Graphics Cards related queries here.

[vickybat]

Originally Posted by tkin

SLI is not more superior to crossfire, specially now that crossfire scales pretty well, only advantage of sli is that it has out of the box support for most games, ati on the other hand requires application profile updates, which suck by the way.

HD6970 will most likely be beat by GTX580 by 5-10%, I wonder how nVidia will counter HD6990, if they put two HD6950 gpus in them(I think HD6970x2 is not possible due to pcie power limit of 300w, HD5870 draws 188w at load, so it was possible for HD5970 to be built, but HD6970 has tdp of 225w at least).

Can you justify your statement "HD6970 will most likely be beat by GTX580 by 5-10%". The card is not out yet and is most likely a refined 5870 with lesser power consumption or a wee bit more.
First it has to knock the gtx 480 in terms of performance before setting eyes on gtx 580. But surely 69xx will take the competionto the next level and definitely raise the bar.



@ jaskanwar

Gtx 460 performs on par with 6850 and the former has cuda , physx and 3d but ati also has 3d support in its 6 series gpu's.

Owing to single gpu , sli 2Xgtx 580 is currently the fastest out there and is actually more practically feasible than 2X5970 due to lower wattage consumption.

But i do agree that 2x6870 is great vfm for performance users due to low price compared to a gtx 580 sli.

[Piyush]

Originally Posted by vickybat

@ jaskanwar

Gtx 460 performs on par with 6850 and the former has cuda , physx and 3d but ati also has 3d support in its 6 series gpu's.

Owing to single gpu , sli 2Xgtx 580 is currently the fastest out there and is actually more practically feasible than 2X5970 due to lower wattage consumption.

But i do agree that 2x6870 is great vfm for performance users due to low price compared to a gtx 580 sli.

which 460 are u talkin about?
if its 768 version...then its behind 6850 in all benchmarks
and regardind 1gb version it too lags against 6850 by a magin of few frames in most benchmarks
u can look it at urself

[Jaskanwar Singh]

Originally Posted by vickybat

@ jaskanwar

Gtx 460 performs on par with 6850 and the former has cuda , physx and 3d but ati also has 3d support in its 6 series gpu's.

Owing to single gpu , sli 2Xgtx 580 is currently the fastest out there and is actually more practically feasible than 2X5970 due to lower wattage consumption.

But i do agree that 2x6870 is great vfm for performance users due to low price compared to a gtx 580 sli.

check this out - AMD?s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

i said the same that 2X GTX580 will be better but remember SLI and CF of these cards are useful at only highest resolutions.
HIS Radeon HD 5970 CrossFire Review - Page 1/28 | techPowerUp

[tkin]

Originally Posted by vickybat

Can you justify your statement "HD6970 will most likely be beat by GTX580 by 5-10%". The card is not out yet and is most likely a refined 5870 with lesser power consumption or a wee bit more.
First it has to knock the gtx 480 in terms of performance before setting eyes on gtx 580. But surely 69xx will take the competionto the next level and definitely raise the bar.



@ jaskanwar

Gtx 460 performs on par with 6850 and the former has cuda , physx and 3d but ati also has 3d support in its 6 series gpu's.

Owing to single gpu , sli 2Xgtx 580 is currently the fastest out there and is actually more practically feasible than 2X5970 due to lower wattage consumption.

But i do agree that 2x6870 is great vfm for performance users due to low price compared to a gtx 580 sli.

I am just reading speculations that its a 15xx shader part, so unless its a brand new architecture its hard for HD6970 to beat GTX580 which is about 25-30% faster than HD5870, getting 30% performance increase out of rv870 architecture without a die shrink seems impossible, but I've been wrong before.

[pranav_p60]

Originally Posted by topgear

HD5670 512MB from sapphire.

Another good one to look for is 9800GT 512MB though you will need a good psu for this.

BTW, what PSu do you have - brand name and wattage ?

I dont know the wattage and brand of PSU.
My earlier Card was 7600GT from XFX.

Originally Posted by super64

for around 5k, you can get a nvidia gt430.
ati card - radeon hd 5570.
if you can spend 7k, get a nvidia gts450 or ati radeon hd5750.

I need something below 5k.

[vwad]

How good is HD 6850 1GB for video capturing, editing, encoding as against GTX 460 1GB ?

[desiibond]

Originally Posted by vwad

How good is HD 6850 1GB for video capturing, editing, encoding as against GTX 460 1GB ?

