ATI vs NVIDIA for Multiboxing

[Slats]

Hi all,

So my GTX 280 is having some problems. After about 8 months of use I'm starting to get pink/purple/blue/green flickering screens of death upon starting windows or entering a 3D game. It might run fine for a week, or it might crash 12 times in a row entering Windows.

I've tested my RAM, cleaned out my case, checked all my cooling and made adjustments. I do not overclock at all. I'm running a Asus P5Q Motherboard, 8GB RAM, Q9550 and a Creative PCI-E X-Fi.

Doing alot of googling and it seems alot of other people are having the same problems. I run two displays at 1920x1200 and when it works I totally love the card.

So I was looking at getting either a GTX 295 or one of the ATI Cards. However I've been out of the ATI game for a very very long time so know little about them. Looking at random 3D Mark Charts they seem to be a little behind the high GTX 200 Series cards but most of these tests are in FPS or 3D Mark not boxing 5x WoW on one machine.

So far the pros for ATI are that they are alot cheaper but I need to know whats comparable to what - is a HD 4890 the equivilent to a GTX 295? I'm thinking I should be looking at cards with alot of video memory so thats why these two in paticular interest me.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated - also I'm happy to wait a few months or just buy the ATI card for now if a whole new generation of stuff is coming really soon.

-Slats

[moog]

Those weird pink/green screens are usually video card component temperature related... if it has only recently started doing it and is getting worse then it could either mean that a component is starting to fail or that the GPU cooling is failing.

Have you pulled out the video card to check the fan/cooling ducts, as it's amazing how much dust gets sucked through there and they can clog up - I had a 7800 start to fail the same way a couple of years back and although the fan was still turning the ducts were completely full of dust - had to remove the cover and hoover it out.

My current 260GT is also starting to give me pink/green death screens and it's only a couple of months old. Using FurMark, I've determined that this is temperature related (75C and it goes). I had been using the EVGA tool to automatically control the fan speed but I've now swapped to RivaTuner and have the fan at 40% on boot and 100% as soon as I hit 70C. I'm limping along like this, for now, but will have to RMA the card when I get a chance.

[Whowantstoknow]

ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 should be out this week so you may want to hold off until you see some benches

[Ess]

ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 should be out this week so you may want to hold off until you see some benches

Here are some details... which should give an idea of their performance:

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/3200/57344827z.jpg

[jstanthr]

no matter what ive tried, ive always had bad luck out of ati cards, on my current motherboard, it may be because its using an nvidia chipset, i dunno. but imo nvidia all the way, the 300 class nvidia cards should be ready 1st quarter next year, their first trial batches were utter failures, but every time they do a die shrink thats common.

[Coltimar]

I have a 1GB 9600GT and an ATI 3850 512MB. I keep telling myself the 3850 is the best card but multiboxing but I haven't had time to try it out. Anyone use both of these cards?

[Dasana]

I gave up on ATI after I had an X1300 fail and then the 2nd one I'd get all these red pixels in WoW. Only got them in WoW though. Checked the forums and everyone said you have to run the old drivers, just keep going backwards till you find one that works.
Screw that, went and got an 8600GT. I was a die-hard ATI fan, I'm leary to go back now though.

[Otlecs]

I can't offer any empirical performance measurements, but I had an absolutel nightmare of a time with the drivers for the last (and only!) pair of ATI cards I used, and their support left me totally cold. I ended up using only one card and then eventually just threw them both away (close to €1000 worth of cards at the time) and bought nVidia instead.

I won't touch ATI with a barge-pole ever again, but that's entirely down to my personal experience with them.

[Slats]

Thanks for all your experiences with the various cards.

My card only has this problem starting up from a cold start. Once its been on awhile it runs perfectly fine. This leads me to suspect its nothing to do with the temp as it gets to like 70C boxing WoW and this seems acceptable for a GTX280 - I had alot of older cards that run alot hotter. (7800GTX in SLI ugggh).

[Altsoba]

Damn :/ it's even harder to decide now :p. Building a new machine and everything is settled except video card.

295GTX or 5870.... omg...

