Affordable graphics cards

[Handruin]

I've had no probs with the drivers on my 5770.

For the comfort of staying with nvidia, the price to be paid is about 100W more power consumption per card (more noise), plus the loss of HDMI 1.4a, UVD3, and DP 1.2 support.

It looks like you are moving up in pricerange, if you can still wait the 6950/6970 should provide further performance in November (and provide additional price pressure on the 470).

I saw you mentioned HIS earlier, is that who made your 5770? It sounds like I should wait for the 6950/6970 to make it to the streets and decide after they're released.

 

[Stereodude]

For the comfort of staying with nvidia, the price to be paid is about 100W more power consumption per card (more noise), plus the loss of HDMI 1.4a, UVD3, and DP 1.2 support.

Uh... The Fermi cards are HDMI 1.4 and have a feature set equivalent to UVD3. The Radeon cards are playing catch up this time around.

 

[Pradeep]

My mistake. They spent so long with their ghetto toslink->HDMI audio ouput that I'd given up hope

 

[Mercutio]

My current eVGA card had to be registered within 3 months to get the lifetime warranty. The registration wasn't a big deal, but I know what you mean about them being serious about it.

After all the times I sent my 8800GTX back, I'm not taking any chances at all with $300+ graphics cards and warranty issues.

Current ATI software is fine. It took me a while to get it all straightened out on my 5870, but I suspect that was a combination of new card + platform they don't test on. Now that I have stuff the way I want it, I really haven't had any reason at all to mess with the Catalyst Control Panel at all. Of course, my gaming needs are pretty limited.

 

[time]

Uh... The Fermi cards are HDMI 1.4

The GTX 270 and 280 appear to still be HDMI 1.3a.

The Radeon cards are playing catch up this time around.

Really? I wouldn't know; in what way?

 

[Stereodude]

The GTX 270 and 280 appear to still be HDMI 1.3a.

You're sure those are Fermi cards?

Really? I wouldn't know; in what way?

3D display capability and video codec acceleration.

 

[time]

Eh, whoops? I meant GTX 470 and 480, obviously.

The only codec advantage I can see for nVidia was MVC (Blu-ray 3D). AMD has now added MPEG-4 Part 2 decoding for DivX and Xvid, as well as MVC (according to Wikipedia).

 

[Pradeep]

I saw you mentioned HIS earlier, is that who made your 5770? It sounds like I should wait for the 6950/6970 to make it to the streets and decide after they're released.

My mistake, it's a Powercolor PCS+ (slightly pre-overclocked 5770).

Yeah, I'm expecting something at the $300, $400 and $500 price points from AMD. No harm in waiting.

 

[sdbardwick]

When you mentioned crossfire earlier, I actually considered it, but then I quickly remembered that I'm using P55 chipset, so I would be limited to 8x PCIe per slot once I added the second card. If I'm going to go crossfire, I'd rather do it with a system that can handle two 16x PCIe like the x58 chipset.

8x vs 16x might not be an issue. Hardocp did a series of comparisions here, here, and here.

 

[Handruin]

8x vs 16x might not be an issue. Hardocp did a series of comparisions here, here, and here.

Thanks for pointing out those links, I'll take a look through them. I'm still leaning towards waiting for the higher level cards to come out since it shouldn't be too long.

 

[sechs]

Definitely, this was the midrange refresh. Should see 5850/5870 replacements November, with 5970 level in December.

The 6800s are definitely replacements for the 5700s.

I'm happy to buy last year's card at a discount when the new stuff comes out....

 

[Handruin]

There is some more information about the GTX 580 that may be on the horizon.

 

[Handruin]

Contrary to the thread title, the rumored price of the GTX580 is $599. That seems like a rather high price point for this card unless if the performance numbers are staggering.

 

[sechs]

It seems like its heat production is more likely to be the staggering statistic.

 

[Buck]

To me, it seems that when on a budget, the HD 4670 1GB is still a good deal. Graphics cards are still so overpriced in my opinion.

