• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 or ATI Radeon HD5870

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

codeman

Registered
Joined
Jul 29, 2010
what do you think

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB or ATI Radeon HD 5870 2GB GDDR5

my rid

Rampage III Extreme
Intel Core i7
6GB Corsair
1,500 Watts - SilverStone
 
Last edited:
Power: http://thepcreport.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/480-vs-5870-power.jpg

Heat: http://thepcreport.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/480-vs-5870-heat.jpg

Performance:
*Since you have more memory in the 5870 card compared to a 1gb version, your more likely to get a few more FPS.

SLI-FIRE scalability: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video/geforce-gtx480-sli/avp.png

Price: GTX460= ~$450
5870 2GB= ~$489

Being completely based on facts, I'd say go 5870 2GB edition. It will offer slightly improved scores over the ones here, but it might raise tempuratures and power consumption too. Also, the 5870 seems to perform better in crossfire at higher resolutions, if you care. The additional memory in the 5870 2GB will also help when compared to the 480. Spend the extra couple bucks.
 
I have owned both cards. The 5870 will get a higher pure GPU score in Vantage and certain bencmarks, but anywhere tessellation is used, the 480 owns the 5870. Plus you get the advantage of physx, cuda, and native C++. The 480 is a much quieter card, but it does run a LITTLE bit hotter. It is not nearly as bad as some people think though. The 480 overclocks like a monster too.
 
Get the 480 instead, so you can use it for team 32 F@H, as it'll blow the pants off that ATI on WU throughput. :thup:
(Yes, I know, I'm a bit crazy about the F@H...)
 
First, I just learned (thanks ratbuddy!) that the 2GB card offers little to no performance gain, so you shouldnt even be looking at it over the 1GB.

Outright performance, the 480 beats the 5870 almost across the board. However it is more power hungry and puts out a good amount of heat.

In our opinion, Sapphire hit the nail straight on the head with their HD 5870 Toxic but it’s also important to remember that it can’t perform the miracles many people were hoping it would. There were many that had unrealistic expectations that a HD 5870 equipped with 2GB of memory would somehow be the silver bullet that put an end to the GTX 480 even before it got off the ground. Let’s make this clear right from the start: that’s not going to happen. Nonetheless, this card is able to play with the big boys and offers excellent performance across every single game without the performance drop-off at 2560 x 1600 which plagues NVIDIA’s flagship products...

...There are however some issues you should be aware of and as we alluded to in the introduction, the 2GB of memory is mostly window dressing. If you are playing game at or below 1920 x 1200 resolution you will likely never benefit from the extra memory on this card. Even if you are using a massive 30” monitor with every IQ setting cranked, there is at most a negligible difference in most games. Yes, there are a few games like Metro 2033 that seem to be extremely framebuffer limited but they are few and far between. It could be argued that Eyefinity setups could benefit from a 2GB configuration but that’s a subject we will be covering in a future review. This bears repeating again: the HD 5870 IS NOT framebuffer-limited at any single-screen resolution, even with literally every single in game IQ setting pushed to its max. Period.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...hire-hd-5870-2gb-toxic-edition-review-24.html

I have owned both cards. The 5870 will get a higher pure GPU score in Vantage and certain bencmarks
It will wow?!! I havent seen that before!

Ive looked around and it seems that is true. But only on the performance preset. Once you get into GPU bound resolution, like the extreme preset, its a different story.
 
Last edited:
Nvidia. Always Nvidia.

I have purchased 3 different ATI cards in the past month: 5750 and 2 5870's (1GB and 2GB)

Let me tell you from first hand experience, ATI is no better than they were when the Radeon DDR200 came out in the year 1943. Drivers still suck. Performance just isn't on par with Nvidia. Yes Nvidia runs hot as hell, but you'll get over it. PhysX and Cuda + performance.

Thank GOD! Fry's took those cards back over a 1000 bucks in technology that under performs.

P.S. ATI does run a A LOT cooler. If there was a benchmark that bared any weight on that front, there wouldn't be an Nvidia section.
 
Now that's a passionate post and LOL at the DDR200 in 1943!! But before you dive deeper into the fanboy wormhole, what were you expecting out of these cards? I mean the 5750 is a low/midrange card (think 4850 or gtx260 192c) to start. The 5870 is a GREAT performer, especially per watt, and the 5870 2GB purchase, unless you have a multi monitor setup is utterly useless (and not much better otherwise). Drivers issues happen on both sides of the fence too...
 
i also have to vote nvidia because of bad ati drivers. +physx which is a bonus

i switched to nvidia because i was running a 5770 that crashed 5-6 times per day because of crappy ati drivers. it would crash the system randomly during low stress gaming or in internet explorer. a quick websearch revealed that most people had this problem, i dont know if ati fixed it or not. i havent had any problems with nvidia drivers crashing my system.
 
