4870X2 vs GTX280

[GILLOU]

1) best graphic card

2) CF vs SLI

 

only lockon users

 

Thanks :thumbup:

[hitman]

Why does it only have to be lockon users? Do you honestly think that the Crysis guys are here discussing Crysis in a flight simulator forum?:pilotfly:

[Pilotasso]

I should warn you about this comparison, one is in crossfire in a single card of 2 chips. The second is a single chip card. They dont always compare linearly.

 

You must first consider for what games your paying the card(s) for. For SLI/CF you must first inform yourself of wich games are profiled.

 

With my 9800Gx2 Nvidia recommends SLI off for LOMAC. I heard people coment that with Radeon they get twice the FPS on CF with overcast, but that advantage goes away with clear weather.

 

If you consider SLI/CF, 2 280 chips in SLI will obliterate ANYTHING, similar picture for single chips. But that fact is somewhat hidden from you.

The 4870's have been advertised as the best cards, maybe on the price/energy front, but if you want absolute perfomance in either single or dual configs, the 280's are, simply put, the best money can buy. Thats the hard fact, that no one on reviews sites is telling you.

 

I had real trouble choosing my card because it was mostly forgotten when the 4870X2's came out.

Very few articles had the 2 compared. The 4870's were always compared with single chip cards or SLI combos of previous generatiom wich simply makes no sense for those considering a purchase.

 

This has been a major problem of hardware reviews. They all have ilogical range of cards for a comparison in those articles. Worse, its been years since we've seen the last article comparing perfomance of these cards for different CPU's but to use top models with extreme overclocks, wich results in utter lack of scientific objectivity.

 

Most reviews are made by nerds for other nerds. The authors are often uneducated or still students themselves.

Edited September 16, 2008 by Pilotasso

[GILLOU]

Why does it only have to be lockon users? Do you honestly think that the Crysis guys are here discussing Crysis in a flight simulator forum?:pilotfly:

 

LOL there are not any bench about lockon ! I prefer to ask to

lockon users, for alls others games Google is my friend !!! and I can find all I want :music_whistling:

Edited September 16, 2008 by GILLOU

[Kuky]

it doesn't matter which one you get as in LockOn your framerate will be almost always CPU limited.

[urze]

it doesn't matter which one you get as in LockOn your framerate will be almost always CPU limited.

2nd that.

I think I'm one of that few that play LockON-FC GPU limited. This only happens when you use resolutions over 3Megapixel (=2500x1200 for instance).

Edited September 17, 2008 by urze

[stealthtemplates]

For LockOn my onboard graphics does the job... lol

I wouldnt spend hundreds on a new videocard if all your playing is LockOn, rather invest that money into a new CPU instead.

 

The HD4870X2 in many cases is actually faster then 2x GTX280's in SLI, so that statement is incorrect when you say the GTX280 is better once SLI'd. Crossfire scales better then SLI.

[G3]

2nd that.

I think I'm one of that few that play LockON-FC GPU limited. This only happens when you use resolutions over 3Megapixel (=2500x1200 for instance).

 

good point, recently i went from the th2go back to a single screen, what a huge difference it makes, big resolutions cripple even the latest solutions.

 

but generally i would agree with Kuky and Urze that lofc is cpu limited for most users.

[GILLOU]

For LockOn my onboard graphics does the job... lol

I wouldnt spend hundreds on a new videocard if all your playing is LockOn, rather invest that money into a new CPU instead.

 

fine my X6800 @4.1 Ghz is good for my TH2GO pehaps my new E8600 @ 5Ghz will be better :D

 

ggg87 same sli as your :) with watercooling and OC 646/1080, X6800 @ -40°

Edited September 17, 2008 by GILLOU

[Vekkinho]

Any GPU that runs LO with maxed AA and AF settings is good enough for LOFC (and DCS probably). So CPU is the bottleneck in this case. If you play LOFC exclusively (like I do) and occasionally go for some CoD, BIA or Battlefield2 action than even the 8800 and 3870 do the trick.

 

Go for some fast and o'clock friendly CPU to have a impressive FPS in LOFC!

[Pilotasso]

For LockOn my onboard graphics does the job... lol

I wouldnt spend hundreds on a new videocard if all your playing is LockOn, rather invest that money into a new CPU instead.

 

The HD4870X2 in many cases is actually faster then 2x GTX280's in SLI, so that statement is incorrect when you say the GTX280 is better once SLI'd. Crossfire scales better then SLI.

