM, but I was curious if having that extra headroom makes any difference. Obviously none of the benchmarks include performance in IL-2:CloD yet.

Could people that play the game and run on a single card setup with one of the above two cards please post their system specs and performance in CloD? I know of many other people waiting to upgrade based on what you guys are finding in your games and you'd be doing us all a great service.

[Triggaaar]

580 is the faster card in every game where resolution is below 2560 or so, except CoD. It's going to be close in CoD and you're going to struggle to get a definitive answer as we're all experiensing different results due to how new the game is and the current issues.

If I select the bomber intercept mission over London, 6 spits vs 9 HE111s, details set to max (v high), I get 40 fps for most of it (drops now and then, goes up to 60 when we head out to sea. Specs below.

If money is no object to you, and you play a lot of other games, maybe treat yourself to the 580. If you mostly play CoD, I'm not sure you'll notice much difference, so save money and get the 6970. Maybe you'll be able to CF in a couple of years.

[Flyby]

An interesting dilemma to have. But I wonder which are the most important parameters for video bliss when comparing the two cards. I like this site "GPU-Review", and put the two cards up for comparison (looking at the bold type in the specs for each card, which one would CoD favor?): http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=637&card2=638

Each card has two standout advantages over the other. Which would you choose now?
Flyby out

[Hellman1966]

I'm looking at the 580 3gb. However, I seem to keep finding different builds of supposedly the same card!
The Palit looks like the best value. Link here http://www.ginger6.com/palit-pcie-p-36014.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Shopping

Anyone steer me in the right direction of the 580 of choice?

~S~

85FG_Wolf.

[GOZR]

The answer is easy get the one with teh most Vram 1.5 GB is not enough alas.. 2 GB or 3 GB is a must now..

[Flanker35M]

S!

At the moment AMD scales better than nVidia when using XFire/SLI. I had a Palit 580GTX 1.5Gb before PowerColor 6970HD 2Gb and can say both cards are good. Really boils down to own preference and how much you want to shell out.

[Hellman1966]

Well, I'm looking at the one in the link. I'm going for 3gb regardless so it'll be smokin on high settings. My question is, which 580 3gb to get?

[Flyby]

I'm looking at the 580 3gb. However, I seem to keep finding different builds of supposedly the same card!
The Palit looks like the best value. Link here http://www.ginger6.com/palit-pcie-p-36014.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Shopping

Anyone steer me in the right direction of the 580 of choice?

~S~

85FG_Wolf.

Oh! I see now. Here in the yard (U.S.) the 3gb GTX580 is known as the GTX 590, and it has two GPUs on it. It costs around $700.00 USD and is out of stock. I didn't know such name variations existed, but your 3gb 580 with a single GPU (?) seems to cost as much as the 2-GPU 590 sold here. At least I didn't see a dual GPU listed in the specs of that Palit card. Seems sort of a rip, if so. Here's a link to the 590. It shows dual 512-stream processing GPUs. Probably sucks enough power to dim a city: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130630&cm_re=gtx_590-_-14-130-630-_-Product
BTW, I guess no one has an answer to my question about the comparison in the link; which bold-type specs better suit CoD? I wonder if, at those performance levels, it makes a difference? Anyone? ANYONE!!! :D

Flyby out

[Hellman1966]

Yeah, I can get one here for £600
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/nvidiageforcegraphicscards/nvidiagtx590fermiseries/Asus/90-C3CHH0-U0UAY0YZ.html

Will it really make that much difference having a dual core?

[Meusli]

If you can hold off till the end of the year, that is when the new generation of GPU's will be released. These ATI6900s and Nvidia500s are just remodels of the old GPUs and aren't massively more powerful than the 5900s and 400s. These next generation of cards are going to be immense.

[mattag08]

I'm glad you see my dilemma. I will agree that CloD is still in development for all intents a purposes and that coming patches may make one card a clear winner, but for now I'd like to see if there's already a disparity or a clear performance gain from extra VRAM over 1.5 GB and if we're seeing one card clearly beating the other.

To answer one of the earlier poster's questions, I do play other games on a regular basis, but IL-2 is by far and away the one I play most often. (Ex. In a week where I spend 20 hours on video games, about 10-15 will be IL-2).

Also, in response to another poster, I do not want or plan to get the 3GB GTX 580 or the GTX 590.

[Hellman]

I wish I had that much patience. I think the single core 580 3gb is the best bet til then. At least I'll get a decent frame rate til the kick ass stuff is out.

~S~

[T}{OR]

Oh! I see now. Here in the yard (U.S.) the 3gb GTX580 is known as the GTX 590, and it has two GPUs on it.

