i just want to future proof and ive saved up a large sum of money... (700) i already have an Amd Phenom xII quad core...(965 model i think and everything else is good to go!... i just want a stable card and to future proof would a 580 be a good card for me? any other suggestions?

Future proofing doesn't exist.

@AlexW00d said:

Future proofing doesn't exist.

This is the realization I've come to as well. Better spend a little less money and buy new stuff in a couple of years.

@AlexW00d said:

Future proofing doesn't exist.

yeap. Your "future proof" card will be remarkably cheaper because of the better tech available in the future. Just get a card you will be satisfied with now and upgrade when you need to.

@AlexW00d said:

Future proofing doesn't exist.

This.

@ripsaw117:

Is there anything in particular that you want to be able to play at it's very best?

Unless you are really struggling to play games, don't bother. My GTX460 runs everything perfectly fine and is significantly cheaper. Wait until the next generation of cards.

I'd at least wait till the next release of the top of the line graphic cards if you want to spend big.

I'd imagine the next wave of graphic cards will be released in the coming months after the holidays.

yes, yes it is

I try to tell this to my friend all the time. A faster card from the same generation will still be just as out-of-date as the mid-range card in about 2 years. GPUS are a little different, but most people don't realize that when they buy a more expensive processor, they are just getting the better yields from the batch, as the better chips are more stable and able to be clocked higher. The same thing exists in video cards, however, as you'll notice there are cards that cost more even know they have the same namesake. If you look at the specs they are clocked higher and usually 20 or 30 bucks more.

If you've got the cake and want to spend it on a 580 then yes, it's worth it. If you're struggling to pay off the credit cards and it's this or food or something, then no, it's probably not worth it.

These questions always get me. To Bill Gates or Snookie, what's $800? To a starving college student?

Asking if something is worth it depends on what you're worth, really.

I have twin 570s and love them. They run hot as hell and you need a power supply that provides as much juice as a small nuclear power plant, but hey, videogames.

For a price-Performance ratio, you would be better off buying 2 GTX 560 Tis and using them in SLI mode for the same price or cheaper then of a single GTX 580, and the 2 560s would still be more powerfull then a single 580. I'd reccomend that you do that as nothing is future proof and you want osmething that is litterly going to last you some time, and im telling you right now 2 cards will definitely do that for you, thats what im currently running myself, and i didn't fork out 500 dollors on a single card. forked out 500 for TWO!!! :D

step one get an awesome power supply, you can't future proof hardware, but you can future proof your power output. something 800-1000w with at least a gold or platinum star efficiency rating.

step two whatever the best card on the market is, 2 models down is the best card on the market 6 months ago. GTX560 or HD6950. MINIMUM 2GB Video memory don't be stupid and settle for the 1gb because it's 50 bucks cheaper. MORE RAM = BETTER can never have enough.

step three, wait a few months and if you feel your card needs updating buy another 560 or hd6950 for almost half of what you paid for the first one because new cards came out and run it in crossfire or sli, and not worry about draining your pussy ass PSU because you got the balls dropped already in that department.

I currently have an HD5770 which I paid 150 for back in January, not the beastiest card by ANY means but runs bf3 just fine, I picked up a second one for 50 bucks. Seriously that's like 3 weeks of fast food and starbucks. gained 15fps for next to nothing.

NEVER buy the most expensive top of the line card out unless it BLOWS the last model out of the water by like 150fps or something. I made that mistake with my ATI XT1900XT 650 dollars back in 05, that card probably costs like 15 bucks now and would take 10 in crossfire to = the amount of power the HD5770 does. (BUT MAN THE GRAPHICS IN BF2 WERE SO SWEET WHEN I BOUGHT IT HAHA)

Go with a 570 and don't question it. ;)

Never buy a top of the line graphics card

I have one, because I won some money for filling out a survey. If you've got the money, it's a nice card. However, it is over-powered right now. The only game I needed it for was BF3, I literally had no other game that required it. I suppose it sort of is "future" proofing, but only for 2 years at most. If you've got the money to spend on it, sure why not. If you don't, then it's not worth it. Honestly, it won't really make your gaming experience any better, unless your current graphics card is really old. And I've run into problems with it - BFBC2 will crash after an hour of playing multiplayer - I've formatted my computer, wiped my driver registry, re-installed different drivers time and time again and deleted and re-installed the game as well as play with all the graphics settings under the sun, and BFBC2 will just up and die on me and cause my computer to black-screen after one hour of multiplayer, EVERY SINGLE TIME. It's not temperatures - my card doesn't go above 85 degrees, which is well within its tolerance. Also, some games required me to re-install them since I shifted from an ATI setup to an Nvidia set up, and for some reason some of my games just wouldn't work until I re-installed them.

