9800GTX+, HD 4850 or GTX 260 for my SFF PC?

E

exlink

Supreme [H]ardness
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Well I'll be building myself a SFF PC soon and I will be using the Thermaltake Lanbox Lite case. I will be gaming on it but I'm not looking for the best performance so I'm not looking to spend more than $250 on a video card. I'll be playing the games on my LCD's native resolution of 1680x1050 and would prefer to play at the highest settings for almost all games (except Crysis of course). The three cards that I knocked it down to is the 9800GTX+, the HD 4850 and the GTX 260. I can't decide between these cards because:

9800GTX+
Pros: Low Heat Emission (55nm), Generally Quiet and Cool, Decent Performance for Price
Cons: Weakest of the 3 cards I picked, Considered "Last Generation".

HD 4850
Pros: Great Performance/Price Ratio, Generally performs between 9800GTX and GTX 260 speeds, New form of AA, DirectX 10.1 ready incase it does ever pop-out, Seems to be the budget card to pick.
Cons: Runs HOT! (may cause trouble in a lanbox lite), stock fan can become noisy when turned up.

GTX 260
Pros: Generally best performance of the 3, 894MB of video ram compared to 512MB.
Cons: Probably the worst Price/Performance ratio, 4850 can sometimes catch up to it for ~$80 less.

I'm actually mostly looking at the 9800GTX+ due to the fact that it runs so cool compared to the other 2 cards and still provides decent performance (close to the 4850's). However, I have no experience with the 4850 but does anyone think that it might overheat in a lanbox? Because it is cheaper than the 9800GTX+ and does generally perform better.
 
An HIS IceQ cooled 4850 is coming soon so that should be good as a two slot solution.
 
The 4850 is the only card that doesn't exhaust the hot air from the case, which might be a problem in the small case with poor airflow. Even a 4850 with a dual slot aftermarket cooler pe-installed will still just dump the hot air inside the case, and heat it up just as much as a 4850 with the stock cooler.

Still, the 4850 GPU itself doesn't put out that much heat (only slightly more than the 8800GT), so I don't think you'd have any problems. The 4850 is also slightly shorter and only takes up one slot, which might come in handy in a sff system.

The GTX260 actually runs 1C hotter than the 4850 according to the [H] review: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUyNCw4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
The 4850 also runs much cooler than the 8800GT with a standard single-slot cooler (the 8800GT *does* put out less heat, but apparently the 4850 cooler is more efficient). It does run hotter @ idle however, because of the extremely low fan speed of the 4850 cooler at idle.

Why not a 4870? If you can afford a GTX260, the 4870 should also be within your reach?
 
The LANBOX Lite is actually designed in such a way that the exhaust from the Radeon HD4850 goes right out the top rear vent. Airflow in the case is very much front to back as well, so there should be no problem heat. I would definitely go with he HD4850 for the reasons you already presented.


Also, a JimmiG suggested, why not go with the 4870? 4870's can be had for quite a bit less than the GTX 260 and are superior in pretty much every way... might look into that instead.
 
I say 4870 for highest performer/cheapest price for a performer.
9800GTX+ for cheapest card with high performance.
4850 for cheap next gen new technology card with great speed.
GTX260 I dont really see why bother when you could grab a 4870 instead.
 
Well I decided that instead of getting a single 4870 I'm going to crossfire 4850's. I'm sticking with a normal case and ATX motherboard so I have one more question. I currently have 2GB (2x1GB) Crucial Ballistix SLI-Ready ram, I was wondering if this ram would work with CrossfireX technology? Would the ram being SLI-Ready in any way affect the Crossfire? I want to get 4GB so I don't know if I should get 2x2GB of some other ram if it won't work or just add another 2x1GB of the ram I currently have.

Thanks!
exlink
 
I have both the 260 and the 4870, let me tell you that cards both run neck and neck at every game I played, both incredible cards but tell you the truth I do favor the 260 a bit more because the thing stays ultra cool and quiet.
 
exlink said:
Would the ram being SLI-Ready in any way affect the Crossfire?
Click to expand...

SLI memory is really just marketing. The RAM will work fine regardless of what system you use it in. OCZ also offers a special "Vista-optimised" line as well, which is similarly meaningless. All you should pay attention to is the rated speed and timings.
 
JimmiG said:
The GTX260 actually runs 1C hotter than the 4850 according to the [H] review: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUyNCw4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
Click to expand...

Temperature is *NOT* heat! The idle/load temperature is completely meaningless when comparing the heat produced! The GTX 260 puts out 15w more heat than the 4850 at load, and 3w more at idle (per the [H] eval). The 9800GTX+ is about the same as a 4850 from what I've seen in terms of heat. The 4870, however, puts out 49w more heat than the GTX 260 under load, and a whopping 35w more at idle. Thats a lot of extra heat for a SFF system to absorb.

