should I buy?

[Knowname]

I'm looking to upgrade from my horrid integrated video. Now integrated (nforce 980a/ 780a) isn't that bad as I'm very concerned about my electricity use and I barely game anyway so... but I miss having the choice lol. I've recently decided I'm at the point where I can afford a little more but I don't know how much :/ I first wanted a gt240 for 75 bux and that wouldn't raise my bill up very much at all :| even if I leave my computer on 24x7. Then procrastinating (the only hobby where procrastination HELPS) got me thinking about a 5670 for 95 bux but looking at the weekend deals I might even get this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102866

a 4860 (never heard of this chip...) for $105 after rebates!! Now I did consider the 46xx and 47xx series but all are either really hot or really power hungry or both. I can live with really hot but... the power thing is a killer.

Anyway any ideas about this card? I don't know, even when given the opportunity, I hardly game *.* I just hate to get a card that eats 80w+ at IDLE while I surf the net all day! I can do that at 5w on integrated! Anybody know anything about this card?

My mobo is An Asus M4a deluxe/hdmi (I think) and I use a 24" 1080p lcd :/ so yeah, obviously integrated doesn't work... though it is decent if I want to play at low resolutions. I was thinking of going GTX260 and deal with the Hybrid Power thing (will upgrade again when decent AM3 mobos come out... looks like 2011 though)

 

[happy medium]

The 4860 is a power hog.

If power is a concern, go with a 5770 @1080p res.
This card has very little idle power usage but you can still game with it.

If your not a hard core gamer go with a 5750.

 

[Arkaign]

5750 or 5670 would be my picks, given that you don't game much. They will game decently, far better than your current, and they will use more power, but less than GT240/GTS250/GTX260.

 

[Knowname]

If I did the GTX260 it can do Hybrid Power though meaning it'd just run off my integrated and power down when Idle lol. But well the 260 is expensive AND I'd be eschewing Dx11. OFC I won't be using it more than a year but... and I hear Hybrid Power is so buggy that Nvidea even dumped it!

5670 sounds like a good one, for 95 bucks shipped. I was looking at that but... can it really do games like MW2 at 1920x1080??

5750 sound like a decent buy... at about the same price at a GTX260??? GAH! And because I got an Nvidea mobo I kinda' wanna stick with Nvidea? I mean heck (not that I'd EVER afford it lol) the board is triple sli ready!! I'd feel like I'm wasting SO much space just by going ATI lol.

Decisions, decisions... but thanks for the suggestions. (Win7 64bit, Phnom II x3 720BE not OCed but just never tried due to no case fans... I prefer the quiet o.0)

 

[Knowname]

looks like the 5670 would do alright at 1080x then... at least for the current titles. :/

 

[veri745]

I'd guess you would be really happy if you went 5750, especially if you were looking at the 4860.

Low power, great performance for <$120

 

[AzN]

If you are going to use 1080P I would get the 4860. The amount of bandwidth it has it will likely crush the 5750 @1080 with AA but yea 5750 have low power consumption like everyone said.

 

[Knowname]

yeah it looks like a bandwidth monster lol but the power suckage scares me :|

ok new idea, is the old .65 nano 192 stream processor version of the gtx260 worth 140 bucks shipped?
http://cgi.ebay.com/896MB-PNY-NVIDI...emQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item27ae98469a

I'm obviously willing to forget about power usage and just pray that the Hybrid Power thingy works in Win7 64bit. My psu is a Tuniq 600w that's supposed to be VERY efficient.

 

[happy medium]

yeah it looks like a bandwidth monster lol but the power suckage scares me :|

ok new idea, is the old .65 nano 192 stream processor version of the gtx260 worth 140 bucks shipped?
http://cgi.ebay.com/896MB-PNY-NVIDI...emQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item27ae98469a

I'm obviously willing to forget about power usage and just pray that the Hybrid Power thingy works in Win7 64bit. My psu is a Tuniq 600w that's supposed to be VERY efficient.

yea ,but not a penny more.

 

[AzN]

Why would you get that when 4860 is cheaper, eats about same wattage as GTX260 and just as powerful in games?

4860 could be a monster. it's based on the 4890 design. Less core and lower clocks. overclocked it would crush 5750/5770 or 4870 without much trouble.

