graphic engine? I forget...

[JG52Krupi]

Get a 5970 they are getting cheaper by the second and then if you need more power get another one

The 5970 is the fastest card out atm, or at least last time i checked it was!

[Blackdog_kt]

I can't believe this comes up so often, yet most people forget what was said in similar threads just days ago.

No offence of course, i know that we don't always have the time to read every single post, it just seems strange to me that an important issue such as system component optimization is the one to get overlooked while we spend pages upon pages arguing over the smallest details

Anyway, the short version is this.
A lot of games run different on similar cards from different manufacturers. This is not always due to purposeful optimization, it's just that sometimes the way the code works is slightly better suited for one architecture or the other. Both Ati and nVidia are affected from this, because they use different architectures.

However, we can still make some informed guesses with the information we have at hand.

1) SoW will use DX9,10 and 11 modes. So there's no OpenGL which gave nVidia the advantage in IL2.

2) If you buy the latest cards (nVidia 5xx or Ati 6xxx series), they are all good in terms of power consumption and heat generation. If however you want to choose between the previous generation (nVidia 4xx or Ati 5xxx) and you care about these things, be informed that the single GPU nVidia 480 on its release was marginally faster, no more than 5%, than the dual GPU Ati 5970, but on the lower end of the resolution spectrum only. Ati took the lead as resolutions went higher, important to note for people with multiple monitors.
At the same time the 480 ranked similar if not higher to the 5970 in terms of power consumption and heat generation and the advantage of being the fastest single GPU solution didn't mean much because it was priced almost as high as Ati's dual GPU offerings.
This meant that for 90$ more you could get the dual GPU Ati 5970 which was a better deal overall (less risk of heat induced wear and tear and lower power needs for an overall similar performance). That's why they couldn't compete with Ati initially and the reason that prompted all the improvements and rebranding as the 5xx series, which is now much better than the original 4xx series of cards.

3) Due to the differences in architecture, it tends to go like this:
Go with nVidia 4xx,5xx or Ati 68xx if you are going to make significant use of tesselation.
Go with Ati 59xx if you are not going to use tesselation much, as it's faster in the other tasks.
Go with Ati 69xx if you want both.

The Ati 6xxx series is actually two product lines based on different chips, so it needs some clarification. The 68xx is focused on tesselation but is a bit slower in other tasks, so it's similar to the nVidia way of doing things. The 69xx however is rumored to have the tesselation performance of nVidia's 5xx series coupled with the non-tesselation performance of Ati's 5xxx series. I guess this will be the best of both worlds and the most expensive series for a while.

4) Know your gaming needs! I can't stress this enough, it saves loads of money that could go towards buying other important stuff, like for example extra RAM and a solid state drive to load up those maps faster. In our case, tesselation is still mostly used in a handful of first person shooters. On the other hand, according to Oleg Maddox, SoW is not going to make use of tesselation initially because they would have to rework a lot of the models to make them compatible.

If we sum everything up in our effort to make an informed guess (it's still a guess), it's clear that for SoW the winner seems to be the single GPU Ati 5870 or the dual GPU Ati 5970.

The reason is simple. Why pay money for better tesselation performance when the game won't make use of it? Especially since that performance tends to come at a price premium, or even at the expense of perfomance in the other fields of graphics processing which will probably have more of an effect on running SoW properly.

Hope it helps

[Pato Salvaje]

Good information Blackdog!... I´ll keep it in mind for my next adquisition.

[Baron]

Good post, but....


Cutting to the chase: Bying 5870 (overpriced) or 5970 (not the fastest but yet the most expencive) today is just about the dumbest thing one could do. Im sorry, but thats just plain fact.

Why one would buy a 2009 card that was an awnser to an even older one (Gtx295) for a wopping 500 euros or more is completly beyond me. It would be like running out out and buy a gtx 480 right now = completly senceless. Today 580gtx, working out an average from games used in benchmarks, equals the 5970, to a lesser cost , and "tomorrow" u will have even more to choose from (6970, 6990, 590). Although the latest rumors say that 6970 will NOT be faster than 580, but thats another story.

Both theese cards is a bad buy, mainly because of horrific prizing. Why get an old card when u can get a new one with equal or better performance for the same prize or cheaper, i dont get it?


I do agree on memory and ssd disc thoug. Ssd will be my next upgrade.

[JG52Krupi]

My point is that the 5970 has good tesselation good performance and in a few months will be quite cheap.... Now do you see where I'm coming from!!!

I can run Metro 2033, one of the few games that in my opinion show how good tesselation can be, at very high settings... It's just as good as the 480 and was cheaper last time I checked.

Blackdog what makes you say that the 5970 is not good at tessellation?

[Baron]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

My point is that the 5970 has good tesselation good performance and in a few months will be quite cheap.... Now do you see where I'm coming from!!!

I can run Metro 2033, one of the few games that in my opinion show how good tesselation can be, at very high settings... It's just as good as the 480 and was cheaper last time I checked.

Of course, if the prize would go down a fair chunk it would be another story, but i doubt it will. Was the same with gtx 295, it dropped in prize but not enough to compete with newer/better cards.

Edit: Did a quick search in my country (sweden) and u can actually get a new MSI Gtx295...for 470 euros. Or how about a Gigabyte Gtx 295 for, wait for it.......600 euros


Anyways, time will tell if prizes will drop enough on "old" cards.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by Baron

Of course, if the prize would go down a fair chunk it would be another story, but i doubt it will. Was the same with gtx 295, it dropped in prize but not enough to compete with newer/better cards.

Edit: Did a quick search in my country (sweden) and u can actually get a new Gtx295...for 470 euros.

Bugger me that's expensive and my one broke after a while, I'm not a ati or nvida fanboy I just get the one that has the best price over performance. The 295 breaking annoyed me and turned me off nvida but now the 6970 looks like a renamed slightly better 5970

Stolen from another Forum:

Q: Should I SLI/Crossfire?

A: Generally no. SLI gains are impressive, but very few people need the performance increase compared to a single high end card. A single $180-250 card will handle pretty much everything at 1900x1200 and below. Dual card solutions not only include the cost of two cards, but also adding in a SLI/Crossfire enabled board, a bigger PSU, and sometimes additional cooling.

SLI isn't a good upgrade strategy either. Two SLI cards of an older generation are typically outperformed by one card of the current generation. Save that money and buy a new card in 1-2 years.

SLI is good for is people who game at extremely high settings like 2560x1600 with maxxed out AA/graphics options.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Stolen from another Forum:

Very true, I will only be getting another 5970 if bob needs it AND if i can find a relatively cheap one ~300

[JAMF]

I'll upgrade from the current 5870 to a 6970, if there's a big difference in game, when running 5760x1200 or 5760x1080. I'll always go for a single card "surround gaming" solution.