Not true. 590 is a card with two downclocked chips from 580 in SLI. Think of it as "SLI on a stick". The only problem is - 590 comes with such poor power regulation that many of those uber expensive cards have already died. Nvidia blames it on beta drivers, but there is more to it. ;) All dual GPU cards should be avoided IMO. Particularly for CoD.

Even if you do get it, it is SLI. So, no matter that you have 3 GB of VRAM total, you are only effectively using 1.5 GB as this is what is assigned to each GPU chip. And CoD doesn't support SLI/XF yet. Even if it did, you are left with 1.5 GB of total VRAM - just "twice as fast".

This is where 3GB 580 comes is. It is specifically custom built for SLI on higher resolutions.

1.5 GB of VRAM on HD resolutions is more than enough for almost every other game out there. But CoD seems to need more. Thus, since 580 is faster than 6970 - the choice is obvious, provided you have the money.

So far, I've seen 3 OM's offering 3GB versions. The latest and baddest (with factory OC) comes from Zotac:

ZOTAC AMP²! GeForce GTX 580 (http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-amp2-geforce-gtx-580-zt-50104-10p.html)

http://tpucdn.com/img/11-04-06/38b_thm.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/img/11-04-06/38b.jpg)

[Hellman]

That's the bad boy I've been looking at. Even tho SLI support is just around the corner, it's still the better one to get?

[Hellman]

How's this baby?

http://www.ginger6.com/palit-pcie-p-36014.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Shopping

[T}{OR]

That's the bad boy I've been looking at. Even tho SLI support is just around the corner, it's still the better one to get?

Without a doubt - YES. Stay clear from dual GPU solutions like 6990 and 590.

6990: runs hot and is loud as a vacuum cleaner from 1950's
590: will die a silent death because of a cheap power regulation


How's this baby?

http://www.ginger6.com/palit-pcie-p-36014.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Shopping

I'd go with Zotac if you can get it. But this is more than ok. :)

[Hellman]

Hmmm. Having trouble finding one for sale :(

[Hellman]

Just ordered the Palit 580 3gb. Has great reviews.

Thx for the help and advice, Thor.

~S~

85FG_Wolf

[Flyby]

Not true. 590 is a card with two downclocked chips from 580 in SLI. [/IMG][/URL]
Yes the 590 has two down-clocked chips on one board, each with 1.5gb of vram. I mis-typed what I meant to say. I am aware that the 3GB-580 has only the one chip on it. My bad? Too bad such a card is not available here, so far as I know. I'd get one for sure.
Flyby out

[O_TaipaN]

I agree the single GPU GTX 580 3GB is the best option, and it offers the future upgrade path to SLI with a second 580 later. Once ROF and COD have finalised their SLI patches that is.. DCS A-10C already has some SLI support it seems.

Do you really think more than 1.5GB VRAM is needed though? Looking at MSI afterburner my 1.5gb Vram doesn't max out in COD unless I turn everything high and use > 2560 resolution or multi monitor. (which you can't do anyway due to performance issues).

[nullack]

NVIDIA has Physx, CUDA, NVision etcetc - yeah I here ya I dont like proprietary apis either but Physx in particular is useful for gaming

Two or three GTX 580s are the go forget the 590

[T}{OR]

Do you really think more than 1.5GB VRAM is needed though? Looking at MSI afterburner my 1.5gb Vram doesn't max out in COD unless I turn everything high and use > 2560 resolution or multi monitor. (which you can't do anyway due to performance issues).

Perhaps it isn't. But it will help with stutters. Both guys I know that are using them with CoD report all is silky smooth. And they run the game on max settings on HD resolution.

Simulations like CoD, RoF and A-10 shouldn't be compared to a modern FPS shooters. ;)

[Hellman]

Who cares, it arrives tomorrow and I can't wait! :grin:

Besides, there will probably be more patches, more detailed maps, more this, more that over time. And potentially requiring some serious juice. And I'm an eye-candy guy. I just gotta have everything maxed, and smooth. It's all about total immersion for me!

I'll post results once I've got it all running.

IL2 junky

~S~

85FG_Wolf.

[Codex]

I may have found the card I've been looking for.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1170&products_id=17016

These 580 3-GB cards tick all the boxes:

CUDA + PhysX + Wide mem buffer + Lots of ram = awesome card.

[Stefem]

I may have found the card I've been looking for.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1170&products_id=17016

These 580 3-GB cards tick all the boxes:

CUDA + PhysX + Wide mem buffer + Lots of ram = awesome card.

Great card, it has a custom power circuitry that allow massive overclock and the cooler is very efficient.

