The pros and cons of my new HD5870 Vapor-X - please have a read

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon' started by Darren Hodgson, Apr 1, 2010.

  1. ricardonuno1980

    ricardonuno1980 Banned

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    GTX 780Ti Classified :D
  2. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    According to CustomPC magazine, which I subscribe to, there's some issue with DoWII when AA is enabled and it causes a massive hit in the framerate when things get really busy. Seems to have occurred with one of the updates and was never fixed. It is backed up by their benchmark scores for the graphics cards they review as DoWII is one of the games they test with. All of them show big drops in the framerate with AA enabled at 1920x1200. The framerate was actually fine for me too when I had my GTX 280 (~40 to 60 fps) but it's only in the game benchmark that it takes a shocking nosedive toward the end when all hell breaks loose.

    What results do you get from running the benchmarks at 1920x1200 with AA on and everything maxed by the way?
     
  3. The Postman

    The Postman Ancient Guru

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    @Island
    You wont be disappointed with your purchase, the 5870 is an excellent card and it is gonna max out most of your games.

    I have both brands and both share advantages and drawbacks but they do the job :)
     
  4. Island

    Island Guest

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    Well, just gone done looking at Ati's driver site....Sheesh...can u make it any more confusing?? Well, I think I will try this card out and see how it goes...The system it is going in is actually in my loft computer that my kids use, so I can still use an Nvidia card when I build my rig for my office...

    Perhaps Nvidia will have its act together by then, and we will see a die shrink and better tdp's and the rest....I mainly bought this card on a whim, as I have been holding off for fermi, and after seeing the results, the 5870 seems to be the best overall value....

    I stopped playing AVP3, and some other games, as my 8800gt's were not cutting it, and I didn't want to continue degrading my game play experience....I am sure though that the 5870 will be more then enough...Just hope the drivers don't put me off to much...So, which driver did you end up using(I read your posts in the driver thread) And, did u install the CCC to??
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2010

  5. Island

    Island Guest

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    Thanks for the reassurance....I hope all goes well....Just always been on the green bandwagon, and like I said, I am soooo used to Nvidia's driver panel....I am very anal about installing my drivers, and having to use the CCC and having the WDM driver imbedded into the ati package bugs me....I like everything clean and not having uneeded software.....I know CCC provides better functionality, but like I said, ati seems to be very confusing with their software....
     
  6. burebista

    burebista Ancient Guru

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    It works, but you need MSI Afterburner instead Riva and an update to gadget. :)

    BTW keeping proportions after more than 10 exclusively years of green I went from GTX 260 to HD5850. For me it was a very nice surprise but I'm not a framerate hunter nor an overclocker. I like that my card is cold, silent, very friendly with my PSU and give me enough FPS's (for my needs).
    My advice in this month since I'm an ATI user is try to ditch CCC and rely on ATT. Now you can have again nice graphs like Riva. :D
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2010
  7. Island

    Island Guest

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    Can u elaborate on this?? Also, give some advice on how best to utilze ati's driver suite? I am a complete noob at using ati drivers.....
     
  8. burebista

    burebista Ancient Guru

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    Ops sorry, it's about ATI Tray Tools.
    I'm a Riva BIG fan but for now our cards are not supported so I need something to substitute Riva so I went with ATT. If you know Riva ATT is pretty similar as basic functions. Fan profiles, OC, game profiles, monitoring, all that jazz.
    I don't install anything from ATI but drivers. I don't need anything fancy from their drivers just my games. :)
    And BTW I'm a complete noob at ATI drivers too. :D
     
  9. sideeffect

    sideeffect Master Guru

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    Memory speeds above 1250Mhz show negligible gains. The memory is rated at 5Ghz so 1250 is the best setting to use. Performance is greatly improved by raising the core speed which in turn raises the shaders but almost all cards need more voltage to run stable.

    As an example my stable clocks are 899Mhz at 1.125 volts. 975Mhz at 1.174 volts. 1002Mhz at 1.212 volts. Results vary greatly between cards though.

    Strange I get no judder even playing at 5300 x 1050 in directx 11. Perhaps its a disk or installation issue?

    Dirt 2 is about 50% faster in directX 9 than it is in DirectX 11 so the performance increase was quite dramatic. The game looks much nicer in directX 11 full settings also.

    3DMark2006 is CPU limited. RE5 is an unoptimised console port:puke2:
     
  10. slickric21

    slickric21 Guest

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    Thanks for your interestng thread Darren, very honest.

    I'm thinking of the HD 5870 2Gb when its released next week.
    I just need a little extra 'juice' in games like BC2 and Metro over my GTX 285, but i'm not expecting massive improvements.

    One thing I think you should do is a clean install though mate.
    I know you've removed all old drivers and ran driver sweeper, but all your games would have been installed on the nvidia and all the respective config files would have data relating to your old GFX card. This could have contributed to your problems initially.

    On the driver front I know its hard going to ATI with its drivers and CCC & WDM stuff - I did a bulid for a friend the other week based on a HD 5850.
    I wasnt impressed at all by the CCC and its interface/options at all.

    However
    I took a gamble and installed ATI tray tools, which seemed really good.
    Loads of advanced options like D3d triple bufferring and pre rendered frames (flip queue), also it supports game profiles and switches them automatically.
    In fact you don't even need to open that bloated CCC once you have this baby.

