GTX 470 vs 6870 [Archive] - PlanetSide Universe

Dreamcast

2011-10-26, 12:53 AM

I need a Video card and these two got my eye.

My price range $200 or less.

Their alot of reviews giving mixed results with the 6870 winning most of the time, so Im just wondering.

Also black Friday is coming...Do you guys think the 560 ti and 6950 will go below $200?Thanks.

Goku

2011-10-26, 07:29 AM

If I had to chose I would go for a 470. Make sure you have the proper psu is all. I bet you will see a 560 ti below $200 not so sure on the 6950 2gb.

Traak

2011-10-26, 07:53 AM

Why settle for a 470 when you can have these:

GIGABYTE GV-N560UD-1G GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125401) $199.99 with mail-in rebate

GIGABYTE GV-R687SO-1GD Radeon HD 6870 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125373) $189.99 with mail-in rebate, and eyefinity by Radeon for multi-screen mayhem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh0e-OJH3gs&feature=player_embedded#!

If it's 2GB of memory you are looking for, do your games need lots of memory or lots of processing power? The 6950 has more stream processing units *about 25 percent more* and higher clock speed than the 6870, for close to 200 bucks.

I found a GTX460 for less than two Benjies with 2GB RAM
ZOTAC ZT-40406-10P GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 2GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500182) $199.99

The Youtube is AMD boasting about eyefinity.

Either one of the first cards will do three monitors. You can research this, but this will give you an idea of what's out there.

What do you think?

All are DirectX 11.

Goku

2011-10-26, 08:26 AM

The GTX 460 2GB is not worthwhile. Mostly due to the card not having the actual processing power to handle the 2GB and it is way overpriced for being a 460 anyway.

Out of all those cards the 470 has the highest potential of performance. If you can overclock high enough it should wipe the floor with all those cards with ease. Not to mention it has more ram then the other comparable cards.

Traak

2011-10-26, 09:22 AM

I compared five cards in Newegg.Com (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%204018%20600094002&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=48|14-127-560^14-127-560-TS%2C14-150-523^14-150-523-TS%2C14-162-049^14-162-049-TS%2C14-130-664^14-130-664-TS%2C14-500-211^14-500-211-TS)

560:
The 470 has:
more memory, 280MB more,
lower clock speeds
more memory clock speed, but DDR5 as opposed to GDDR5
lower overall memory bandwidth
more processor cores

Got any scores to show which is the winnah? I have to give up the comp for a while hehe

Goku

2011-10-26, 11:23 AM

More cores with the higher clock on your own will out do all those cards. It has GDDR5 newegg is wrong and it has a bigger memory bus allowing for more bandwidth.

Traak

2011-10-26, 01:17 PM

More cores with the higher clock on your own will out do all those cards. It has GDDR5 newegg is wrong and it has a bigger memory bus allowing for more bandwidth.

The memory has higher clock, but lower data transfer rate.
The core clock is lower, though it has more of the units.

The following are for a 560, BTW, not a 560 Ti.

Core clock:
560: 860MHz
470: 607MHz

Shader clock:
560: 1720MHz
470: 1215MHz

Effective memory clock:
560: 4008MHz
470: 3348MHz

PCMag.com: (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376154,00.asp#fbid=G57aFJj7gwZ)
Even so, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti is in a bit of a tough position. Though a good replacement for the GTX 470 and reportedly a nice stepping stone between the GTX 460 and the GTX 570, the presence of overclocked GTX 460s in the market somewhat spoil the GTX 560 Ti's price advantage. We're looking forward to testing overclocked GTX 560 Ti cards from Nvidia's add-in partners—if their price and performance are in sync, they could make a good solution for PC gamers able to spend slightly more than $200 on a video card. But for now, overclocked GTX 460s like our EVGA card provide a slightly better value.

The magazine also stated that one of the big areas of improvement was lower power draw, a lot lower, idle and active.

I wouldn't buy any of the cards in this thread. I'd wait to see when the new generation of cards comes out, then go shopping.

Goku

2011-10-26, 02:39 PM

We still do not know when the new cards are coming right now. Could be 6 months from now, so if people want a upgrade might as well do it. There is always something coming out around the corner that is better.

