Graphics £250 to spend on graphics... but which card?

So why haven't I experienced any problems? Why doesn't ATI have a hotline where the millions of people with ATI cards can voice their concern? ATI says that it's sold over three million 5k series cards IIRC, if all of those owners experienced problems ATI must have the largest tech support hotline ever!

Sorry, but your own experiences are not representative of the average by any means. To claim that 'if you own or have owned an ATI card you will or have experienced problems' is at best a mis-guided ill-educated comment based on a sample size of one and at worst libellous.

 

Just to wade into this one - I've been Nvidia since the TNT2 days. Solid cards (the stock cooler on my XFX 7950 was a horrific, mind), with generally solid drivers. I have to say that I'd always regarded Nvidia's drivers to be superior, and erred away from Ati for that reason among others.
I don't have my 5970 yet, but from research the 5 series is excellent. Only encountered minor ramblings dealing specifically with the 5970, and some driver issues (fixed/being fixed now) for both brands when dealing with 2D acceleration in Win 7.

Either things weren't generally that bad before, or they have improved significantly.

 

For this budget a HD5850 fits the bill nicely.

A GTX470 is also a sound choice although it would push the budget even higher and tbh doesn't offer enough over a HD5850 to make it the better choice.

Try to get a HD5850 based on the reference design with voltage tweak (asus springs to mind).

Clock it to HD5870 clocks and you will basically have a HD5870 (the difference at the same clocks is only ~5%).

To add some balance to Sextons comments, beyond driver issues (which I have experienced with both nvidia and ATI) I have never had any major issues with any of the ATI cards I have owned (all my systems currently run ATI cards although have ran nvidia cards in the past also without issue). A lot of the time you will find problems supposedly relating to your graphics card will actually relate to a problem with your system in general, some will be user error whilst others will be genuine problems.

 

5850 is fine but i dout it will run crysis 2 with dx 11 enabled

It bearly runs dirt 2 at a decent setting

 

However, in the new AvP (which I thoroughly enjoyed by the way and rate it a solid 85%) DX11 makes a large difference - better smoke effects, better shadows, tesselation etc.

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/03/28/nvidia-geforce-gtx-470-1-1280mb-review/5

Maybe if you stopped trolling, you'd have a bit more +rep after 500+ posts. 5850, DX11 Dirt 2 with 4xAA @ 2560x1600, minimum FPS 35. So in fact, a 5850 can play Dirt 2 at maximum settings, maximum resolution without a hiccup. So stop trolling.

 

Give it time, and believe me, you will.

 

A 5850 is more than enough to run Dirt2 at the highest settings.

Heck, even on my single overclocked 5770 it's very playable at the highest detail levels, 1920*1080, 16x af, 2x msaa.

 

dirt2 is hardly demanding - my 5870 runs it at highest settings in eyefinity (3*1080p)

 

I totally agree here. Nothing new on the gameplay front but there is a noticeable difference between DX10 and DX11. It very much helps with the atmosphere of the marine game and has the best implementation of Eyefinity I've seen so far - you actually have enough of a field of view to see the alien just about to chomp on your brains (and make the appropriate "Oh Shi...." comment )

 

I've reconsulted the GTX 470.. which still seems expensive when the performance increase in considered. I think DX11 has a lot to give... Physx probably does too.. not to worry.

So that still really only leaves 1 DX11 option..

 

IMHO, PhysX can add A LOT to games. The Scarecrow battles in Batman AA are incredible with full PhysX. People say that it's just pointless eyecandy; well, last time I checked, that's what a GPU is supposed to do .

I also can't help but notice the people who knock PhysX seem to be die-hard ATI users - hence they haven't actually seen it in action.

 

For the same price as the GTX470, you can buy an ATI 5870. This will be a big performance improvement from the 5850, roughly 25% based on my own estimates, and beats the 470 solidly. This site described the 470 as 'like the 5870, but slower, hotter and noisier'.

Oh, and rollo, based on your ownership of two low-end ATI cards made two and three years ago respectively, I'm not sure how you feel qualified to explain to me how I'll have problems.

 

True, the 5870 beats the 470 most of the time. 25% is a little overkill though.

One thing I remember the OP saying is that he might consider SLI/crossfire later on. Well, two 470s kick ass in SLI.

 

Think you'll find that was me - not Rollo And... when I got the 3850 I think you'll find it was a high end card So thats two facts that were wrong in your triple facted response...

Also, as I mentioned, many people I know have had similar problems. They own HD4850's and 70's as well as one with a 5850. Also where I work, the PC's there are equipped with 2x HD5850's in Crossfire and well, lets just say since then I prefer to do work handwritten Nothing but problems... so yes, I think you will find I am more than qualified to have an opinion thank you very much.

 

im an ati owner with a physx card (physx mod hacked drivers) - i noticed the framerate increases, but was slightly underwhelmed by the effects themselves tbh

 

Sorry rollo, I apologise.

The 3850 was never high-end.
It was beaten (in terms of performance) by the:

3870
3870X2

8800gs
8800gts 320
8800gts 640
8800gt
8800gts 512
8800gtx
8800 Ultra

At the time, it was very much a mid-low end card.

I'm sorry to hear that you've got problems. Personally, I'd suspect that the millions of other ATI owners do not have the same issues as you and your friends, and I'd put it down to luck or misconfiguration. On these forums, many people own ATI cards, and if they'd all had problems the hardware or tech support forums would be littered with threads.

Btw, if at my work the computers didn't even do simple word processing, I'd probably have complained to my manager by now. It sounds like a pretty serious problem!

I agree - the features that were added are very nice, it's just that they are few and far between - in terms of PhysX in the last year, Batman is the only good high-profile game that uses it as far as I know.

The effects are impressive, but for game developers it's not worth integrating it properly into your game (ie almost essential to play the game) because you are limiting a large proportion of your audience. Because of this, the effects added are largely superficial.

In my opinion, the cost of PhysX is price and speed, and because there are so few games that use PhysX to a good extent, the premium is not worth paying unless you're just gunning for the fastest rig possible.

 

Haha well yes it is - they can of course do it, they just BSOD so much its hard to... have complained numerous times but hey ho. Sorry to have annoyed you

 

Also, not that I'm trying to aggrivate the issue, but the name of this thread made me lol

 

@Sexton ...I've been reading your contributions and you are in danger of coming across as an Nvidia fanboi. If that's your intent then fair enough.

Suffice it to say Bakes had it right; if ATi, their cards and or their drivers were complete merdé then this site amougst many would be full of threads bemoaning as much. Bit Tec ain't nor is the web.

And as it happens the last such issue to light up the web was Nvidia's driver release cooking cards just after Christmas. I take it you didn't fall victim to that one!