That said, for a 1680x1050 SFF system, I would go with a 4850 or a GTX 260, choose based on what you are willing to spend. If you can afford the GTX 260, great, go for it. If you can't, the 4850 still puts up one hell of a fight :)

EDIT: I noticed you said you are going 4850 CF. Just so you know, that will put out even more heat than a 4870 - about 6w more under load over the 4870, or 70w more than a single 4850. At 1680x1050 I highly, highly doubt you need that much power, and a single GTX 260 or 4870 would work just as good. But hey, its your money :)
 
kllrnohj said:
EDIT: I noticed you said you are going 4850 CF. Just so you know, that will put out even more heat than a 4870 - about 6w more under load over the 4870, or 70w more than a single 4850. At 1680x1050 I highly, highly doubt you need that much power, and a single GTX 260 or 4870 would work just as good. But hey, its your money :)
Click to expand...

He's forgoing SFF and going regular ATX ;)
 
JimmiG said:
The 4850 is the only card that doesn't exhaust the hot air from the case, which might be a problem in the small case with poor airflow. Even a 4850 with a dual slot aftermarket cooler pe-installed will still just dump the hot air inside the case, and heat it up just as much as a 4850 with the stock cooler.

Still, the 4850 GPU itself doesn't put out that much heat (only slightly more than the 8800GT), so I don't think you'd have any problems. The 4850 is also slightly shorter and only takes up one slot, which might come in handy in a sff system.

The GTX260 actually runs 1C hotter than the 4850 according to the [H] review: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUyNCw4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
The 4850 also runs much cooler than the 8800GT with a standard single-slot cooler (the 8800GT *does* put out less heat, but apparently the 4850 cooler is more efficient). It does run hotter @ idle however, because of the extremely low fan speed of the 4850 cooler at idle.

Why not a 4870? If you can afford a GTX260, the 4870 should also be within your reach?
Click to expand...

As an owner of both an 8800GT and an HD4850, I can tell you that your comparisons between the two are not accurate. Stock cooling, the 8800GT runs MUCH cooler than the 4850 does. Infact, my load temps on the 8800GT was only a couple degrees warmer that the idle temp on the 4850. My 8800GT was also a factory overclocked one. The 4850 consumes about 25-30watts more than a 8800GT, while not a large amount more, it is significant. and unless he has extremely poor or no air flow at all, an aftermarket cooler will most certainly bring, and keep the temps lower than the stock cooler.
 
RamonGTP said:
As an owner of both an 8800GT and an HD4850, I can tell you that your comparisons between the two are not accurate. Stock cooling, the 8800GT runs MUCH cooler than the 4850 does. Infact, my load temps on the 8800GT was only a couple degrees warmer that the idle temp on the 4850. My 8800GT was also a factory overclocked one. The 4850 consumes about 25-30watts more than a 8800GT, while not a large amount more, it is significant. and unless he has extremely poor or no air flow at all, an aftermarket cooler will most certainly bring, and keep the temps lower than the stock cooler.
Click to expand...

Did your 8800GT come with the standard single-slot cooler?

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzNyw4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

The load temperature of the 4850 is 7C lower than the 8800GT. The idle temp is higher, this is because the fan speed of the 4850 is very low when it's idle. The fan will actually only begin its linear increase from 0% at 69C.
 
RamonGTP said:
As an owner of both an 8800GT and an HD4850, I can tell you that your comparisons between the two are not accurate. Stock cooling, the 8800GT runs MUCH cooler than the 4850 does. Infact, my load temps on the 8800GT was only a couple degrees warmer that the idle temp on the 4850. My 8800GT was also a factory overclocked one. The 4850 consumes about 25-30watts more than a 8800GT, while not a large amount more, it is significant. and unless he has extremely poor or no air flow at all, an aftermarket cooler will most certainly bring, and keep the temps lower than the stock cooler.
Click to expand...

You must have had a non-reference cooler then. The 8800GT was pushing 90c load temps on the original reference cooler, and my 4850 doesn't get that hot (last I looked it was like ~82c load)
 
its not a no brainer to get the 4870...they can be had for the same price or even cheaper

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127361

245 after rebate

lowest 4870 is $265......(maybe there are cheaper, but that was just a quick check on Newegg)

either way i have read from atleast 3-4 people on this forum that have both the 4870 and the 260...and each person said they run pretty much neck and neck, 260 a little faster, but the noise and heat is much better for the 260...


at the moment the 260gtx is the $200-300 card to get
 
kllrnohj said:
You must have had a non-reference cooler then. The 8800GT was pushing 90c load temps on the original reference cooler, and my 4850 doesn't get that hot (last I looked it was like ~82c load)
Click to expand...

I had the revised version of the refrence cooler on my 8800 with the slightly larger fan. My 4850 idle's where yours is during load. That was before the DuOrb of course.
 
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