[LHN91]

Finding myself very tempted to do a bit of a side-wards graphics card upgrade. I've been working with a 512MB Radeon 4870 for the last 2 years or so, and have been very happy with it. Even better, it was an absolute steal, as I picked it up for $50 CDN from a guy who thought that a low-mid range Radeon 6000 series (a 6470 or somesuch, if I recall) was going to be a huge upgrade. I imagine he had a rude awakening later on, but his loss.

What's got me thinking is that I recently got my hands on three more or less matched 1280x1024 screens in good working order, and can't run them all on the 4870 simultaneously. I have a hackish solution in place atm with an old laptop and StarDock's Multiplicity, and even with that I find three simultaneous screen to be absolutely wonderful for productivity.

I generally keep up with current tech releases and whatnot, but no longer game as much as I used to. I noticed that Nvidia has put out the 650 and 660, and am currently looking at picking up a 650 1GB. Up here the 650 runs about $119.99. I realize that triple screen gaming is kind of beyond a 650, but that doesn't really bother me much, and as long as it can still game reasonably well in a pinch I'm fine.

I'd rather not go spend-happy as my current desktop will likely be up for a wholesale rebuild in another 2 years or so (Athlon II x4 620 with 4 GB DDr2), and the 4870 may very well find itself in my HTPC so that I can move most of my gaming over to the living room TV.

So what do people think?

[Klaustrophobia]

for what it's worth, my HDTV connected via HDMI doesn't play nice with my nvidia GTX670.  every time i want to use it i have to unplug and replug the tv.  wasn't a problem on my radeon 6970.  i thought the 4870 had eyefinity, but maybe that started with the 5k series.  i'm not sure about the 7k, but the 5 and 6 series you have to use the displayport for 3 monitors.   i know pretty much nothing about the relative performance of midrange cards, other than the GTX 660ti is supposed to be at worst 25% slower than the 670 for about $100 less.

[LHN91]

Yeah, the 5k series was the start of Eyefinity, unfortunately. Main reason I'm looking at Nvidia at the moment isn't because I'm dissatisfied with AMD, but more because I like not having to go DisplayPort (or needing to buy additional adapters) to use Nvidia's version of 3 monitor surround.

The 660ti is a beautiful card, price/performance wise, but I really have no need to be able to max out Skyrim at 1080p and still get 60-70 fps -- and I don't feel like spending $239.99 now when I plan to replace the current desktop in another 2 years or so, and the plan is to take the current desktop and either pass it down to HTPC duty or to the girlfriend when that happens.

[AtomicClucker]

well, go for the nvidia card as it usually has less suck-tastic and bug ridden drivers than AMD. Hopefully they won't gimp the new cards with 3d applications though.

[Klaustrophobia]

well, go for the nvidia card as it usually has less suck-tastic and bug ridden drivers than AMD. Hopefully they won't gimp the new cards with 3d applications though.

false.  "[insert company here]'s drivers suck!" is a product of either fanboyism or borked installs.  and given how easy installing video drivers is these days (except for laptops), 90% of it is the former.

having used both in the past month, i prefer AMD's package to nvidia's.  nvidia has some extra features and sometimes plays nicer with games since there are so many coded for it, but on the whole i find the catalyst control center an easier and more polished suite.  nvidia lacks such functions as monitoring, fan control, and driver-level overclocking.  in fact, i've seen widespread reports of a "red screen of death" on new nvidia cards if you have 3rd party apps for this installed. 

i'll say again and will continue to say every time the driver wars come up - drivers should be a non-factor when considering which brand to buy.  neither is better or worse enough to outweigh the actual hardware.

[AtomicClucker]

to be rather blunt, both card makers are full of stupid right now. If I wanted to engage in a driver war then I'd be calling AMD a cheap 99 cent whore

however, nvidia has continually downgraded the 3d applicability of their cards. I still use my old GTS250 because Maya is a crap shoot with newer cards.

[Mikes]

well, go for the nvidia card as it usually has less suck-tastic and bug ridden drivers than AMD. Hopefully they won't gimp the new cards with 3d applications though.

false.  "[insert company here]'s drivers suck!" is a product of either fanboyism or borked installs.  and given how easy installing video drivers is these days (except for laptops), 90% of it is the former.

having used both in the past month, i prefer AMD's package to nvidia's.  nvidia has some extra features and sometimes plays nicer with games since there are so many coded for it, but on the whole i find the catalyst control center an easier and more polished suite.  nvidia lacks such functions as monitoring, fan control, and driver-level overclocking.  in fact, i've seen widespread reports of a "red screen of death" on new nvidia cards if you have 3rd party apps for this installed. 

i'll say again and will continue to say every time the driver wars come up - drivers should be a non-factor when considering which brand to buy.  neither is better or worse enough to outweigh the actual hardware.

I ve used both brands a lot and either occasionally puts out drivers that simply do not work or have assorted issues.

If you want to play it safe then its always a matter of reading forums and finding out which driver works best with which card for people and has the least amount or no reported issues.

I mean I ve seen a lot of things over the last years... graphical corruption on both brands due to drivers, totally borked shadows on Nvidia because of the driver, 2nd monitor going haywire on ATI due to driver, horrible constant crashes on both brands... due to having installed the newest driver (old drivers worked fine), et cetera.

Fact is.... if you look around a bit you can always find a driver that works. Naming "driver issues" as any kind of criteria for graphic card decisions is indeed either fanboyism or simply cluelessness (and possibly the inability to solve some kind of driver issue before due to above mentioned cluelessness)



Finally.... always installing the "newest" driver as soon as it is out is only a good idea if you desperately want to experience the full range of screwups that either brand manages to produce lol

[Unknown Target]

to be rather blunt, both card makers are full of stupid right now. If I wanted to engage in a driver war then I'd be calling AMD a cheap 99 cent whore

however, nvidia has continually downgraded the 3d applicability of their cards. I still use my old GTS250 because Maya is a crap shoot with newer cards.

How so? I'm looking to upgrade soon and I need to be able to both game and 3D. What's up with nVidia's newest cards?

[Mikes]

How so? I'm looking to upgrade soon and I need to be able to both game and 3D. What's up with nVidia's newest cards?

Dunno myself, but for general use and gaming both the 580 (don t have a 680) and the 7970s I've got are working very well.

[LHN91]

So update.

Went ahead and grabbed the Gigabyte 1GB Geforce 650 from here: http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=053204

Upon basic testing (i.e. Deus Ex HR and thats about it), as long as I keep the total pixel count somewhere in the range of that which you would get from a 1920x1080, I can max everything else out (DX11, tesselation, postprocessing, SSAO, and MLAA). I set the triple-screen resolution to 3x(1024x768) and everything went swimmingly, I would guess at near 30 fps.

And three screens for almost anything is wonderful for getting things done.