New Graphics Card - Assistance Required!

PogoP

Hey guys!

Going to be upgrading my computer sometime this month, because my graphics card is basically a 70 year old pensioner trying to keep up with the young'uns. I'm struggling to run UDK in realtime recently, so I think it's about time I upgrade.

Is anyone around here tech savvy and know what sorta good graphics cards are out there for around £100-£200? It seems that good graphics cards nowadays tend to be quite cheap anyway, and trust me, any upgrade is an upgrade with my current card!

Cheers fellas.

Bigjohn

The chart and hierarchy at Toms Hardware is pretty spot on I find.

glynnsmith

The NVidia 4xx's are in your price bracket. I've a 280GTX and it works really well. I expect the 400 series are dynamite.

Go for one of those

brandoom

I just bought a xfx 5770 about 3 weeks ago. Cost me $200 CND, so far its been well worth the money.

yeman

GTX 460

The new low price for the 768MB model is just sick.

Lamoot

From Nvidia it's GTS 450 or a variant of GTX 460. Perhaps also GTX 470 if cash permits. Though I have to mention seeing this is polycount and there's a chance you're also using one of dem 3d softwares (besides UDK): There's this talk that Nvidia 4xx series is crippled in 3d apps via drivers (speculated to create room for their more expensive quadro cards). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400_Series#OpenGL_Problems

From AMD (former ATI) I'd say Radeon 6850 is at a very sweet spot or 6870 if you're willing to spend a bit more.

I'd link you with some reviews, but http://techreport.com/ seems to be down atm.

metalliandy

I recently got a 460 768 and its badass!
Only cost £130 too ^^

PolyHertz

Lamoot wrote: »

There's this talk that Nvidia 4xx series is crippled in 3d apps via drivers (speculated to create room for their more expensive quadro cards). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400_Series#OpenGL_Problems

Oh oh. If this is true, I foresee alot of artists moving to radeon cards in the near future.

Blaizer

I have an asus radeon 5770, and it's only good with some games, too many "grey screens" and driver issues all the way. I'm frustrated with that card, Ati drivers are a total shit. I'm running catalyst 10.8 (with too many problems) because with the 10.10 i have an incredible drop of perfomance. I can't play for example l4d :S, and the temperatures passed from 63ºC to 77ºC at high loads, and the worst... with an ambient temperature of 18ºC. I dunno what the hell they touched in the new drivers, it's incredible.

With modo, working with the ati is a pain in the ass, i have never seen such poor videocard for 3D work. Selections in modo takes ages, and i can't have a 800k model exported from Zbrush because the program freezes. And modo it's not like Max. A nvidia 8400gs worked better!

My brother has an expensive gtx285, and has a great card with zero issues, flawless. I bought something cheap, and i did very bad thinking good of Ati when i already had other videocard failures like the 9700 pro.

For 3D, seriously, forget ATI. If you want a cheap and good card, a gtx460!

The opencl perfomance with nvidia is greater, we have CUDA, and the overall is better for 3d apps.

If some users has problems with some drivers for the 4xx series... worse is with a 5xxx ATI radeon, there isn't good drivers. My experience is so bad, that this 5770 will be my last AMD/ATI video card.

A friend of mine bought a 5870, had drivers issues and he changed the videocard for a gtx480.

Forget the AMD cards guys...

metalliandy

PolyHertz wrote: »

Oh oh. If this is true, I foresee alot of artists moving to radeon cards in the near future.

I havent noticed any issues as of yet.
Fingers crossed

Lamoot

metalliandy, out of curiostiy, could you do a benchmark with this .blend file ? Someone at BA is reporting bad performance with a GTX 470 and it would be interesting to see how your 460 performs.

metalliandy

Sure

Benchmark Results, Screen Size 1920 x 1150

Overall Score (FPS)
gl : 25.6908 fps
render : 2.72 sec

Spin wireframe view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 52.7518 fps
Spin solid view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 29.9448 fps
Spin solid view, 1000 monkes : 9.5990 fps
Spin wire view, 1000 monkes : 18.4783 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 256x256 px : 457.7657 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 512x512 px : 162.2269 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 1024x1024 px : 51.0369 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 2048x2048 px : 13.7351 fps
Raytracing with AO and area light, 1 threads : 2.28 sec
Shadowbuffer light, 2 threads : 3.17 sec



Benchmark Results, Screen Size 1920 x 1150

Overall Score (FPS)
gl : 28.2445 fps
render : 2.70 sec

Spin wireframe view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 59.9564 fps
Spin solid view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 29.9768 fps
Spin solid view, 1000 monkes : 9.9923 fps
Spin wire view, 1000 monkes : 29.8113 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 256x256 px : 960.0496 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 512x512 px : 198.5894 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 1024x1024 px : 49.6186 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 2048x2048 px : 13.6330 fps
Raytracing with AO and area light, 4 threads : 2.27 sec
Shadowbuffer light, 8 threads : 3.14 sec



Benchmark Results, Screen Size 1920 x 1150

Overall Score (FPS)
gl : 28.1663 fps
render : 2.66 sec

Spin wireframe view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 58.3333 fps
Spin solid view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 29.9771 fps
Spin solid view, 1000 monkes : 9.9923 fps
Spin wire view, 1000 monkes : 29.9354 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 256x256 px : 1013.7841 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 512x512 px : 226.4575 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 1024x1024 px : 55.8413 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 2048x2048 px : 13.0322 fps
Raytracing with AO and area light, 4 threads : 2.18 sec
Shadowbuffer light, 8 threads : 3.14 sec

