Evga GTX 275 1792gb or Sapphire 4870 2gb for GTA 4

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Face2Face

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Jun 6, 2001
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I am wanting to play GTA 4 maxed out on my 1920X1080 LCD---I know both cards listed will do it, I think the GTX 275 will be $299 upon release and the 4870 2gb is $250.. Or shoud I just get a 4890 or a GTX 260 or 275 896 and say screw it?? Is my computer even capable of handing GTA 4 maxed out even with one of these two monster memory cards listed??
 
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Face2Face

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Jun 6, 2001
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I already own the game and I play everthing at medium settings with 40 viewing distance, 10 Shadows and 50 everything else.. It plays fine --just want to crank it up.
 
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Face2Face

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Jun 6, 2001
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1 gb frame buffer kinda sucks since GTA 4 doesn't support SLI or Crossfire... the 4850 X2 is too much of a beast of a card for me--too long for my case--too loud and too hot...
 
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thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
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Is there a 1792mb version of the 275? I'm pretty sure there was one for the 260 but I haven't seen one for the 275.
 
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Face2Face

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haven't seen one for the GTX 260 --Evga has one coming out soon it's listed on there website and on Fud's site a couple days ago.
 
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Face2Face

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Jun 6, 2001
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That thing is a BEAST!! it looks nearly as long as the 4850X2.. I am thinking it will not fit in my case and where the hell do you find one of those things--If they even were sold in the USA ?
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
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Originally posted by: OCguy
Originally posted by: happy medium
Why not a 4850x2 <<<<2GB for 279.00$/264$ AR? It's Faster then all those cards and the same price or cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102809
Click to expand...

Yea that isnt right. It is really only a 1GB
Click to expand...


Yea I see the 4850x2 is listed as 1gb to. 2x 512mb. My bad.

It's still a hell of a deal but there is still no sli/crossfire support for GTA4. I didn't know that.
Most reviews I've read say more cpu is better then more gpu?
Thoughts? Mabe he should overclock that Q6600 too?

Some interesting stuff about GTA4 and frame buffer usage.

At 2500x1600 res all maximum settings(viewing distance 100%) it pulls 1600mb of video memory.

Pulling back to 36% viewing distance (max detail) it uses 1068mb of video memory.

Benchmarks comparing 4870 1gb and 2gb here.

http://www.driverheaven.net/re...?reviewid=737&pageid=4

discussion here.

http://forums.vr-zone.com/news...gb-vapor-x-review.html

 
error8

error8

Diamond Member
Nov 28, 2007
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Originally posted by: Greenhell6
1 gb frame buffer kinda sucks since GTA 4 doesn't support SLI or Crossfire...
Click to expand...

Is that true? A game from 2009 that doesn't support multi gpu solutions? Crap, then it doesn't even worth upgrading for it.
 
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Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
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GTA 4 is an awesome game, and to see it maxed out @ 1920X1080 would be a beautiful thing...
 
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chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: Greenhell6
I am wanting to play GTA 4 maxed out on my 1920X1080 LCD---I know both cards listed will do it, I think the GTX 275 will be $299 upon release and the 4870 2gb is $250.. Or shoud I just get a 4890 or a GTX 260 or 275 896 and say screw it?? Is my computer even capable of handing GTA 4 maxed out even with one of these two monster memory cards listed??
Click to expand...
Upgrading your video card won't give you higher FPS or smoother gameplay really, it may allow you to crank up view distance and all quality settings though. Even with a 1GB GTX 280, my view distance is limited to ~34-35 because I'm using High Textures. You've probably noticed but turning on High Textures pretty much doubles RAM requirements by itself. Have you tried overclocking your 9800GTX to simulate higher performance levels, to see if there's any tangible improvement?

Here's a pretty good comparison with multiple video cards, including a 2GB 4870 and 2GB GTS 250. It also shows each card heavily overclocked to give you an idea of relative performance levels. The last page has some commentary about the 2GB parts not really showing too much improvement other than subjective smoothness. Its unclear if they tested with maxed out view distance, or not though.

PCGH Video Card Scaling Patch 1.0.3.0

If you want to improve your GTA4 experience with your current rig, I'd try overclocking your Q6600 more as a faster CPU offers the greatest gain in my experience. I just upgraded to an i7 @ 3.9GHz from the Q6600 @ 3.6GHz and the difference in GTA4 is really night and day. Driving is so incredibly smooth and quickly panning or switching the camera angle is much more responsive and, despite what the FPS say.

PCGH GTA 4 13 CPU Comparison
PCGH GTA 4 Core i7 vs. Core 2

Another thing you can try is tweaking your RAM timings, increasing bandwidth, or increasing RAM capacity. I've noticed GTA4 is very responsive to RAM timings, with looser timings having a noticeable adverse impact on FPS. I saw this first-hand when I tried messing with tRFC on my P45 rig and dropped FPS from 54 to 43 in the built-in bench. GTA4 also seems to be one of the few games that sees a tangible improvement from additional bandwidth and multiple channels, as load times are MUCH faster on my i7 rig with DDR3. You can see some of the results here:

PCGH GTA 4 RAM testing

But ya, I think you'd see the biggest gains in GTA4 with a CPU and platform upgrade, but you'll have to ask yourself if you want to spend $600 to play this game in all its glory. The video card upgrade may allow you to crank up view distance, but it won't really do much for the low FPS and overall smoothness that's probably bugging you the most.
 
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Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
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Man..That's not what I wanted to hear...I am too much of a cheap ass to do a entire platform upgrade. I don't see the point of overclocking my Q6600 anymore 400 Mhz might make a couple frames difference. Plus I am running stock voltage on my CPU so it's nice and cool where I want it to be. right now the game plays great--with the settings I previously posted--So you think just getting a Higger ram video card will not allow me to play the game as smooth with the seting cranked up? Going from a e6850 @ 3.6 to a Q6600 @ 3.2 made a bif diff in this game smoothed it out a lot. Overcloking the 9800 GTX does nothing .....to performance.
 
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chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
2
0
Originally posted by: Greenhell6
Man..That's not what I wanted to hear...I am too much of a cheap ass to do a entire platform upgrade. I don't see the point of overclocking my Q6600 anymore 400 Mhz might make a couple frames difference. Plus I am running stock voltage on my CPU so it's nice and cool where I want it to be. right now the game plays great--with the settings I previously posted--So you think just getting a Higger ram video card will not allow me to play the game as smooth with the seting cranked up? Going from a e6850 @ 3.6 to a Q6600 @ 3.2 made a bif diff in this game smoothed it out a lot. Overcloking the 9800 GTX does nothing .....to performance.
Click to expand...
If you are happy with your current performance level, than yes, upgrading to a 1-2GB part would allow you to crank up the IQ settings that eat up VRAM (texture quality and view distance specifically) and maintain a similar frame rate. I wouldn't expect an increase in FPS though, as you'll still be CPU bottlenecked. Also, if you crank up view distance and some of the other eye candy features, like shadows, reflections, car density, etc., you may actually see a drop in FPS as many of those settings are also very CPU intensive.

Personally I do think GTA4 would be a more enjoyable experience with a Core i7 and a slower 1GB video card like a GTS 250 or 4850 compared to a similarly clocked Core 2 Quad with a faster card like a GTX 285 or 4890 etc.
 
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