It doesn't matter if those units have faster clock rates. A user by overclocking the 470 to 750 MHz+ will see massive gains due to the stock clock being so low. For raw power the 470 has the most if clocked properly. If a user just wants something out the box a 560 Ti will likely perform as good given how high its already clocked. Thats the only advantage it holds nothing else. There is a side to me that cares about power requirements, but it does not out weigh performance.

Dreamcast

2011-10-26, 06:26 PM

So Im thinking about buying the GTX 470.

I looked up the card I wanna buy, according to some benchmarks it loses to the 5870 and sometimes the 5850.

I saw a benchmark on it being oc and it doesnt beat the 5870.

Here is the link of the card I want OC

http://www.guru3d.com/article/kfa2-galaxy-geforce-gtx-470-review/20

So what do you guys think?

Also is it hard to overclock this card?...Since they overclocked it alot...I have overclocked before with my 9800 gx2 but it only was around 114 mhz....Should I be careful, any tips if I get it?

Goku

2011-10-26, 06:37 PM

Dream what specific PSU do you have? The 470 I will admit is a power hog and is even more so overclocked. You need to make sure your PSU can handle that before even thinking of getting it.

In regards to the performance between the 5850 and 5870. The 470 is better then a 5850 and I would consider the 5870 the stronger card. When fully overclocked the 470 can pass it depending on the game. Some games out there just ran better on AMD or Nvidia hardware. Really depends on what the developer used to make the game on most of the time.

In regards to overclocking. You just have to bump up by about 10 MHz to 15 Mhz at a time and test for stability. Like with 3DMark11 or the games you play. Just watch out for graphical glitches and artifacts (looks like white snow on your screen).

Dreamcast

2011-10-26, 06:45 PM

I got 650w...It handle my 9800 gx2 good and I believe that was a power hog as well I believe.

One last thing my Motherboard is PCI-e X16.....is not 2.0 like cards these days..how much will it bottle neck it?

Goku

2011-10-26, 06:47 PM

Yeah PSU sounds good then if it handle that. Even PCI-e 1.0 x16 isn't a bottleneck yet, so don't worry. What CPU do you have at the moment?

Dreamcast

2011-10-26, 06:53 PM

I have a Q6600, I can overclock it to 3ghz....I have DDR2 4gb of ram.

Goku

2011-10-26, 07:23 PM

I recommend that. At stock that CPU is starting to get slow for todays games. Overclocking it to 3GHz will help out quite a bit. Have you tried getting to 3.6 GHz or is that not a G0?

Dreamcast

2011-10-26, 07:28 PM

I recommend that. At stock that CPU is starting to get slow for todays games. Overclocking it to 3GHz will help out quite a bit. Have you tried getting to 3.6 GHz or is that not a G0?

It is but I dont have alot of overclock experience.

The only overclocking I do is thru uguru which is a program from Abit. I don't into the bios screen and change the settings.

Perhaps I can make it faster thru uguru only but I honestly do know what to change, each time I try to put it above 3.0 ghz, it crashes.

I only change FSB btw from 272 mhz I believe to 334 mhz....I dont change anything else lol....I have alot of fans aswell, so I do believe I can overclock it more without it overheating.

Goku

2011-10-26, 07:52 PM

You are crashing due to not adding additional CPU voltage. If you want to over clock I highly suggest doing the bios way. There are plenty of guides that can help you. Are you on the stock heatsink? If so get a after market one to allowing safe temps.

Dreamcast

2011-10-27, 05:26 AM

Yeah, I might look up guides...I didn't before because I was lazy and my computer did good enough with 3.0 ghz and I hear it effects cpu longevity.

Yeah I have an after market cooler a zalman.

Im seriously considering buying it now

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162051

anybody know if galaxy warranty is good?..maybe I should get the newegg one.

Goku

2011-10-27, 09:08 AM

Yes I would say the Galaxy warranty is good as it lasts for 3 years. I haven't seen anyone complaining much about them on forums either and all the forum reps I have seen are very helpful.

Dreamcast

2011-10-27, 03:56 PM

One last thing when I get my a video card, I need to uninstall the drivers for the last card.

So my question is do I uninstall it before I put the new card?

