Graphics Card R.I.P.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Same card with a different sticker slapped on it?

 

Sometimes that's true and sometimes it's not. While I think that all the 5970s are reference designs -id est the stock coolers, clocks, etc.- you might want to make sure as non-reference designs can make one type better than other. XFX, if they make that card yet, is another company you might want to look at since their double-lifetime-guaranty, basically a transferable-warranty, might help if you ever want to re-sell the GPU (or simply need to REM it down the line, most cards come with more stringent time-limits). Hope this helps.

 

[Gorth]

Same card with a different sticker slapped on it?

 

Sometimes that's true and sometimes it's not. While I think that all the 5970s are reference designs -id est the stock coolers, clocks, etc.- you might want to make sure as non-reference designs can make one type better than other. XFX, if they make that card yet, is another company you might want to look at since their double-lifetime-guaranty, basically a transferable-warranty, might help if you ever want to re-sell the GPU (or simply need to REM it down the line, most cards come with more stringent time-limits). Hope this helps.

 

Warranty is probably a moot point for me, as one of the first things I do is take it apart, throw away the fan etc. and put a full sized watercooling block on it (I run it out of the box for a fortnight first to catch any doa or other obvious errors)

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Warranty is probably a moot point for me, as one of the first things I do is take it apart, throw away the fan etc. and put a full sized watercooling block on it...

 

There are sometimes watercooling editions of cards available, I don't know if that's helpful -I'm really not that familiar with watercooling- but if there was a pre-prepared one available that fit your needs that might be an option to consider.

[mkreku]

The only thing that differs between these cards are usually the quality of the little components that make up the card. Things like resistors and RAM modules etc. Powercolor (the brand I got stuck with), for example, is/was known for using a cheaper brand of RAM, making them a very bad choice for overclockers. But if they're all using the reference design, all you have to worry about is price, extra peripherals and warranty.

[Gorth]

Well, a good thing that I still have a couple of weeks to think about it. I wasn't too impressed by the manufacturing quality of the Sapphire card* and my trust in Asus plummeted like a rock with the motherboard that I'm in the process of retiring (I kept running into stability issues until I downclocked it from 1333 to 1111 which is a bit of a joke). Gigabyte is a completely unknown brand for me, my new MB being a first.

 

Well, got most of the parts for my upgrade stacked under my desk here at work. Need to take a taxi to work one of these days so I can get them home and start assembling it

 

 

 

 

 

*the metal "front" plate was placed all wrong, making it impossible to use monitor port 1 (because it was pressed too tightly against the casing) and I needed non standard screws etc. to actually get it fastened to anything. Sloppy design or sloppy construction, don't know. A lifespan of less than 2 years wasn't too impressive either.

[mkreku]

I think you must have been unlucky because I've had several Sapphire's and they've all been good quality. In fact, I think it's the brand that best balances prize/quality for ATI. They're also pretty generous with peripherals and games and stuff. Oh, and they come with three year warranty, which is most often longer than you'll ever want to keep your card anyhow.

 

Check out this one for example (since you mentioned 5970): http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sa...e_toxic_hd5970/

 

(fastest card they've ever tested right out of the box)

[Gorth]

I hope it was just bad luck... as the warranty goes out the window when you start taking it apart and put your own cooling on it

 

Thats a hefty model that Toxic. Takes a more serious gamer than me to even consider the crossfire option though. I'm a casual gamer at best (usually playing more old than new games), but fast OpenGL is a godsend for previewing scenes in my 3D apps, the latter also being what I need the processing power and memory for.

[Cwicseolfor]

Well keep in mind guys that regardless of the brand, two 'identical' cards probably contain components from at least 4 different manufacturers, and probably even countries. It makes comparing devices difficult, especially since the same manfuacturers supply the same parts to the different brands.

[Gorth]

Oh look, those nice guys at Gigabyte provided the motherboard with a stock watercooling block on the Northbridge

 

Yeah, finally got to unpack some of the boxes, just to realise that I forgot to order a wireless netcard (my old/current motherboard has it built in). Time to go shopping in one of the local retail stores over the Weekend.

[CoM_Solaufein]

XFX for the win. I got burned by Sapphire and HIS and won't be buying any of their junk again. Diamond and MSI I've had luck with also.

[Gorth]

Whee, so Powercolor, Asus, XFX, Sapphire, HIS, Gigabyte and MSI all make 5970 cards. That will help narrowing down the selection process... not

 

Only difference seems to be $100 between the cheapest and the most expensive. I seriously considered the Sapphire Toxic, but I wouldn't expect the cooling solution I've ordered to fit the double ram. Added a WD 600Gb Sata3 Velociraptor (10K RPM) to my cart while trying to sort out the gfx question.

[serch]

Recently, I had to uderclock my 4870 to avoid horrible artifacts. I've never overclock the card and the temperatures of my case are really good. I'm beginning to think that ati goes a little too far with the speed and this cause some kind of electronic decay. Perhaps you should go with the nvidia option, even if the perfomance is inferior by a small margin.

Edited May 8, 2010 by serch

[Gorth]

Recently, I had to uderclock my 4870 to avoid horrible artifacts. I've never overclock the card and the temperatures of my case are really good. I'm beginning to think that ati goes a little too far with the speed and this cause some kind of electronic decay. Perhaps you should go with the nvidia option, even if the perfomance is inferior by a small margin.

