This is true. When looking for serious tech reviews I'd never go to Gamespot. I only posted the link to that article because it was the first one I came across regarding the new GTX 480. Not to mention that article Does have some useful tech info in it. Give it a look and check it out.

considering the 480 is 500$ whats a measely 100 more?

 I actually have the 4890 and wont upgrade until I see any game drop below 30 fps.  which means not for a long time. but maybe by then I could get the   9970 for 600!!!!!!!!!!!

I can afford $800 what do you recommend morph ?

My 4890 supports physX so I'm sure the 58xx series does as well...Not like many games support that anyway. If you can afford 800 then the ati 5970 is the best if it will fit in your case...Its the fastest and a little cooler then the 480 but will cost 620$.

As for support nvidia does quarterly releases but if there is a problem with a driver you still have to wait a whole quarter for a fix.....  Ati doesnt have a set schedule but will move quickly to replace driver updates that have many issues. 

Ok, first of all, I never said the 480 is worth its 500$ cost.

Secondly, the 5970 is NOT 600$, its 700$. Thats 200$ difference, which is A LOT. The fact that you know "some places" who sell it for less than its tag price doesnt say much to me, because you might do the same with the 480 and buy it for less.

Thirdly, by 9970, I assume you are joking about the future? Or is it a typo?

Lastly, Yes your 4890 has enough "horsepower" for today's games. You dont need to upgrade just yet

If someone wants to buy specifically a Nvidia card (some people just hate ATI) then your only choice is the 470 atm.

I am not saying the 480 is a bad choice, but its price WILL drop pretty fast, and when it does, you will be crying for your lost money. Besides, the fact that it has 1 SM disabled, resulting in 480 cores and NOT its full 512, makes me think of 2 cases:

1. the usual fail-in-production, and the fact that it was late by about 6 months to release, Nvidia HAD to release it as is, with just 480 cores, because a few more months delay would result in losing many loyal customers. and,

2. Nvidia made this whole story up, with the plan to release a 480+ model, like they did with the 260 and 260+ (cores 192 and 216 respectively).

Now I dont know about you, but I am kinda worried that Nvidia might have gone that path, in order to make more money out of basically 1 chip.

But anyway, I wouldnt want a card that reaches 105 Celcius temp, in bencharks, thats like 0 headroom for overclock.

My advice: IF someone wants Nvidia only, wait , just wait.

Now to speak about ATI:

ATI/AMD are some very clever people, because they know that time is money, and they worked their way, taking advantage of Nvidia's "mistake", and released their new series sooner than them. And its new series doesnt consist of just 2 high end expensive cards. Its a full new gfx cards series, which consists of the high end 5970 and 58xx cards, mid end 57xx cards and of course low end cards, which is irrelevant to our case here.

Now the thing is what choices a new buyer has. And Nvidia right now, just doesnt give you any choices, because they were late, and now they are stuck with only 2 high end models.

Its fairly simple, no questions asked, if someone wants a new card and wants to spend from ~100 to 300$, your ONLY choice is ATI. Its as simple as that.

Now, if you want to spend more than 300$, thats were it gets a little complicated.

No, your ATI doesnt support PhysX, like any ATI doesnt.

And about driver updates, Nvidia is quick to release fixes as well. Just go to their site, click "Download drivers" and you will see what I mean http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us

800$ is A LOT, and you will probably waste your money, but if you DO like to waste money, then I Highly recommend 2 5870's in Crossfire. If you are the type that doesnt want 2 cards, then go for the tough badass that is called 5970, like SwerydAss, very well said.

Just a joke....  

here are some places selling the 5970 starting at 621$

http://www.bing.com/shopping/search?q=ati%205970&FORM=EGRE&p1=%5bCommerceService+scenario%3d%22o%22+docid%3d%22AF22EB2868B9F421A9DE%22%5d&wf=Commerce  new egg isn't the only store around

You caught me on the physX    I read my info wrong it said physics engine in my 4890 not physx.... my bad.

I guess nvidia did come  out with a quick fix.  got me there too... just for info I'm not an ati fanboy..My last card before the 4890 was an nvidia 8400gs

That link is really useful for US people. But I am from EU, Greece, so IF I wanted to buy a 5970, I would have to spend 540 €, which is the cheapest 5970 you can find from a EU online store.

Thats good that you are not a fanboy. I am not a fanboy either. I used to be a long time ago, but not anymore. Correction: When I said "its good", I meant its good for you, as a consumer, ATI and Nvidia, all they want is fanboys. Loyal and sometimes naive customers, who will buy their products no matter what the "other side" has got.

Last gfx generation, (Nvidia GTX200 series and ATI 4800 series) my opinion was that Nvidia had the upper hand imo, because the GT200 core was generally faster than the RV770. Thats why I bought a GTX 260+ as soon as it came out.

