ATI or Nivdia?
- Thread starter #1 Duck
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Well ATI is really good for the money. The 4800 series is the best bang for the buck so far. If do have extra money you can go with Nvidia's 9 series cards or their GTX 260/280s. The 4850 is under $200 and is pretty powerful. 4870 is around $300 and is as good as performance as the GTX 280 at a cheaper price. The 8 series cards from Nvidia have really gone down in price and are still kicking as well. You might want to give those a look as well.
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That doesn't make any sense, all the new video cards use the same slot... there really is no difference in what they support except Crossfire or SLI... but other then that they are the same....
All Nvidia Cards use PCI-E
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A SINGLE 4870 is NOT as good as the 280, it's better than the 260 though. If you have two 4870's in xFire then it matches up pretty well to the 280 but, it'd be cheaper to buy an X2.
The only 4800 series card that is the same if not better than the 280 is the 4870X2.
The 9 series cards are not as good as most of the 8 series cards, assuming a higher number means better is a bad thing. :O
In most benchmarks, the 4870 is BARLEY below the 280GTX for $100 less.
The 4870X2 beats out 2 280GTX in SLI in many instances, although not all of them.
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That actually depends on who's benchmarks you're checking into...quite a few that I've read put the 280 well above the 4870 in almost every category.
And a good reviewer will NOT realistically pit the 4870x2 against the 280 because they are not the same concept...it's better to put the 4870x2 agains the 9800GX2 since they are both dual-GPU cards. Since the 4870x2 is in a different class than the 280, comparing their benchmarks is like comparing apples and oranges. To get a true comparison you'd have to SLI two 280s...
(this is not in reference to AWPerator's post...I noticed he said he read comparisons of the 4870x2 against 280s in SLI...just general comments for other readers;-) )
Please do not read this as an inflammatory reply. I am not attempting to say one card is better than the other, or put down anyone's opinions. I'm just suggesting that you always take benchmarks with a fairly large grain of salt. Even though most reviewers are above the board and do their best to stay completely objective, there can be mitigating circumstances. Also, no matter how hard the benchmark programs work, they never quite show you real-world results. So, just remember that as you read the numbers on any piece of new technology.
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I have not seen a single review where the 4870 is anywhere close to the 280 when they're not xFired. Link me to the benchmarks, if you don't mind I'd love to see them.
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right, all nvidia cards use pci-express, but the latest ones i.e. 2680/280GTX use pci express 2.0 And if you dont have a mainboard that supports pci-e 2.0 dont buy the cards that use pci-e 2.0 or you will only use about half the card's power
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This is very true...however since the cards don't have the capability to fill the bandwidth of pci-e, let alone pci-e 2.0, then you really don't have to worry about this yet.
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Technically, the 9800GX2 has the best price/performance. Around $4.62/fps.
The 4870x2 is a beast though. I'm getting one (maybe two) in my next build. Can't decide on whether I should get a dedicated RAID controller or a second X2...
~Gooda~
The 4870x2 is a beast though. I'm getting one (maybe two) in my next build. Can't decide on whether I should get a dedicated RAID controller or a second X2...
~Gooda~
Keep also in mind, most of the games that we play don't take full advantage on the "best/most expensive" cards. Exception of a few titles that is.
I like them both but if were to build a computer today with a budget minded approach it would have to be 4870 from ATI.
If I had money to blow out of my nose and other places, it would be 3 x GTX 280 not because of use or effectiveness (it's really not that effective) but it would give me bragging rights.
If I were a poor bastard, I'd go with 8800 GT because that technology is still very serviceable and great for it's price.
Love both companies, competition can give us the advantage.
I like them both but if were to build a computer today with a budget minded approach it would have to be 4870 from ATI.
If I had money to blow out of my nose and other places, it would be 3 x GTX 280 not because of use or effectiveness (it's really not that effective) but it would give me bragging rights.
If I were a poor bastard, I'd go with 8800 GT because that technology is still very serviceable and great for it's price.
Love both companies, competition can give us the advantage.
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For my newest build, I almost got an nVidia 8800 but (thankyee Jaysus) ATI came out with their new cards just as I was about to order my parts from Newegg.
So I got an ATI 4850 because (a) it had better price / performance than anything nVidia had in that price range, and (b) it is single slot and doesn't need special power besides the standard PCIe cable and (c) Crossfire is an open standard while nVidia's SLI is proprietary.
The ATI 4870 is faster but takes up two slots. You are better off getting 2 X 4850 ... assuming you have two "true" PCI-e 16 slots. (Some older mobos only have one.) I got the Asus P5E with the Intel X38 chipset, which has two true PCIe-16 slots.
Of course if you can afford two 4870s that's even better... but that takes a whopping 4 slots!
Note all the nVidia cards take up two slots, like the 4870. Plus you need a mobo that supports their SLI, which restricts your chipset choices... in fact I think only the nVidia chipset supports their SLI. And they were having problems with it last I heard.
And oh yeah... my 4850 is awesome. I have everything maxed on TF2 and I never see framerates below 60. It runs hot out of the box though, but I found a driver tweak to increase the fan speed which keeps it 20 C cooler.
So I got an ATI 4850 because (a) it had better price / performance than anything nVidia had in that price range, and (b) it is single slot and doesn't need special power besides the standard PCIe cable and (c) Crossfire is an open standard while nVidia's SLI is proprietary.
The ATI 4870 is faster but takes up two slots. You are better off getting 2 X 4850 ... assuming you have two "true" PCI-e 16 slots. (Some older mobos only have one.) I got the Asus P5E with the Intel X38 chipset, which has two true PCIe-16 slots.
Of course if you can afford two 4870s that's even better... but that takes a whopping 4 slots!
Note all the nVidia cards take up two slots, like the 4870. Plus you need a mobo that supports their SLI, which restricts your chipset choices... in fact I think only the nVidia chipset supports their SLI. And they were having problems with it last I heard.
And oh yeah... my 4850 is awesome. I have everything maxed on TF2 and I never see framerates below 60. It runs hot out of the box though, but I found a driver tweak to increase the fan speed which keeps it 20 C cooler.
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