ATI 4870 vs. nV GTX 260

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

You clearly did not read the review or their conclusion. As they clearly give the edge to the GTX260.

The 4870 is also terrible to overclock as it already runs very hot and you will void the warranty.

Not to mention it's memory limitation in comparison.

So that's 3 strikes against it.

As far as I see in the review ATI's card trades blows with GTX 260 and both cards are very competitive at 1920x1200 (win some, lose some). Of course you could have introduced games like GRID, Test Drive: Unlimited where ATI wins and Mass Effect where NV wins to scew your results. Then again, if we included 8AA results, how well do you think GTX260 would stack up?

But more importantly, when have you ever recommended an ATI card?

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: chizow
Except the 4870 isn't going to overclock nearly as much as the GTX 260. Going by the highest OC'd variants as an indication of attainable OC speeds, you have the GTX 260 FTW @ 666MHz, which is a 15.6% increase over stock. Diamond's XOC or PowerColor's PCS 4870 come in at 800MHz, a 6.6% increase over stock. And that's before considering speeds above the BIOS limited 780/790MHz clocks on the 4870 are impossible without a BIOS flash and changing the default fan profile speeds.

A 4870 doesn't have to overclock as much as a GTX260. In the majority of benches, a 4870 at stock is already faster than a GTX260 and even trades victories with the GTX280. When the 1GB 4870's are released, it will make the 4870 even faster overall since it won't drop performance at 2560x1600 in certain games as the xbit review clearly shows with the 512MB 4870.

It sure does when most agree the 4870 and GTX 260 trade wins at stock clockspeeds and one part still has an additional 10% OC edge at available retail speeds.

Here's a Review that shows GTX 260 OC scaling clearly to stock GTX 260 and 4870

Keep in mind, that's only a 640MHz GTX 260 (11% OC) compared to the 660-666MHz versions out there. And that's also ignoring anecdotal reports of folks hitting 700-750MHz on air with stock cooling on their GTX 260s.

We also know the RV770 scales well with clockspeeds, as we saw with 4850 to 4870 (a nearly linear 20% gain in non-CPU bottlenecked situations) but a 6.6% increase going from 750 to 800MHz just isn't nearly as impressive as 625 to 750 with additional bandwidth.

Diamond XOC Black Edition

The 1GB with 800MHz clocks shows similar, eye-balling the differences were probably 5-6% (1-2FPS) but showed very little benefit of the additional RAM. Whether that difference in performance is worth the difference in price is questionable.

PowerColor 4870 1GB Review

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: chizow
Are you sure about AMD GPU Tool breaking the BIOS limit? Judging from this thread and Fattysharp's reply and others here and places like XtremeSystems, Rage3D etc. it seems thats not the case.

I've also read complaints about load temps on the 4850 and 4870 specificially because the fan does not ramp up as they should. Seems like its hit or miss I suppose based on BIOS, but if you were overclocking to 800MHz and beyond on a 4870 its not something I'd leave to chance.

Screenshot

AMD GPU Clock tool and the latest GPU-Z screenshots registering above the CCC Overdrive lock levels (790/1150). Do these programs give a true reflection of the cards actual speed or is it being fooled into thinking its at 800/1150?

If you need any more tests running, Ill be happy to try them out.

EDIT: I am not trying to argue any point here. I felt as though the AMD GPU Clock tool broke the Overdrive limit of 790/1100. If it doesnt... then fair dues. If it does, it adds something to this thread and benefits those of us who wish to overclock their cards beyond 790/1100 but do not wish to flash BIOSes.

 

[sourthings]

Really not sure where everyone is getting this bogus stuff about 4870s being too hot to OC. Here is the 4870 in my girlfriend's pc, oced to 790/1000, running fairly cool, and if I were to use ATI Tray Tools rather than CCC, likely I could push some more out of it. The ram easily does 1100, I just prefer to keep at 1000, she only plays WoW anyways It's overkill as it is

But here are the temps after a few mins of furmark, not going to go much higher than you see here:

http://i38.tinypic.com/qr0med.jpg

loading at 66, seems fine to me

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Elcs
Screenshot

AMD GPU Clock tool and the latest GPU-Z screenshots registering above the CCC Overdrive lock levels (790/1150). Do these programs give a true reflection of the cards actual speed or is it being fooled into thinking its at 800/1150?

