I don't agree at all with swapping out the GTX 460 for a 6850. You can overclock a GTX 460 to be faster than a 6850 for the same amount of money with ease so it would be a better buy for those on a budget. Also how many people use Physx and how many use eyefinity, more use Physx by far. I get it that at stock speeds the 6850 beats the 460 but once overclocking comes into it (and it should on this site!) the 460 comes out on top.
Originally Posted by hbeevers I don't agree at all with swapping out the GTX 460 for a 6850. You can overclock a GTX 460 to be faster than a 6850 for the same amount of money with ease so it would be a better buy for those on a budget. Also how many people use Physx and how many use eyefinity, more use Physx by far. I get it that at stock speeds the 6850 beats the 460 but once overclocking comes into it (and it should on this site!) the 460 comes out on top.
How many people, even among enthusiasts, overclock their GPUs. Not very many. How many people, even among enthusiasts, have fallen for the pointless nVidia gimmick of PhysX. Not very many.
I would have loved to see an alternative recommendation for the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2 as this board is now very difficult to find. I managed to buy the last one from Pixmania which was the only place to have it in stock for less than £95.
In addition, the Corsair CX400 is EOL and nearly impossible to buy new now. Time to review some more budget PSU's (or simply choose a Seasonic S12II-380 for a fiver more).
Originally Posted by Ph4ZeD How many people, even among enthusiasts, overclock their GPUs. Not very many. How many people, even among enthusiasts, have fallen for the pointless nVidia gimmick of PhysX. Not very many.
I'd say quite a few do, especially those looking at a budget gaming rig which is where the 6850 came in. My 460's running at 800MHz core and is close to a 470 for frame rates, it cost me £145 that's cheaper than a 6850 and it's faster. As for Physx, if it weren't for physx in mafia 2 then those graphics would be terrible.
And thus, in your bickering, you prove Bit-Tech right in swapping out the recommendation. It's been 460, now it's 6850. They State very clearly that THEY value Eyefinity over PhysX, but if you don't you should switch back to the 460.
Eye infinity and physx are red herrings - a 6850 is not fast enough for eye infinity, and it'll struggle with physx.
The 6850 is a good card but it's price needs to drop a few pounds, it's not equal to the GTX 460 1G, particularly if you include o/c, which obviously in the "enthusiast overclockers" build should. At the same prices the 460 is simply the better card.
Don't be sorry for the harsh comment, cuz they can't even make one of these without copying and pasting bits from the previous one. LAME!!!
But, I can see you guys have actually taken the initiative to change some things around, and didn't do a blatant copy paste. so props for that. And I would never buy ZOTAC products simply because I prefer XFX's double lifetime warranty.
And just so you fellas know, MSI doesn't even warranty that mobo for the affordable all rounder. and some of MSI's newer boards make much better choices.
huh? so if a product is better than the reference in every single way, including price, you would still buy the reference? unless you are a hardcore watercooler.... i fail to comprehend your logic.
Yes but the 470 AMP! is not way better. Its considerably more expensive. The 6870 or 460 GTX (either reference or heavily overclocked) is a far better choice and will leave you with spare cash.
huh? so if a product is better than the reference in every single way, including price, you would still buy the reference? unless you are a hardcore watercooler.... i fail to comprehend your logic.
buying non-reference often means will need to relay on manufacturer to provide overclocking tools as generic tools such as recent Afterburner and older Rivatuner will no longer work.
it's a draw of luck when buying none reference design. especially when it's cheaper, you don't get something for nothing. cheaper alternative means corner cutting.
reference design, recommend the card architecture, and let us decide on our own brand of choice is the only unbiased way. not everyone is willing to spend more on custom designs, or less on inferior boards.
Originally Posted by wuyanxu only reference design should be recommended for graphics cards.
Sorry, but I have to disagree strongly on that point. The buyer's guide is all about choosing what are considered to be the best components for the job and if non-reference designs achieve that, so be it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Article First off, we’ve ripped out the Intel Core i7-860 and replaced it with the equally powerful Core i5-760. The i7-860 isn't a bad CPU but with prices as they are, you can sacrifice the Hyper-Threading of the i7-860 and save some cash to spend elsewhere.
Thank God for that! Hyperthreading does bugger all for gaming and its performance benefit in most applications is debatable at best.
they recommend either 6850 or 460 so no need to go emo.
