I don't know which graphics card to purchase (Nvidia 400 series)

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whenallelsefa1l

Posts: 60   +0
I've been looking into purchasing a new Nvidia GPU that supports DX11.

I have an EVGA motherboard, however, the GPU does not have to be from that subsidiary company. I was looking between the 460 and the 470, and couldnt decide whether or not the extra hundred bucks for the 470 would be worth it or not. I will not be using 3D vision, so count that out.

I didn't want to get the 480 since thats around 500 bucks.

What are your opinions? I will be playing games such as Crysis 2 when that comes out, Battlefield BC2, Medal of Honor, Dirt 2, Metro 2033, Mafia II, etc.

My system specs are as follows:
EVGA P55V 120-LF-E651-TR Intel chipset motherboard
Intel i7-860 Quad CPU @ 2.8ghz
OCZ Gold 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 1333mz PC3 10666 (OCZ3G1333LV4G63581470)
as of now i have the EVGA nvidia ge-force 9800 gtx GPU
and my PSU is an LSP Ultra 750w ATX.
 
Since your motherboard supports 2 way SLI it would be a good idea to get a GTX 460 now and another one in the recent future. 2x GTX 460 scales really well in SLI.
 
My mobo may support SLI, but i dont have the room for it. The motherboard is tiny. It only has 2 PCIx16 slots and 2 PCIx1 slots. It won't fit two dual slot SLI cards, an SLI cooler, plus my internet card. It wouldnt even fit the two cards and the internet card.

I'm talking for a single card.

Also, nobody has told me why the 460 is supposedly better than the 470. Can somebody please tell me which is better and more importantly, WHY?
 
whenallelsefa1l said:
My mobo may support SLI, but i dont have the room for it. The motherboard is tiny. It only has 2 PCIx16 slots and 2 PCIx1 slots. It won't fit two dual slot SLI cards, an SLI cooler, plus my internet card. It wouldnt even fit the two cards and the internet card.

I'm talking for a single card.

Also, nobody has told me why the 460 is supposedly better than the 470. Can somebody please tell me which is better and more importantly, WHY?
Click to expand...

Do you absolutely need the internet card?
 
The GTX 460 is better from a price to performance perspective. In terms of raw power the GTX 470 is better. An overclocked GTX 460 can match up to a 470. However, a 470 when overclocked will also yield a higher performance.
 
whenallelsefa1l said:
Also, nobody has told me why the 460 is supposedly better than the 470. Can somebody please tell me which is better and more importantly, WHY?
Click to expand...

It all depends on what you want, but in my opinion the GTX 460 has more to offer at a better price like others have said. Reason being that the card uses significantly less power then its big bothers and gives off less heat. It also has a lot of headroom to OC which in some games makes this card comparable to a GTX 470. If your interested in a complete breakdown I suggest checking out these reviews [TechSpot, Guru3D] , they should give you a pretty good idea of what the GTX 460 has to offer. Of course if neither price, power nor heat matter in your case and your looking for the best performance then the 470 would win out most of the time. Otherwise I suggest a 1GB GTX 460 and OC it for a killer card :grinthumb.
 
price doesnt matter. I just want to know which card is better overall. It appears that the 470 is better from what others are saying.. But i want to know how MUCH better it is for high anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering while using DX11 (games like BFBC2, or Metro 2033, or Dirt 2, or other such games)

i have 400 put away, and if the 470 is more efficient, and also if i am to be running such high graphical settings, if i should consider getting more RAM since i only have 4gbs right now.
 
i want to know how MUCH better it is
Click to expand...
Not enough, if you're looking for efficiency, the 460 is much better.
4Gb is plenty.

Why don't you look up some benchmarks?
If you take a look, the 470 is about 15% quicker.
 
I'm not really looking much up since i'm forced to use a laptop at the moment. My memory is being RMA'd. I fail at web browsing. my hands are too big and always bump the touch pad and makes this thing go haywire. its terribly frustrating.

But if the 470 is about 15% quicker, why wouldnt that be better? i dont like overclocking so i wont overclock a 460 if i get it.

Like i said, money isnt an issue, and it seems people that prefer the 460 over the 470 are people that own it and i hate to use this word, but tend to be "fanboys" i guess. Unbiased, which is better stock non-SLI, heat, power, and price NOT factors.
 