Benchmark Results, Screen Size 1600 x 1150

Overall Score (FPS)
gl : 25.7772 fps
render : 2.73 sec

Spin wireframe view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 59.5894 fps
Spin solid view, subsurf monkey, 4 subsurf levels : 29.9962 fps
Spin solid view, 1000 monkes : 9.5558 fps
Spin wire view, 1000 monkes : 17.5637 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 256x256 px : 464.6708 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 512x512 px : 222.6587 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 1024x1024 px : 49.6542 fps
OpenGL image load & free, 2048x2048 px : 13.9148 fps
Raytracing with AO and area light, 1 threads : 2.28 sec
Shadowbuffer light, 1 threads : 3.17 sec

I ran the benchmark 4 times (once with a res of 1600x1200)
Hope that helps

haiddasalami

Blaizer wrote: »

I have an asus radeon 5770, and it's only good with some games, too many "grey screens" and driver issues all the way. I'm frustrated with that card, Ati drivers are a total shit. I'm running catalyst 10.8 (with too many problems) because with the 10.10 i have an incredible drop of perfomance. I can't play for example l4d :S, and the temperatures passed from 63ºC to 77ºC at high loads, and the worst... with an ambient temperature of 18ºC. I dunno what the hell they touched in the new drivers, it's incredible.

With modo, working with the ati is a pain in the ass, i have never seen such poor videocard for 3D work. Selections in modo takes ages, and i can't have a 800k model exported from Zbrush because the program freezes. And modo it's not like Max. A nvidia 8400gs worked better!

My brother has an expensive gtx285, and has a great card with zero issues, flawless. I bought something cheap, and i did very bad thinking good of Ati when i already had other videocard failures like the 9700 pro.

For 3D, seriously, forget ATI. If you want a cheap and good card, a gtx460!

The opencl perfomance with nvidia is greater, we have CUDA, and the overall is better for 3d apps.

If some users has problems with some drivers for the 4xx series... worse is with a 5xxx ATI radeon, there isn't good drivers. My experience is so bad, that this 5770 will be my last AMD/ATI video card.

A friend of mine bought a 5870, had drivers issues and he changed the videocard for a gtx480.

Forget the AMD cards guys...

ouch. Been with AMD for a long time (mainly they were canadian) and havent had much problems though I've heard that real-time shaders are bitchy to get working on ATI properly which might not help me

metalliandy

If anyone has problems with the opengl on the 4xxx cards then i guess all we can do is report it an see what happens.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/driverqualityassurance.html

Lamoot

metalliandy, thanks for the test

PogoP, here's a review of 6850, 6870 and compared to the current Nvidia's 4xx series if you want to get a better picture of where these cards stand.

PogoP

Cheers for all the help guys. I'm going to have a proper look at all your posts later on.

However, from what I gather, people are having issues with Ati, so I think I'm going to try and stick with Nvidia, as I'm currently having 0 issues with them.

Lamoot

Yeah, ati can be problematic when it comes to drivers, especially with OpenGL & Linux combo. It's why I went for Nvidia despite the issues some people seem to have with 4xx series.

flaagan

I'm currently running a 9800 gx2, which is pretty good, but considering the price and newness, I'm thinking I'm gonna get one of these shortly:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130549

Mechadus

I just got 3x PNY 9800GTX+ cards for a 3-way sli setup for $190 total off ebay. They aren't the newest latest greatest, but power for the cash Im very happy with them. I get about 80fps in Farcry2 @ 1280x960 with everything cranked - well over 100fps in bioshock1 at the same res.

Lamoot

flaagan, if you do buy the GTX 470 you will be the perfect test bunny Could you report whether you have any issues with your new card once you get it? Would be interesting to see on a practical example if there really are issues with Nvidia.

PolyHertz

GTX580 just came out the other day, seems a bit pricey though starting at $550 (considering its just a refresh of a year old card), and power consumption is the same as 480 :-/ . Hopefully when Kepler comes out they'll have finally got the power consumption down to more manageable levels.

metalliandy

Hey guys,
I just thought i would update everyone with my recent support chat about the performance drop in viewport opengl with the 400 series gefore cards


Apparently its a problem with 2 sided lighting and its not present on the Quadro based cards, only the 400 series Geforce family.

Here is a snippet of the chat.

Support: so some bad news, i just went through some reported issues in our database and it looks like the low performance for apps such as Blender, Cinema 4D and Maya all have the same issues due to it being a hardware issue on the card itself, and something to do with 2 sided lighting

Andy Davies: ahh
Andy Davies: is there anything to be done?

Support: so if they are able to find a way to resolve this on a driver side which im not sure if they will or not, so for now there isnt a way to resolve this, unless you were to use a Quadro based graphics card

Andy Davies: hmm
Andy Davies: isnt quadro the same architecture?
Andy Davies: just with better drivers etc.

Support: it is yes, but for some reason it doesn't have this same hardware limitation that the 400 series card has, not sure why specifically, its a little over my head

Andy Davies: ah ok
Andy Davies: so i just wait for a driver update then?

Support: this is only present on our Fermi 400 series cards and was not present on previous series cards too
Support: Pretty much all i can suggest, that or use a different card in the mean time

Andy Davies: is it present on the 500 series?

Support: I didn't see anything mentioning the 500 series in our DB but i can only assume it is since based off of the same reference design as far as i know
Support: since blender is an open source application it is something that could be addressed on their side to from what i read

Andy Davies: do you have anything that i could have that explains the issue on a more technical basis?
Andy Davies: problem with 2 sided lighting isnt very clear for a dev.

Support: all i can find is references to 2 sided lighting nothing as to way this is the problem technically or specifically


Does anyone have any suggestions on what might be causing the issue with 2 sided lighting?

Rwolf

Best bang for buck currently
Nvidia 460 1 gb
ATI 68XX series