Anyone has a positive remark on ati? ^^

[Ualaa]

I'm running a 4870 X2 card, 2gb of video ram.
Have not had any issues with it, and it was a huge upgrade over my last card.
Not a fair comparison between the two.
Previous card was an Nvidia, which ran great for a long time too.

[Altsoba]

I'm running a 4870 X2 card, 2gb of video ram.
Have not had any issues with it, and it was a huge upgrade over my last card.
Not a fair comparison between the two.
Previous card was an Nvidia, which ran great for a long time too.

Don't you have issues with the dual video card thing, as it's said to be undeperforming with two cards?

Thank you

[Freddie]

Anyone has a positive remark on ati? ^^
I've owned both ATI and nVdia cards over the years and I've never had a problem with any of them.

I buy whatever gives me the best bang for the buck, with acceptable minimum performance, at the time when I'm buying. Sometimes that's ATI and sometimes that's Nvidia.

A good resource for figuring that out is Tom's monthly "best video cards for the money" list:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2404.html

( I don't use SLI, Crossfire, or dual-GPU cards. That probably cuts down on my problems quite a bit.)

[Fizzler]

I have never had any issues with ATI. I support both to spur on innovation. Should you wait for the latest and greatest? That depends do you want the latest and greatest and are willing to pay that premium? I would get what is the best bang for the buck and meets your need.

One good thing about ATI is the way they handle Audio of HDMI but that is more of a HTPC issue.

[Altsoba]

That's more reassuring thank you :).
Anyone knows when the 5870 is coming? I heard this week, the 23rd. Any idea? Thanks.

[Coltimar]

I prefer nVidia but I think that the ATI card I have is better. It's tough to find a side-by-side comparison that tells me one is definitively better than the next for boxing.

[Slats]

Yeah also remember this thread is about boxing using hte cards. We might not be playing Crysis on a 30" LCD but we are still asking alot of our video cards trying to power 2,3,4 monitors and run 5 to 10 concurrent 3d applications at once at acceptable frame rates.

[Whowantstoknow]

My next card will probably be a 5870 variant as Eyefinity looks intreging.

I am holding out to see some Benchmarks. The NDA lifts on the 23rd so expect to see some leaked info before then and some genuine information at midnight Aussie time

There is a rumor that only the 1Gb variant will be available tomorrow and the 2Gb and x2 variants will be out 14th October.

[Freddie]

Some HD5870 benchmarks have leaked already. There are charts on this page comparing HD5870 vs GTX285 and GTX295:

http://www.caseandcooling.fr/carte-graphique/news/697-ati-radeon-hd58xx--specifications-finales-et-benchmarks-ati

[Whowantstoknow]

Those are not objective benchmarks but part of the Ati paper launch presentation

[Freddie]

Oh, I thought they were done by that website. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Whowantstoknow]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/09/23/ait-radeon-hd-5870-1gb-review/1
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_hd_5870_performance_preview/
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-review-test/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/22/amds_ati_radeon_hd_5870_video_card_review
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/23415-sapphire-radeon-hd-5870-1gb-gddr5-review.html
http://hothardware.com/Articles/AMD-ATI-Radeon-HD-5870-Unquestionably-Number-One/
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1080/1/
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=783
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_5870/
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-5870,review-31685.html
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17618
Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB Graphics Card (http://www.dual-boxing.com/Sapphire%20Radeon%20HD%205870%201GB%20Graphics%20C ard)
Should keep you going for a while :D

[Slats]

Well my card is pretty much on the verge of dying (ASUS GTX 280 1GB). From a cold boot it can take up to 14 tries to just login to Windows 7. When I finally do get in, the first time I run WoW it will crash after a couple of minutes or if I try take a flight path.

After that it runs steady as a rock till the machine needs to undergo another cold-start. Reboots during this time work with no issues.

So I got annoyed enough that I ordered myself a Powercolor ATI 5870 1GB from PC Case Gear - I think delivered with insurance its $580. Pretty happy with that really - hoping it tides me over for another 6-12 months till I look at building a whole new machine.

Lets hope I can get some stock before it all sells out.

[Slats]

Well my 5870 came today.

Unsure if I'll notice an improvment in performance over my GTX 280 but should sort out my pin screens of death. Taking me about 15 goes to get into Windows at the moment from a cold start. :)