But at least my computer can run almost anything I throw at it. Witcher 2, BF3 Beta, Crysis etc. I'm glad I essentially got it for free, since I won some money through luck. If I had actually spent money I had earned, I don't think I would have been worth it.

To sum up: Is playing BF3 on max very important to you? If not, then you probably should wait until you have more money or it comes down in price. As long as you can handle BF3 on high or medium, then your current graphics card should be fine for you. Also, it depends on the other components in your computer. If you don't have the power supply or your CPU or memory is low/bad, then even the best graphics card in the world won't help you. I was lucky - I only had to get the card. If I had to buy a new power-supply, I wouldn't have got my card.

So yeah - examine your financials and the current state of your computer. It's all relative to how powerful your computer is right now. Most games aren't going to require a 580.

I'm still holding out for that new Voodoo 6 card

@137 said:

step one get an awesome power supply, you can't future proof hardware, but you can future proof your power output. something 800-1000w with at least a gold or platinum star efficiency rating.

step two whatever the best card on the market is, 2 models down is the best card on the market 6 months ago. GTX560 or HD6950. MINIMUM 2GB Video memory don't be stupid and settle for the 1gb because it's 50 bucks cheaper. MORE RAM = BETTER can never have enough.

step three, wait a few months and if you feel your card needs updating buy another 560 or hd6950 for almost half of what you paid for the first one because new cards came out and run it in crossfire or sli, and not worry about draining your pussy ass PSU because you got the balls dropped already in that department.

I currently have an HD5770 which I paid 150 for back in January, not the beastiest card by ANY means but runs bf3 just fine, I picked up a second one for 50 bucks. Seriously that's like 3 weeks of fast food and starbucks. gained 15fps for next to nothing.

NEVER buy the most expensive top of the line card out unless it BLOWS the last model out of the water by like 150fps or something. I made that mistake with my ATI XT1900XT 650 dollars back in 05, that card probably costs like 15 bucks now and would take 10 in crossfire to = the amount of power the HD5770 does. (BUT MAN THE GRAPHICS IN BF2 WERE SO SWEET WHEN I BOUGHT IT HAHA)

I will argue against 2GB for this generation because it's like buying a budget ATI card with 4GB VRAM. Sure, it has VRAM, but its memory banwitdth is so low that it won't be able to process fast enough to actually use all that RAM. Right now all the cards use a 256-328bit pipeline, and that just isn't big enough (card can't process enough data) to effectivly utilize 2GB of VRAM. I'd wait until a card that only has a 2GB option comes out, as it will likely be designed to actually use that VRAM.

AKA, wait till the GTX600's. This gen will be out the door soon, and a $300 GTX600 level card will likely match the GTX 580 when it's OCed.

@Mcfart said:

@137 said:

step one get an awesome power supply, you can't future proof hardware, but you can future proof your power output. something 800-1000w with at least a gold or platinum star efficiency rating.

step two whatever the best card on the market is, 2 models down is the best card on the market 6 months ago. GTX560 or HD6950. MINIMUM 2GB Video memory don't be stupid and settle for the 1gb because it's 50 bucks cheaper. MORE RAM = BETTER can never have enough.

step three, wait a few months and if you feel your card needs updating buy another 560 or hd6950 for almost half of what you paid for the first one because new cards came out and run it in crossfire or sli, and not worry about draining your pussy ass PSU because you got the balls dropped already in that department.

I currently have an HD5770 which I paid 150 for back in January, not the beastiest card by ANY means but runs bf3 just fine, I picked up a second one for 50 bucks. Seriously that's like 3 weeks of fast food and starbucks. gained 15fps for next to nothing.

NEVER buy the most expensive top of the line card out unless it BLOWS the last model out of the water by like 150fps or something. I made that mistake with my ATI XT1900XT 650 dollars back in 05, that card probably costs like 15 bucks now and would take 10 in crossfire to = the amount of power the HD5770 does. (BUT MAN THE GRAPHICS IN BF2 WERE SO SWEET WHEN I BOUGHT IT HAHA)

I will argue against 2GB for this generation because it's like buying a budget ATI card with 4GB VRAM. Sure, it has VRAM, but its memory banwitdth is so low that it won't be able to process fast enough to actually use all that RAM. Right now all the cards use a 256-328bit pipeline, and that just isn't big enough (card can't process enough data) to effectivly utilize 2GB of VRAM. I'd wait until a card that only has a 2GB option comes out, as it will likely be designed to actually use that VRAM.