If the GTX460 costs $200, and you add 15% to the price (actually even 45%), it still costs less than the GTX470.
BTW the GTX460 produces much less heat and takes less power proportional to performance than the GTX470 since the GTX470 has a much bigger die size.
I don't own one.
 
couldnt decide whether or not the extra hundred bucks for the 470 would be worth it or not.
...
if the 470 is about 15% quicker, why wouldnt that be better?
Click to expand...
If all you care about is speed with no regards to anything else, you already made your decision prior to making this thread.

But since you were wonder if the extra money would be well spent, I'd say no it wouldn't be.
Simply, the gtx460 is a "better" card. The GTX470 is just a pinch quicker.

Also, since you say you can't SLI, consider the 5850. It's cooler and more efficient than a 470, but it's about $50 cheaper and should yield between ≈2-8% less performance which is really tiny; your probably wouldn't notice.
 
whenallelsefa1l said:
Like i said, money isnt an issue, and it seems people that prefer the 460 over the 470 are people that own it and i hate to use this word, but tend to be "fanboys" i guess. Unbiased, which is better stock non-SLI, heat, power, and price NOT factors.
Click to expand...

So you're ignoring our advice and calling us "fanboys" even though none of us have a 400 series card or even an Nvidia card in Ritwik7 & my case...you're coming off like you just want our validation.

whenallelsefa1l said:
But if the 470 is about 15% quicker, why wouldnt that be better? i dont like overclocking so i wont overclock a 460 if i get it.
Click to expand...

Better performance does not always mean a better card. It depends what YOU want for your system, as already said the 470 on benchmark performance alone is superior but when factoring in heat/power/price & even OC potential most of us don't consider it superior. If you do, then you've already made your decision. Shoot if price isn't a problem for you like you said a 5870 might even be a possibility as it sits between the 470 & 480.

whenallelsefa1l said:
I'm not really looking much up since i'm forced to use a laptop at the moment. My memory is being RMA'd. I fail at web browsing. my hands are too big and always bump the touch pad and makes this thing go haywire. its terribly frustrating.
Click to expand...

Laptops can be a pain when doing a lot of browsing, but we can't sit here and give you in-depth analysis. I already linked two good articles above that you just have to click and read and to help out some more here is a review of the 470/480 from Guru 3D.
 
I play SC2 and on high settings I easily use 3.5gigs of ram. 4 is enough if all you do is play games and nothing else while doing it.

As far as the vga you could save cash by gettin the 460, and save the rest for another mobo in the future with an add on card. Unless you're gaming on a 26+inch monitor I'd stick with the 460.
 
Is it me or does SC2 take a lot of memory?

@Relic paraphrased me, but confirmation is always good when the person in question doesn't seem to like what I say.
I like Anandtech.
 
From my experience RTS games in general tend to be more memory/CPU hogs then most.
 
In reference to the OP's original questions:

If it was me, I would be purchasing a GTX460 (for reasons already explained), and then using the rest of your budget to get a decent SLI capable (or usable in your case) motherboard.

Then you can add a GTX460 later on, and run them very well in SLI.

P.S. I run a HD4670, so definitely not a Nvidia fanboy! ;)
 
okay, i apologize for my last post, i actually was kind of tipsy, and i become a douche under alcohol ^^

I recently sold a bunch of old computer parts and have about 400 bucks, so thats why i said price doesnt matter.

I think I have decided on the 470 only because my computer has a great cooling system as is, and worst comes the worse i could just buy a third party GPU cooler for the card.

My next question.. Which subsidiary would be the best choice for the card? I own an EVGA board and was thinking that an EVGA card would match best, but i've heard some iffy things on them. Which subsidiaries would you have to recommend? if you could give me a few that you all believe as the more superior, I'll do a little research on each subsidiary.


Also, i apologize for the "fanboy" thing. Like i said, me and alcohol do not mix =P
 
EVGA, assuming it doesn't cost more than $10 more than the cheapest 470.
Anyone else think 5850 is a better idea?
 
+1 red
I suppose if it has to be nvidia, and has to be a single card solution at ~<$400 then the MSI card is the one to get- although it is a little hard to justify the price hike over the GTX460.

What makes the HD 4670X2 worse is that it is a fairly new release (about two months ago). I think the premise is that the card is aimed at the business workstation sector where multiple screen connectivity (with a preference for standard DVI) via a single PCIe mobo slot is the rationale behind the design. I'm assuming the card isn't aimed at the gaming market. If it were then VisionTek's aim is worse than Jay Cutler's*

(* sat through a turgid Giants v Bears game...and felt like Edvard Munchs' "The Scream" by the end of the first quarter)
 
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