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

The GTX285 won't ever come in stock, they've stopped making them.

It's a bit slower than the 5850 (minute amounts), yet without DirectX 11 and costs more.

I'd get the 5850, it's the best for the price, and you get the DX11 loveliness.

 

and eyefinity goodness, should you wish to go down that route.

 

DX11 is one of the most pointless things in history, and buying a card for the pure luxury of DX11 is the height of pointlessness. Firstly, how many games currently support DX11? Apart from getting much lower fps, there is nothing good about DX11. DX10 has hardly even caught on yet, so DX11 will be years before a few games even support it, let alone it be a minimum requirement. There are many places that still sell GTX 285's - a quick search on Google revealed several. If you want to be disappointed, by all means go for ATI. If you want it to work, NVIDIA is the only way.

 

I think they are end of line now are they not? And only support DX10 so the 5850 is probably the best option..

Looking at this:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-...DR5-GPU-765MHz-1440-Cores-DP-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDMI

And:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-...DR5-GPU-765MHz-1440-Cores-2x-DL-DVI-I-DP-HDMI

They both have the same specs.. anyone with a preference to either?

And thanks for the advice there Sexton.. I still dont feel like I want to go to the ATI side but to get DX11 and reasonable performance it seems the only way. This is the review I read earlier (excuse the link to another forum!)

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=24862

It looks like the GTX 465 is really screwed by the 5850!

 

(sorry page was open a while before i replied!)

The card really needs to last as i cant afford several upgrades in the next 4 years.. thats why i was looking at DX11.

 

Just because you've had trouble with AMD cards in the past (since you run a GTX260 it seems like it was quite a long time ago) does not mean everyone does.

I appreciate that you yourself might not have had the best experiences with AMD cards, but that's no reason to point someone else to an inferior product purely because in the past you've had trouble with that company.

Imposing your wisdom on everyone just because you have an irrational and strong dislike of a company is just wrong.

ATI has sold millions of 5k series cards, and there are very few complaints. Yes, there were some complaints six months ago, but they've been sorted out since January and the 5k series is currently very stable.

DX11 wise, DX10 was a disaster because of Vista having rubbish uptake. DX11 is catching on much faster due to Windows 7, and there are many DX11 games already on the marketplace. Here are a few: Battleforge, DiRT 2, Alien vs Predator, Stalker: Call of Pripyat, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Metro 2033.

With confirmed release dates: Battlefield 1943, Civilization 5, Crysis 2, F1 10

In development: Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Race Driver: Grid 2

So, if by 'a few years' you meant 'last year', then you're correct.

In terms of it being the de facto, none of us know whether any DX11 exclusive games will come out for a while, and we shouldn't speculate about it. We should at least prepare for it, however, and when you have the choice between two cards, one of which has DX11 and the other doesn't, with both having the same performance, (though not the same price) well, it suggests that the one with DX11 is the one that's worth getting.

Oh, and just as a little FYI, every GTX285 on Google Products is out of stock, apart from one that costs £300. No guesses as to why they haven't shifted that stock...

 

Id say most gtx295's will not have been overclocked to hell so I'd still recommend 2nd hand

on the dx11 question - ati seems to be struggling to run dx11 games so its an interesting question.

but yes if you want a new card then 5850 is the one to go for but I personally think this gen is nothing on the last for both ati and nvidia

 

I'm admittedly biased but I'd definitely say go red and get the 5850. The only issue I've hadwith mine is profile related and a minor niggle- losing screen position when switching between eyefinity and extended desktop modes - whcih won't affect most people.

 

260 sli or crossfire 4870 both can be had for around £250 total

both destroy the 5850 and 5870 for that matter

Either setup would last 2-3 years at highest settings.

5850 i still think is poor value for money and i did own the card before i upgraded.( got a vapor x edition for like £210 back on release ) ( its now about £250 for the toxic edition)

sadly a lack of options makes people recomend this 5850 which bearly outperforms old gen cards 4890 270 ( 285(beats 5850 in most games gets beat by 5870) 295 destroys both 5850 and 5870 but its duel gpu )

if your willing to go crossfire or sli its alot more performance for the money.

crossfire 4870 or 90 or 260 270 280 in sli if you could get them cheap enough will last along time ( and in stock ).

and overclocking the 5850 toxic doesnt make it a 5870 card much to popular views. As you can overclock the 5870 toxic edition so much further past what the 5850 does.

If it was me id buy a 5870 or crossfire sli solutions. Yes the 5870 is more than your budget but its worth the money.

 

The 5850 is a single GPU solution and will work with all games right of the box. No driver hassles, no trouble. It'll also use waay less electricity in Idle and safe you money in the long run. A 5850 uses less energy than a single card of every last generation type mentioned. Two cards will double that number again (when playing games as well btw), produce more heat and be much louder. All that for a few fps more in a few games, as many did run absolutely fine on last generation hardware, let alone the new one?

Also there is Direct X 11, even though it isn't used that often yet.