    I didn't have time to test it all out fully (to even see if it all works !!!) but maybe its a program thats worth a look at.
    Maybe another user who has more ATI experience will be able to give you the low down on it better.

    As far as my upgrade is going, I have to say i'm leaning more and more towards a GTX 480 now, just for ease of use and drivers.
    I'm thinking it may not be so bad heat wise if I stick an aftermarker cooler on it - something like the Arctic cooling accelro exreme i've got on my GTX 285.
     

  11. goodald

    goodald Member Guru

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    Yes, BOX is the standard MSAA AA mode (2/4/8)

    If the games you play have their own AA settings, I recommend setting your making sure "Edge Detect" is select in the drop down in Catalyst (you may need to uncheck "use application settings" and slide the slider to 4x or greater first before you can edit the drop down). Once edge is in the dropdown, re-check "use application settings".

    This tells CCC that whatever AA setting is used by the application, to apply the custom filter to it.

    So.. If you select 4X AA in game, you get 12xaa via the custom filter (edge detect allows effectively higher levels of AA to be applied specifically to edges while keeping the memory usage about the same/minimal impact on performance.. if I recall correctly).

    If you select 8X AA in game, you end up with 24XCFaa.



    I play most games at 4X with edge detect enabled. I never worry about narrow/wide tent and all that junk.



    4x + Edge Detect = 12xcfaa
    8x + Edge Detect = 24xcfaa

    no, 12xcfaa doesn't look quite as smooth as a true full screen 12xaa would, but it still can make things look a lot better and performance hit is minimal.

    **

    Actually.. I also wanted to mention that I like edge over high levels full scene AA as some games can start to look blurry, the edge filtering seems to keep the image sharper where anti-aliasing isn't occurring.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2010
  12. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    I decided on using the 10.3b drivers but haven't had chance to test them yet due to watching the Leeds Rhinos vs. Bradford Bulls match on TV. Will do so over the Easter weekend.
     
  13. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    You're a star! Thank you so much! :banana:
     
  14. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    I only tested it with the OpenGL 4.0 preview drivers so it may be just an issue with them; not tested it with the 10.3b ones I have installed now yet. The judder only happened straight after I resume a save game and seems to clear up within 5 seconds. It's similar to how it was on the GTX 280 except the judder/pauses continued throughout the duration of play due to some bug in the DX10 code. It's why the benchmarks use the DX9 codepath when testing with DX10 cards.
     
  15. lmimmfn

    lmimmfn Ancient Guru

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    post Vantage results Darren
     

  16. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    Thanks for the explanation. Seems like the ATI drivers actually have more precise control over AA settings than the NVIDIA ones which require you to use a third-party application, nHancer, if you want to use more than the AA settings offered by the control panel.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2010
  17. Decane

    Decane Ancient Guru

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    It's always interesting to read the opinions of those who have gone from NVIDIA to ATI. Unfortunately, disappointment seems to be a rather common reaction from what I've inferred.. Makes me think that perhaps my next card should be an NVIDIA. I mean, I haven't had a card from team green since my 6800GT died, at which point I switched to an X1900XT and had no driver problems for a long time.

    Lately though, I've been getting random CTD's in a few games and Explorer.exe has also been crashing randomly. Nothing has changed on my PC other than updated Realtek sound drivers and updated ATI display drivers. I never had crashes with Catalyst 10.2 or below; they started happening with Catalyst 10.3 WHQL and above, yet I'm too lazy to go back to 10.2 just to see if the crashes stop.

    Anyway, thanks for posting your impressions, Darren. I'll keep them in mind when I decide on what my next purchase will be in the magnificent world of graphics accelerators. ATI Tray Tools has been keeping me red for a long time, but I think it's time to give NVIDIA a chance once again if their software is more consistently reliable.
     
  18. yelsewshane

    yelsewshane Banned

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    You simply need to get used to the ati control panel and learn to adjust things properly and your problems will go away. BTW on most reviews of people that know what they are doing all show the 5870 haveing no issues at all.
     
  19. mitzi76

    mitzi76 Guest

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    well i made the switch and am not looking back so much so just went xfire. i do recommend a fresh os install and format. but that's just me.

    i had nvidia up until 5870 launch.
     
  20. lmimmfn

    lmimmfn Ancient Guru

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    I went from Nvidia to ATI after years of nvidia, i.e. x850pro->7800GTX->8800GT->260->5850
    Ive had next to no problems since i got the 5850 in early October. It was really weird not having game profiles with ATI's drivers but i got used to it very quickly. The only issue i have had was that with my 3 screen setup it would drop the 2D clocks too much so the second screen flickered. It was a common issue but is fixed now.

    My 7800GTX used to overheat and my 8800GT would BSOD on stock speeds, found out it was the mem, i underclocked it and the card has been great for 3 years now.

    For me ATI/Nvidia have their pros and cons, but end user experience is neglible for me for either company. Nvidias control panel with profiles is cool, but you get used to not having them and just using the same settings for all games. CCC is a bit heavy though ill admit.

    ATI Tray Tools is legendary, i hated using Nvidias Control Panel after my x850 pro, i must start using it again as its really great.
     

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