Another user experience; 4850 xfire vs. GTX 280

heatlesssun said:
When I saw this chart I had no idea what to think. I've played hours of CoD4 @ 1920x1200all maxed out on a 9800 GX2 oc'ed to 670 on the core and a GTX 280 oc'ed to 660. At 4xAA, the 9800 GX2 chocked. I would play for a while and then all kinds of stuttering and sound sync issues would begin to pop up. It plain out just didn't consistently, there's no way that you can play CoD4 long at 1920x1200 4xAA maxed out. How can it be faster than a GX2 when the game blows up in your face?

A single GTX 280 is like a whole other world. Absolutely smooth and the colors even look better. The game goes from broken to wonderful.

I see all of the hype and fanfare around the 4800. Its obvious a lot better deal. But I am becoming very leery of places like Anandtech. Maxishine.com.au made the same comment about AA with the 9800GX2 that I saw from day one when I got it in my sig rig: http://maxishine.com.au/documents/gtx280.html

At any rate, it's becoming harder and harder to reconcile reviews these days. The 4800 and the GTX 280/260 reviews are all over the place as others have noted. But no matter what any review says, it can't change what my eyes see.

I simply love my 280's. SLI seems to be working ALL the time without any problems and delivering good to great scaling. Haven't had any microstuttering issues, crashes or crap. Yes, I did have to RMA only my second video which isn't cool but its not a deal breaker either.

I really hate nVidia for screwing up the pricing on the GTX 280/260. It's really making a great product look like crap and its a shame that such a great piece of hardware is being discounted because of the price. Please nVidia, fix this pricing issue NOW! Take the loss, set the price on the 280 at $400 and the 260 and $200 and be done with it. Get the cost down and the performance up a bit and get a GTX GX2 ready to go against the 4870x2 at a good price.
Click to expand...

I think the 280 is the better card:

I also noticed that the [H] has the same max playable settings for a 260, and a 4870 in Crysis:

For the 4870 they have max settings in Crysis at 1920x1200 No AA 16x AF:
Texture Quality:High
Objects Quality: Medium
Shadows Quality: Medium
Physics Quality High
Shaders Quality: High
Volumetric Effects Quality: Medium
Game Effects Quality: Medium
Postprocessing Quality: Medium
Particles Quality: Medium
Water Quality: High

Min=11 Max=41 AVG=27.2



For the 260 they have max settings in Crysis at 1920x1200 No AA 16x AF:
Texture Quality:High
Objects Quality: Medium
Shadows Quality: Medium
Physics Quality High
Shaders Quality: High
Volumetric Effects Quality: Medium
Game Effects Quality: Medium
Postprocessing Quality: Medium
Particles Quality: Medium
Water Quality: High

Min=18 Max=46 AVG=30.1


The 260 is still a wee bit faster...

More reason to think a 4870 and a 260 are close in performance, and that the review sites that have a 4870 listed faster than a 280 are bogus...
 
Dethred said:
Or the P45? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131319

Either way this review is contradictory to everything I've read from reviews and other users.
Click to expand...

Sorry bud, not trying to contradict anyone, just sharing my experience. The board I am using is the Maximus Formula, which is a X38 board. So yes, it's 2 slots at a full 16x. Got to tell you, loaded up Crysis this morning again on the 4850's, ended up shutting it off right away. :rolleyes:

Someone earlier mentioned someone else getting them to work in Crysis, I have seen a few, they all seem to have beta drivers. Not sure where I could get those, but I would love to. I read the same reviews you guys do, I'm just telling you I can't get it to work and between here, anandtech, nvnews and xtremesystems no one else has been able to give me any insight.

I think people may have missed the part where I said I wasn't a fanboy of either camp. I like my money just as much as the next guy. I am rooting for the xfire setup, it's just not delivering right now (for my circumstances). :(
 
Well I'll likely have two 4850s by the time I put my system together, so we'll likely be in the same boat. Let's hope the drivers have matured by then :D
 
wadec22 said:
Sorry bud, not trying to contradict anyone, just sharing my experience. The board I am using is the Maximus Formula, which is a X38 board. So yes, it's 2 slots at a full 16x. Got to tell you, loaded up Crysis this morning again on the 4850's, ended up shutting it off right away. :rolleyes:

Someone earlier mentioned someone else getting them to work in Crysis, I have seen a few, they all seem to have beta drivers. Not sure where I could get those, but I would love to. I read the same reviews you guys do, I'm just telling you I can't get it to work and between here, anandtech, nvnews and xtremesystems no one else has been able to give me any insight.

