Help me build a gaming PC for $1500

[vlad321]

Soleron said:

@vlad321

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx-480-and-gtx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/20

The GTX 480 is "between 10 and 15% faster than the Radeon 5870 depending on the resolution"

http://techreport.com/articles.x/18682/14

The GTX 480 "draws more power, generate more heat and noise, [...] but they're not substantially faster at running current games"

Are CUDA, PhysX and SLI scaling worth 44% more than a 5870 for it?

44% more? Maybe you need to doubel check that because last I checked a 5870 was $400 and a 480 was $500, barely 25% more. As for scaling, check this out:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/3/26/nvidia-geforce-gtx-480--gtx-480-sli-review.aspx?pageid=5

Yes, there is a 117% gain in STALKER Call of Pripyat, and 98% gain in Metro 2033. Let that sink in, and let's hear how Crossfire does with the 5870s:

http://www.techspot.com/review/289-geforce-gtx-480-sli-versus-radeon-5870-crossfire/page3.html

in AVP, 480 had 90%, 5870 had 74%. In Bad Company 2, 480 had 81% and the 5870 had a measily 56%. Crysis Warhead, the 5870 couldn't even handle the anti-aliasing so they had to turn it off and even then, 480 was at 93%, the 5870 at 32%. Just Cause 2 was a little more even, 480 had 94% gain, 5870 gained 56%.

So considering I can basically count to nearly double my power by jsut sticking in another 480, and they will certainly drop in price by the time I have to actually buy a 2nd one, it will be a very cheap and easy upgrade to put me back up on top.

PhysX is also the shit.

FInally, PSUs are fairly cheap, especially witha  given update, and with my already mildly overclocked 480, I have barely reached 80C when my fan was at 70% at full load, so even the temp isn't a problem. So yes, you can only gain by going with a 480 over a 5870, and it is definitely worth the extra 25% in dollars.