 

[Mercutio]

I should be getting a 6870 tomorrow. It's going right in a build but I'm interested in seeing how it compares vs. my 5870 for City of Heroes.

 

[Mercutio]

To me, it seems that when on a budget, the HD 4670 1GB is still a good deal. Graphics cards are still so overpriced in my opinion.

Also, this is a post from Buck! Hi Buck!

I think I'd move up one little step to the 5670, for the slightly newer core and better support for video decoding.

 

[Buck]

For office budget systems, an IGP is great (AMD or Intel). For an upgraded office system I use a 4670 1GB. The 5670 costs me about $15.00 more. For something better than an office system, I start with the 5770 1GB. That's just the way system builds seem to work for me. I miss the silent 8600GT days.

 

[LunarMist]

Hey, Buck is alive!

 

[Buck]

Also, this is a post from Buck! Hi Buck!

Hey, Buck is alive!

It is I in my full binary form.

 

[LunarMist]

What other forms do you have, decimal or hex?

 

[Pradeep]

Contrary to the thread title, the rumored price of the GTX580 is $599. That seems like a rather high price point for this card unless if the performance numbers are staggering.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4008/nvidias-geforce-gtx-580/1

Performance shows it should be called a 485, not 580.

 

[Buck]

What other forms do you have, decimal or hex?

49 20 63 61 6E 20 64 6F 20 68 65 78 20 3A 2D 29

 

[ddrueding]

48 65 78 20 69 73 20 66 75 6e 2e

 

[Buck]

48 65 78 20 69 73 20 66 75 6e 2e

68 61 68 61 68 61 21

 

[Will Rickards]

It was fun to decode the hex that was printed as the background on my checks. Turned out to be some famous quotes and even quotes from the bible.

 

[Handruin]

48 65 78 20 69 73 20 66 75 6e 2e

48 65 78 20 69 73 20 62 65 74 74 65 72 2c 20 6f 6e 65 20 6f 6e 20 6f 6e 65 21

 

[LunarMist]

:roll:

 

[ddrueding]

49 66 20 79 6f 75 20 77 61 6e 74 20 69 74 20 74 6f 20 62 65 20 6f 6e 65 20 6f 6e 20 6f 6e 65 2c 20 79 6f 75 20 62 65 74 74 65 72 20 70 69 63 6b 20 73 6f 6d 65 74 68 69 6e 67 20 6d 6f 72 65 20 63 6f 6d 70 6c 65 78 2e 20 48 65 78 20 69 73 20 74 6f 6f 20 65 61 73 79 20 74 6f 20 64 65 63 6f 64 65 2e

 

[Buck]

49 66 20 79 6f 75 20 77 61 6e 74 20 69 74 20 74 6f 20 62 65 20 6f 6e 65 20 6f 6e 20 6f 6e 65 2c 20 79 6f 75 20 62 65 74 74 65 72 20 70 69 63 6b 20 73 6f 6d 65 74 68 69 6e 67 20 6d 6f 72 65 20 63 6f 6d 70 6c 65 78 2e 20 48 65 78 20 69 73 20 74 6f 6f 20 65 61 73 79 20 74 6f 20 64 65 63 6f 64 65 2e

57 65 6C 6C 2C 20 64 75 68 2C 20 49 27 6D 20 6E 6F 74 20 74 72 79 69 6E 67 20 74 6F 20 62 65 69 6E 67 20 63 6F 6D 70 6C 65 78 2E 20 49 66 20 49 20 77 61 6E 74 65 64 20 74 6F 20 73 68 6F 77 20 6F 66 66 20 49 27 64 20 64 65 66 65 72 20 74 6F 20 6D 79 20 66 75 72 72 79 20 6C 69 74 74 6C 65 20 6F 72 61 6E 67 65 20 66 72 69 65 6E 64 20 66 72 6F 6D 20 49 6E 64 6F 6E 65 73 69 61 2E

 

[Buck]