AKA, wait till the GTX600's. This gen will be out the door soon, and a $300 GTX600 level card will likely match the GTX 580 when it's OCed.

Valid point about the pipeline, granted the argument about it not being fully utilized is just as valid as someone who has 8 gigs of ram in a gaming computer that's not going to be fully utilized, or a 4 core processor with 4 virtual cores won't be fully utilized, etc, etc, etc. It's just having the wiggle room

Monitor size is something that you should probably mention.  If you are running something lower than 1080p then quite possibly the 580 may be a bit overkill unless you are running more than one monitor.  570 seems to be a sweet spot for single monitor users.

1080p is what im running

@CosmicQueso said:

I have twin 570s and love them. They run hot as hell and you need a power supply that provides as much juice as a small nuclear power plant, but hey, videogames.

Yeesh. I just bought a 570 for my rig. It has as Corsair 850 PSU... Would that suffice for SLI 570s someday?

@Barrock said:

Go with a 570 and don't question it. ;)

This is the right idea tbh, but I wanted more graphics so I got a 580 on launch.

@SirPsychoSexy said:

Never buy a top of the line graphics card

590 is technically top of the line (although it's just 2 580's sellotaped together and underclocked), so there's that too.

@ripsaw117 said:

i just want to future proof and ive saved up a large sum of money... (700) i already have an Amd Phenom xII quad core...(965 model i think and everything else is good to go!... i just want a stable card and to future proof would a 580 be a good card for me? any other suggestions?

As everyone else here has said, there's no such thing as future proofing. The 580 is a good card, but it's price/performance ratio isn't great. The 560 is arguably the card with the best price/performance ratio out there right now.

@bonorbitz said:

@CosmicQueso said:

I have twin 570s and love them. They run hot as hell and you need a power supply that provides as much juice as a small nuclear power plant, but hey, videogames.

Yeesh. I just bought a 570 for my rig. It has as Corsair 850 PSU... Would that suffice for SLI 570s someday?

Dunno... but I picked up this bad boy which seems to do the job. 1200 watt Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold. And if your case doesn't have good air flow and heaps of fans consider upgrading. These things run hawt.

570 would be the better option.

@CosmicQueso: @CosmicQueso said:

@bonorbitz said:

@CosmicQueso said:

I have twin 570s and love them. They run hot as hell and you need a power supply that provides as much juice as a small nuclear power plant, but hey, videogames.

Yeesh. I just bought a 570 for my rig. It has as Corsair 850 PSU... Would that suffice for SLI 570s someday?

Dunno... but I picked up this bad boy which seems to do the job. 1200 watt Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold. And if your case doesn't have good air flow and heaps of fans consider upgrading. These things run hawt.

Nice! I have a Cooler Master HAF X with an extra fan attached to the card using a bracket that came with the case. I also have the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ for the CPU with dual fans. OC'd, my card doesn't go above 69c at full load.

I run two GTX 580s in SLI...completely overpowered, but I play at 2560x1440, so I need it for some games. A GTX 570 will play 99% of games out there, and should be good until at least 2 years, just be prepared to not be able to play on absolute highest settings with AA a year from now.

@TotallyEpic said:

I run two GTX 580s in SLI...completely overpowered, but I play at 2560x1440, so I need it for some games. A GTX 570 will play 99% of games out there, and should be good until at least 2 years, just be prepared to not be able to play on absolute highest settings with AA a year from now.

not be able to max games in a year with a 580 or a 570? on a 1080p moniter

@ripsaw117 said:

@TotallyEpic said:

I run two GTX 580s in SLI...completely overpowered, but I play at 2560x1440, so I need it for some games. A GTX 570 will play 99% of games out there, and should be good until at least 2 years, just be prepared to not be able to play on absolute highest settings with AA a year from now.

not be able to max games in a year with a 580 or a 570? on a 1080p moniter

Usually every year there will be a small selection of games that come out that tend to make last year's top cards start to buckle under the pressure a little, forcing you to drop the AA or a few graphics settings for said games. For people that demand to always have the highest quality possible, they upgrade the next year after or sooner to stay on the bleeding edge, because they are the more extreme of enthusiasts. For many, many others the differences are tolerable enough to make the card last for longer than that just because what people want in graphics is relative to how much you cared about graphics in the first place.

