Are you running ATI 5870, 6870 or Nvidia 460?

[maclean525]

I have a 5850 in my racing/sim rig and a 5870 in my work PC. The ATI card is the way to go in the $300 price range. The new NVidia 580 is looking like an awesome card but it should be at the price point it's coming in at over $500. Plus with NVidia you cannot do multi-screen gaming without SLI so basically $1000 in cards to do 20% more than what one ATI card can do for $300.

For reference I run an E7400 CPU at 3.8GHz with the 5850 and run IL2 at 5760x1080 on the highest detail level across three screens and average around 60fps. Can go higher if I overclock the 5850 but there's no need. The 5870 is even better.

[Codex]

Running two 5870's in crossfire, no problems what so ever with any game I run.

Was thinking of getting 2 x 580's just to see how nVidia is now and to play with CUDA, but I'm staying with ATI.

[klem]

Sorry guys I should have posted those details:-

Intel i7 950 3.06GHz overclocked to 4.2GHz by supplier (o/c under warranty)
Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B,Super 6 Heatpipe Tower Cooler
6Gb DDR3 RAM
XFX 5870 GPU....... ???????????????
ASUS Sabertooth mobo
SSD for the OS and Flying software (IL-2, FSX, SoW)
600w Silverstone Tech. Element PSU (4 x PCIe 6 pin connectors for a future second card)
Coolermaster HAF 912 case
plus DVD R/W and a couple of HDDs I already own for other stuff (photos etc)

It's based around a Scan.co.uk "3XS SLIK i7 X58 950 BlackOps Bundle"

Budget is around £1100-1200.

Really good replies guys, thanks. I'll keep collecting them over the weekend

[brando]

The high performance ATI 6xxx cards (6890 - 6970) have not been released yet. The 6870 is an upgraded 5770 (not 5870) so I wouldn't go there. The 5870 is a good card using the up-to-date drivers and I will buy another and Crossfire them if the new game supports that.
I can't comment on the green side; I'm strictly an Ati fangeezer

[kimosabi]

Originally Posted by brando

I can't comment on the green side; I'm strictly an Ati fangeezer

Hey no prob Brando. As you can see, there's plenty of Nvidia fanboys showing themselves here. I'm just a whore.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by maclean525

The new NVidia 580 is looking like an awesome card but it should be at the price point it's coming in at over $500. Plus with NVidia you cannot do multi-screen gaming without SLI so basically $1000 in cards to do 20% more than what one ATI card can do for $300.

This is like a typo - $1000 of 580 SLi will give you a whole lot more than 20% on an AMD card, I assume you meant $500 on a single 580 giving 20%. I appreciate you need 2 580s for 3 screens, but you also get a ton or power too (and SoW will use it). If you were wanting Nvidia for 3 screens and didn't want the power, you'd get 2 460s.

Originally Posted by klem

Intel i7 950 3.06GHz overclocked to 4.2GHz by supplier (o/c under warranty)
Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B,Super 6 Heatpipe Tower Cooler
6Gb DDR3 RAM
XFX 5870 GPU....... ???????????????
ASUS Sabertooth mobo
SSD for the OS and Flying software (IL-2, FSX, SoW)
600w Silverstone Tech. Element PSU (4 x PCIe 6 pin connectors for a future second card)
Coolermaster HAF 912 case
plus DVD R/W and a couple of HDDs I already own for other stuff (photos etc)

It's based around a Scan.co.uk "3XS SLIK i7 X58 950 BlackOps Bundle"

Budget is around £1100-1200.

So you havent got the PC yet. Have you got a link to that system? I've been onto Scan and clicked on the 3XS, then SLIK links, and they have a couple of systems at a very high price.

If having the PC custom made is the right way for you, I wouldn't want to stop you, but I'd just like to check it's what you need. I know you get to keep a warranty, but that comes at a hefty price, and learning to OC an i7 is easy (if you have to little time, and too much money, fair enough - and in that case get a 580 or 6970).