If you need any more tests running, Ill be happy to try them out.

EDIT: I am not trying to argue any point here. I felt as though the AMD GPU Clock tool broke the Overdrive limit of 790/1100. If it doesnt... then fair dues. If it does, it adds something to this thread and benefits those of us who wish to overclock their cards beyond 790/1100 but do not wish to flash BIOSes.

I fully agree, I'm just going by user reports of BIOS-locked CCC maximums and people risking bricking their card to exceed that limit. If AMD's OC tool removes that limit via software its clearly a better option than flashing the BIOS and something people should know about. Does the tool allow you to go higher than 800MHz though? Or is that the limit?

Originally posted by: sourthings
Really not sure where everyone is getting this bogus stuff about 4870s being too hot to OC. Here is the 4870 in my girlfriend's pc, oced to 790/1000, running fairly cool, and if I were to use ATI Tray Tools rather than CCC, likely I could push some more out of it. The ram easily does 1100, I just prefer to keep at 1000, she only plays WoW anyways It's overkill as it is

But here are the temps after a few mins of furmark, not going to go much higher than you see here:

http://i38.tinypic.com/qr0med.jpg

loading at 66, seems fine to me

But you already mentioned you changed the fan profile, which is exactly what I said you would have to do if you hoped to OC at all given reports of 80C idle and 90C load temps at default fan speeds. That's different than a fan profile that throttles accordingly based on temps, which seems to be hit or miss depending on which BIOS you have.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Elcs
Screenshot

AMD GPU Clock tool and the latest GPU-Z screenshots registering above the CCC Overdrive lock levels (790/1150). Do these programs give a true reflection of the cards actual speed or is it being fooled into thinking its at 800/1150?

If you need any more tests running, Ill be happy to try them out.

EDIT: I am not trying to argue any point here. I felt as though the AMD GPU Clock tool broke the Overdrive limit of 790/1100. If it doesnt... then fair dues. If it does, it adds something to this thread and benefits those of us who wish to overclock their cards beyond 790/1100 but do not wish to flash BIOSes.

I fully agree, I'm just going by user reports of BIOS-locked CCC maximums and people risking bricking their card to exceed that limit. If AMD's OC tool removes that limit via software its clearly a better option than flashing the BIOS and something people should know about. Does the tool allow you to go higher than 800MHz though? Or is that the limit?

It allows the core to be set beyond 800. I only increased the core and memory minor amounts beyond the CCC locks just to prove that it seemingly bypasses said locks.

If GPU-Z and AMD GPU Clock tool measure the core and memory clocks beyond what the CCC maximums allow, does that mean that I am bypassing these locks?

It really is odd. I heard someone on this forum using the AMD GPU Clock tool to bypass the clock speeds and I tested it. If theres a way of testing it more precisely, I would.

 

[JPB]

Does the AMD gpu clock tool work with the HD 3870 ?

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: sourthings
Really not sure where everyone is getting this bogus stuff about 4870s being too hot to OC. Here is the 4870 in my girlfriend's pc, oced to 790/1000, running fairly cool, and if I were to use ATI Tray Tools rather than CCC, likely I could push some more out of it. The ram easily does 1100, I just prefer to keep at 1000, she only plays WoW anyways It's overkill as it is

But here are the temps after a few mins of furmark, not going to go much higher than you see here:

http://i38.tinypic.com/qr0med.jpg

loading at 66, seems fine to me

But you already mentioned you changed the fan profile, which is exactly what I said you would have to do if you hoped to OC at all given reports of 80C idle and 90C load temps at default fan speeds. That's different than a fan profile that throttles accordingly based on temps, which seems to be hit or miss depending on which BIOS you have.

Yes you do need to edit a text file to do this. All you do is open the file and add two numbers, being the numerical value of what % you want to fan to run at. In my case I put a 38 in for 38% and the fan is always at that value.

I was just making the point that with the addition of a couple numbers to a text file you can run a 4870 cool and quite receptive to a decent overclock.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Wreckage

So, the GeForce GTX 260 may be considered a formal leader in this competition

No surprise really. It's faster in most games even at stock speeds. Although several companies offer factory overclocked models with a full warranty.

