Depends on your budget. Get a Hd 5770 then buy another one later for crossfire. That will give you HD 5870 performance at 1920 X 1080 resolution. Ati's new 10.2 update contains a new system that updates crossfire the same day new games are released so don't listen to people who say company "XYZ" has bad drivers.
I bought mine (Asus ENGTX275) when the card came out last year over 4890 - I've been pretty happy with it's performance so far, but would not recommend one over ATI 5xxx series atm. At least the reference GTX275 is indecently hot and loud under load, and unlike the review sample here on bit-tech, my card ain't too happy to overclock either
A concluding thank-you ... .....to everybody for their advice and efforts in trying to locate a GTX275 - especially to Ravenheart, Barndoor101 and MrGumby for their info and suggestions. To drift off-topic (and also risk upsetting ATI devotees), the general consensus among the FlightSim community is that NVidia cards 'fly' better/more reliably than their ATI counterparts - the evidence isn't hard to find if you read the numerous flight sim forums and magazines (PC Pilot for one). In addition, most dedicated FlightSim system-builders favour Nvidia. It'll be very interesting to see whether they switch to the HD5*** series or opt for Fermi when stocks of the GTX 2** series have gone. I did look seriously at the HD5850, but then came across a selection of FlightSim forum threads expressing concerns about V-sync problems - whatever they are - and ATI driver issues generally. Its no big deal, but my trusty old GF3 Ti500 is still going strong after 8 years and I think its 'interface' is tidier than that of my more modern stand-in EAH3450. So my inclination is to stay with Nvidia. Unfortunately NV's mid-upper range cards are now almost extinct, the company's marketing strategy is looking decidedly fragile and NV supporters must be feeling a mite nervous about Fermi coming to their rescue. The GPU scene doesn't look at all rosy. My final thoughts on the GTX 275 replacement? The HD 5850 is an impressive performer at a value-for-money price. It's quoted as having superior technology, it's smaller, cooler, quieter, less power-hungry and is good at dumping its heat outside the case ... ...but it's getting expensive. And if a £200+ card produces 'tearing' and other visual anomalies on my rather nice monitor - or has driver issues when I'm flying - I won't be a happy chappy. The HD 5770 is a contender and almost cheap enough to be an interim solution ... ...but will it drive my 1920x1200 monitor? It might not - especially if I add another screen or turn up the settings. BTW I'd certainly not consider pairing it with another 5770 in CrossFire - a single high spec GPU will nearly always out-perform two lesser ones in tandem and anyway, the cost of 2 x HD5770 > HD5850. Sadly, early reviews (and prices) of the HD5830 don't fill me with joy either. The answer must be - wait, watch how GPU prices and availability change in the next month or so and see what Fermi brings, though I fear the initial cost of these cards will put them way above my budget. Perhaps if I really want to fly asap - albeit with some 'hesitation blues' - something like a cheapy 9800GT might fit the bill. At least now I'll have some time to read up on overclocking my i5 and hopefully my friend won't want his 3450 back too soon.
"Tearing" will happen on any card/GPU if you disable VSync. And I've always found ATi drivers to be pretty solid. I for one would never play with VSync disabled. You need to remember to enable triple buffering, though. Just needed to get that off my chest...
Thanks Azrael... The way you guys are willing to lend your support never ceases to amaze me. Might warrant a new thread (unless one already exists somewhere - must check), but quick Q....What are the pros and cons associated with switching V-synch on/off anyway? Cheers
VSync (enabled) definitely gets rid of tearing. It also limits the number of frames rendered to the value of Hz (i.e. 60 fps at 60Hz). This is where triple buffering kicks in. The graphics subsystem (DX or OGL) toggles between three frame buffers (one is shown on-screen, the other two are rendered off-screen). There's one potential problem though. At least I've heard it now and again. Apparently, VSync enabled on a TFT (LCD) monitor can introduce input lag. I don't know if this is true and I also don't know if enabling triple buffering will solve this or not.
