What would you do

Z

zod96

Suspected BAD TRADER
Joined
Feb 23, 2008
Messages
2,709
If you had your choice between a 4870 1gb or a Xfx GTX260 Black Edition what would you keep and why? This would be for 1680x1050 and games like, COD5, BF2, Oblivion and GRID
 
Taking into consideration that you're running a X48 board, keep the Radeon. You could throw a 2nd one in there later for CrossFire.
 
That is true :) never thought of that. But say you don't have a MB yet and your building new..then what would you get...
 
For me, it would come down to price. I'm not partial to either side of the GPU wars.

Do you already have both cards? If so, try them both out and see which suits you personally. You can't go wrong with either.
 
Yeah I'm actually trying out both now. And of course their are parts that I like on the 4870 more than the GTX260 and their are parts on the GTX260 that I like better than the 4870.....
 
The 4870 tends to offer higher frame rates, but the 260 has shown to offer more consistancy in FPS variation while giving more than playable frame rates. The 4870 outshines the 260 when AA is enabled (which you might as well use at 1680x, because it's basically free.)
 
Stick with the GTX260 and overclock it....then you will know which one is better!
 
I'm not really sure that was part of the original question anyway, but yes.. you could overclock both cards and see how they compare.

However, stock comparisons are better to determine a cards mettle.
 
The gtx is already overclocked big time. They both appear to be the same gps wise. It's image quality I'm looking at now, and drivers.
 
ATI has shown to have better IQ in quite a few situations. However, Nvidia's driver suite has shown to be less problematic for some users.
 
Well if your after Image quality and don't mind a couple of FPS drop. Go for the 4870 it will do you good then the GTX260 if the above if all your after.
 
TheGamerZ said:
The 4870 tends to offer higher frame rates, but the 260 has shown to offer more consistancy in FPS variation while giving more than playable frame rates. The 4870 outshines the 260 when AA is enabled (which you might as well use at 1680x, because it's basically free.)
Click to expand...

You can throw all that conventional wisdom out when comparing either HD 4870 to the XFX GTX 260 Black Editon. Especially with the most recent drivers. It oftentimes keeps pace with or beats a stock GTX 280.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/xfxgtx260black/
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/830/1/
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/xfx_geforce_gtx_260_black_review/
 
I still don't know which one to keep. I guess you have to balance image quality and Fps and drivers. So the nod for IQ goes to the 4870 and Fps to Gtx260 and the drivers is a toss up...
 
Not again...

Both companies have their own driver problems, I can link to people with nVidia driver problems if you want to.
 
Oh I know that :) Ati and Nvidia both have their problems. The one thing I hate about Ati drivers is you have to install microsoft's .net crap
 
Get the GTX260 for $139.95 from ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
 
zod96 said:
Oh I know that :) Ati and Nvidia both have their problems. The one thing I hate about Ati drivers is you have to install microsoft's .net crap
Click to expand...

You don't. .Net is for CCC and drivers come with and without CCC. CCC is for adjusting different features and many use ATT (ati tray tools) instead. .Net comes preinstalled with Vista btw.

If you care about quality of the playback in movies, go ATI. AA filter quality, go ATI. More FPS, go Nvidia (at least with todays drivers). PhysX, go Nvidia. ATI stream with free GPGPU encoding, go ATI. Rumors state that ATI will have some big bangs in 8.12 and some more in 9.1.

ATI and Nvidia both have their share of problems concerning drivers. Many "problems" not even related to the drivers.

Google nv4_disp
Google nvlddmkm
Google atikmdag

Anyone who says either ATI or Nvidia gives a problemfree "plug and play" installing of drivers for all and everyone, lives in a fantasy world. Some have had no problems with ATI and some have had no problems with Nvidia. I've had both ATI and Nvidia cards and ironed out most of the problems related to drivers. Not everything is compatible with everything and drivers are "plug and pray" from both companies.

Nvidia do get faster optimizations for some games they've worked closely with the developer(for most, ATI and Nvidia already have it ready before release). Almost all games work on both ATI and Nvidia to start with. Many Nvidia TWIMTBP have been faster on ATI card despite this. If this is crucial for you, then you should get a Nvidia card.

