Important graphic card choice and analysis for 11-9-2010

[VampD]

so I had an aging Q6600 OCed from 2.6 to 3.0 ghz and a year old 9800 gtx+ I got from EVGA for RMAing my 8800 GTX and was deciding it was a good time to give my card to a friend and upgrade and have been mainly looking at these 5 choices:

Nvidia GTX 460 768 mb
Nvidia GTX 460 1 gb
ATI 6850
ATI 6870
Nvidia GTX 470

The 460 1gb came at a premium price so that eliminated it from the selection and I don't play at high resolutions anyways.

Now I noticed the 6850 and 6870 on average are faster then the 460 but they are all slower then the 470. However the 6850 is only around 10% faster then the GTX 460 but costs more then 24% more then the 460 since I found it on amazon (evga varient non OCed ) for $145 after rebate. The 6850 at the time was $180 and since the 460 was only $145 it was a better valuetherefore I eliminated the 6850 from my options despite the fact that it was the newer card.

I thought about getting more powerful cards like the 6870 or GTX 470 ( similarly priced around $250 ) but noticed the 460 on average is only 30-35% slower and the cheapest I could get a 470 for is around $250 which means it cost 72% more. Also in the reviews I read it should be noted that the 470 requires a lot of power ( might be a problem for my old 600 watt PSU ) and generates a lot of heat and my room isn't in the most ideal cool conditions anyways so I decided to go with the 460, whats everyone think?

Oh and also I only buy on amazon since they have free shipping and don't charge sales tax like newegg.

 

[Hapx4.0]

Just went through the same thing myself. It came down to the GTX 470 & the HD 6870

Both are great cards and, i see benchmarks that show each holding there own.

I end up picking the GTX 470 because it was available from EVGA (Lifetime limited Warranty) and i have Intel and the benchmarks on games that backup the Intel+Nvidia seemed to do much better than the HD 6870


On the other hand, the GTX 580 just came out. so the prices might change soon

just imo

 

[TheOtis]

460 is a fine way to go, you can't lose with any of those choices. I would have sprung for the 6850 since it's the faster card. It costs $35 more and it's 10% faster, that's enough to justify the cost for me. The other option would be the 6870 and 470 and like you said, they cost around $100 more.

An ultra high end card like the GTX 580 isn't going to bump down prices for video cards that target other segments right away. Once the 6970 rolls out and it gets reviewed, depending on how well it does, we might see price drops. But unless a company has a reason to lower prices, they wont.

 

[Sniper_13]

im kind of in the same dilemma my self, im picking between a 470 and a 6870 and my choice is kinda of leaning towards a 6870 just because it runs much cooler and uses less power. i currently own a gtx 460 1gb and its awesome but i have extra money to spend. and the benchmarks between the two are not that different, the 470 beats it 4-10 fps on some games. But like Hapx said, the Evga 470 has life time warranty and goes well with intel, so im still scratching my head about it.

 

[VampD]

im kind of in the same dilemma my self, im picking between a 470 and a 6870 and my choice is kinda of leaning towards a 6870 just because it runs much cooler and uses less power. i currently own a gtx 460 1gb and its awesome but i have extra money to spend. and the benchmarks between the two are not that different, the 470 beats it 4-10 fps on some games. But like Hapx said, the Evga 470 has life time warranty and goes well with intel, so im still scratching my head about it.

hmmm does EVGA not have lifetime warranty anymore with all their cards? meaning I won't have lifetime warranty for the gtx 460? I guess it shouldn't matter much since I see it like this

the card will last me at least 2-3 years and after I OC the last ounce of power of it I can move on and the loss I get won't be much since the card is remarkably cheap at $144. The GTX 470 is attractive but I was too worried after looking at charts which showed how much power it used and heat it generated. I figure I can settle for the 460 now which prob can be OCed to within 15%-20% of the GTX 470 stock power and hope for something more efficient 2-3 years from now.

Its really a shame ATI 6800 cards will be overshadowed for buyers like us which analyze stuff, and its all because nvidia dropped the prices. If the GTX 460 was still $200 instead of $145 and the GTX 470 was $360 instead of $250 they would have definately been worse buys

video card wars = consumers win!