GTX460 is slightly slower than HD6850. If you want to use PhysX and CUDA or do encoding etc on linux, better get GTX460. If you are not much into gaming, I would suggest you to look for workstation class GPUs for video editing and encoding work. With a budget of 12k-13k, you can get really good GPU like ATI Fire V5600.

[vamsi_krishna]

HD 6850 and GTX 460 1G are almost on par. But HD 6850 has a slight edge in Specifications. And these are in a position where optimization plays a major role.

And yes, CUDA will help encoding your videos, but ATI has their own Avivo under the sleeve for media encoding. And these days.. ATI is coming back with game optimizations like Mass effect 2, Dragon Age, Dawn of war, etc. Not to mention Havoc is being extensively used these days because of it's compatibility than Nvidia Physx.

[vickybat]

@ jaskanwar

Hmmm the 6850 really performs well and if it costs less than gtx 460 1gb then it definitely can be recommended in lieu of the 460. But if cuda or physx matters then 460 is the card to buy but i guess they hardly matter. If its 10k then 6850 is the way to go.

@ tkin
Gtx 580 is some 20-30% faster than its predecessor i.e the 480. So i guess its even faster than 5870. Unless AMD does some serious modifications to the cypress architecture its going to be tough to beat fermi. Only time will tell the decider after both cayman and antilles be launched.

[vwad]

Originally Posted by desiibond

GTX460 is slightly slower than HD6850. If you want to use PhysX and CUDA or do encoding etc on linux, better get GTX460. If you are not much into gaming, I would suggest you to look for workstation class GPUs for video editing and encoding work. With a budget of 12k-13k, you can get really good GPU like ATI Fire V5600.

Originally Posted by vamsi_krishna

HD 6850 and GTX 460 1G are almost on par. But HD 6850 has a slight edge in Specifications. And these are in a position where optimization plays a major role.

And yes, CUDA will help encoding your videos, but ATI has their own Avivo under the sleeve for media encoding. And these days.. ATI is coming back with game optimizations like Mass effect 2, Dragon Age, Dawn of war, etc. Not to mention Havoc is being extensively used these days because of it's compatibility than Nvidia Physx.

Thanks a lot for these inputs bros.

@desiibond, Even I was thinking about Firepro V4800, but the problem is I am a bit skeptical about its resale value in my subsequent upgrade.

[desiibond]

Originally Posted by vwad

Thanks a lot for these inputs bros.

@desiibond, Even I was thinking about Firepro V4800, but the problem is I am a bit skeptical about its resale value in my subsequent upgrade.

yes. that's one problem. among the two, pick GTX460

[vickybat]

^^

Yes Gtx 460 can handle tasks other than gaming better than 6850. I
think thats what you mean right?

[Jaskanwar Singh]

^^6850 costs 11.2k

[vwad]

Originally Posted by vickybat

^^

Yes Gtx 460 can handle tasks other than gaming better than 6850. I
think thats what you mean right?

Originally Posted by Jaskanwar Singh

^^6850 costs 11.2k

Yes to both which makes the decision making process miserable further

[vickybat]

^^ go for gtx 460 buddy.
when tesselation bcomes the norm, it will perform better than 6850.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by vickybat

^^ go for gtx 460 buddy.
when tesselation bcomes the norm, it will perform better than 6850.

but i feel when tessellation becomes the norm, we may see GTX660 or so. i mean Nvidia 6-series. cause most games are still sticking to PhysX at BEST. cause if they make a game heavily relied on tessellation, the 90% or more of gaming community with cards that are fairly weak in tessellation may never buy that game.

[tkin]

To use tessellation properly game engines must be re written from scratch, like unreal engine 4, and since consoles are stuck @ dx9 era that won't happen till 2012 at least, so dx11 will end up another halo product like dx10 was(if microsoft stick to schedule and releases win 8 with DX12 on 2012).

[asingh]

^^
Tessellation is available on PC versions. I think METRO was doing it. Provided you run it on Dx11 codepath.

[tkin]

Originally Posted by asingh

^^
Tessellation is available on PC versions. I think METRO was doing it. Provided you run it on Dx11 codepath.

Metro 2033 tessellation does absolutely nothing, more over it only applies tess to the characters, the only feature that separates DX9 from 11 is ao and it's just locked out of DX9 so dx11 looks a bit different, my friend played metro 2033 in my house and he said he couldn't see any difference between the two modes(except a softness caused by ao, motion blur etc that was locked out of dx9). So tessellation serves no purpose till now, may change later but certainly not now.