470 amp is nearly 480 level of performance from the screens I've seen without the huge heat draw that's associated with the cards so its not a bad purchase
glad to see the 860 removed it was over the top for what it is.
id also agree very few will overclock there GPU but a lot will buy pre overclocked versions that have full warranty hence why the amp is ahead of a lot of cards out there.
£400 for a 480 is borderline crazy with the 6970 due out within a few weeks.
6870 struggles at its current market price which is nearly £200 for £40 more you can get the 470 amp which is considerably faster talking 10% + you cant overclock the 6870 for any joy or you can and gain nothing.
it doesnt surprise me that the 6870 has gone awol at its release price of £ 177 it was a bargain at £200 its not a bargain at all
Can we get a 460 SLi review too please as it's cheaper than the 480 you recommend and kicks its ass in performance. I know some people will say it's more unreliable than a single card which will make the test results interesting to put this subject to bed. :)
EDIT: I'd hope that most people reading this site will be overclocking their GPU. The 460 1GB when overclocked keeps up with a 5870 for example which is much more expensive.
Also I agree it'd be dumb to just recommend reference design GPUs as the custom cooler ones are often the best.
Something i don't get your reviews state that if starting a build from scratch your better of going to intel cpus. but just looking at the facts there expensive vs the amd cpus and the motherbaord arent that cheap either.i seriously doubt real world performance with windows 7 as the os anyone could tell what was inside the tower. + why no mention of the sata III wd hard drives currently floating around for £50 offering increased performance???
Originally Posted by fata1_666 Something i don't get your reviews state that if starting a build from scratch your better of going to intel cpus. but just looking at the facts there expensive vs the amd cpus and the motherbaord arent that cheap either.i seriously doubt real world performance with windows 7 as the os anyone could tell what was inside the tower. + why no mention of the sata III wd hard drives currently floating around for £50 offering increased performance???
On your first point, there is definitely a real-world performance between Intel and AMD. Load up a CPU-heavy game such as ARMA 2 or Starcraft 2, or try something like video encoding or ray-trace rendering. These specs, and indeed this website, are not aimed at someone who primarily does office work.
On your second point, SATA 6Gbps hard drives are a scam, since no hard drive is capable of even saturating a SATA 3Gbps link, never mind 6Gbps. Only SSDs are relevant for 6Gbps.
Originally Posted by mrbens Glad you recommended the i7-950 this month.
Can we get a 460 SLi review too please as it's cheaper than the 480 you recommend and kicks its ass in performance. I know some people will say it's more unreliable than a single card which will make the test results interesting to put this subject to bed. :)
EDIT: I'd hope that most people reading this site will be overclocking their GPU. The 460 1GB when overclocked keeps up with a 5870 for example which is much more expensive.
Going from experience even a GTX460 clocked to 925/1850/4300 cannot keep up with a stock clocked HD5870 is anything bar heavily Nvidia biased games or heaven. It keeps up with a mildly clocked HD5850 though.
I concur with the GTX460 SLI review request. Hexus recently compared HD6850 to GTX460 SLI and found (average) scaling in all games tested to be around 90%.
Whilst there will always be situations where you don't get any scaling (Just cause 2 with the Cuda water on for example) they are far less frequent than they used to be.
If anything we need a GTX460 SLI review due to the pricing. Two 768mb models can be picked up for ~ £240 or in other words not much more than a single GTX470 / HD6870. Do these cards scale well or do they run out of memory before GPU grunt?
Originally Posted by mrbens I'd hope that most people reading this site will be overclocking their GPU. The 460 1GB when overclocked keeps up with a 5870 for example which is much more expensive.
Going from experience even a GTX460 clocked to 925/1850/4300 cannot keep up with a stock clocked HD5870 is anything bar heavily Nvidia biased games or heaven. It keeps up with a mildly clocked HD5850 though.
It's true that some games prefer Nvidia or AMD. Going by the benchmarks here the 460 1GB OC is better or equal to the stock 5870 in 7 out of the 12 games tested @ 1920x1200 and the 5870 was better in the other 5 games. But when the 5870 was better it really pulled ahead in performance. There's no denying the 5870 is a better card, and when OCd would be even better, but it obviously costs a lot more whereas the 460 is a budget powerhouse.
And as you can see from the 460SLi tests on that link it's a performance monster in SLi!
Comments 1 to 25 of 69
ReplyHow many people, even among enthusiasts, overclock their GPUs. Not very many. How many people, even among enthusiasts, have fallen for the pointless nVidia gimmick of PhysX. Not very many.
In addition, the Corsair CX400 is EOL and nearly impossible to buy new now. Time to review some more budget PSU's (or simply choose a Seasonic S12II-380 for a fiver more).
