best single-slot gpu on 1680 X 1050 resolution

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dragnandy

Limp Gawd
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Jul 28, 2008
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i have a 20" monitor with 1680 X 1050 resolution. i was planning on getting the HD4850 because of its bang for its buck price. but ive decided that i can spend more money on the video card. and ive been reading about the HD4870, but i dont know if fit will really be an improvement on my resolution. which one should i pick? also, at this resolution, would the upcoming HD4870 x2 be any better?
 
i thought u were aiming for single slot?

if not, the 4870 would get you some awesome frames at the rez
 
i meant as in i only have one pci express 2.0 slot. and the hd4870x2 only takes up one slot right? the one thats NOT crossfire.

would there be a big difference from hd4870 and the hd4850?

Sirk1000, ill put that in my noteworthy pile :rolleyes:
 
4870x2 would be great, but I think the power of that card would not be realized at that resolution. A 4850 or a 4870 would be fine.
 
thanks silver for narrowing it down. but now i have to decide, which would be better? i read that the 4870 wont be that much of an upgrade from a 4850 because of the resolution im at right now. but can someone correct me? what do you guys think is the best for the price?

also, would i need to get a vga cooler with the video card since they are really hot? or would it be easier to just up the fan speed alittle?
 
The 4870 will be an easier all inclusive solution, as it dumps the hot air outside the case and you can simply up the fan speed.

I like my 4850 at that res however, I have it overclocked with an aftermarket cooler. Depends on what you want to do, honestly.
 
A 4850 will handle most games at max detail at that res, but a 4870 will handle practically everything (except for Crysis, of course). It's up to you whether it's worth it to go with a 4870 or not, although it's likely that a 4870 will last you longer at that res, so if you intend to keep the card for a while, it would be a better choice than a 4850.
 
thanks. i think im going to get the 4870, but the price on the 4850 is really attractive compared to its performance. is there any sign that the 4870 price will drop after the 4870x2 comes out?
 
dragnandy said:
thanks. i think im going to get the 4870, but the price on the 4850 is really attractive compared to its performance. is there any sign that the 4870 price will drop after the 4870x2 comes out?
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There are some rumours that the price of HD 4870 will drop a little but don't expect much, maybe $20-40 at most.
Don't think it will happen until the 1gb HD 4870 is out though.

Gaming at 1680x1050 myself, upgraded from a 8800GTX, and I see a big gain in most games and a small gain in a few.
 
hmm, $40 is pretty good for me.

is there a big performance boost from 512mb 4870 to the 1gb one? what do they really do?
 
On average, 4870 is about 30% faster than the 4850 at 1600x1050 4XA/16XAF and about 14% faster at the same res no AA or AF.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870,1964-19.html

If everything fits in the 512MB of videoram, a 1GB card will make zero difference. If a game happens to use more than 512MB, performance will tank with a 512MB card while a 1GB card will just fly along. Currently, no game really uses more than 512MB unless you run at some crazy resolution - however a 1GB card might be a little more future proof.. With a 512MB card you might be forced to lower the texture resolution one notch in future games that are designed for 1GB cards.
 
oh, so about how long until there will be games for 1gb cards?

and do you know much and when the 1gb version for the 4870 will come out?
 
dragnandy said:
oh, so about how long until there will be games for 1gb cards?

and do you know much and when the 1gb version for the 4870 will come out?
Click to expand...

Haven't seen any date or price yet but my guess would be early September and about $330-350, but that's just a wild guess.
Games for 1gb is alredy out there but mostly at very high resolutions like 2560x1600.
 
dragnandy said:
i have a 20" monitor with 1680 X 1050 resolution. i was planning on getting the HD4850 because of its bang for its buck price. but ive decided that i can spend more money on the video card. and ive been reading about the HD4870, but i dont know if fit will really be an improvement on my resolution. which one should i pick? also, at this resolution, would the upcoming HD4870 x2 be any better?
Click to expand...

I game @ 1680x1050 and I'm real happy with my VisionTek 4850.
 
oh, so about how long until there will be games for 1gb cards?
Click to expand...

At 1600x1050 - probably another year. I mean, some games might offer an "Extreme" option for Texture Detail sooner, but it won't look very different unless you walk right up to a wall. Developers won't waste time and money designing super-high resolution textures until a sufficient number of users have 1GB cards. Also with such big textures, you'll need 4GB of RAM and a card with lots of memory bandwidth - a 1GB 4850 would be pretty useless and a system with 2GB of RAM would have to page to disk alot, slowing things down. This also means you'd have to go 64-bit on the OS side...

What's the rest of your system like? If you have a slower CPU, the 4870X2 doesn't make much sense. That only makes sense if you have a very fast CPU and play at very high resolutions.

If you can afford the extra $'s for the 4870, it's a nice improvement over a 4850 and it also comes with a dual-slot cooler which means less hot air dumped inside your case. But the 4850 is one great deal at its current price.
 
i have a nzxt tempest, which is pretty much like the antec. q6600, but im going to try to OC that to 3.0ghz for a little boost soon. 4gb G.Skill or corsair ram (i havent gotten these yet). Corsair 650TX.

honestly, i dont really have a budget, but i would like to only spend a reasonable amount of money. i think i would get the 4870, but the 512mb seems to be holding me back, as i would like to make it a little MORE future proof (i know, thats impossible). so now im leaning towards the 4870 x2, which is coming out in like a week. but thats like an extra $200. or $300 more from a 4850. do you think that the extra 200/300 dollars is worth the improvement? i mean, i dont like throwing money around but i also dont want to keep upgrading my components very often.
 
oh. so what do you guys think? would the HD4870x2 be worth it, at my resolution for $200 more? the plus side is that i virtually any game (almost) can play on max and that its mroe future proof, but is it worth it?
 
dragnandy said:
oh. so what do you guys think? would the HD4870x2 be worth it, at my resolution for $200 more? the plus side is that i virtually any game (almost) can play on max and that its mroe future proof, but is it worth it?
Click to expand...
at 1680 even the 4850 is pretty damn good but go with the 4870 if you want a little more room to run more AA/AF and higher settings for upcoming games . the 4870x2 would not be worth it at that res because even a single 4870 would get the job done with plenty to spare.
 
dragnandy said:
thanks. looks like ill get the 4870.
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good idea. by the time more games come out that will tax the 4850 and 4870 at that res the 5800 series will be out. it never makes sense to just blow money for "future proofing" because when the future gets here there will be cheaper alternatives that will be even faster. it makes much more sense to get a good price/performance gpu that gets the job done with some room to spare and then upgrade to another one if and when the time comes.
 
using 4870 at 1680X1050 and it's working great and fast, u'll be surprise how powerful these cards are. if u can afford it the 4870 is the card to get for this resolution to max out most of the games today, with some future proofing. the 4850 however is good but lacks the future performance headroom.
 
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