PS: Crysis does not use tessellation but at any moment there are about 1.5 million polygons on screens in crysis, and its still the best looking game, there are a lot of thing you can do with DX9, dx11 adds nothing significant to table, pcs already have enough horsepower to run good looking game without tessellation,, that tech was originally used in consoles, its a console tech useful for low end gpus.

[asingh]

^^
You telling me that there is hardly any significant image quality difference between Dx9 vs. Dx11. It causes quite a bit of depth and angular adjustments. Not saying your friend was lying, but it depends on resolution and attention to detail.

The reason Crysis is still the best champion (and runner up) in the graphics department because the engine renders everything in real time. Plus way back when launched it had occlusion mapping and DoF, RToD built in in.

Check out the difference here. Polygon count goes up vastly when rendered on Dx11.

[vizkid2005]

Originally Posted by tkin

To use tessellation properly game engines must be re written from scratch, like unreal engine 4, and since consoles are stuck @ dx9 era that won't happen till 2012 at least, so dx11 will end up another halo product like dx10 was(if microsoft stick to schedule and releases win 8 with DX12 on 2012).

NO point ...
The world is ENDING in 2012 ....

God damn those Lamington road dealers !!!
They still haven`t got the 6870 !!!
Say it`ll take 10 more days to come ....
My build get delayed some way or the other !! aargh !!!

[ssb1551]

^^Patience is the key to success!!

[tkin]

Originally Posted by asingh

^^
You telling me that there is hardly any significant image quality difference between Dx9 vs. Dx11. It causes quite a bit of depth and angular adjustments. Not saying your friend was lying, but it depends on resolution and attention to detail.

The reason Crysis is still the best champion (and runner up) in the graphics department because the engine renders everything in real time. Plus way back when launched it had occlusion mapping and DoF, RToD built in in.

Check out the difference here. Polygon count goes up vastly when rendered on Dx11.

I was talking about metro 2033, not dirt 2, my issue with dx11 is mostly with tessellation, and it may look good on still screenshots as you are focusing on a particular image for a long time but in game when screens are rendered at say 30fps you see absolutely minimal visual difference, I can guarantee you that if you play metro on DX11 and DX9(or 10) you won't see any benifits from tessellation, maybe a little IQ difference due to AO(ambient occlusion).

If you look at the images in your link you'll see that in dirt 2 the dx9 shots are a bit blurred out, that's due to ao, not tessellation, tess was originally designed to improve the performance on console games, not increase quality.

A recent example is lost planet 2, it uses tess for water but the water quality nowhere matches that of crysis, direct3d 9 was a massive increment for the directx api but direct3d 10 and 11 are just minimum upgrades, we are done with image quality improvements, rasterization has met its end, unless real time ray tracing comes iq will not improve.

And you said dx11 increases angular adjustments and depth, it was already available for dx9 and 10, 11 does not add any new feature that increases those features.

Now I won't argue about this anymore but here I have an excellent article related to the USEFULNESS of DirectX 11:
The State of DirectX 11 - Image Quality & Performance - HotHardware

If you want a quick rundown of the article:

In terms of image quality, the new effects and graphical tricks we saw with DX11 added some extra realism not available in DirectX 9. Effects like screen-space ambient occlusion, depth of field, and tessellation really brought the graphics up a notch, adding extra atmosphere and realism to games like Aliens vs Predator, Bad Company 2 and Dirt 2. However, these effects were generally quite subtle and are nothing as dramatic as the image quality changes brought on by DirectX 8 or 9 in the past, which both offered major milestones in shader technology. It's also worth noting that, except for tessellation, these effects are all technically possible without DirectX 11 and compute shaders, as proven by Crysis.

DirectX 11's hardware tessellation and DirectCompute API have great potential, but currently they're being used to implement effects we've seen before since Crysis was introduced. While that certainly doesn't sound very impressive, keep in mind that although the graphical effects are nothing new, DirectCompute now makes them much more efficient

PS: SSAO which is touted as a DX11 feature was used by crysis with dx9, so its old tech, dx11 makes the coding easier. DX11 is all about efficiency and not image quality, sadly developers are screwing this up, all DX11 games till date(except BFBC2) have their performance lowered(metro 2033) when run in dx11, that's NOT supposed to happen.

[desiibond]

Originally Posted by vizkid2005

NO point ...
The world is ENDING in 2012 ....

