Need advice on card for 3d rendering and gaming
 

Hi recently bought a new pc, however the graphics are only onboard (Nvidia GeForce 7025) and support DX9. As im learning 3ds Max and also hoping to run some games i.e Crysis 2 etc i want to upgrade to a PCI-E card.

Im a bit out of the loop these days, however a bit of digging around on ye'old web i have found the following cards that seem good value for money.

VTX Radeon HD 6950 2GB £190
Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1GB £135
XFX HD 6850 1GB £120

What do you guys think? Also its worth noting that it will be going in the following spec pc:

AMD AthlonTM II 640 Quad Core
KingstonTM 8GB DDR3 Memory
1000GB (1TB) Harddrive
AsrockTM N68C-S Motherboard
Atx 500 Power Supply
ASRock n68-S3 UCC Motherboard

Thanks in advance

I would say up your PSU to a 700w to start with, 500 is pushing it with the lowest graphics card there, also how many dvd/blu ray drives you having?
Now if you want a bargain and nvidia for less cash than those ati cards, have a look at overclockers.co.uk as they have refurbished (direct from the manufacturer with a 1 year warranty) direct x 11 cards for a damned good price (ie a 460gtx for less than a ton! :D)

Tony:)

Echo the above with the PSU.

I run a 6870 and it plays everything @ max on a 1080p screen.

The Sapphire RADEON HD 5850 Xtreme is a great budget buy at the mo.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...me-1gb-review/

http://www.kikatek.com/product_info....ucts_id=191901

cheers guys..only planning on having a single dvd drive...no other gimzos other than maybe duel display hence the above cards.

Im totally confused by all the figures etc, just looked at the 5850 and it seems ok but looks like it struggles with games compared to the cards i listed.

For 3D rendering like 3D max,Maya etc,you will need something like FirePro V8750 /nVidia Quadro series not HD 58XX/HD 6XXX/GTX 4XX/5XX

For games i would go with older and still great XFX HD5870.



Jura

wow those prices for the quadro/firepro are insane. My pc at the mo with the onboard graphics performs pretty good for rendering etc, i thought any upgrade from that would only improve?

Agreed prices are crazy,just have look on this test and you will see why those cards are expensive

Any GPU which you would buy will be massive improvement in games and too in rendering against which you have all ready on board;)

For Maya are mainly used nVidia due have CUDA support or 3DS MAX too have plugins for CUDA.


http://fireuser.com/blog/firepro_v87...70_benchmarks/

http://fireuser.com/images/uploads/s..._8750v5870.gif


http://hothardware.com/articleimages...800_3dsmax.png


Jura

thats one heck of a step up, no wonder as you say or more expensive. Hmmmm i think im going to have to stick with one of the HD's for now until i can justify the price of one of those beasts.

Yup the quadro's are expensive unless you go for the 256mb ones (those are cheap), big jump from there though, but purely focused on rendering.
The other cards will do the job, just not as good and take far longer.

Tony:)

Agreed HD will be good for start and if you want to do on professional basis in future,you can invest in some those beasts,but for now its no point

Jura


These 256mb are good,but only for one and few programs,if OP looking for gaming too,he will struggle play newer games in nice resolution.I've somewhere at home Matrox GPU,which is great in 3ds max,but in games is useless.

Jura

cheers again guys...think i might take the plunge and get a super duper one in the distant future depending on where i end up with 3d..for now though its going to have to be a cheaper one. Still unsure out the 3 i posted which to get though.

Im guessin the more Mhz a card has the better??

Have look on test and benchmarks,i would go with HD5870 all the way,i know its older,but still is great GPU.

http://www.visualdreamers.com/sqwzx1.../10/bench2.jpg

http://www.visualdreamers.com/sqwzx1.../10/bench1.jpg

http://www.visualdreamers.com/sqwzx1...0/3dbenchs.jpg

Jura

how does the 5870 compare with the revamped 5850 xtreme (not the plain old 5850)?

My that's a hell of a price hike 5850 xtreme > 5870

Here is test

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...e-1gb-review/1

Hope helps.

How to say,some games are better on nVidia cards,some are better on ATi cards,but probably you are not looking for this answer.

5870 is old card,but still is fast in most of games and still is worth to look out(sometimes are offers on eBay or some ex-demo).Some 5850 can be unlocked to 5870 just with simple re-flash,my friend done this and now have 5870 for price of 5850,its not as fast as 5870 in some games,but still you can play any game.

Jura

5870 6870. If your budgets low

Quadro if your a real Maya 3rd max guru

But they are expensive I have a laptop running a quadro 4000

Basics are the clock speeds on the quartos are slower so errors don't appear of which cause 3d programs to faulter and you can't have this when working gaming cards although normally the same designs have higher clock speeds because the games can handle errors and we the user don't see them

6870 would be my choice though

have you seen these babies. Republic of Gamers gtx 590 reference cards

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...14&subcat=1966

£1200 :eek:

wow that is super expensive...think il get that one next time ahaha

But I could only get two into my PC...

LOL

dunx