ATI confuses the crap out of me

[Build it Myself]

Ok, there's the 4830, 4850, 4870....but wait, the 4770 is better than the 4830 and 4850? Or only the 4830...wait, isn't the 4770 an older model??? And the prices are so close I can't tell the difference...

Anyway, I am contemplating building another rig...I built one in Nov. 2007 with an 8800GT KO from EVGA...but since then I haven't kept up with the market.

Since my wife doesn't approve of me building another computer I want this to be reasonable...we're in Italy and my rig is in the States...hence why I want another one, so here's what i've found:

9800GT: same as my old 8800GT, less than $100

4770 whatever: people keep saying this is faster/stronger, etc. but I just don't get what it's being compared to...I see some benches, look at some #'s and it seems comparable to the 9800GT, but then I read some members saying an upgrade to the 4770 was like day and night...

48xx: I'm guessing the 4850 and 4870 are roughly the same cards because of the pricing but how do I decide? Are these better than the 4770 or not?

I suppose that's really all that the market has in this range...I'm looking to keep the card prices under $100 and some of these on newegg are $80-90 range, so that's fine.

So what card do I get?

...oh, and what happened to clubit?? Did they go under?

 

[HOOfan 1]

9800GT</=HD4830<HD4770<HD4850<HD4870

 

[Build it Myself]

Thanks, that answers everything

 

[Aquila76]

And to answer your other question: yes, ClubIT went under about a year ago (May 13, 2008).

 

[KIAman]

Originally posted by: HOOfan 1
9800GT</=HD4830<HD4770<HD4850<HD4870

Hmm, what would this look like if you include maximum overclock potential (non volt mod)?

 

[soccerballtux]

I'd put the 9800gt between the 4770 and the 4850.

 

[Fox5]

ATI names their cards by chip used, not by absolute performance. The 4770 is a relatively new card that's faster than the 4830 and a bit slower than the 4850. The 4850 is about 20-25% slower than the 4870 and has memory half as fast.

 

[FatPat]

You guys seem to really know about ATI cards. I got a GIGABYTE GV-R435OC-512I Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express to use with an HDMI TV/Monitor. I have an NVIDIA 7600GS for 2 LCD monitors. When I installed the ATI driver it wasn't compatible so I uninstalled and installed the ATI 9.5 Vista32 driver and got the same notice of incompatbility. Do I need to replace my NVIDIA card with another ATI card? Appreciate any advice. Pat

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd put the 9800gt between the 4770 and the 4850.

Hardly. Most benches include an OC'ed 9800gt and the 4770/4830 tie or end up quite ahead in nearly all benchmarks.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd put the 9800gt between the 4770 and the 4850.

A 9800GTX is abit slower than the HD4850, so that should give some idea where the 9800GT stands against those two cards mentioned.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: FatPat
You guys seem to really know about ATI cards. I got a GIGABYTE GV-R435OC-512I Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express to use with an HDMI TV/Monitor. I have an NVIDIA 7600GS for 2 LCD monitors. When I installed the ATI driver it wasn't compatible so I uninstalled and installed the ATI 9.5 Vista32 driver and got the same notice of incompatbility. Do I need to replace my NVIDIA card with another ATI card? Appreciate any advice. Pat

Vista doesn't allow you to have both an nvidia and ati graphics card installed at the same time. Windows 7 and Windows XP do allow it, I think.

 

[taltamir]

with XP it is a hit and miss really, depends on the exact models you use and varies based on driver versions used.
with vista it is never allowed.
Win7 it was designed with the possibility of multiple video cards from multiple vendors from the get go so you should have no problems there. you can run an ATI card for video and an nvidia card for physX real easy on win7

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: FatPat
You guys seem to really know about ATI cards. I got a GIGABYTE GV-R435OC-512I Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express to use with an HDMI TV/Monitor. I have an NVIDIA 7600GS for 2 LCD monitors. When I installed the ATI driver it wasn't compatible so I uninstalled and installed the ATI 9.5 Vista32 driver and got the same notice of incompatbility. Do I need to replace my NVIDIA card with another ATI card? Appreciate any advice. Pat

Vista doesn't allow you to mix display card drivers. Only XP and Windows 7 allow you to do that.

