Difference between 5830 and 6870?

[richieuk]

One is nearly double the price of the other, but what are the differences in practice between the 5840 and 6870?

[Skulltrail]

http://www.***********.net/reviews/g..._6870_review/7 (replace the stars with overclock 3d without the space)

The graphs there should explain - basically, there is a performance improvement of about 40%, but if you are doing a lot of encoding and getting a new card, a GTX560 may be a better bet for an extra £20. It will out game the 6870, and you can make use of CUDA, allthough the latter is a mute point if your editing package doesn't support it.

If it does though, definatedly worth making use of it, as for me at least I can encode at 180fps on a single GTX460 compared to 40fps on a 3.5GHz i7 920.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The HD5830 1GB can be had for around £77:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/265356

The HD6870 1GB can be had for £148:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-m...s-free-shogun2

An HD6950 1GB can be had for around £170:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1752

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1752

The first HD6950 comes with 4 games and the second one has a very good aftermarket cooler.

You can get a reference HD6950 2GB for around £200:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-a...dp-2x-dvi-hdmi

The reference HD6950 2GB cards in most cases can be unlocked to the same number of shaders as an HD6970 2GB.

Also,a few articles have shown that GPU assisted video encodes tend not to be as good as those done on the CPU only. If you do go down the GPU assisted encoding path I would look at Intel Quick Sync.

[Skulltrail]

Also,a few articles have shown that GPU assisted video encodes tend not to be as good as those done on the CPU only. If you do go down the GPU assisted encoding part I would look at Intel Quick Sync.

I would partially agree with this, as with fast scrolling text such as quick credits, there is a difference, so if you were charging people for it, CPU is probably the way to go, but if you want to quickly rip and encode a film or TV series for a flight or train journey etc., it can really be the difference between a quick half hour and the whole evening.

[richieuk]

I Thanks to you guys I love you lol - My only problem is the fact Iwanted to get it all from Scan, but its somethign I'm definately aware of now. Thank yo