The GTX 260 is not faster in most games. This review shows that very clearly as have others. In a number of games the 4870 is a competitor for the GTX 280. When comparing the GTX 260 to the HD 4870, at the same price, the choice is clear. The only advantage the GTX 260 seems to have is overclocking. Given that the HD 4870 can overclock too, overclocking is not going to give the GTX 260 much of an advantage in performance.

You clearly did not read the review or their conclusion. As they clearly give the edge to the GTX260.

The 4870 is also terrible to overclock as it already runs very hot and you will void the warranty.

Not to mention it's memory limitation in comparison.

So that's 3 strikes against it.

You forget the size (length) of the 260 can be a serious factor in some motherboards so thats a strike against it(won't fit in my motherboard unless I remove my IDE cable lead,thankfully 4870 had no problem).
Monthly official updates is also nice bonus by AMD/ATI(one thing that I never saw when I was using my Nvidia card ),as to overclocking not everybody overclocks so that is not an issue,superior AA performance with the 4870 has already been meantioned,I know which one I prefer .



Fact is you should be thanking AMD for releasing the 4870,Nvidia were ripping off their customers price wise with the 260 until they had serious competition from AMD with the 4870.

 

[Ares202]

Originally posted by: Mem

You forget the size (length) of the 260 can be a serious factor in some motherboards so thats a strike against it(won't fit in my motherboard unless I remove my IDE cable lead,thankfully 4870 had no problem).

The 260 wouldnt have fit in my midi-ATX case so thats two of us

Originally posted by: Wreckage
The 4870 is also terrible to overclock as it already runs very hot and you will void the warranty.

all this fanboyism about the 4870 overclocking horribly is not true at all, you can bypass ATI overdrive with AMD GPU tool general clocks for people are 830/1100 thats not too bad in my opinion, and you can change the fan profile in under 5 munites so that it runs cool

Plus rivatuner 3.0 will be out soon, (september as a rough estimate) which will allow proper fan profiles and overclocking for the 4800 series

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Not to mention it's memory limitation in comparison.

the GTX 260 does overclock better but face it its slower at stock speeds at resolutions <3 million pixels and when it does run out of memory the GTX260 is really struggling for frames at that point too so theres not much of a benefit

 

[Corporate Thug]

hard also seems to like the 260

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...w4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug
hard also seems to like the 260

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...w4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Of course they do...

 

[JACKDRUID]

wow.. i thought anand review had 4870 > 260...

if they are dead-on equal, then i'd pick 260 for physix support...

 

[Qbah]

Err... people argue that a GTX260 is a better overclocker but say a HD4870 is worse cause you need to edit a fan profile?? Obviously OCing a card is cake and editing one .xml file is beyond impossible!... oh wait. The Xbitlabs review first of all uses ancient drivers and also an outdated setup! And even then the HD is competitive! That mobo of theirs and a 3GHz 65nm Core2 CPU, yeah, a great setup... NOT! And still both cards show muscle.

It's like saying a Prius is as fast as a M3, cause you're testing how fast both cars can go on a road with a 60 km/h limit

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID
wow.. i thought anand review had 4870 > 260...

if they are dead-on equal, then i'd pick 260 for physix support...

yes, Anand did put the 4870 > 260 but keep in mind that recommendation was made when the 260 was still at the $400 price point.

With the 260 now sub $250, it's much less black and white.

 

[Sylvanas]

It's like saying a Prius is as fast as a M3, cause you're testing how fast both cars can go on a road with a 60 km/h limit

Lol, I saw that Topgear episode aswell.....M3> Prius as an economical car :beer:

 

[sneakybit]

Very excited after reading this review. I'm choosing ATI this time, but definitely going for the 1GB model.

 

[hohyss]

answer can be kinda subjective since the price cut of gtx200 series.

Id definately go for 4870 if Nvidia retained their original price.

Now that 280 is coming down to $399, along with physx support,( 260 almost as same as 4970 )

I am re-considering my original plan of buying 4870.

There are going to be hundreds games which can take advantage of physx.

List of physx supported games. ( and more are coming out )
http://developer.nvidia.com/ob...hysx_good_company.html