Thanks (again) Barndoor101 and Azreal, Just found this (@ post #29) which helps as well ... http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=180829&highlight=vsync&page=2 Tearing issues and v-sync look a bit complicated, but I think I see what's involved..... If the TFT monitor is running at a typical refresh rate of, say 60Hz, and this is faster than the render rate that the GFX card can provide, then all is OK and v-sync being on or off is presumably irrelevant. If the monitor can't keep up with the data stream of a faster GFX, then switching v_sync on will put some sort of throttle on the GFX card's output, so as to match what the monitor can manage, thereby avoiding any 'tearing' - but with the possible consequence of big-time lag. However, with v-sync switched off, 'tearing' may occur. I suppose that if I can find the rate(s) at which a 5770 (or a 5850) can render a 1920x1200 image and compare this with the Dell U2410 refresh rate (60Hz?), this will show if 'tearing' is likely. Will do some more research though - I'm sure it isn't this simple. Cheers Azreal - Just found this which explains your reference to triple-buffering very well.. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=928593
Just to clarify: there's no big time lag. Some people complain of socalled input lag, i.e. the screen update lags slightly behind the mouse movement. Many people do not necessarily notice this. Also, there will always be some sort of lag depending on how much image processing is done in the monitor. Input lag *might* be mitigated by enabling triple buffering. Even if not, it's generally a good idea to enable it, because the graphics card gets to use its "render muscle" instead of having to wait because of the vertical sync (VSync). But otherwise you're on the right track regarding tearing. Often graphics cards tend to render so fast that the screen can't quite keep up. This results in different parts of the screen showing parts of different frames/images, i.e. tearing. Some players of FPS games "tolerate" tearing in order to get the highest possible frame count. *Real* hardcore players still use CRT monitors...
Thanks Azreal.. I've done more searching (and found quite a lot), so together with your help I'm a lot clearer on the topics of 'tearing', v-sync and buffering. It looks as if the drivers for both the GTX2** series and the HD5*** series cards will allow triple buffering. But if I read things right, before I buy one, I need to be aware of (at least ?) two more things: 1. If I head towards max display settings, I'd better have a decent amount of video ram...see last part 'Memory Usage and Triple Buffering' in .... http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/articles/DXtweaker/ OK - this info is 4 years old and with 1GB+ RAM on-board nowadays, this should be enough....but could I tap into system RAM if not ? 2. I also need to be sure that the NV/ATI drivers will satisfactorily implement triple buffering with a Windows 7, 64bit OS....and FS9 (and FSX).... Oh dear....life is getting more and more complicated ....I must lie down for a while....
yeah think what gys was talking about with input lag and vsync has to do with fps games.. and if your serious about fps games and no input lag- your still playing on a crt.. a guy on a crt will slap a guy on a tft silly- and neither will be running vsync in a serious match in any other game like flight sim.. you won't even notice the input lag.. in a good fps (not halo), the difference between deaths is that split second you see the other guy, flick and fire.. the crt is pretty much instant and more dependent on the server's rate (packets per second) online or lan.. unless you've played fps games like counterstrike or quake seriously, you've probably never experienced the difference.. good players pretty much shoot each other at exactly the same time.. the guy on the crt gets to see the other newb tft players a split second faster- and he'll get the kill every time tft's have gotten better.. but stand in a game, any game and flick the mouse around to look 180 degrees- you'll notice the lag on the tft even at 2ms.. now do it on a crt =] instant
Well, I still have a CRT and I always game with VSync enabled. Oh, and a lot of that gaming is CS:CZ (the "better" 1.6 ). Re triple buffering: as written in that article you link to you can enable triple buffering for OpenGL in both nVidia's and ATi's drivers. The situation is a bit different with DirectX. For some reason a triple buffering setting has never found its way into either company's driver. It's a bit strange since there's support for triple buffering in D3D. Re video memory: no, you can't fall back on system memory (to my knowledge). That was an option with AGP (GART). Even if you could you wouldn't want to, since this would cause significant slow downs (the GPU would have to transfer data to and from main memory via PCIe, which is much slower than access the dedicated video memory on the card). These days there is more than enough memory on any recent card for triple buffering at 1920x1200 resolution. A quick calculation tells me that triple buffering for 1920x1200@32bpp would take approx. 27MB video memory (1920 * 1200 / 8 * 32 * 3).
Azreal.. ....I should have said so earlier, but thanks for the feedback in your last post - much appreciated.
