Nvidia GeForce GT 320 or ATI Radeon HD 5570?

ShinyFeatherShinyFeather
edited October 2010 in Hardware
Hello, everyone.

I'd like to ask for some advice when choosing between two graphics cards. What happens is the following. My family bought a brand new PC three days ago (Packard Bell imedia, Phenom II x6 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GT320 1GB, 4GB DDR3 RAM) and my mother wants to use it for photography editing and post processing (which means working with RAW photos, HDR and more). The thing is, she doubts between keeping it or exchanging it with another Packard Bell imedia which has an ATI Radeon HD 5570 and 8GB RAM (we still can) and is 120$ more expensive. The idea is to use it, whichever of the two, with Win7 and Linux.

Now, I guess that the first one is perfectly capable to do what is needed (nobody is willing to play games on the PC), but she is unsure and wants as much advice as possible. What do you think about the case?

Another idea was to get an iMac (intel Core i3, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB), but it is very expensive and we don't know if it is really *that* better. And specially, we don't know if it is easy and fast to get it repaired. So...

What do you think?

Comments

  • pigflipperpigflipper The Forgotten Coast Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    I think going with the second option is a good idea based only on the 4 additional gigs of ram. I confess I do not know enough about current gen graphics cards to make a suggestion on that front though. Anybody else want to jump in at this point?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    The 5770+8GB machine is leagues faster than any of the alternatives you presented, in every core and critical respect: memory, CPU and GPU. It is far and away the best option and, at only $120 more than what you have now, an incredible bargain.
  • pigflipperpigflipper The Forgotten Coast Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    Thrax: does it make a difference that its a 5570 and not the 5770?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    Yes, I suppose I misread. Even so, the overall system performance will be higher than the other options.
  • ShinyFeatherShinyFeather
    edited October 2010
    Ok, so I understand that 4GB of extra RAM can be worth the deal. Thanks.

    But now I would like to ask something about the video card specifically. I don't know if you have experience with RAW photography editing or how much you know the cards, but do you honestly think that in these regards a difference will be noticeable between the cards? I'm talking only of the card, not the extra RAM. Is there much difference between the two?

    Just thinking that more RAM memory can be added in the future, and the retailer where we bought that PC is not just next to my home. But still, we probably are going to do the switch.

    Thanks again for all the advice!
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    The GPU makes no difference when it comes to RAW photo editing unless you're using Photoshop CS5.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited October 2010
    Both cards probably have decent overclock headroom. ATI starts off significantly better and should be your best bet.

    XFX ATI 5570
    Core Clock 650MHz
    Effective Memory Clock 1600MHz (effective)

    NVIDIA GT320 specs
    Core Clock 540MHz
    Shader Clock 1302MHz
  • miragemirage
    edited October 2010
    5770, which is not in question here, is about twice as fast as 5570. On the other hand, 5570 and GT 320 are very close to each other (see here) in performance and I don't think it is worth replacing the GPU either way. I would consider $120 as the cost of memory upgrade and I think it is a ripoff if you have two extra memory slots to buy this.
Sign In or Register to comment.