God damn those Lamington road dealers !!!
They still haven`t got the 6870 !!!
Say it`ll take 10 more days to come ....
My build get delayed some way or the other !! aargh !!!

jsut go and get GTX480

[Sam]

Originally Posted by tkin

To use tessellation properly game engines must be re written from scratch, like unreal engine 4, and since consoles are stuck @ dx9 era that won't happen till 2012 at least, so dx11 will end up another halo product like dx10 was(if microsoft stick to schedule and releases win 8 with DX12 on 2012).

Originally Posted by asingh

^^
Tessellation is available on PC versions. I think METRO was doing it. Provided you run it on Dx11 codepath.

i think tkin mentioned one important point. will games be made with 2 different engines? like PC version have a DX11 engine so they can use tessellation whereas PS/XBOX based on some old engine like Quake III engine or the Unreal Engine? if game developers start doing this, well think yourself what maybe the outcome....

so i not sure in which direction this discussion goes but tessellation will take time before mass adoption. whole console gaming community as well as DX9/10 gamers will be against it.

Originally Posted by tkin

Metro 2033 tessellation does absolutely nothing, more over it only applies tess to the characters

maybe cause its first game to use tessellation. maybe.

Originally Posted by vizkid2005

NO point ...
The world is ENDING in 2012 ....

still 2yrs+ left (if world ends on 31st dec 2012 @ 11:59).

Originally Posted by ssb1551

^^Patience is the key to success!!

looks good only in 19th century books not saying just WAIT. but more you wait, more you'll be forced to wait.

[Faun]

Originally Posted by Sam.Shab

still 2yrs+ left (if world ends on 31st dec 2012 @ 11:59).

Which time zone as it will always be tomorrow in Australia.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Faun

Which time zone as it will always be tomorrow in Australia.

err, not thought about it

[vickybat]

Originally Posted by tkin

I was talking about metro 2033, not dirt 2, my issue with dx11 is mostly with tessellation, and it may look good on still screenshots as you are focusing on a particular image for a long time but in game when screens are rendered at say 30fps you see absolutely minimal visual difference, I can guarantee you that if you play metro on DX11 and DX9(or 10) you won't see any benifits from tessellation, maybe a little IQ difference due to AO(ambient occlusion).

If you look at the images in your link you'll see that in dirt 2 the dx9 shots are a bit blurred out, that's due to ao, not tessellation, tess was originally designed to improve the performance on console games, not increase quality.

A recent example is lost planet 2, it uses tess for water but the water quality nowhere matches that of crysis, direct3d 9 was a massive increment for the directx api but direct3d 10 and 11 are just minimum upgrades, we are done with image quality improvements, rasterization has met its end, unless real time ray tracing comes iq will not improve.

And you said dx11 increases angular adjustments and depth, it was already available for dx9 and 10, 11 does not add any new feature that increases those features.

Now I won't argue about this anymore but here I have an excellent article related to the USEFULNESS of DirectX 11:
The State of DirectX 11 - Image Quality & Performance - HotHardware

If you want a quick rundown of the article:



PS: SSAO which is touted as a DX11 feature was used by crysis with dx9, so its old tech, dx11 makes the coding easier. DX11 is all about efficiency and not image quality, sadly developers are screwing this up, all DX11 games till date(except BFBC2) have their performance lowered(metro 2033) when run in dx11, that's NOT supposed to happen.

Crysis stresses on open world environments but metro is kind of doom 3 like.
But tesselation is really gonna notch up realism. I dont know if battlefield bad company 2 uses tesselation or not but its characters look better than crysis. They are say Uncharted 2 like.

I guess crysis 2 will use this codepath and will surpass crysis.

[asingh]

@Tkin,
Its not that I want to have the last say here, but I have gamed on Dx11 and for sure found the affects better. It is not too fair to compare Crysis to a Dx11. Totally different era [in gaming terms]. Dx11 (tessellation) might not have seen the clear light of day yet, but I think it will come. Even the article you quoted mentions the same in the last paragraph...!

[super64]

Originally Posted by vamsi_krishna

HD 6850 and GTX 460 1G are almost on par. But HD 6850 has a slight edge in Specifications.

And yes, CUDA will help encoding your videos, but ATI has their own Avivo under the sleeve for media encoding. .

ati radeon 6850 consumes less power than gtx 460. 460 needs 2 pcie connectors, while 6850 needs only one.
avivo is a joke. its the ati equivalent of nvidia's purevideo tech, which no one uses anyway...

Originally Posted by vizkid2005

They still haven`t got the 6870 !!!
Say it`ll take 10 more days to come ....
My build get delayed some way or the other !! aargh !!!

why dont u buy it online?