New GPU- GTX570 ?

[:FI:Scott]

Hi all,

I currently have two Nvidia GTX260 216 Black editions running in SLI. I think the card memory is 786Mb/card. The rest of the box is OK with a quad core Q9650 and 8GB of ram.

I am weighing up the possible gains of dropping the two cards for one GTX570. Some of you boys are far more techified than me and I would appreciate some input on this. For the first time in my PC gaming life I'm not fussed at dumping NV, mainly due to the long line of duff drivers they have released so I'm open to all suggestions really.

Cheers

PS- when I say open to all suggestions that does not include anything goat related.

[:FI:Genosse]

Richard, old bean!

I´m afraid I´ve absolutely no idea what you're talking about ... neither the NVidia GFX cards ... nor the goats ...

Gen "ATI-Boy since 2000" osse

[:FI:Heloego]

For the money, you'd be better off with a 470 or 480.

The 570 offers somewhat quieter fans, and very little more for the money (tesselation effects, DX11, slight improvement in power consumption, higher core clock speed) than the 470/480.

GigaByte makes a good 1.2GB unit with a 700mhz core clock.
CPU magazine says the 470 is a great card "for the serious gamer looking for an edge, but not willing to take out a second mortgage" to do it. Around $300 US.

[:FI:Falcon]

Yeah, Richard, Dan's in the market now and is making an uncharacteristic amount of good sense.

Here's a link to a nice GPU roundup.

Here's what Tom's Hardware has to say.

...

You sure about the goat thing?

[:FI:Scott]

Thanks for the advice and links. There is a self confessed gaming geek at my local PC shop who works on Wednesdays so I will pop in and see what he has to say.

On the new card front the 570 seems to offer the best performance/price compromise. Even if I keep the 260's in this box next time round I am dropping SLI. IL2 never used it, RoF doesn't do much better and the jury is out on CoD. One big card seems to be the better route to take for sims and as they account for 99.9% of my gaming time whats the point ?

If I can run the new game at the same sort of settings as I have RoF and get the same sort of performance I will be a happy camper. Unless it does use SLI I just can't see that with my current setup

[:FI:Mikester]

Duel core GTX580 just around the corner, this will push card prices down or maybe you would like to buy one!

[:FI:Scott]

I have heard about that. I'm guessing that would be probably involve selling one of the kids.

Its the old story with computer upgrades, when do you get to the point where you are better off getting a new box ? For me this would be the last upgrade before this box retires and I have tried (and failed) in the past with the idea that I could carry newer parts over from the old to the new. By the time you get round to specing up a new machine there is always something significantly better available.

For £300 or slightly less I think I can get pretty decent performance for a year or so with a 570 or 480. On reflection I think I will stick to NV, I'm getting too old to start getting my head round ATi cards. I just need to be sure that I've got my facts right on the relative benefits of the one bigger card over the two I already have.

[:FI:Scott]

Update:

First try out with the new card. I have done tonights coops with IL2 and before that tested with the Solvakia map and Stalingrad and on balls out settings i cant slow IL2 down. Honest (tbh one 260 was hard to slow down in IL2 Too) RoF- with two 260's (one set to dedicated AA) I was at 28 % on med settings. Upping to high apart from landscape that I kept at med the new card runs at 19% and is noticably smoother. CoD is improved but there is still jumps as textures load to gpu memory. I don't think its fair to test hardware in this game until they get the needed patches out.

All in all the 570 runs very well. At the time I got the two 260's there was next to none SLI support for flight sims and if I had it again I wouldn't have gone down the SLI road then. One card usually did no worse than the two.

As to the 570 I'm well chuffed and would recommend it.

[:FI:Gadje]

Just been playing with my GTX 570 too. If it has got a reasonable heatsink Richard try overclocking if you could use more processing power. This Palit o/c one I bought is a bit of a jewel, it was already 800mhz out the box, memory 2000. Adding volts from 1.0v to 1.1 using MSI Afterburner I got it steady in 3D Mark11 on 940mhz /2100mhz memory!. Unbelievable! it just wouldn't stop.

Trouble is I dont need all that at the moment. And the fan gets noisier and heat goes up so it is a bit of a trade-off. Still good to know it is there if needed later.

[:FI:Mikester]

Jesus!

Good going! Looks like I could have a bit more play in mine then. I've got a radiator on the phantom version and seems to run fairly cool. Hopefully have another go at the weekend see if i can get similar results.

Did you notice much difference when benchmarking? moving my clock speed from 740 - 850 didn't really notice much change when benchmarking and frames looked the same. This was using 3d mark11 also. ATI benchmark tool maybe ?

[:FI:Scott]

This sounds like a real son of 8800 (one of my favourite cards of all time).

Thanks for the tips, I'm taking the weekend off - no family visits, work stuff etc so I will have a good old play.

[:FI:Gadje]

Just like CPU's it is a lottery, you don't know what you will get when it come to overclocking but this 570 is obviously a good un. I found out the max at stock volts and then increased it 0.25v each time to see how far that took it. MSI afterburner is what most people use and it is simple. Apparently 1.15v is possible but I stopped at 1.1v

As I said i don't think I want the extra heat/ fan noise atm, high 70's temp! (well over 10c higher at 940mhz) and fans had a noisy whine about them to deal with the heat. The design doesnt vent much out the back so you need good case cooling or its blowing that hot air around the cpu!
It added about 10% to frames from orginal clock so about a 580 level and as it was 800mhz originally versus 735 so maybe 13-15% faster than stock speed. But as you know with Sandybridge...so what? Everthing I try is flying along at standard. No doubt CoD will change my opinion on that. RoF pretty much maxed out is wonderfully smooth. Don't know frames(has it got an onboard framecounter?) but it is seemless so far.

Think I want a quiet and cool computer this time and keep the overclock moderate for now.

[:FI:Scott]

RoF pretty much maxed out is wonderfully smooth. Don't know frames(has it got an onboard framecounter?)

No, I'm afraid not Gadje, you have to use Fraps.

[:FI:Rabitski]

CoD is just a pimped up IL-2, you should be able to do that FPS start show thing from the command promt thing; is it ctrl shift or something like that? I can't remember.

[:FI:Scott]

Not in RoF Greg,

They started out with Genadich using the IL2 engine they dumped it under Neoqb and developed the 'Digital Nature' engine instead.