 

[FatPat]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: FatPat
You guys seem to really know about ATI cards. I got a GIGABYTE GV-R435OC-512I Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express to use with an HDMI TV/Monitor. I have an NVIDIA 7600GS for 2 LCD monitors. When I installed the ATI driver it wasn't compatible so I uninstalled and installed the ATI 9.5 Vista32 driver and got the same notice of incompatbility. Do I need to replace my NVIDIA card with another ATI card? Appreciate any advice. Pat

Vista doesn't allow you to mix display card drivers. Only XP and Windows 7 allow you to do that.

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll have to use Windows 7. Pat

 

[MarcVenice]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd put the 9800gt between the 4770 and the 4850.

A 9800GTX is abit slower than the HD4850, so that should give some idea where the 9800GT stands against those two cards mentioned.

Once you start oc-ing the HD 4770 not much can keep up, save for the HD 4850.

 

[HumblePie]

With these mid range cards here's the deal.

When Nvidia released the 9800 series, it wasn't any real improvement upon the older 8800 series except for a few speed tweaks. the main improvement the 9000 series did over the 8000 series was add support for directx 10 and in some cases are a die shrink. The die shrink typically allows the 9000 series cards to overclock a bit more than the 8000 series of cards. At stock speeds, the 8800 and 9800 are identical

For Nvidia here's the equivalence(s) in cards.

8800 GTX Ultra = 9800 GTX+ = GTX 250 (these are actually the exact same cards just different names)

Using the above exmple, it continues down from there.

8800 GTX = 9800 GTX... so on and so forth.

As I stated earlier, the 9000 series was a minor improvement to the 8000 series generation of cards. Because of this, and once it was widely known, there were MANY upset gamers who purchased the top end 9000 series cards at premium prices that were not worth it at all. Especially as ATI dropped a major bomb on Nvidia's plans with the 4800 series of cards.

The 4800 series was faster and much cheaper than anything nivida had, especially once the GTX series was released at the same time.

Basically, here's the break down of cards now on average. Some games favor one brand of card versus another as some developers are paid by that company to write their code to favor one camp and not the other.

GTX 295 (dual GPU card) > 4870x2 > GTX 285 ~= 4850x2 > 4890 > GTX 275 > 4870 > GTX 260 > 4850 >>> who cares because for the price the 4850 is the best bottom bang for the buck card.

Since a 4850 card can be purchased for around $100 new it's the best bang for the buck as everything else is worse performance by FAR to save only $5 or $10. In some cases the cards that perform worse than the 4850 in ALL GAMES and 3D applications are still more expensive. Yah, I'm talking about you 9800 GTX+.

I was literally laughing my butt off when I saw the thread in the "hot deals" forum for the 9800 GTX+ being sold for about $100 as a "deal."

The 4770 is probably about the best sub $100 vid card, but the price difference between it an a 4850 shouldn't be enough to break anyone's budget to step up to a 4850 instead. All the sub $100 nvidia cards right now are NOT worth buying. The Nvidia top end cards are still good to go, but the low end is a joke.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: HumblePie


GTX 295 (dual GPU card) > 4870x2 > GTX 285 ~= 4850x2 > GTX280 > 4890 > GTX 275 > 4870 > GTX 260 > 4850 > gts250/4770/4830/9800gtx >> who cares because for the price the 4850 is the best bottom bang for the buck card.

This is a good list, and a good point about the 4850. Overall, a great post from humble pie. sometimes you can find 4850's for $79 A/R. I added some bolded items into the list, and here the cards are according to price:

GTX295 $499
4870x2 $399
GTX285 $320
GTX280 $280
4850x2 $270
GTX275 $230
HD4890 $200
HD4870 $170
GTX260 $160
4870 512 $150
GTS250 $130
9800GTX $110
HD4770 $100
HD4850 $95
HD4830 $80

The sweet spot right in the middle of both these lists is HD4890/GTX275.

I'm taking into account Rebates, deals & Overclocking for these recommendations:

-You can actually get two 4890's for ~ $368 A/R which is the best high-end bank-for-buck.
-Also for the low end I recommend 4830/4850/4770 crossfire (whichever can be found cheapest).
-GTX260 sli is great bang for the buck high end sli at $320.
-Single GPU I'd go with the HD4890 all the way.
-HD4850X2 is a good card for the price as well.
-GTX280/285 are good deals if you prefer nvidia & want single gpu. I was able to hunt down a 285 after rebate/coupon/code/fs/cashback/mir/etc... down to about $225.
-GTX295 and HD4870x2 are good if you want top of the line and only have 1 pci-e slot.
-4890 Crossfire gets my pick. 4850 crossfire for best bang-for-buck @ only $165 a/r.