Somewhat similar money - the GTX 570 would be a little cheaper, but close. If we compare the GTX 570 on DiRT or PG (top paying CUDA) vs an HD 5970 on Moo! (top paying ATI/AMD), would the credits be anywhere similar? Anyone know which would be higher?
The GTX 580 is priced way more, so that's out. And I don't like the $/performance on any of the new HD69xx AMD cards. I'm looking at the HD 5970 used prices, so that is similar to what a new GTX 570 would run.
Thanks for any thoughts on this one.
I think Bryan has both cards. I would lean towards a New 570 over a used 5970. Unless the 5970 was not used as a cruncher. Crunching seems to abuse these gpus and I've read the 5970 get real hot. Heat=wear. One other thing, the 5970 eats a whole lot more power. Bigger electric bill.Originally Posted by DrPop
I can get about 650k per day on Moo with a 5970 (@850) ... very similar to what I can get on DirT with a GTX 570 (@ 900). The 5970 has real heat problems in 1 of the 2 GPUs and you have to run the fan pretty hard (and noisy) if you want to maximize the output.
By comparison, the 6990 does NOT have the same heat issue. They were smart enough on the newer card to put ALL VRMs under the cooling chamber. The 6990 running at 900 MHz crunches a hair faster than a 5870 at 950 MHz on MW.
EDIT: WARNING BS ALERT!
The number I quoted for the GTX 570 was when they had the shorter wu on DirT that paid higher. Today 2 of the 570s running at 900 produced 578k and 2 produced 582k. The one running at 850 MHz did 544k!!!
Last edited by Bryan; 11-15-11 at 10:59 PM.
Thanks for the replies, guys. Well, I've wanted a 5970 since it was released - it's been my dream GPU. But you're right. If it's got wear on it, then maybe not such a smart move. The 6990 is still $700, so Bryan you know that's out for me!
I was looking more at what a GTX 570 cost, and saw a few HD 5970's go for similar prices on Ebay, so it just got me to thinking...I could move the 5970 over to Kat's rig, send the two 4870's out of there to my Dad's rigs, and then I would have room for the new GPU in the DrPop rig.
Thing is, I hate to be CUDA only, in case I am needed on an ATI/AMD project...but maybe they are just better for the money right now?
One last comparison, because anything over this $ amount would have to wait a considerable while; what do you guys think of this EVGA GTX 460X2 card? In theory it should be ~1814 GFLOPS vs the GTX 570 @ 140 GFLOPS or a GTX 580 @ 1581 GFLOPS. I mean, for $370 (w/ rebate) it would smoke the $450 GTX 580 for crunching, right?
Or maybe I'm missing something...
And lastly, I'm also wondering if we should all just hold off on the GPUs until the next gen arrives in about 2 months. I've been reading those rumors of AMD's next gen GPUs hitting 2x the performance with the same watts due to the new smaller die size. That would pay for itself real quick in electricity costs if the benchmarks bear these rumors out!
I've been wondering the same thing. Even if I can't but the newer high end cards. Won't that lower the price of existing high end cards? Only problem with waiting is 2 months can sometimes turn into 6 months.And lastly, I'm also wondering if we should all just hold off on the GPUs until the next gen arrives in about 2 months. I've been reading those rumors of AMD's next gen GPUs hitting 2x the performance with the same watts due to the new smaller die size. That would pay for itself real quick in electricity costs if the benchmarks bear these rumors out!
Jed, I personally would NOT purchase a used 5970. I've had 2 of them for 18 months and both of the originals were sent in for repair. They replaced both cards with brand new ones. Those failed after 6 months (bad fans) and I had to send them in also. To XFX's credit, they replaced 1 with a new 6990 and I haven't sent the 2nd in yet. The fans wear out because you MUST run them at high RPM due to the cooling problem on one of the GPUs. They didn't put the VRM of 1 GPU under the cooling chamber so it runs VERY hot. From my experience with them I had sworn that I would never purchase another dual card but with what I've seen on the 6990 I may have to change my mind. It appears they did that card's cooling correctly.
One thing of concern on the new generation would be does it support CAL? Slicker had a post saying that AMD was dropping CAL and going w/ OpenCL only. So is this a driver issue or a hardware issue? In either case, if you don't have a driver that recognizes the card then you won't be able to just run an older version.
Does that mean all the current AMD projects would need to rewrite their code? Or perhaps just shut down.
First, even if AMD does what they say, you will still be able to use the current family of drivers (11.xx) for BOINC projects. The issue will that 11.xx will NOT have support for next gen AMD GPUs. The new drivers will of course have backward support for the current stable of AMD GPUs just without CAL/Stream instructions.
@ Bryan, thanks for the advice. I will hold off on an HD 5970 then. Sounds like they just can't hold up to 24/7 crunching well. I suppose that's a lot to ask of any dual GPU, they must run hot hot hot!
I can't understand this AMD dropping CAL/Steam at all. It makes absolutely no sense. By supporting OpenCL only, they sign their own death warrant in the high end computing market where CUDA is already ahead, and they give up valuable advantage to Intel, because Intel's new integrated GPU in Ivy Bridge CPUs will have OpenCL support, and once they get good at implementation, you can be sure it will be downhill for AMD from there.
They were so ahead of NVIDIA on GFLOPS/WATT too, which is uber important in the server arena. Wonder why they are being such pansies and backing out of it all now?
If you really wanted a 5970 then you should get this to help it ---> Artic Cooling Accelero Extreme 5970@ Bryan, thanks for the advice. I will hold off on an HD 5970 then. Sounds like they just can't hold up to 24/7 crunching well. I suppose that's a lot to ask of any dual GPU, they must run hot hot hot!
I can't understand this AMD dropping CAL/Steam at all. It makes absolutely no sense. By supporting OpenCL only, they sign their own death warrant in the high end computing market where CUDA is already ahead, and they give up valuable advantage to Intel, because Intel's new integrated GPU in Ivy Bridge CPUs will have OpenCL support, and once they get good at implementation, you can be sure it will be downhill for AMD from there.
They were so ahead of NVIDIA on GFLOPS/WATT too, which is uber important in the server arena. Wonder why they are being such pansies and backing out of it all now?
From my point of view it seems that AMD is divesting itself of everything that made ATI products unique. All the hogwash that is corporate ego.
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