[Hellman]

I looked at that one but it was another £100. I didn't think it was that much better than the one I'm getting, and I'm sure it will be enough. I'll prob get another down the track with the SLI option.

[Stefem]

I looked at that one but it was another £100. I didn't think it was that much better than the one I'm getting, and I'm sure it will be enough. I'll prob get another down the track with the SLI option.
There's no difference on performance at default, only cooler noise, temp and overclocking capabilities

[Stefem]

We need at least a driver release from both AMD and NVIDIA to say which is better for IL-2 CoD

[DarthElvis]

We need at least a driver release from both AMD and NVIDIA to say which is better for IL-2 CoD

The 580 will be better. For well over $100.00 more, it had better be or it's a gigantic fail from Nvidia.

[mattag08]

Soooo...back to the original post. Anyone with a GTX 580 or 6970 wanna post their specs/results?

[Hellman]

LOL. That's a bloody good point. Sorry for diverting the real point :(

[Stefem]

The 580 will be better. For well over $100.00 more, it had better be or it's a gigantic fail from Nvidia.

Ok, I mean, I believe it will be better for sure but we need some time to say exactly how much.

[Hellman]

Well, boys. Just recieved and installed my new gtx 580 3gb.

WOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

75-80fps over water. 50-60 over land a buildings.

London was at about 15-20 when I was flying between the houses.

But.......This was at absolutely maxed settings!!! Everything, including unlimited buildings!

Still had a lot of intermittent lags, but on the whole it's totally playable when fully maxed! The fricking grass looks like fricking grass!

I still think there are a lot of stability issues, but that card just kicks the games ass!

~S~

85FG_Wolf

[Heliocon]

As a person who is big on hardware this is what I would say (sorry if its being repeated).
I would currently go for the 580, it has better general DX11 performance while eliminating the heat and noise issues of the 400 series, nvidia also has very good driver support. The 580 also scales very well in SLI, although at high resolutions not using DX11 features, ATI beats out nvidia (but that would be using eyefinity). Normally ATI + is the lower price, but as a 580 owner I strongly recommend it. The only problem is the 1.5gb of ddr5 ram, which is alittle stingy and while I would stick with EVGA other companies are adding more ram now although it wont help unless the game is running in dx10.1 and win7/vista/64bit which will take advantage of the larger Vram.

[Codex]

Well, boys. Just recieved and installed my new gtx 580 3gb.

WOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

75-80fps over water. 50-60 over land a buildings.

London was at about 15-20 when I was flying between the houses.

But.......This was at absolutely maxed settings!!! Everything, including unlimited buildings!

Still had a lot of intermittent lags, but on the whole it's totally playable when fully maxed! The fricking grass looks like fricking grass!

I still think there are a lot of stability issues, but that card just kicks the games ass!

~S~

85FG_Wolf

Mind posting the rest of your system specs? ;)

[Hellman]

Sure.

Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.83ghz, 300gb 10,000rpm hd, plus another 1TB hd, Palit Nvidia GTX 580 3gb, 28" Viewsonic 1900 x 1200 res, 8gb DDR3 ram, Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 motherboard.

;)

[sfmadmax]

I recently picked up a Diamon ATI 6970 2GB, I believe the clock on it was either 880 or 890 , (not sure)

Just want to make this clear, I'm a long time nvidia user. My first enthusiast card was the very first Radeon series they released. Due to their buggy drivers at the time i was motivated to move to Nvidia and have been with them ever since. I have many nvidia card.

Out of all the hardware reviews i have read, it's looking like ATI has their act together somewhat. The benchmarks of various games put the 2 cards on par with each other. Each has their pros and cons. At that point the logical considerations come down to budget and how much you can afford.

For me, I'm a working class individual with a family and baby on the way. The ATI cost is very attractive. Thats really why I went with it.

I had the oppertunity to demo a ATI 5770 card (borrowed from the lab @ work) and try CoD on it. It was a massive step up from my Nvidia 8800GTS 512. I could play the game @ medium with somewhat good fps performance.

After about a week of scoping the price differences I was going to go with a GTX570. But i decided to why not try the Radeon 6970 since it has more physical ram on it.

I'm on my 4th / 5th day with it. I havent had much time to play CloD but I'm loving it.. It's a good card, its fast. The fan does kick on a little higher when theres a load on it. But I really don't care. I have a fridge in my office (for beer ) :P so its already noisy in there. Besides after 4 beers who cards about such things :P

You'l see at least 50-60 FPS non stop.. 30FPS over london. Depending on your Graphics settings that will increase/decrease. I have been playing a little bit with that optimization mod on the forum here. which resulted in the sustained high FPS.