But this year, ATI seems to be winning a war before it even begun, Since January 2010, many people went with ATI, since Nvidia didnt have a competitor to their 5000 series. They lost many customers, and it was their own mistake that gave ATI that strong leverage.

But the war isnt over until its over, and Nvidia still has got a strong card to play. All they have to do is play it right and they win.

Its called Tesselation, a gfx drawing technique, that ATI supported in their cards for years now, but it was never really used by games developers. Now Nvidia released it as "their" feature, and they are supporting it all the way, meaning that they will pay developers not only to get their usual logo on their games, but to also support Tesselation in their games, and if they do, then the war is over.

The Nvidia 480 and 470 are specialized in Tesselation, meaning that they are a lot faster in applications taking advantage of it. Nvidia would be stupid not go for it, since they already invested a lot making their GPU's architecture suitable for this new DirectX 11 feature.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480,2585-4.html

guys i think i will go ati going to be spending around $4000 Aud at max but like $1000 will go to software and a monitor should be getting it around june will be posting more info around then

Ok, all my life I've only used NVIDIA cards and always would have trouble with them either burning up quick or driver issues or something.  After my computer died I bought a new motherboard, a quad Core Phenom 2, and it has an onboard ATI card that registered 700+ megs of memory.  Anyway I love it, Its such a great motherboard and the ATI card is amazing, dont think I will EVER go back to Nvidia with how easy ATI has been to use.

Until ATI comes out with a new technology. It's a never-ending cycle much like Intel and AMD.

Yes, it is a never-ending cycle, and thats good for us cosumers, since we have more options to choose from, and competition is good for the prices also.

No, your gfx card doesnt have 700 MB RAM. Either it has got 1 GB, or 512 MB. No ATI ever had that amount of memory.

About Nvidia, it seems to me you either had a cooling problem on your case, or you simply made bad choices in which card to buy.

Remember, not ALL ATI and Nvidia are the same. There are good expensive vendors, but also bad cheap ones. There have even been some ATI and Nvidia that their vendor's cooling system was worse than the Nvidia/ATI stock one, for gods sake.

But ATI and Nvidia, both release quality products, with some small mistakes and flaws from time to time, but hey, nobody is perfect

To state that either ATI or Nvidia release bad products, show both ignorance as well as fanboy-ism.

i'm going to go ati because its cheaper nvidia seems to have features that are useless that add to the cost, i fail to see why 3d will help me play better it might be good to some people because it seems to be better value to them, really isn't true 3d already games are 3d since we can move around in them the same thing can be said about ati with that thing that spans arcoss moniters though it doesn't seem to add as much as 3d would.

not every moniter is able to do 3d and the ones that are cappable of are more costly.

they both will make great ones but will also fail like i think nivdia has this time.

really comes down to if its really worth the money for qauilty and features.

I assume you mean 3D Vision. Yes, you are correct, it doesnt really worth it IMO, but as far as quality, you are wrong, because it improves visual experience A LOT. But yeah spending all that money to acquire it, is not worth it.

Oh and about ATI, thats a good choice, thats your ONLY choice, actually

p.s. I suggest an ATI 5870, or a 5850 if you dont have enough money.

Not really. I'll never go with ATI as ATI has always had some sort of issue with drivers.

I've never paid big money for an Nvidia card.

Actually nvidia has 768 mb cards and 1.78 gb cards.

  Also he is talkin about integrated graphics which means its probably one that uses between 128 mb and 16 gb of system memory as its ram depending on the load. 

ati has issues with drivers, kona? that's odd. i've always had great luck with ati drivers. it's the nvidia drivers that won't work for me. i can't use an nvidia card without hacking the drivers first. it seems nvidia cards/drivers see quite a few monitors as hi-def televisions instead of pc monitors. nvidia has known of this issue for at least 3 years and has yet to correct it in any of their driver releases. i'd love to be able to use the two gtx 285 cards i have sitting on a shelf behind me but i'll stick with my ati 5850 crossfire solution instead. at least the ati drivers work as they should.

He doesnt have Nvidia. He's got ATI.

Exactly my point. His gfx card doesnt have 700+ MB of memory.

I'm sorry but this is the most ignorant, yet the most common response I hear from people, about sometimes ATI, sometimes Nvidia. "Nvidia has issues with drivers" , "ATI has issues with drivers". Really ridiculus, thats why I am not gonna even comment on it

If you want to be that literal then you have to say it has no memory since it uses system ram.

He will realize i hope that, that means he gets less system ram to use when the graphics controller is using it which is why getting a PCIe card is a much better way to go.  Whether its ati or nvidia.

I have actually used both nvidia and ati and never had driver issues with both..    I just purchase the best buy for the money at the time.  I do however count heat as part of my decision which is partly why I went ATI this time.   my ati 4890 never goes above 50 degrees even under load... Some of that is because of my azza solano 1000 case which I keep the fans set to high on.

