I posted a thread the other day about a GPU for around £120 and offered 460 GTX and a 550 TI as suggestions. Overwhelmingly the 460 won. I was thinking of bumping the budget to a 560TI and looked up some reviews, the 6870 looked surprisingly good in comparison considering the one I'm looking at is £50 cheaper than the cheapest 560ti. Now, This 6870 is about the same price as the 460 GTX I was going to buy, except that it pretty much beats the 460 in every benchmark I've seen and competes reasonably well with the 560... Surely then, the 6870 is the better option?
I was under the impression the 6870 was the better of the two cards. Tbh it does depend on the game you are playing, as some games are optimized for Ati some Nvidia Keep in mind that Ati currently has the lead in the graphics market, so there will be more games being released over the next few months that are optimized for Ati rather than Nvidia. Optimization can make a significant difference so it could be worth investing in the 6870, you could even go for a overclocked version for just a few £ more. Oh and you get a free copy of Duex Ex: Human Revolution with the 6870., if you have not already got it the game. check out bit-techs review if you have not already http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/10/22/ati-radeon-hd-6870-review/5 Edit: Its AMD, gota get used to that haha
I'm not sure you're basing this on any hard facts. It is beside the point which manufacturer is 'ahead' (also, by 'ahead' do you mean in volume of sales, or in which you think offers the best cards?). Yes, TWIMTBP games tend to be optimised better for Nvidia cards and Gaming Evolved games are optimised for AMD, but no developer would optimise their game for one architecture unless they were getting technical assistance from Nvidia/AMD - it's usually not in their interests. If you don't see Nvidia or AMD's logo when you start up a game it is unlikely to be optimised for either platform.
Yeah but look at the ARMA II benchmarks which is a far more graphically demanding game. The 6870 smashes the 460. Also. BIT TECH Y U NO BENCHMARK ARMA II ON THE 560 TI REVIE!>:!?!"!£)* And you certainly wont find me complaining about free Deux Ex.
I was basing it on market share not products, as both Nvidia and AMD have very good products at every level. You cant go wrong with either company really. I did not mean that the games would be solely optimized for Nvidia or AMD. However there are titles out there that are TWIMTBP and Gaming Evolved, which are meant to run better on there respective company. If you really cant decide perhaps taking that into account could help. Btw @ Zinfandel, if you can afford the 560 TI, id say go for it. Its a better card than the 6870. Check out another bit-tech review http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/01/25/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review/7
Yeah I read that review but as I say the 6870 is £50 cheaper. The real question here is, 6870 or 460GTX? Seems pretty clear cut to me.
I'd go for the 6870, mght not always be the more powerful of the two, but it's newer. Better optimized hardware and all that. It'll probably handle future games better than the 460 IMO.
As a general performance guide: 460 = 6850 < 6870 < 560 < 560 Ti though you could argue that the 6850 just edges out the 460. It wins easily on power consumption though.
560 is more overclockable than the 6870 though - it comes close to the Ti at high clock speeds. I'd probably argue that it's more future-proof too since its core hardware (number of stream processors, ROPs, that sort of thing) is more powerful than the 6870. Again, AMD holds the advantage in power efficiency.
in regards to the OP 6870 hands down as its faster than 460GTX The 460GTX competes with the 6850 which is slightly slower so if your getting a 6870 at the same price as a 460GTX then its an easy choice.