Multi GPU setups are great for benchmarks, but in everyday usage a single GPU situation is to be preferred unless you absolutely need the extra power.

 

of the direct x 11 games you mensioned

only dirt 2 + bfbc2 are good games.

AVP is really shocking, Battleforge is another love or hate game. stalker is what it is i brought it as a graphics demo and dont regret it but its all it is. metro 2033 lets not go there.

another battlefield game same with COD you either buy 1 or the other i dout most people own both. CIV5 will run on any pc made in the last decade id assume even if they add eyecandy for some of the battles. Crysis in newyork with a dumbed down battlesuit which will make console gamers happy and pc gamers sad. The fact it runs on a console at all is a major worry to most. And crysis 2 doesnt have a confirmed release date q4 2010 could be march 2011 ( which is still q42010 )

grid 2 should be good but its not ment to be here till sometime next year

starwars the new republic mmo will be direct x 11 was confirmed about 4 months back. its about the biggest game that could push it but i dout many will enable direct x 11.

as an owner of the 5870 vapor x i can assure you ati has not sorted all there problems. Splinter cell conviction runs like crap sometimes and at other times flys along latest drivers or not. my old 260 runs the game better than a card that is two to 3 times more powerful than it. And thats a big budget game

 

I thoroughly disagree with you. DX11, though it does have a performance hit, adds a lot of very nice looking features and I expect it to catch on rather well.

I can't say I've experienced Crossfire but SLI is excellent for use in games, not just for benchmarks.

rollo brings up a good point: if you can find a couple of cheap GTX 260s for SLI, they'll perform very well - I used to have two myself.

 

SLl and crsoffire has come a really long way. The drivers are pretty stable and we're now seeing 70ish percent scaling on the 58xx cards and 80ish percent on the GTX4xx cards. Even the old GTS250/GTX8800/GTX9800s scale at almost 70%.

I think that 5850 crossfire is where it's at right now ... but I can't justify it as yet. I think DX11 looks really promising.

 

And there's the problem again on the DX11 front with the sli option. I'm really not willing to push the budget up to accomodate the 5870 since that would be another £70 odd.. but thanks for the advice there anyway.

Thank you for the games round up too.. I probably will end up on Bad company 2, crysis 2, dirt 2 and the likes so really would like DX11. Especially considering we only know whats going on till the end of this year.. and this card needs to last another 3 after that!

I think the order may have to be put in for the XFX 5850 1gig black...

 

Wrote the ostrich with his head in the sand...
________
DEPAKOTE PROBLEMS

 

Actually, I bought my NVIDIA card in January after years of ATI hell. Yes, admittedly not everyone will have these problems - but the problems with the drivers are fairly universal... its safe to say that if you own or have owned an ATI card you will experience or have experienced some kind of problem. Sorry, but thats fact.

Also, the games you mention that support DX11 have very few features that actually make use of it. Until the game is solely dependent on DX11 - which WILL be a few years - buying DX11 card for the idea of it being 'futureproof' is laughable.

 

really? the last nvidia card i ever owned (apart from the 9800gt i have now) was a geforce 2 mx, and i havent ever had problems with ATI drivers.

at the moment i have both sets of drivers installed and i cant say either is any better than the other - the CCC is perfectly fine - if anything i find it more intuitive than the forceware control panel.

just because you have had problems with drivers in the past doesnt mean you should extrapolate it to everyone.

the current catalyst driver is very stable, and the 5000 series has had a long time to mature.

oh and no ATI driver has ever made my card melt itself

 

Sorry, I forgot that you wanted DX11!

Well, a 5850 will serve you very well; you seem to be thinking about crossfiring it up later, which will take you you to the level of a 5970.

Have fun!

 

Just to play devils advocate , aria.co.uk have a good deal on gtx470's - 270quid for an arianet special - don't let this put you off though as the card is really a retail inno3d model - same one that ebuyer are selling for 310 quid....

 

Oh no, I'm not trying to tell everyone what to buy - I'm merely sharing my experiences. In the past, I have owned 2 ATI cards - a HD3850 and a HD4350, both of which I had extreme problems with (particularly the latter). This thread is looking for advice - I'm passing on mine. Both myself and several people I know have had major problems surrounding ATI cards and their drivers, and I for one now despise them for that. What you choose to buy is up to you.

Also, in regards to DX11 - take a look at the DiRT2 DX11 review on here - there are screenshots there between DX10 and 11. Sorry, but there is no difference whatsoever. There maybe a pixel there somewhere which is in some way different, but I for one am not spending hundreds of pounds to upgrade to something which ultimately does nothing.

Of all the games I currently own - DiRT2 is the only one which supports DX11. Even DX10, the only games I own that run it are FSX, Company of Heroes, Bioshock and Batman: AA. I own a lot of games - and out of them all only four run DX10 let alone DX11. Regardless of facts as to how many games support what, in the real world, only very few people are going to be experiencing the arguable benefit of DX11.