I have a choice ATI or NV?

[mwmorph]

I have a choice, I could either get a HD4870 1GB for $240 or GTX260 Core 216 for $260.

This is for a new budget build so $$ counts and I'm not sure the Core 216 is any faster than a HD4870 1GB. Is it a worthwhile upgrade to go from 4870 1GB to Core 216?

Which one can overclock better % wise? Which one is quieter with the stock reference cooler?

I could not care less about PhysX or DX10.1 and I play games of all different genres and engines. I've used both ATI and NV in the past and either way, the driver issues don't bother me much.

The rest of the build is as follows:
E5200 @3.4GHZ
Gigabyte EP45 D3SL
4gig 1066mhz DDR ram
Corsair CX400 PSU
Tuniq 3 case
Samsung 500gb HDD

 

[SlowSpyder]

Flip a coin. Go with the best warranty, bundle, cheapest. This one has been discussed 4980484 times before.

 

[Wreckage]

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/16229/13

Lists noise, power, heat, etc.

 

[Tempered81]

4870 wins in this poll 67 to 62 votes.

too close to call, really.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...howthread.php?t=213028

 

[Qbah]

Get what's cheaper.

 

[mwmorph]

Thanks, I'm going to go with the 4870. It seemed like the GTX and 4870 traded shots back and forth so I might as well save some money.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
I have a choice, I could either get a HD4870 1GB for $240 or GTX260 Core 216 for $260.

This is for a new budget build so $$ counts and I'm not sure the Core 216 is any faster than a HD4870 1GB. Is it a worthwhile upgrade to go from 4870 1GB to Core 216?

It wouldn't be a worthwhile upgrade, as others have said they perform very comparably.

Which one can overclock better % wise?

GTX 260 will typically overclock 12-20%, 4870 maybe 10% or so. You'll also get a better return per clock in terms of performance. You can see some examples of this with reviews of factory overclocked parts, where the GTX 260 comes close to stock GTX 280 performance. This is all with the stock coolers and voltages of course.

Which one is quieter with the stock reference cooler?

The GTX 260's stock reference cooler is better than the 4870's stock reference, however there are some non-reference 4870 coolers that cool better in single card configurations. Just don't go with the non-reference cooler that doesn't exhaust heat if you think you'll ever go multi-GPU:
Asus Dark Knight Cooler multi-GPU Temps near 100C

Can't really go wrong with either if these are your main criteria if the differences above are worth that $20 or not is up to you.

 

[Denithor]

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The GTX does tend to have a better warranty, depending on which manufacturer you buy from (remember to register within 30 days).

Just look at some of the benchmarks, specifically the games you play. Often one works better in certain games than the other so if you have a favorite game see which one handles it better.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
Thanks, I'm going to go with the 4870. It seemed like the GTX and 4870 traded shots back and forth so I might as well save some money.

Go with the 4870, I made a mistake buying the GTX 260. The overclocking part that chizow is talking about is worthless and it's not even stable. I get the XFX 4870 1GB, best warranty ever!

 

[Udgnim]

you have to state the games you specifically are playing before a decision can actually be made

ATI is better in some games than Nvidia and vice versa.

 

[FalseChristian]

You really can't go wrong with either card.

 

[Keysplayr]

Both cards are very good. You can't go wrong with either for gaming. Just get the better sale/deal/bundle.

 

[AshPhoenix]

If you decide to get the HD 4870, the SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB has great cooling.

 

[cmdrdredd]

IMO Physx and Badaboom are enough for me to buy a Nvidia card without hesitation. That's me though.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
IMO Physx and Badaboom are enough for me to buy a Nvidia card without hesitation. That's me though.

PhysX is a joke, hardly any worthwhile games support it, and the ones that do gain a fraction of a percent of realism in my opinion...wavy cloth isn't that special, nor are tons of particles. Besides, the more powerful of a CPU you get, the less that PhysX means anything. 8 Core 16 thread Nehalem? It can handle all the physics calculations needed in software.

Badaboom is great but it should be provided for free, or for a marginal fee-- $5. $30 just so I don't have to wait on my CPU isn't worth it. The encoding on a BluRay is going to take at least an hour anyways; at which point it doesn't matter if it's 10 hours-- just set it up before you go to bed and you get the same result. I like AMD's approach better. The software sucks right now but
a). Their hardware is documented (3d and everything) now so someone could write software themselves to do that
b). the software will get better
c). It's free.

OP, I would completely go with the 1GB card; similar performance, but double the memory. More future-proof from microstutter in my opinion.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
IMO Physx and Badaboom are enough for me to buy a Nvidia card without hesitation. That's me though.

I might transcode videos for my MP3 player 3x a year at most.

I'm not sold on PhysX, it's just not a big deal. Not worth $20. The game that support it dont really give any decent enhancements. Waving cloth or few boxes in a UT3 map that's never played online just isn't something I care about.