 

I read the opposite, and that CF had less profiled games, drivers were buggy and immature, but then this reflects the concerns I made about hardware reviews.

[stealthtemplates]

Yeah depends where you read them from,

the reviews I've read say the drivers are pretty much stable now and are scaling well like they should

[GTengineer]

Yeah depends where you read them from,

the reviews I've read say the drivers are pretty much stable now and are scaling well like they should

 

I have seen reviews showing excellent scaling lately too. But I am still not a fan of dual cards.

Edited September 18, 2008 by GTengineer

[Flyby]

you guys!

 

I'm always interersted in tech discussions in a sim forum, and you guys deliver the goods.:thumbup: I have read the goat entrails and find that indeed our lot is tied to cpu performance. In reading a lot of different online reviews of video cards, I've decided that HardOCP seems to tickle my fancy the best. Why? Because when they test graphics cards, they use an Intel qx9770 overclocked to 3.6ghz "to eliminate the cpu bottleneck". I prefer a single card solution, so I read those reviews. I was once considering either Crossfire or SLI, but gave up on those notions. Neither card maker currently has the technical solution to allow linear multi-GPU scaling in games, especially combat flight sims. Haven't you read about microstutters, and such with multi cards in our combat flight sims? I know you haven't read about 100% scaling improvements. How about 80%?

So maybe 3.6 ghz is the sweet spot for a cpu? I haven't read much to say going to 4.ghz is any better, nor that a quad core at 3.6 is better than a dual core at 3.6 for our flight sims. Also, be aware that some card make-overs that go from 512mb of memory to 1ghz of memory is not always an improvement. The key word here is make-over. Such cards seem to make a difference only at those higher resolutions where the added memory can come into play, such as going from 16x rez to 25x rez. So unless you play on a 30-inch monitor those make-over cards are not the way to go. But if you bought an Nvidia GTX280 card, then you'd have legitimate power way up the rez chain as well as down low too. Most people here seem to own 22 inch monitors, so the 280 may be overkill, and the 4870X2 is WAY overkill for that monitor, imo. But nice to have room to grow to a bigger screen with those cards!:D

Well? There it is.:smartass:

Flyby out

[Vekkinho]

^^^^

You said it!

[Flyby]

here's another good article on GPUs

 

Over at HardOCP they are testing cards again. Note that they are running the tests with a qx9659 quadcore overclocked to 3.6ghz, supposedly to remove any cpu bottleneck on the games used in the test. Can't have too much info when trying to decide on a card, I guess.

Here's the link: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU1OCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Flyby out

[GTengineer]

So maybe 3.6 ghz is the sweet spot for a cpu? I haven't read much to say going to 4.ghz is any better, nor that a quad core at 3.6 is better than a dual core at 3.6 for our flight sims.

 

Flyby

 

I ran a LOFC benchmark with relation to clockspeed with my quad core.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=523032&postcount=7

 

The results seem to be very positive for higher CPU clockspeed. The benchmark showed a 1-to-1 scaling of clockspeed and minimum FPS in game (50% increase in clockspeed = 50% increase in min FPS). Of course I only ran two points so I cannot tell if the trend is linear or if it flattens out but I doubt it flattens out. I can run benchmarks up to 3.9GHz but not at 4GHz unfortunately, it becomes too unstable.

 

My GPU is nowhere near a bottleneck since I only play at 1440x900. I get the same FPS whether I run 8xAA and 16xAF or no AA/AF at all.

 

My next CPU will be a E8600 dual core oc'ed to 4.5GHz or more :music_whistling:

[Flyby]

Also...

 

If you're looking for a new display monitor, HardOCP has this forum:

http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78

hope someone finds it useful

[TheMoose]

NOT to start an ATI vs NVIDIA war here.

But One of Nvidia credo you will definitely see in lots of games

“The Way It's was Meant to be Played”

Lots of developers prefer nvidia over ATI. Not because ATI just brought this new card out that all will change anytime soon. Most games, Crysis, Battlefield series, World in Conflict, so many more... There is a reason why you see the nvidia logo at the start of all these games. They are partners. Not that the ATI is bad product. But with Nvidia You can’t go wrong. I am extremely very happy with my GTX280. I’ve been an Nvidia fan all my tech life. Not going to change anytime soon. Although I always try to keep an open mind. I have seen in the past ATI users not even able to start BF2 without having to do some manual tweaking. In my opinion most games are more optimize for Nvidia then ATI. But who knows what the future holds…It’s a never ending battle. But that battle is one I appreciate to see, as Intel vs AMD, since without competition there’s only monopoly and that equals higher prices for the consumer.