At the moment I am running everything on High, except for visibility. I turned it off from unlimited -> High ... For the most part. When I'm in combat flying planes.. I'll drop to about 30 - 35FPS , 20 over london in combat. However For what it is & for the cost, it's a great deal.

The card cost me around $320. I used a newegg savers deal and combined it with a local microcenter in the area that matches newegg prices.

My cpu specs are.

Intel W3570 Processor
12GB ram DDR3 1600
Intel SSD Hard Drive (160gb)
2GB ATI 6970 (Diamond)

If your looking for a boost and don't want to shell out $500 +
I would recommend a 6970 to you guys. Like I said, I'm a long time nvidia user.

[Heliocon]

Sure.

Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.83ghz, 300gb 10,000rpm hd, plus another 1TB hd, Palit Nvidia GTX 580 3gb, 28" Viewsonic 1900 x 1200 res, 8gb DDR3 ram, Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 motherboard.

;)

Vids? Can we have some flying over london since buildings seem to be the big issue interms of memory allocation.

@above poster - I think its worth noting that Creative Assembly is holding off the DX11 portion of the engine for Shogunt 2 total war, because of a problem with AMD/ATI dx11 card drivers. It runs fine on Nvidia, but problematic on ATI and the initial release date for the dx11 patch was 2-4 weeks after the games release. At the same time ATI had a very similar date for their driver update which specified Shogun2 in its notes. As of two days ago it has been a month but the ATI drivers have been delayed and CA comment is that they will release DX11 soon but they cannot currently comment on why there is a delay.

=ATI current gen high end cards on dx11 (and maybe even 10) are at a disadvantage, now that the 500s are out especially.

[T}{OR]

ATI current gen high end cards on dx11 (and maybe even 10) are at a disadvantage, now that the 500s are out especially.

That, and...

Out of all the hardware reviews i have read, it's looking like ATI has their act together somewhat. The benchmarks of various games put the 2 cards on par with each other. Each has their pros and cons. At that point the logical considerations come down to budget and how much you can afford.

For me, I'm a working class individual with a family and baby on the way. The ATI cost is very attractive. Thats really why I went with it.

... THB, especially in comparison to the previous 5XXX series from ATI/AMD current generation is a disappointment. They run significantly hotter and louder, and can not cope with Nvidia's flagship which is in totally different league from 6970.

But, as you pointed out - they kept their prices in order. CoD users will find them very useful with those 2GB.

[maclean525]

NVidia and ATI have made their beds. You pick your priorities you pick your card.

#1. Single screen, lower res, money not an issue. NVidia ALL THE WAY. That's their sweet spot, incredible frame rates.

#3. Multi-screen eyefinity or very large resolutions, cheaper price. Absolutely go 6970.

I personally run Eyefinity at 5760x1080 so I have to go ATI. At only $370 compared to $500+ x2 for NVidia cards there's no comparison. If I was an fps or single screen guy who was looking for absolute maximum frame rates at any cost I'd go with the 580.

[T}{OR]

#1. Single screen, lower res, money not an issue. NVidia ALL THE WAY. That's their sweet spot, incredible frame rates.

#3. Multi-screen eyefinity or very large resolutions, cheaper price. Absolutely go 6970.

This is only partially true. On HD resolutions their performance (6950 vs. 560 Ti & 6970 vs. 570) is more or less the same. Turn on some AA and AF and Nvidia has the lead.

As a matter of fact, on some lower (below HD) resolutions 68XX family of cards is faster than 560 Ti.

The exception are CoD players and those using Eyefinity like yourself where those extra amounts of VRAM are really useful.

[sfmadmax]

lol, Nerds at their finest.. you wanted to hear from a 6970 user. I make a post then get stomped on by my fellow nvidia followers about how ati blows.. nice..

[T}{OR]

lol, Nerds at their finest.. you wanted to hear from a 6970 user. I make a post then get stomped on by my fellow nvidia followers about how ati blows.. nice..

I think I was pretty clear in what I said. I guess you should re-read it.

Comments like Green camp is better than Red camp are meaningless. I will take what is better for the price I am willing to pay.

For CoD, 6970 is a great card. Thank you for providing us with info on how it runs.

[maclean525]

lol, Nerds at their finest.. you wanted to hear from a 6970 user. I make a post then get stomped on by my fellow nvidia followers about how ati blows.. nice..

You can't argue with religion man ;) The ATI cards are absolutely fantastic, doesn't matter what some folks say. Right now they have some amazing cards out not least of which is the 2GB 6970 which I will be buying real soon. I currently have a 5850 which runs any game out there at Eyefinity resolution no problems. I paid $200 for the card. How can you not love that?