Goku

2011-10-27, 06:21 PM

Might as well just to be safe then do a fresh install of them once the card is in.

Dreamcast

2011-11-02, 11:37 PM

Just got my GTX 470 today.....Everything works great so far....I can play crysis and BFBC 2 with every on full with no slow downs....I didn't even OC my CPU and the video card stays at 35 c idle...73 under load from what I saw but thats with all the fans on my case low.

Not sure about the benchmarks yet, and Im not sure if Ill overclock the video card yet.....are voltage settings risky?

What are some good high end games that test the cards these days other than BF3, I wanna see if I need to overclock my gpu.

Also my resolution is 1400 x 1050.....Yeah it isn't the wide Screen 1080p or 720p so I guess this why I can run everything on high, I need a new monitor.

Goku

2011-11-02, 11:40 PM

Just got my GTX 470 today.....Everything works great so far....I can play crysis and BFBC 2 with every on full with no slow downs....I didn't even OC my CPU and the video card stays at 35 c idle...73 under load from what I saw but thats with all the fans on my case low.

Not sure about the benchmarks yet, and Im not sure if Ill overclock the video card yet.....are voltage settings risky?

What are some good high end games that test the cards these days other than BF3, I wanna see if I need to overclock my gpu.

Metro 2033, Witcher 2, and Dragon Age II stress cards good.

Rbstr

2011-11-03, 12:18 AM

If everything you've got runs fine on high settings, why would you overclock?

Traak

2011-11-03, 12:26 AM

If everything you've got runs fine on high settings, why would you overclock?

To avoid those momentary zero fps delays that happen in highly-clotted firefights.

Goku

2011-11-03, 12:36 AM

If everything you've got runs fine on high settings, why would you overclock?

For the fun of it :p.

Dreamcast

2011-11-03, 03:44 AM

I can run Battlefield 3 all settings ultra and every max......but my game is crashing not sure if its because is ultra or just the game....Ill try auto settings to see if it doesn't crash.

I did overclock my cpu tho, because once in a while bf3 slow down and I need some extra cooling on my gpu.

Dreamcast

2011-11-03, 04:14 AM

It does it on auto settings too.....I guess is buggy as hell.

Goku

2011-11-03, 10:05 AM

Dreamcast

2011-11-03, 03:37 PM

Dream that could be your CPU overclock depending on whether or not it is stable. BF3 pushes quad cores quite hard. What have you used to verify the overclock is stable?

I do crash sometimes in BF3, but that is at most once a day when I do at least 5 matches. You do have the latest drivers for everything on your computer and Windows is up to date right?

Well it happen when my cpu wasn't overclock too.

Well I used prime 95 back in the day to test my 3ghz oc and it handle it well but is been a while since I did that.

My Drivers for my video card are the latest.

I went to the Battlefield forums and it seems like alot people are crashing, Im guess they need to patch the game.

Goku

2011-11-03, 03:48 PM

Yeah sounds like a BF3 issue then. Thankfully I have not been crashing that much. Yet at times my screen flashes orange/yellow/green colors that can get very annoying. I am hoping for a fix with that. I heard Nvidia has a driver coming out soon that will hopefully fix all their issues concerning geforce cards.

Dreamcast

2011-11-09, 12:46 PM

Still no patch or anything....Im also getting another weird problem..I get this error message

"a display driver stopped responding and recovered" once in a while....Usually when I play league of Legends....once on my desktop

The weird thing is that I never got this error when playing Deus Ex Human Revolution which requires more power than League of Legends or my desktop.

Also got this weird crash one day, that I needed to reset cmos....not sure how I made it work but I couldn't see anything on the screen even when I changed my video card to my old one....so Im guessing the problem wasn't the video card.

Kind of want to send it back to newegg for a new one just to make sure.

Goku

2011-11-09, 02:08 PM

You are not overclocking anything at the moment? You have the latest drivers with everything? When was your last fresh install of windows?

The display not working is either a video card driver issue or possibly a overclocked one. A bad driver install can cause that or having a video card on to high of a overclock is another cause.

Reset CMOS is when you reset the motherboard's bios back to full stock by hitting either a button on the motherboard or a switch. That maybe pointing to a motherboard issue with the graphics card as well.