This might help a little: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063.html

They test 30 graphics card in Battlefield 3 which could be the most demanding game around at the moment.

@Barrock said:

Go with a 570 and don't question it. ;)

570 is beast :-)

the 580 is definitely worth it. Unless you have say a 480 then a second 480 in sli will beat out one 580. If you get 2 480's make sure you have a good psu. If you have a 460 then the 580 will kill 2 460's in sli. If i where you id get the 580 :)

@AlexW00d said:

Future proofing doesn't exist.

Whatever the top tier card is, buy the one two models below it.

@AlexW00d:

Buy 2 gtx 570 instead its only 60 dollars more.

@PHARAOH: Why are you telling me that?

@137 said:

step one get an awesome power supply, you can't future proof hardware, but you can future proof your power output. something 800-1000w with at least a gold or platinum star efficiency rating.

This...best beginning advice. I'm running 2 570 evga superclocks (actually they are just factory overclocked some I think) powered as mentioned by another poster, the 1200 watt silentgold coolermaster PSU. I also have them in the large coolermaster case and could if I want have even another fan trained on them, but I did not like the channeling. Side fan is enormous. Anyways, they run decently cool....

I have seen another thread where sli except for set purpose of dual monitors is considered wasteful, but I myself will not argue this because really I don't know, and I like my set-up.

I have this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127608

Runs BF3 on high everything at 55 fps, Witcher 2 on Ultra at 40fps. If a new game comes out in the next or so that kills me, I'll just SLI another one. Much better than a single 580. I'd wait.

I have this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127608

Runs BF3 on high everything at 55 fps, Witcher 2 on Ultra at 40fps. If a new game comes out in the next or so that kills me, I'll just SLI another one. Much better than a single 580. I'd wait.

@Stepside said:

I have this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127608

Runs BF3 on high everything at 55 fps, Witcher 2 on Ultra at 40fps. If a new game comes out in the next or so that kills me, I'll just SLI another one. Much better than a single 580. I'd wait.

i have the same card and it works for me. However i am thinking of going SLI... because i can =p

@MrKlorox: I'm sure you'll be fine man. Plus, at $250 (with a rebate), a 2nd 560 is totally doable.

@Marz said:

Monitor size is something that you should probably mention. If you are running something lower than 1080p then quite possibly the 580 may be a bit overkill unless you are running more than one monitor. 570 seems to be a sweet spot for single monitor users.

^this all the way. i run 1680x1050 and there is no need for me to get a top end card. if you are already running at way higher resolution because of a really big monitor then get 2 560ti's. same money and better performance than a single 580.

Seeing as I run a 580 and don't struggle running any game at 1080p, I'd say sure? But I'm sure that there are cheaper cards on the market that can run most of the current games just as well. Skyrim is the only game that makes my PC chug, and that's only in specific cities, and by chugging I mean dipping down to 30-40FPS.

If you've got the cake and want to spend it on a 580 then yes, it's worth it. If you're struggling to pay off the credit cards and it's this or food or something, then no, it's probably not worth it.

These questions always get me. To Bill Gates or Snookie, what's $800? To a starving college student?

Buy the fastest card with the most ram on it you can afford. I have never bought a video card and thought, this is more card than I really needed. I shoulda save my money and got a slower / cheaper card.

Not worth it at all. Get a GTX 570. It is what I am using (although I have two now) but even with 1 I could run games like Metro 2033 every setting maxed at 1920x1080 at 30 fps at least. 580 is seriously overkill unless you are running at post 1080p resolutions.

I would say get a 570 and tell yourself you'll get a second 570 sooner or later but really you'll just wait for the 670...and then tell yourself you'll get a second 670 sooner or later.

That's what I'm doing.

@Swoxx said:

@AlexW00d said:

Future proofing doesn't exist.

This is the realization I've come to as well. Better spend a little less money and buy new stuff in a couple of years.

@Lunar_Aura said:

@AlexW00d said:

Future proofing doesn't exist.

yeap. Your "future proof" card will be remarkably cheaper because of the better tech available in the future. Just get a card you will be satisfied with now and upgrade when you need to.

Listen to them. Just get what you need and not what you want.