Windows 7 ATI XFX 5770 or Nvidia BFG GTX 260?

[F1FAN]

Whats the better cards out of these? There is my price range.

Graphic Cards - ATI Radeon HD 5000 - ATI Radeon? HD 5770
OR
BFG Tech - BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB PCIe 2.0

now i hear that the 5 series ATI cards have issues at the momment, with driver crashes and the CCC randomly acting up, i never has an graphics card before (my first built pc im doing, allways been in the MB). So i dont know if to risk getting the 5770 because of the problems at the momment.
But to be honest i would rather get the 5770 because im building a sysstem with an AMD 965 so ATI card will go well, and it has DX11.
Thanks for advice.

 

[cybercore]

Benchmark Results: Crysis : Radeon HD 5770 And 5750 Review


The price and performance are very close (~ the same), but ATI 5770 has support for DirectX 11 and Shader Model 5, while GTX 260 doesn't.

 

[nmsuk]

I'd have to go for the 5770 for Directx 11, buying a DX10 card now imho would be a mistake.

 

[F1FAN]

i was reading that not many games are going to support dx11 and not even all games now have dx10. i think im going for the gx260 because of its number of cores and it being nvidia.
ati are ok but iv'e allways liked nvidia more.
dx11 is not a worry for me as i dont think its a high demand.

 

[Highwayman]

I think your mising the full potential, as with Windows 7 you'll get more life out a DX11 GPU even when games don't support more than DX10 as I have found myself after some 8+ years of ATi bashing as a Nvidia Fanboy... until last week...then I saw the light. It's makes far more sense to buy a product at similar prices and spec with extra features than without, not to mention lower running costs.

 

[F1FAN]

well im now more towards ati again, to be honest you do get better value for your money with ati. I just hope that the issues i been hearing about don't effect me and that the 10.3 drivers are good.

 

[Highwayman]

Yea theres some teething issues with the 5000 series drivers but seems even Nvidia slipped up recently with it's fan killer driver the other week. I've been using the 10.3 beta driver for about a week since getting my 5870 and to be honest the drivers are pretty stable here, so the whql one due next week should be okay.

One thing that amazed me personally was that my new card uses around the same amount of leccy as my old 8800 it replaced and a heap less than the 260's. I was seriously looking at a 285/295 card since christmas until I saw the stupid money they were asking for them still. Then I decided to wait 3 more months for a 470GTX but it's just become a running joke now that it uses way more leccy than a Ati equivalent and it's bearly much faster (not to mention about £100 more as I only paid £235 for mine), and the final insult that put me into ATi camp was the fact that Nvidia seriously screwed everyone around on the specs... down from 512 core to 448 WTF! I'd only consider Nvidia again with the next generation of FERMI in a year or two if they actually keep their promises and specs dont go down while the costs go up.

 

[kemical]

Yea theres some teething issues with the 5000 series drivers but seems even Nvidia slipped up recently with it's fan killer driver the other week. I've been using the 10.3 beta driver for about a week since getting my 5870 and to be honest the drivers are pretty stable here, so the whql one due next week should be okay.

One thing that amazed me personally was that my new card uses around the same amount of leccy as my old 8800 it replaced and a heap less than the 260's. I was seriously looking at a 285/295 card since christmas until I saw the stupid money they were asking for them still. Then I decided to wait 3 more months for a 470GTX but it's just become a running joke now that it uses way more leccy than a Ati equivalent and it's bearly much faster (not to mention about £100 more as I only paid £235 for mine), and the final insult that put me into ATi camp was the fact that Nvidia seriously screwed everyone around on the specs... down from 512 core to 448 WTF! I'd only consider Nvidia again with the next generation of FERMI in a year or two if they actually keep their promises and specs dont go down while the costs go up.

Agreed.

My 5870 has locked up like the reports are suggesting but this was using Cat 10.2. I haven't had any problems with Cat 10.3 (unless I overclock the nutz off it) and can honestly say that this is one of the best cards I've ever bought in terms of performance increase. If the 5770 is even remotely similar then I urge you to consider one..

 

[kemical]

I've been using the 10.3 beta driver for about a week since getting my 5870 and to be honest the drivers are pretty stable here, so the whql one due next week should be okay.

Great news! the WHQL driver is now available:

http://windows7forums.com/software-updates/11365-graphic-drivers-15.html#post144480

 

[Highwayman]

cheers I updated during the early hours bud, thanks

 

[kemical]

..........................................................................

 

[F1FAN]

ok thanks for the infomation guys. I agree that nvidia are way to overpriced for what you get thats why i am also an amd fan because there better value then intel.
Can you guys keep this post up to date with the 10.3 drivers? Just give a heads up on how there going. Cheers

 

[Highwayman]

I've already jumped ahead to the new 10.3+ preview with Open GL4 support... works a treat

 

[kemical]

Here's another release too Highwayman:

ATI has released a Catalyst 10.3b preview graphics driver for the HD2000 series and newer. This version adds support for Eyefinity 6, fixes a desktop mouse cursor enlargement issue, and fixes severe flickering/flashing in Battlefield 2: Bad Company.

ATI Catalyst 10.3 Preview Driver
Be the first to download the latest Catalyst driver. New features include:
Latest updates available in the ATI Catalyst 10.3b preview driver

• ATI Catalyst(TM) support for ATI Radeon(TM) HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition
  • This release of ATI Catalyst(TM) introduces support for the production version of Windows 7 and Windows Vista for the ATI Radeon(TM) HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition.
  • Supports up to 6 displays (driven from a single GPU) operating together as an Eyefinity Display Group in both Windows 7 and Windows Vista
• The desktop mouse cursor issue (becoming enlarged at random when using Windows 7) has been fixed
• Fix for Severe flickering / flashing in Battlefield 2 bad Company

ATI Catalyst™ support for ATI Mobility Radeon™ Premium Graphics solutions

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces support for the production version of Windows® 7 and Windows® Vista for notebooks featuring the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Mobility™ Radeon HD 3000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of products.
• Supported by most major OEM and ODM notebook manufacturers

For Desktop Graphics

• Link Removed - Invalid URL

For Notebook Graphics

• Link Removed - Invalid URL
• Link Removed - Invalid URL

ATI Catalyst Control Center - ATI Eyefinity technology enhancements

• Display Bezel Compensation
  • Easy-to-use wizard shows users how to adjust their display layout to remove the pixels occupied by their display bezels
• Per-Display Color Adjust
  • Individual Color, Brightness and Contrast controls
• Multiple ATI Eyefinity Groups
  • Create more than one ATI Eyefinity group from multiple displays
• Improved Display Configuration switching
  • Support for ATI Eyefinity groups and the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center profile manager
• Easy to toggle between cloned and extended desktop modes

ATI Catalyst™ support for 120Hz Stereoscopic 3D

• AMD has updated it's Direct3D (Quad buffer support) driver to enable 3rd party middleware vendors such as DDD and iZ3D to output stereo L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye)

http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/tips/Pages/catalyst-10-3-preview.aspx

I've tried both the above and the one you mention but get lock ups. The whql 10.3 works like a charm tho' and my card loves this driver..

 

[Highwayman]

I jumped to the 10.3b yesterday and noticed no major difference to performance, but then a few percent either way wouldn't be spottable.