Hardware Advice Please (GFX Card)

Whatcha fleeties!

So, after all the fuss my b/f made about me wanting to upgrade my PC, he's now immediately decided he must now upgrade too. And spend more than me. Rude. lol

So anyhow, he's torn between two graphics cards, and has asked me to request the advice of the most techno-savvy people I know. And so I come to you. :)

The two he's choosing between are:
a Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB, or
a Gainward GeForce GTX 560Ti "Phantom" 2048MB.

It's not just raw power he wants an opinion on, but also value for money evaluation. So if you have time, your opinions would be very gratefully received! Love y'all!

PjhN x

I'm wondering something very similar: I currently have two GTX 260s SLI and was wondering about upgrading to a GTX 570 (or 560) and whether it would be worth it, would it provide a significant graphics power boost, etc.

Well on that score, as far as I'm aware, beside the fact that very few games natively take full advantage of an SLI set-up, as the load has to be spread between two cards instead of one there will always be an inherent, albeit minuscule, addition latency. There's also the problem of heat to consider; the more you put in your box, the harder it is for the air to move through it. So in theory one awesome graphics card will always be better than two. I was actually considering going to SLI myself, instead of buying a more expensive, new, graphics card when I upgraded last, but the b/f talked me out of it.

Quote by PjhN

Well on that score, as far as I'm aware, beside the fact that very few games natively take full advantage of an SLI set-up, as the load has to be spread between two cards instead of one there will always be an inherent, albeit minuscule, addition latency. There's also the problem of heat to consider; the more you put in your box, the harder it is for the air to move through it. So in theory one awesome graphics card will always be better than two. I was actually considering going to SLI myself, instead of buying a more expensive, new, graphics card when I upgraded last, but the b/f talked me out of it.

Hmmmm... You make a very convincing point. :)

Bugger... I made a big reply just got deleted argh.

Anyways, go for the Asus far better value for money. It's also quite impressive. Personally I couldn't justify the price of spending that much on a graphics card at the moment, but then again the one I have is comparable to the Asus one. I reckon u can get a better deal somewhere else to be honest. Overclockers is a good site, but sometimes lacks good pricing. My card was mean't to be £239, but got it for £30 ;) Check out www.Ukhotdeals.co.uk and use the shopbot "type it in google" I think u'll find a better price and possibly a better graphics card. I'm quite a big fan of Geforce Gigiabyte Overclocked range, then again It's down to personal preference. If u want i'll talk u through the shaders etc on vent and what they do and take a wee look at cards with ya online at some point just give us a shout.

Thanks Slayer!

My man got over excited looking at all the graphics card shininess and ordered a Zotac GeForce GTX 570 732MHz 1280MB last night. :) A steal at fifty quid more than the previous alternatives; we have slightly more cash than we do patience apparently. lol He's a greedy boy, but since we're not having to worry about a mortgage yet, it's all good.
But next time we're online and you're not busy, I'd still appreciate a hardware masterclass!

I'm a big fan of EVGA, meself, but it's more because I liked how they jumped up and acted when I felt that nvidia wasn't doing anything about the SLI crashes with Windows 7 x64.

So I was trying to decide between the 570 and 580 then I hear (from here and then shortly after from EVGA) that a 560 Ti came out. I thought that was odd for them to come out with a brand new card that's not quite as good as their other new cards. But then I considered that maybe they just wanted to make a new mid-grade card that gamers who didn't want to pay for a 570 or higher could have. :p

I need to keep up more. >.

Aye, my overclocked 460 is more than enough for my needs at the moment; the only games on the horizon I'm particularly looking forward to are Portal 2 and Dragon Age 2.

I've got an eye on Crysis 2, but last time around they took a brilliant and simple concept for a game then made a pigs-ear of it with shoddy extra-terrestrial nonsense. If C2 is more like the first half of Crysis, than maybe I'll give it a go.

We've had EVGA before here and liked them. The Zotac I'm running on atm I bought mostly because of price to be honest, but it's actually more than powerful enough, has a great cooler and huge heatsink on it, runs much quieter than my old HD 5770.

IMO GFX card tech is the hardest thing to keep up with, since not only is it not possible to directly compare the two major manufacturers' architecture, it's equally impossible to compare successive generations of cards. And then there are all the factory-overclockers... I tend to find catching up when I need to every couple of years a tonne easier than trying to keep up to date all the time!

I want to upgrade, and soon, but right now the only thing that keeps me from it is the BSOD issue that I thought I fixed has started popping up again.

I had thought it was a memory issue, but then googled the error codes from the BSOD screen and it seemed to be a network driver issue, so I reinstalled the drivers from EVGA. I thought I had it licked, but then I tried logging into tribble and it started BSODing over and over again. It used to be mostly when I had a browser open and I was in a game, but then when it started again I had the browser closed (But I had recently installed rainmeter). So I am back to thinking it's a memory issue without any way of knowing if that's actually what it is. : /

So now I don't want to upgrade, because I feel like I might not be able to even play games because of this BSOD thing.

Eeeek, nasty. Does every BSOD display the same error code? And always check running temps. And if you've overclocked anything, reset it to default.

In fact, it probably wouldn't hurt to perform a clear of CMOS. You'd be amazed how many times I've repaired a BSODing system just by doing that. Mostly after I've OCed it until it breaks.

If you suspect a damaged memory module, try physically removing all but one of your sticks, stress testing, switching, repeat. If the PC de-stabilises on one particular stick, problem found.

the ti is a marginaly cut down 500 series card (shaders make a difference bigger then the clock speed)
the 400 series run hotter then the 500 series :D
if he is spending money go for the 570

i like ati best though i have a ati 6950 :D

Quote by PjhN

Eeeek, nasty. Does every BSOD display the same error code? And always check running temps. And if you've overclocked anything, reset it to default.

In fact, it probably wouldn't hurt to perform a clear of CMOS. You'd be amazed how many times I've repaired a BSODing system just by doing that. Mostly after I've OCed it until it breaks.

If you suspect a damaged memory module, try physically removing all but one of your sticks, stress testing, switching, repeat. If the PC de-stabilises on one particular stick, problem found.

Yah, same codes. No overclocking. Am scared of playing with the CMOS. Dunno if I have the patience to check all 6 (or was it 4?) sticks like that. >.