Out of the last 4 cards I have owned, 3 have been ATI, an x1950pro agp card, the 4890 vapor-x and now a 5870 vapor-x I have never had driver issues. I think the driver issue goes both ways also. The other card I owned was a 285 gtx
 
Buy a 5870. Simply becuase it's a better looking card :)

nVidia really needs to start putting backplates on their cards. Sure, it probably will increase the heat, but that "full enclosure" look, looks real nice.
 
SLI-FIRE scalability: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video/geforce-gtx480-sli/avp.png

Being completely based on facts, I'd say go 5870 2GB edition. It will offer slightly improved scores over the ones here, but it might raise tempuratures and power consumption too. Also, the 5870 seems to perform better in crossfire at higher resolutions, if you care. The additional memory in the 5870 2GB will also help when compared to the 480. Spend the extra couple bucks.

Regarding your hilarious cherry picked benches, and the SLI/CF one in particular, I respond with http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-480-3way-sli-review/19 - you can't just look at a single game from a single site and declare a winner. Overall, SLI scales better than CF.

As far as the 1GB/2GB nonsense, take a look at http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/07/20/nvidia_surround_technology_performance_review/3 and feel free to click through to the other games they test. The 2GB 5870 is a complete waste of cash, even in CF at 5760x1200.

edit: Here's some food for thought: A pair of HD 5870's ($370 each) beaten by a pair of GTX 460's ($230 each) at 5760x1200 http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/17/geforce_gtx_460_sli_vs_radeon_hd_5870_cfx_5760 ;)
 
Last edited:
ATI's cards do look great - if vanity was a benchmark Nvidia would be dead last - ATI chick is hot!

If she came with the card - even as a blow up doll I'd totally go back to ATI!
 
Thank you guys
Some where advised me to find Deal that has the best performance against price by buying two GTX 460 card for this i will get them at a temperature less than the GTX 480 as well as higher performance of the HD 5870 and GTX 480
 
Thank you guys
Some where advised me to find Deal that has the best performance against price by buying two GTX 460 card for this i will get them at a temperature less than the GTX 480 as well as higher performance of the HD 5870 and GTX 480

True, although the pair of 460s would use a little more power than a single big card.

What resolution is your monitor? how many will you be using?
 
The 480 is as already stated the faster of the two, by a margin that ranges to a touch to significantly faster. Anything with tesselation in it (Most DX11 games that will come out over the next couple years) will be a lot faster on the 480 than the 5870.

Having said that, the 5870 is still more than capable of running anything on the market. And you can probably search around and find a great deal on one. Don't look at the 2GB model unless your going to use eyefinitiy.

So while I would argue that the 480 is a slightly faster card as of now (And as more games come out with DX11 features, noticeably faster), maybe the price difference isn't worth it to you. SLI scaling is also worth mentioning, as it scales much better than XFire, and adds a lot of value onto the card. The knowledge that a year down the line, you could add a second 480 for a decent price, and see benefits along the lines of 80-100% in many games is intruiging.

I made my choice and I'm happy with it, and as far as drivers go, I've found that both ATI and Nvidia have good drivers, haven't ever had issues with either. Catalyst control is the only thing that sucks compared to Nvidia, not being able to set auto profiles for certain games would annoy me if I went back. (Seeing as how pretty much every game outside of Crysis and Metro I run with 32xAA)
 
For most people, including me, budget plays a role in the decision. My ATI 4870x2 recently died. I play FPS games using a 42 inch TV at 1080p, so I needed a good replacement. I considered the nvidia GTX 470 (overclocked version) or the ATI 5870. I thought the GTX 480 was out of budget range at $500 bucks and up.

The 5870 was faster than the GTX 470 in pure FPS performance, but the nvidia card had better tessalation capability not to mention, fermi/cuda/phsyx technology. It was a tough decision. Once I realized I could get a GTX 480 though on sale at newegg for $449, with and additional $30 dollar rebate, bringing it down to $419, I figured this was the way to go. Now, on newegg, it shows for instance the Gigabyte version of the GTX 480 at $499, you have to add it to your basket to see the real sale price. Instant rebate brought it down to $449. Plus then you can subtract a $30 mail in rebate bringing it down to 419. And their are several brands with the same deal or close to it. I see the 5870 for the 1gb version running as low as $359. It was not that cheap when I went with the GTX 480. It would still be a tuff call. I would opt for the nvidia technology over the better priced 5870. Your call though. New ati cards are right around the corner. Keep that in mind.

If you can crack the 400 dollar barrier, go GTX 480 with the technology that comes with it. If budget is tighter, the ATI 5870 with current prices on some sites, seems like an incredible bargain given its in game FPS test results.
 
Back