Comon bit-tech, keep up. :D
The 6850 is a good card but it's price needs to drop a few pounds, it's not equal to the GTX 460 1G, particularly if you include o/c, which obviously in the "enthusiast overclockers" build should. At the same prices the 460 is simply the better card.
I guess £150 is THE number. That's what I paid for my 66GT all the way back, for Far Cry.
so, all those Zotac AMP promotion pretty much made your recommendation seem like been bought off.
im sorry for harsh comment, but only reference design should be recommended for graphics cards.
But, I can see you guys have actually taken the initiative to change some things around, and didn't do a blatant copy paste. so props for that. And I would never buy ZOTAC products simply because I prefer XFX's double lifetime warranty.
And just so you fellas know, MSI doesn't even warranty that mobo for the affordable all rounder. and some of MSI's newer boards make much better choices.
huh? so if a product is better than the reference in every single way, including price, you would still buy the reference? unless you are a hardcore watercooler.... i fail to comprehend your logic.
it's a draw of luck when buying none reference design. especially when it's cheaper, you don't get something for nothing. cheaper alternative means corner cutting.
reference design, recommend the card architecture, and let us decide on our own brand of choice is the only unbiased way. not everyone is willing to spend more on custom designs, or less on inferior boards.
Thank God for that! Hyperthreading does bugger all for gaming and its performance benefit in most applications is debatable at best.
they recommend either 6850 or 460 so no need to go emo.
470 amp is nearly 480 level of performance from the screens I've seen without the huge heat draw that's associated with the cards so its not a bad purchase
glad to see the 860 removed it was over the top for what it is.
id also agree very few will overclock there GPU but a lot will buy pre overclocked versions that have full warranty hence why the amp is ahead of a lot of cards out there.
£400 for a 480 is borderline crazy with the 6970 due out within a few weeks.
6870 struggles at its current market price which is nearly £200 for £40 more you can get the 470 amp which is considerably faster talking 10% + you cant overclock the 6870 for any joy or you can and gain nothing.
it doesnt surprise me that the 6870 has gone awol at its release price of £ 177 it was a bargain at £200 its not a bargain at all
Yes i know its only 5400 rpm but if u pit it aginst the F1 it is similar in speed and more reliable and twice the size for much the same price.
Can we get a 460 SLi review too please as it's cheaper than the 480 you recommend and kicks its ass in performance. I know some people will say it's more unreliable than a single card which will make the test results interesting to put this subject to bed. :)
EDIT: I'd hope that most people reading this site will be overclocking their GPU. The 460 1GB when overclocked keeps up with a 5870 for example which is much more expensive.
Also I agree it'd be dumb to just recommend reference design GPUs as the custom cooler ones are often the best.
1x gtx580 or 2xgtx480's.... or 2xgtx470's mmmmm
On your first point, there is definitely a real-world performance between Intel and AMD. Load up a CPU-heavy game such as ARMA 2 or Starcraft 2, or try something like video encoding or ray-trace rendering. These specs, and indeed this website, are not aimed at someone who primarily does office work.
On your second point, SATA 6Gbps hard drives are a scam, since no hard drive is capable of even saturating a SATA 3Gbps link, never mind 6Gbps. Only SSDs are relevant for 6Gbps.
Going from experience even a GTX460 clocked to 925/1850/4300 cannot keep up with a stock clocked HD5870 is anything bar heavily Nvidia biased games or heaven. It keeps up with a mildly clocked HD5850 though.
I concur with the GTX460 SLI review request. Hexus recently compared HD6850 to GTX460 SLI and found (average) scaling in all games tested to be around 90%.
Whilst there will always be situations where you don't get any scaling (Just cause 2 with the Cuda water on for example) they are far less frequent than they used to be.
If anything we need a GTX460 SLI review due to the pricing. Two 768mb models can be picked up for ~ £240 or in other words not much more than a single GTX470 / HD6870. Do these cards scale well or do they run out of memory before GPU grunt?
It's true that some games prefer Nvidia or AMD. Going by the benchmarks here the 460 1GB OC is better or equal to the stock 5870 in 7 out of the 12 games tested @ 1920x1200 and the 5870 was better in the other 5 games. But when the 5870 was better it really pulled ahead in performance. There's no denying the 5870 is a better card, and when OCd would be even better, but it obviously costs a lot more whereas the 460 is a budget powerhouse.
And as you can see from the 460SLi tests on that link it's a performance monster in SLi!
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