New Graphics card - any recommendations?

[ess1]

djt,

Many thanks for your imput.
Regards,
Sellick

 

[MAGLEVSX]

Lol, I have no idea where you got that information from?

By the way the ATI 5970 hasn’t been out a year yet so how would anyone know if they “burn out after a year”?

I was talking about the majority of there cards and the information came from some people I know who build and service gaming computers, every customer who buys ATI 60% of the time came back after a one or two years with cooked cards.
I don’t take sides when comes to graphics cards and processors etc and yes NVIDIA cards burnout as well, all I was saying was apparently they burn out you never know maybe the gtx 480 will get hot and one day and die, I don't go by data sheets I go by peoples experiences are and real time examples that’s all.


anyway im am not one to hijack a thread
cheers.

 

[djt]

I was talking about the majority of there cards and the information came from some people I know who build and service gaming computers, every customer who buys ATI 60% of the time came back after a one or two years with cooked cards.
I don’t take sides when comes to graphics cards and processors etc and yes NVIDIA cards burnout as well, all I was saying was apparently they burn out you never know maybe the gtx 480 will get hot and one day and die, I don't go by data sheets I go by peoples experiences are and real time examples that’s all.


anyway im am not one to hijack a thread
cheers.

I've been building high end gaming systems for almost ten years now as a side business and haven't had one ATI “cook”. Some of my customers have allowed dust bunnies to impede the fan on the video card which has prematurely shortened the life of the card, but obviously I've seen that happened with Nvidia and ATI.​

To ovoid “cooked cards” you simply choose a decent video card manufacturer and stay away from cheap PC cases with poor ventilation. I also never skimp on the PSU either which helps. ​

 

[johnwhelan]

I was talking about the majority of there cards and the information came from some people I know who build and service gaming computers, every customer who buys ATI 60% of the time came back after a one or two years with cooked cards.
I don’t take sides when comes to graphics cards and processors etc and yes NVIDIA cards burnout as well, all I was saying was apparently they burn out you never know maybe the gtx 480 will get hot and one day and die, I don't go by data sheets I go by peoples experiences are and real time examples that’s all.


anyway im am not one to hijack a thread
cheers.

All I can say is whoever put the systems together didn't know what they were doing and the cards weren't given enough room around them to keep cool. In general heat is the major problem in keeping computers running reliably, that and tatty power which you can protect yourself from by using something like an APC UPS. Generally speaking ATI cards draw less power than nVidia so have less of a problem with heat.

I think we ran a few thousand ATI cards in an office environment and we kept note of which bits failed to spot trends. I don't recall having to talk to anyone about video card problems, I do recall having to chat to IBM about quality issues though.

Cheerio John

 

[djt]

and tatty power which you can protect yourself from by using something like an APC UPS. Cheerio John

You don't rely on UPS to make up for a cheap PSU, again never skimp on the power supply.​

 

[djt]

Generally speaking ATI cards draw less power than nVidia so have less of a problem with heat.
Cheerio John

It varies greatly obviously from GPU to GPU so no “generally” speaking ATI cards don't always draw less power then Nvidia.​

 

[johnwhelan]

It varies greatly obviously from GPU to GPU so no “generally” speaking ATI cards don't always draw less power then Nvidia.​

ATI for the last couple of years have been first to move into the narrower tracks, 40 nm etc. So whilst individual cards draw different amounts of power the lightest draw has usually been an ATI card. I agree with you about having decent power supply but we did have some locations near heavy industry and other locations where there was a correlation between the number of problems seen and the quality of the power. We put the wrong sort of UPS in one location, it did its job but beeped every time the power spiked or dipped. The complaint was it was beeping every few minutes.

Cheerio John

 

[djt]

ATI for the last couple of years have been first to move into the narrower tracks, 40 nm etc. So whilst individual cards draw different amounts of power the lightest draw has usually been an ATI card. Cheerio John

As far as the high end GPU's go, it has gone back and forth between Nvidia and ATI over the years as far as power consumption/heat is concerned. Up until we saw the 4800 series from ATI they were behind Nvidia for a long time as far as performance goes so comparing power consumption between the two during that period was kind of moot.


My ATI 4870x2 was far more power hungry then anything that I've owned from Nvidia. It also generated a lot more heat then any of my Nvidia cards so again it varies greatly between GPU's.

 

[bolivar]

Glad you guys enjoyed your conversation, I am reporting back on the 260GTX (gigabyte/Nvidia) card. More graphic power and faster too, even at higher resolutions. Happy with the purchase. Cheers!