I've bought all of my gear from Scan and have a similar (cheaper) system. Will you consider going crossfire/SLi in the future? If so, you'd want a more powerful PSU, but 600 should be ok for a top single card. The thing is, people are needing pretty decent cards to run IL2, as it's developed over the years. There's no reason to think that SoW won't also become more hungry as time goes by, and getting a decent card now, with the ability to add another in a couple of years would be nice.

I hadn't replied until now on your choice of cards because you only wanted to hear from those who had the same cards, but the thread seems to have gone past that now The 6870 and 460 are nice mid range cards, and double up nicely (CF/SLi), but if you were only going for 1 card I'd think the expensive system you're considering deserves a little more. The 5870 is better (and more expensive), but doesn't scale as well (if you later add a second). If that's your budget, I think you'd be better off waiting a month for the 6950 or so (unless you can get a 5870 for a good price, and you don't feel the need for better, or a future crossfire setup).

I've got a question.

Does a DX11 graphic card with tesselation use the tesselation capacity for the normal graphics where it's not needed or is it "wasted" graphic power?
Hope you understand what i mean.

[dduff442]

The card companies know how to price their stuff. The expensive cards always look very tempting, the cheap cards cheap and the mid-point cards cost-effective.

Also, while new cards coming on the market make the prices of old ones drop, they know to drop the price just a little initially to catch the price-conscious but impatient buyer. I'd guess it'll be Mar or Apr before you see nice discounts on 5870s.

Whatever card you get, it'll still give the same graphical quality in a few years; games move on but cards don't go backwards.

I'm very happy with my HD5870. I'd advise a cheap vanilla version; I can get 915 MHz Core/1310 MHz memory from mine without overvolting using MSI afterburner which works with non-MSI cards as well. A slight overvolt allows 930MHz core or so, but that's the limit pretty much and another card might not even make that.

This O/C gives +7.3% on Furmark 1.8.0 with post F/X and displacement mapping active, +9.3% without them. That beats many of the higher priced versions on the market. I don't run the o/c normally because it's not needed, but there's a little overhead there even if it's not as much as the 5850.

MSI Afterburner + HD 5850 should get really nice performance. Edit msiafterburner.cfg to read:

[ATIADLHAL]
EnableUnofficialOverclocking	= 1

and it'll allow you to go past the BIOS-specific clock limit which is restrictive on the 5850. There's no risk of damaging the card unless you do something nuts. I'd never o/c'd anything before Feb, but there are simple guides on the web.

dduff

[maclean525]

Originally Posted by klem

Intel i7 950 3.06GHz overclocked to 4.2GHz by supplier (o/c under warranty)
Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B,Super 6 Heatpipe Tower Cooler
6Gb DDR3 RAM
XFX 5870 GPU....... ???????????????
ASUS Sabertooth mobo
SSD for the OS and Flying software (IL-2, FSX, SoW)
600w Silverstone Tech. Element PSU (4 x PCIe 6 pin connectors for a future second card)
Coolermaster HAF 912 case
plus DVD R/W and a couple of HDDs I already own for other stuff (photos etc)

This is a very well put together machine. I say that because I am upgrading my PC in the next couple of weeks and this is exactly what I am moving to The only tweak I would make would be a 700W power supply as 600 is right on the edge if you have joysticks, TrackIR, pedals etc. attached as those draw additional power. Also make sure that Megahalems fits with the mobo.

[BadAim]

I'm of a mind that a little bump of the budget for the Vid card, or even scaling back on the hardware would serve you well on this rig. While the SSD is all well and good, would you trade graphics goodness for load times? I'm running a GTX 470 right now on a much tamer rig and get great results on everything but ROF, which looks fantastic, but chokes on my dual core. (balance is the key Grasshopper)

My main concern, is we don't have SOW yet, so we don't know how top heavy the programming is. We know that it will have pretty strong demands on graphics, but how much processing power and memory will all of the FM, DM, etc. improvements need?

Just a couple of thoughts. (I know you only wanted to hear about the cards themselves, but a balanced system will serve you well, especially with a flight sim)

Edit: Oh yeah, thanks maclean, I forgot about the PS, I might even go for an 800 or 850 to give you plenty of overhead for upgrades.