I recommond keeping any cases fan on high.  they are quiter than the gfx cards and provide better cooling.  also doing this stops the initial heat up of parts that makes the other fans kick on.

It should have some small amount of RAM, maybe 128 probably, but not 0. And yes onboard cards are just FAIL. Better off with even the cheapest PCI-E card, (even an X1300 or smth) than onboard.

Whoa! Thats must be a lot-a noise I assume your ATI doesnt have the stock cooler, and thats why it benefits from your case cooling. Keep in mind, that many gfx cards, have a closed type cooling system, that forces air in/out like a vacuum, and that doesnt benefit from any other fans in your case.

Thats why if you have that kind of cooling in your card, you should keep the other fans on low, to avoid uneccessary noise. I, on the other hand, have NO fans installed in my case, and I keep it always open from both sides. The only components that really need case fan cooling are CPU and gfx card. The NB usually has sufficient cooling through passive heatsink, it doesnt need anything more.

If you do some testing yourself with open and closed case, you'll see that its about the same, cause the fans are only needed to force air to your case only if its closed, when its open it has all the air it needs. The only real difference is the CPU and GPU, and the latter has a closed type cooling system for me.

And how is my comment ignorant as I have used both ATI and Nvidia?

Didnt you claim that: "I'll never go with ATI as ATI has always had some sort of issue with drivers."  ?

....

Then how come my 4890 runs at 10 degrees cooler than every one else? on full load i mean.  Also keeping your case open is bad for airflow.  but you have no case fans so i don't know where you are coming from on that one.  I do have the gfx fan set on auto but it hardly runs since the (quiter)case fans keep the card so cool.

As for noise the fan on your gfx card is waaaaaay louder than any case fan..If I shut off my case fans and let that one do the work it sounds like a jet engine..(and thats at the stock 50%).. The bigger case fans get more air flow at a lower rpm which is why they are quieter.  if you had loud case fans before then you had a bad case or fans.

I'm not sure who died and made you the authority on GPUs but let's NOT accuse others of 'ignorance' and dismiss their comments outright, thanks.

BTW....leaving a system case open is ill-advised as 'uncontrolled' ventilation invites dust, pets, and/or prying fingers from ankle-biters.  A well-thought out system/case can incorporate proper filtration and thus minimise dust induction and subsequently prolong [all] fan life....;)

Perhaps I should have said I'll never use ATI again as I have alwys has driver issues with ATI.

Fair enough?

Ok. ATI and Nvidia always release faulty drivers from time to time. Both companies make mistakes, and thats why there is support, so users can submit their problem, and usually the company will release a "quick-fix" driver. But to state that ATI has faulty drivers, is misleading, since about every month (or 2) there is a new driver released.

Example: Nvidia released drivers 196.75, about 2 months ago (I think). The driver caused serious issues with the fan operation, resulting in cards overheating. 1 week after, they removed their driver, along with a big warning for everyone who still has that particular driver installed, to remove it, and they released the "new" fixed driver at the same time.

Thats your choice if you wanna stick with Nvidia though. Both companies were, and still are very good.

I am not an authority on GPUs.

As for leaving my case open:

1. Its not on the floor, or anywhere hidden. So there isnt any danger of dust, pets or whatever. its a lot more safer actually.

2. I found out after many years of having a closed case, that not only its silent as a whisper this way, but also as cool as a closed case with fans.

3. The only components that really need cooling on typical (not very high end) PC, are the CPU and GPU. My GPU has a closed type cooling system, and thus isnt affected by case fans (mentioned earlier). My CPU has a more-than-enough cooler, and it doesnt need additional cooling.

4. As for the rest of the components, they only need cooling on a closed case, because a closed case builds up heat. Meaning that if I had my case closed, with no fans installed, some components (like HD or NB) might slightly overheat, but still nothing too critical.

The only reason that people think a case absolutely needs cooling fans, is because nobody (almost) leaves his case open. That said, this is why its called "case ventilation", because the fans draw out the hot air, and input cool air.

Then I assume that your card doesnt have the ATI reference design cooling system installed. Which is very good. Again about the case opened, I explained above.

I guess some cards are very loud, but I am lucky that mine isnt. The highest temp I've ever seen while in game, is 72 C overclocked. Stock can go as high as 67-68. As for the fan setting, I have it on auto also, but I have never seen it go above 48%. I can increase the fan setting, but it gets kinda loud, so I keep it quiet, because there is no reason to do that.

No, I didnt have loud fans, I had 2 very quiet 120's who were set at kinda low rpm. Still, with my case open, its a lot more quiet.

I am not trying to convince you of anything, this is just something that works a lot for me, and I dont even think of having my case closed.