Heh, nice to know I'm not the only one in the world to have that particular experience. I've sort of got my mind set on this particular type of card though, not to mention already bought cooling solution for it (which wasn't cheap at around 150 Euro including shipping), so I just have to tell myself that it is better to burn out than fade away

[Gorth]

XFX for the win. I got burned by Sapphire and HIS and won't be buying any of their junk again. Diamond and MSI I've had luck with also.

Looks like I'm going for the XFX (Black Edition).

 

Asus and Gigabyte has a reputation for not following reference layouts (according to a number of tech blogs and OC forums), Sapphire wasn't too impressive quality wise (although the speed and compatibility was execellent) and HIS and MSI is... completely unknown to me. So, the above wins by default

[Gorth]

The fun of new hardware...

 

Finally got most of the bits and pieces needed to assemble my computer, so I set out to plug in the new HDD, the XFX card and thats when the fun started. My old Windows Vista would crash with a bsod when shutting down causing the darn thing to restart autimatically and politely tell me that Windows experienced a problem when starting up again (completely "uninvited"). Ah well I thought, maybe there was an issue with the gfx card and the power consumption? It looked like it cut power prematurely somehow, before finishing the shutdown. Taking out my trusty old Radeon 2400 card and plugging that in instead, I set about installing Windows 7. Yep. 5 failed installation attempts later, it turned out that it wasn't the gfx card. It was the damn hdd

 

Finally got the XFX card in, removed the HDD, installed Windows 7 and things seems to be running. I tentatively tried (the day after) to plug the HDD back in (in a different SATA3 connection), though not as my primary/windows drive and the system appears stable. Either the motherboard has a single bad SATA3 connection or a good nights sleep did wonder for it. Go figure. I'll try installing Windows on it next time I need to reinstall. Of course, I have to take the thing apart again when the last bit arrives, as my cpu water block needs the backplate on the other side of the motherboard. Giving the XFX card a few weeks of work first before tearing off the stock cooling, just in case.

 

Had to remove the lower fan, between the bottom HDD's and power supply too, as the power supply is too long for the Antec case. Who dares wins.

[Gorth]

So, with everything up and running smoothly, fast and quiet... my old Zalman Reserator 2 decided to die on me. Turns out that there is s design flaw in the flow measuring gadget and as a result the product has been pulled from the market. No spare parts available either

 

All that nice hardware is now sitting and gathering dust, due to lack of cooling. I already started ordering alternative cooling solutions. One EK-CoolStream RAD XT (360) and 3 NB Blacksilent XLP - PWM 120mm fans plus barbs and mounting brackets. That still leaves me with a decision to make on reservoir and pump. Currently in my sights is the RP-1000BK combo product.

[mkreku]

Come to papa..

 

http://www.techspot.com/news/40587-radeon-...ts-xt-core.html

[Spider]

Really? I'd thought you'd wait for the high end cards instead of the middle range ones? This would be the 5770 of the next generation, I doubt it'll perform much better than the card you already have.

[mkreku]

Rumours. Noone knows what's up yet.

[mkreku]

Crap, Spider (and the rumours) were right. The 6870 consumes less power than the 5870, but is performing equal or even slightly worse. At about 60% of the price of a 5870!

 

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-review/

 

So it's incredible value but not what I am looking for. I am guessing the high end will now be called 69XX.. but what will the dual-GPU setup be called then?

[Spider]

Also 69xx.

 

The performance cards will be 6950, 6970 and 6990 according to all info I've seen.

 

They should be released in novemeber, so you won't have to wait that long to upgrade.

[Humanoid]

To clarify, he 6990 will be the dual-GPU version - which is slightly confusing in terms of naming. (I prefer the old 4870x2 idiot-proof naming convention), although it's not obvious what kind of compromises it makes in relation to the single 6970. 68xx Crossfire scaling has been amazing (you get ~90% improvement from the second card this gen vs 60-70% last time around) so there's high hopes that the 6990 may turn out to be better relative to its little brothers than the 5970 was.

 

The 6950 and 6970 are late-ish November, the 6990 won't be until mid-late December.

 

 

Nvidia planning to retaliate with a GTX580 but rumours are that it'll be nothing but two high-binned GTX460 chips on one board.

[mkreku]

Let's hope these numbers are correct:

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/17266/leaked...ults/index.html

 

Approximately 25-27% faster than the 5870. Reason enough for me to upgrade, especially since I'm not very fond of my Powercolor (which is a replacement product because my retailer screwed up my Sapphire Vapor-X order).

[Humanoid]

Hard to tell, AMD have been known to not-infrequently release fake leaks about their own products - apparently in response to some pretty widespread real leaking of pre-release stuff in the past.

 

 

I have no idea whether to categorise that as smart or stupid business strategy ....just a confusing one.

[Guest Slinky]

Let's hope these numbers are correct:

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/17266/leaked...ults/index.html

 

Approximately 25-27% faster than the 5870. Reason enough for me to upgrade, especially since I'm not very fond of my Powercolor (which is a replacement product because my retailer screwed up my Sapphire Vapor-X order).

Just out of pure curiosity:

 

Why get a brand new GFX card that runs game X 80fps with max settings if the old one runs the same game most likely around 60-70fps?

 

What's the difference with different manufacturers? As far as I know, pretty much the only real difference tends to be the cooler?