010000100111010101110100001000000110000101101110011110010111011101100001011110010010110000100000011001110111001001100001011100000110100001101001011000110111001100100000011000110110000101110010011001000010000001110000011100100110100101100011011010010110111001100111001000000110100101110011001000000110001101110010011000010111101001111001001000000111010001101000011001010111001101100101001000000110010001100001011110010111001100101110

0100011101101111011011110110011101101100011001010010000001101001011100110010000001111001011011110111010101110010001000000110011001110010011010010110010101101110011001000010111000100000001110100010110100101001

 

[Handruin]

010000100111010101110100001000000110000101101110011110010111011101100001011110010010110000100000011001110111001001100001011100000110100001101001011000110111001100100000011000110110000101110010011001000010000001110000011100100110100101100011011010010110111001100111001000000110100101110011001000000110001101110010011000010111101001111001001000000111010001101000011001010111001101100101001000000110010001100001011110010111001100101110

0100011101101111011011110110011101101100011001010010000001101001011100110010000001111001011011110111010101110010001000000110011001110010011010010110010101101110011001000010111000100000001110100010110100101001

01001001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100100 00101110 00100000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01000001 01010100 01001001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100100 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100001

 

[Buck]

Trying to get a sub-$100 card that doesn't feel like an IGP (and I'm saying modern IGPs are in good form) AND that can be cooled passively seems non-existent. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. I learned that from Tony: Just complain, even be dogmatic about it, in spite of not doing any research.

 

[LunarMist]

48 65 78 20 69 73 20 62 65 74 74 65 72 2c 20 6f 6e 65 20 6f 6e 20 6f 6e 65 21

4e 6f 74 20 61 63 63 6f 72 64 69 6e 67 20 74 6f 20 43 61 74 68 79 2e :diablo:

 

[ddrueding]

00110100 00111000 00100000 00110110 01100110 00100000 00110111 00110111 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110110 00110001 00100000 00110110 00110010 00100000 00110110 01100110 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110111 00110100 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00110011 00100000 00110110 01100110 00100000 00110110 00110100 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00110111 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110111 00110011 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00110111 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110110 01100100 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110110 01100011 00100000 00110111 00110100 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110111 00110000 00100000 00110110 01100011 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110111 00110100 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110110 00110011 00100000 00110110 00111000 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110111 00110001 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110111 00110011 00100000 00110011 01100110

 

[timwhit]

Damn this is annoying.

 

[BingBangBop]

Trying to get a sub-$100 card that doesn't feel like an IGP (and I'm saying modern IGPs are in good form) AND that can be cooled passively seems non-existent. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. I learned that from Tony: Just complain, even be dogmatic about it, in spite of not doing any research.

The research isn't very hard to do: NewEgg Search for fanless video cards

 

[Mercutio]

The research isn't very hard to do: NewEgg Search for fanless video cards

The key part of Buck's statement is "feel like an IGP." AMD's low-end discrete cards are more or less the same hardware they build in to their chipsets and nvidia's aren't any better.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I care. A Radeon 4350 or Geforce 9400 is respectable enough for business needs and can manage video decoding and low-end gaming just fine.

 

[Handruin]

4e 6f 74 20 61 63 63 6f 72 64 69 6e 67 20 74 6f 20 43 61 74 68 79 2e :diablo:

Who the hell is Cathy?!

 

[Handruin]

00110100 00111000 00100000 00110110 01100110 00100000 00110111 00110111 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110110 00110001 00100000 00110110 00110010 00100000 00110110 01100110 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110111 00110100 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00110011 00100000 00110110 01100110 00100000 00110110 00110100 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00110111 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110111 00110011 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00110111 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110110 01100100 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110110 01100011 00100000 00110111 00110100 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110111 00110000 00100000 00110110 01100011 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110010 00110000 00100000 00110111 00110100 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110110 00110011 00100000 00110110 00111000 00100000 00110110 01100101 00100000 00110110 00111001 00100000 00110111 00110001 00100000 00110111 00110101 00100000 00110110 00110101 00100000 00110111 00110011 00100000 00110011 01100110

No thanks...copying and pasting into the decoder twice was annoying!