Personally, I got a 4870X2 on its way to me. IQ matters most to me and from what I have seen, ATI's current offering is better. If Nvidia's offering would have been better after my preferences, I would have gone Nvidia. My last card was 3870X2 (second core died, so it got RMA's. Worked still though) and card before that 8600GT (it was advertised as good on video, but it really wasn't).
 
I'm going to keep the 4870. I've had really nothing buy Nvidia cards in the past and I would like to try something new. I also tested the IQ with GRID. I first ran FRAPS and took some screen shots with the GTX260 and then with the 4870. And although they both looked good, the 4870 had better IQ overall imo. Another thing is I can get a nice aftermarket cooler for the 4870 and run it near silent and excellent temps. With the GTX their's no aftermarket coolers. I know thermalright had one but they pulled it because of overheating issues. Its nice to go with team red just for the sake of change :) I also think the 2d IQ was better as well, text looked sharper and clearer and the colors looked better on the ATI card...
 
TheGamerZ said:
I'm not really sure that was part of the original question anyway, but yes.. you could overclock both cards and see how they compare.

However, stock comparisons are better to determine a cards mettle.
Click to expand...

Not really. If you used that mentality with comparing the i7 920 to the 965EE then everyone would be buying the 965EE instead if they could afford it. But since a 920 is capable of pulling 4Ghz numbers there's really no point in spending all that money on a 965EE because it will obtain around the same clocks on aircooling.

It's the same way with video cards. The GTX 260 core 216 has a lot more headroom to OC than the 4870 and so it's capable of gaining quite a bit more performance from stock. The 4870 and especially the 4870x2 have very little headroom and you don't really gain any increase in performance from OC'ing them. They just run hotter.

alg7_munif said:
Not again...

Both companies have their own driver problems, I can link to people with nVidia driver problems if you want to.
Click to expand...

Yes we all know you can link us to lots of nVidia driver problems, especially the ones which are user created and easily fixed lol.

I've been doing quite a bit of research the last few days comparing the GTX 260 core 216 in SLI to the 4870x2 myself and have been trying to decide which of the two to go with. Performance wise a GTX 260 and a 4870 are going to offer you around the same performance with a nudge to one or the other in certain games. ATI does seem to have more in-game driver issues though that can prove to be problematic in a few games. A quick google search of "4870x2 Oblivion" and you can see all the users having issues with things like poor performance, shader problems, stuttering, ect.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...official&hs=txH&q=4870x2+oblivion&btnG=Search

The positives to ATI that have kept me on the fence deciding though is that the 4870x2 is a single card solution which will take up less expansion slots, it will use a little less power than two GTX 260's in SLI, and 2D IQ is said to be better along with high AA quality and performance. The negatives though would be heat output, noise, and the possible driver issues I may experience in the games I'd be playing like Oblivion. I'm probably going to end up buying both and seeing which I prefer.
 
GTX 260.

My 4870 freaking sucks in Oblivion (my settings never stick) and the driver was a PITA to install.
 
alg7_munif said:
Not again...

Both companies have their own driver problems, I can link to people with nVidia driver problems if you want to.
Click to expand...

I was searching for more eVGA x58 motherboard reviews today and was reading this short first look article over at Anandtech and when I read this paragraph here I had to laugh lol.

Our video card choice is the Sapphire HD 4870 512MB edition. We originally had decided to test with the Sapphire 4870X2 card but constant driver problems prevented us from effectively utilizing the card in our first benchmark results. The latest 8.11 drivers were a welcome relief but problems still exist in a few games with AA disabled. We will show CF results with the 4870 and SLI capabilities with the GTX260 in our X58 mini-roundups. At this point, at least in motherboard testing, we prefer the NVIDIA GTX260/280 series on the X58 due to better driver support.
Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3459&p=4

Even Anandtech agrees that nVidia has better driver support. :)
 
burningrave101 said:
I was searching for more eVGA x58 motherboard reviews today and was reading this short first look article over at Anandtech and when I read this paragraph here I had to laugh lol.



http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3459&p=4

Even Anandtech agrees that nVidia has better driver support. :)
Click to expand...

I guess that you are twisting the words:
at least in motherboard testing, we prefer the NVIDIA GTX260/280 series on the X58 due to better driver support.
Click to expand...
The truth is nVidia do have a better driver for X58 platform, ATi driver for the X58 is not quite ready yet but there is a hotfix specific for the X58.

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=38664
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top