ATI vs GeForce

[wintrymushroom]

just want to know what video card is better the ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 PCIe or the EVGA 012-P3-1472-AR GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) SuperClocked Video Card?

 

[raybay]

The ATI is a little more reliable, and the GeForce GTX 470 has better performance.

 

[red1776]

The ATI is a little more reliable, and the GeForce GTX 470 has better performance.

The 5870 has a slight performance edge on the superclocked version of the GTX 470
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...evga-geforce-gtx-470-superclocked-review.html

 

[dividebyzero]

The ATI is a little more reliable....

Really ?
How do you come by that conclusion?
DOA's on both the GTX 470 SC and v2 HD5870 are negligable for newegg, and driver support at present looks good for both cards, with maybe new game support favouring the GTX if there is any discernable difference worth mentioning.
The only other parameter of note, outside of the performance edge for the 5870 noted by red1776, would be the limited lifetime warranty offered on the EVGA card as opposed to the limited 2 year warranty offered by Sapphire, which I would think hardly is to the detriment of the GTX in reliability.
If you are privy to failure rates of these cards could you let the rest of us in on the sources? This could be invaluble information when making graphics recommendations.

 

[red1776]

good point Chef, neither card, especially the GTX 470 has been out long enough to make a an assertion on long term reliability. To Just to add a note to my previous comment, the performance difference between the the 5870 and the superclocked 470 is small enough that you might let the feature sets, power consumption (if you care)and the games you favor be the determining factor. and before some fanboy comes in spouting about operating temps, the 470 runs at a perfectly acceptable range. ( see the review I linked to)

 

[Punkid]

the fanboy has arrived....i''d go the with the GeForce card....recently got a laptop with ATI mobility, and it strengthened my belief that nVidia has better drivers...

 

[EXCellR8]

actually i would agree that nvidia has more stable drivers... but i've also heard that the 5870 drivers are riddled with bugs anyways. i don't know if that's been fixed but i know a lot of people who got rid of theirs soon after they bought them. i'd be willing to try one out if they were under $300, because i think most people just freak out when something doesn't work right and give up instantly. i realize you shouldn't have to do that, and things should just work, but that's rarely the case with any video card.

Compare Cards: (reference)

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=613&card2=628

 

[raybay]

By my reckoning, NVidia always has more trouble with the reliability of new drives... Perhaps they release them too soon. They are fast, but the ones we market do not last as long as similar ATI. We find the ATI cards last nearly twice as long, and use them on machines we warranty, but still, I prefer the nVidia due to performance for my own use... despite their higher failure rate.

 

[Punkid]

ive had 2 nvidias and 2 ATIs , thankfully none of them failed , both nvidias and the first ATI performed well, but the one i got recently in my new laptop, the mobility 4570 isnt impressive....and with nvidia i never had any problems with drivers, but with ATI, both times i had problems...

 

[raybay]

I have a friend in the video card business who tells me he suspects all video cards have about a 15% failure rate, mostly in the first few months they are released. They are certainly among the top troubles in routine computer repair... they fail early and often, regardless of the brand.

 

[EXCellR8]

i've had a few video cards:

nvidia

6200GT (prob the worst card ever)
6800GT
7800GS
7950GT
8600GT

ati

X1950PRO
HD4870

from my experiences i've had less, but not significantly less, problems with the nvidia cards -even though I've had less radeons. i've run into snags with every video card and it's software, but it seems that overall nvidia drivers seemed more stable and less prone to crashing and incompatibility. i'm not saying that every catalyst release is broken, but when I bought my HD4870 i had a lot of problems. i've only had one or two cards completely crap out (both of them being nvidias) but the replacements lasted.

we could go on and on about the pros and cons about both graphics vendors, but I think when it comes down to it either card will be great and both have warranties. my vote rests with the 5870 but the 470 is a solid card with more than enough horsepower.

 

[dividebyzero]

@raybay

So, I take it that you're not offering any substantive proof regarding GTX 470 failure rates, but rather extrapolating a possible future scenario based upon some previous architecture/s.

As a system builder I would steer a potential customer away from problematic cards, but if I used the criteria that failure rates in a previous generation (or particular series) of cards automatically equates to failure rates in unrelated new/upcoming architecture then I wouldn't be recommending anything outside workstation cards.
Cases in point- and these are both from my experience (around ten years of RMA invoices since the advent of mass-market affordable discrete graphics) and web based sources.

Failure rates in reference HD 2900XT, 3870, 3870x2, 4870, 4870x2 (mainly due to long term heat exposure), RMA rates of reference initial series HD57xx/58xx/5970 due to PowerPlay/BIOS issues, HD 4830 shipped with deficient shader numbers due to wrong BIOS loaded, the very real possibility that some early shipments of GDDR5 vRAM chips used in HD5xxx series cards are defective and the recall of ATI's TV Wonder 650 amongst others.....does this mean I should boycott (or instruct others to) v2 HD5xxx series cards, or the upcoming HD6xxx series and Northern Islands?
Likewise, I've had to replace (more than) my fair share of "Green" 9600GT/9800GT as well as assorted 6600/6800, 7900GS/GT/7950GT/GX2, 8800GT/GTX and first production run of GTX 280....How does that correlate to a card that seems to have both a negligable DOA percentage, and the fact that it's a high-end card (i.e. likely to get hammered in benchmarking/heavy gaming) which also seems to have a negligable failure rate?

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

The 5850 looks more decorative than the 470. That is the single most logical argument on this entire thread.

 

[dividebyzero]

hk....attempting to provide proof of your sig hypothesis ?

 

[Ritwik7]

I've owned 2 nVidia cards and a single ATI. My first card was the Zebronics 7300GS. Horrible, is all I can say.

Then came along the XFX 9800GT. Very good performance. Excellent drivers. Just ran a wee bit hot.

The one I'm currently using is the Powercolor HD4890. Again, excellent performance. Good drivers as I've not encountered any issues. Disappointed with Powercolor as their non-reference design fails to OC.

Bottom line is that I've been really happy with both the 9800GT and HD4890. Never had any issues with buggy drivers and the like. The only thing that has bothered me is the lack of in game AA support by ATI on the Unreal 3 Engine which nVidia implemented with Batman: Arkham Asylum.

 

[dividebyzero]

@Ritwik
If you rename the executable to UT3.exe you can force AA through CCC or Tray Tools.

 

[Ritwik7]

If you rename the executable to UT3.exe you can force AA through CCC or Tray Tools.

That works on Transformers: War For Cybertron but not in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

hk....attempting to provide proof of your sig hypothesis ?

Well...the whole thing did just go into a rather pointless debate.
I mean, the results are unquestionable, might as be blindfolded and asked to pick. Its not going to be a huge difference either way. I'd be pleased with either.