What specific motherboard do you have? Brand and model number. Some older non PCI-e 2.0 boards sometimes have issues with the newer cards due only having PCI-e 1.0. Though it is a bit rare due to being isloated to specific boards. Most support PCI-e 2.0 cards even if they have a PCI-E 1.0 slot.

I just don't think the card is bad due to running most games fine and being isolated to only some. Need to do some more testing. I would hate for you to get another PCI-e 2.0 card to have it cause the same issues.

Dreamcast

2011-12-05, 04:21 AM

I think I found the problem.

It was a program I installed to overclock my video card from GALAXY, I never overclocked my video card but when I open this program, the display driver always stopped which what happened when I played league of legends etc.

So In uninstall it and reinstall it again and I can run the Galaxy program fine and I have never experienced that error in League of Legends.

Also I got a 1080p screen now and it doesn't seem like I need to overclock my GPU yet but I got a question.

Does Increase Voltage effect the video card by itself?....I mean Im pretty sure I have the fans and cooling to keep the card cool but will increase voltage still effected even if it's cool?....Thanks.

Traak

2011-12-05, 06:43 AM

Dreamcast

2011-12-05, 03:13 PM

No need for increased voltage without increased clock speed.

The increased voltage is needed after a certain clock speed increase, so that you aren't running out of juice to power the faster clock speed of the GPU or the VRAM (video RAM.)

The way I overclocked my computer was to increase clock speeds on the RAM and CPU until I ran into a crash, then I would incrementally up the voltages to the point where the thing didn't crash. Then I would up the clock speeds again, and so on.

The idea is to use as low a voltage as possible for any given clock speed you are running, so you won't have excess heat to dissipate that isn't actually needed to run the system at the higher clock speeds.

O yeah, I know that...The overclock reviews of my card I seen have my card overclocked to 800 mhz but with voltage increase.

So Im just wondering if voltage increase by itself effect a video card?......Because Im sure that my cooling is more the sufficient for it.

So if my card is cool, will the increase voltage still effect it negatively because the card wasn't designed for such voltage?

Goku

2011-12-05, 03:47 PM

Dreamcast

2011-12-06, 06:37 PM

Yes upping the voltage will cause the card to draw more wattage which in return means higher temps. I would be more careful with upping the voltage on video cards as I think they are more sensitive. Just don't over do it and read up on some guides for properly upping the voltage. Different cards have different limits.

Im not much worried about the higher temps, I have alot of fans on low in my case and I don't care much about fan noise, What Im worried about is the voltage will still have negative effect because the video card isn't design for that.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3288/galaxy_geforce_gtx_470_gc_overclocking/index2.html

Here's my videocard being overclock by Xtreme tuner HD which is Galaxy overclocking software.

Another

http://www.guru3d.com/article/kfa2-galaxy-geforce-gtx-470-review/20

So Im gonna aim at the numbers around these 2 test even tho I know no video cards are build the same.

Dreamcast

2011-12-06, 07:06 PM

Actually nevermind, the stupid Galaxy program Xtreme HD tuner, doesn't work.

Each time I start the program I get artifiacts on the screen, is very strange. I thought this program was fixed but I guess not so I uninstall the program.

I guess Im gonna have to do a light overclock with no voltage increase since it appears MSI doesnt read my voltage and evga doesn't either.

Do you guys know what overclocking programs might let me up my voltage?

Dreamcast

2011-12-06, 07:54 PM

Nevermind, I figured it out, how to overclock with MSI......

Well I did it to see if Battlefield 3 worked....It didn't so yeah, not gonna do it no more, no point.

Hopefully they fix BF3 soon.

Goku

2011-12-06, 10:44 PM

Fix BF3 as far as?

Dreamcast

2011-12-06, 11:17 PM

Fix BF3 as far as?

Well it crashes all the time...I kind of figured out a fix...I think with the new patch it happened.

Apparently is associated to Ultra Settings now. When I switch to Meduim, the game works then in-game I changed to Ultra and it keeps working.

Perhaps changing Ultra in-Game doesn't put all settings in Ultra unless I restart so it works.

I thought that perhaps if I overclock it, it will work....It didn't so Im done overclocking my graphics card since I don't need to, it appears.