I think people may have missed the part where I said I wasn't a fanboy of either camp. I like my money just as much as the next guy. I am rooting for the xfire setup, it's just not delivering right now (for my circumstances). :(
Click to expand...

are you using Cat 8.6? There is a "hotfix" driver on AMD's site especially for 48X0 series.

Crysis plays better now on my HD4870 at 16x10 than my 8800GTX played at 11x8 with the same settings. Better, but not "awesomely so" :p
 
Yup. 8.6 with hotfix. Single card performance is much better than original drivers on disk. Crossfire just not working yet. I'm sure it will with 8.7.
 
milkweg said:
OK, that's fine but my days of spending $600.00+ on a video card are over and is why I ordered the 4870. 90% of the performance of a 280 for less than 50% of the cost.
Click to expand...

This is common sense at its best here. I think this logic applies to a lot of gamers, myself included.
 
TalonMan said:
That review is bogus.

It has the GX2 beating the 280 also.

The video link posted above shows that this is NOT the case.
Click to expand...

It's not bogus. It all depends on the resolution and video settings you use. As you can see it only beats the 280 at 1680x1050 with FSAA on which just happens to be the settings I use. Up the res further and the 280 beats it. Knowing that, the 4870 is much better deal than the 280 by far for me because I run all my games at 1680x1050 if possible. If you think their numbers are bogus then email them and tell them so and post back what they say to you. Those are some pretty serious accusations that you have no basis of fact.

BTW, this review that someone else posted in this thread also shows 4870 beating 280 at 1680x1050 in COD4.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=14

4870 = 98.9
280 = 94

At 1920x1200 and higher the 280 beats the 4870 but those resolutions are meaningless to me as I don't use those resolutions. So? Who's going to email the author of the tech report review and claim they are posting bogus numbers? My guess is no one will because I just proved they are not bogus. Or are you going to say they are both bogus now?
 
milkweg said:
At 1920x1200 and higher the 280 beats the 4870 but those resolutions are meaningless to me as I don't use those resolutions.
Click to expand...

How about 4870 in crossfire vs a GTX 280 (at 1920x1200 +)

The crossfire solution is going to perform better, right? How about when you take into account compatibility and microstuttering? Is crossfire worth it?

I'm trying to settle on a GTX280 or a crossfire setup with 4870's. Waiting (for a 4870x2) isn't an option...
 
To me it depends on when good xfire drivers show up. Right now, they only work in a handful of games. :( The 4850's in my rig are screaming with potential, just not getting the "value" out of them right now.
 
wadec22 said:
Yup. 8.6 with hotfix. Single card performance is much better than original drivers on disk. Crossfire just not working yet. I'm sure it will with 8.7.
Click to expand...

i am not getting much difference between Cat 8,6 and the hotfix drivers. infact, i am not so sure what is wrong :(
- my 4870 is barely faster [well, 10-20%] than my HD2900xt crossfire; i am wondering if my [email protected] is slowing it down. I will delve into this today and see if i can get a major OC - before i drop in a QC.

What is the "bang-for-buck" QC CPU that will give me a substantial increase now? i may order it today. My MB is Gigabyte P35-DS3P
 
Grimspoon said:
How about 4870 in crossfire vs a GTX 280 (at 1920x1200 +)

The crossfire solution is going to perform better, right? How about when you take into account compatibility and microstuttering? Is crossfire worth it?

I'm trying to settle on a GTX280 or a crossfire setup with 4870's. Waiting (for a 4870x2) isn't an option...
Click to expand...

In your case and if money is not a concern then I would go with 280. If they can fix the microstuttering issues then I would get 2 4870's. It is probably not fixable though.
 
milkweg said:
In your case and if money is not a concern then I would go with 280. If they can fix the microstuttering issues then I would get 2 4870's. It is probably not fixable though.
Click to expand...

I ended up going with 2x 4870's - I'll probably use these for a month or two then switch to a crossfire 4870x2 solution as they become more widely available.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top