They are both good products. Go with either, I’m sure you will be happy.

 

 

Cheers

[-sulan-]

I used to have a radeon 9800pro, that was a great card!! But that was two cards ago, so lately it's been Nvidia.. I kinda feel it's time for me to go ATI again :P

[TheMoose]

I just went to Nvidia. There's a big banner stating that Nvidia and Adobe are creatively partnered. So it's not only about games ;)

[Flyby]

we're getting somewhere!

 

GT-E thanks for the link to your test. If anything, one can pretty well go with the premise that cpu ghz makes a larger impact on combat flight sims than the modern crop of video cards might. At least for now. CPUs are still the current bottleneck, unless you're overclocking them. But I wonder what the next big tech jump in cpus will be? So far as I've read there has not been much improvement by going to 4ghz, and going to over 5ghz seems to require some super-cooled liquified gas. Even that hasn't been tested in a combat flight sim. How to get that minimum frame rate up to (say) 65fps? :D btw, monitor size and resolution may impact gpu performance too. What is your monitor, and how do you like

running LOMAC on it?

 

Hey TheMoose, I'm thinking the GTX 280 for me too. The 4870-512 is a great card, especially with that speedy gddr5 memory. Still the 280 seems to have a bit more overhead room. What monitor are you running, and how do you rate it's performance in a combat flight sim?

 

-sulan- I owned a 9500pro and it's still going strong with the friend I sold it to. It's in his son's computer. My friend now owns my BFG 6800 Ultra.

 

I think the reason I want the 280 is that it's the fastest single card solution available and the price has dropped tremendously. No SLi or Crossfire of me until new scaling technology is available. But I think I styated that already.

Flyby out

[GTengineer]

GT-E thanks for the link to your test. If anything, one can pretty well go with the premise that cpu ghz makes a larger impact on combat flight sims than the modern crop of video cards might. At least for now. CPUs are still the current bottleneck, unless you're overclocking them. But I wonder what the next big tech jump in cpus will be? So far as I've read there has not been much improvement by going to 4ghz, and going to over 5ghz seems to require some super-cooled liquified gas. Even that hasn't been tested in a combat flight sim. How to get that minimum frame rate up to (say) 65fps? :D btw, monitor size and resolution may impact gpu performance too. What is your monitor, and how do you like

running LOMAC on it?

 

It seems a lot of E8600 can actually do around 4.5GHz with a good air cooler. Some actually get close to 5GHz if you have better cooling like water. No Nitrogen needed for any of these overclocks which is what is so impressive! Most of these are also below 1.4V vcore! This is why this will be my next CPU. For now I need to stick with my Quad cause I need the extra cores more than clock speed :(

 

E8600 overclockingn database (Prime stable)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=200770

 

I have a small monitor (19 inch) with 1440x900 resolution, I have played with a lot of settings like AA, AF, etc and it makes no difference on FPS with my 8800GT which is slightly overclocked too from factory.

Edited September 25, 2008 by GTengineer

[Kuky]

... those high overclocks are not for 24/7 usage, they only do them for benchmarking or showing off who's got faster CPU ;) ... and if you live in warm region water cooling will be required if you wanna go 4GHz or more. 4GHz is fairly easily obtainable (mostly depending on what motherboards you use) butgoing higher than that your required vCore for the overclock will start rising pretty rapidly giving minimal performance rise over higher temperatures, and lower stability.

[GTengineer]

... those high overclocks are not for 24/7 usage, they only do them for benchmarking or showing off who's got faster CPU ;) ... and if you live in warm region water cooling will be required if you wanna go 4GHz or more. 4GHz is fairly easily obtainable (mostly depending on what motherboards you use) butgoing higher than that your required vCore for the overclock will start rising pretty rapidly giving minimal performance rise over higher temperatures, and lower stability.

 

NO, those are 24/7, that's why they call it a Prime stable database. They run the stress test for 10+ hours because that is what they are using 24/7. TRUST me these guys these things much higher for "non 24/7 runs".... No one runs 10+ hours Prime if they are not planning on using it daily that's the whole point.