 

[bryanW1995]

yes, but 4860 wouldn't match his nvidia mobo...yet one more reason why nvidia needs to continue building mobos.

 

[cbn]

I would pass on that HD4860.

Not only is it expensive, the GPU power is lower than HD4850.

 

[Knowname]

because I plan to attempt hybrid power which is not possible with the 4860 on my nvidea based motherboard. worse off I could just sell the thing and buy a 5750 if it doesn't work.

Then again 1) reselling this might be iffy lol this guy seems to be having trouble selling it at nearly 70 bucks less than the rest!! and 2) Hybrid Power is supposed to be tricky to do? I may just end up pulling the card whenever I want to go integrated and if I do THAT I may as WELL go 4860 :/

Then again I may want to use the 260 core 192 as a physx ppu in the future... also if I did the pull method with the ati card I'd have to switch drivers every time... or just have both loaded... if that even works lol.

edit:
the 4860 is expensive? I thought it was only 100 bucks...

 

[happy medium]

Why would you get that when 4860 is cheaper, eats about same wattage as GTX260 and just as powerful in games?

4860 could be a monster. it's based on the 4890 design. Less core and lower clocks. overclocked it would crush 5750/5770 or 4870 without much trouble.

No way , the 4860 has 640 sp's vs (800 for a 4850/4870) and is onpar with a overclocked 4850 at best.

 

[AzN]

I would pass on that HD4860.

Not only is it expensive, the GPU power is lower than HD4850.

Hardly. 4860 is based on RV790 core that should be good as 4890 overclocking potential. At stock it's a bit faster than 4850. For $110 after rebate the potential is there whether you take advantage of it is another question.

4860
Pixel Fill Rate: 11200 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 22400 MTexels/sec
Bandwidth: 96 GB/sec
FLOPS: 896 GFLOPS

4850
Pixel Fill Rate: 10000 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 25000 MTexels/sec
Bandwidth: 63.552 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1000 GFLOPS

AMD named it 4860 for a reason because it's faster than 4850.

 

[AzN]

No way , the 4860 has 640 sp's vs (800 for a 4850/4870) and is onpar with a overclocked 4850 at best.

A overclocked 4850 it's not as it has bandwidth that rival 4870.

900 core
900/950 memory

That was typical overclock for this card without over volting if you read newegg's review. Some got them higher with overvolting through soft hack.

at these speeds vs 4870

4860 overclocked
Pixel Fill Rate: 14400 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 28800 MTexels/sec
Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec / 121.6 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1152 GFLOPS

4870 stock
Pixel Fill Rate: 12000 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 30000 MTexels/sec
Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1200 GFLOPS

You pretty much have 4870 level of performance if not faster.

 

[akugami]

yes, but 4860 wouldn't match his nvidia mobo...yet one more reason why nvidia needs to continue building mobos.

Uhh...what is wrong with an ATI card and an nVidia mobo? My current gamer rig has an ATI 4870 and it's an EVGA mobo with nVidia chipset.

 

[happy medium]

A overclocked 4850 it's not as it has bandwidth that rival 4870.

900 core
900/950 memory

That was typical overclock for this card without over volting if you read newegg's review. Some got them higher with overvolting through soft hack.

at these speeds vs 4870

4860 overclocked
Pixel Fill Rate: 14400 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 28800 MTexels/sec
Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec / 121.6 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1152 GFLOPS

4870 stock
Pixel Fill Rate: 12000 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 30000 MTexels/sec
Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1200 GFLOPS

You pretty much have 4870 level of performance if not faster.

I'd rather have my 5750 overclocked faster then a 5770 (which is as fast as a 4870) then a power hog, hot 4860 with 160 less sp's with an old feature set. A 5750 overclocked to 860 ,1300 = a 5770. (guru 3d).
MIne does 910,1375 if I want it to.

 

[Knowname]

Uhh...what is wrong with an ATI card and an nVidia mobo? My current gamer rig has an ATI 4870 and it's an EVGA mobo with nVidia chipset.

Nothing WRONG with it, it just allows certain timing features to be enabled (theoretically, all features like such seem to be problematic...) such as sli on nvidea boards or crossfire on ati. Also the aforementioned hybrid power and what not on nvidea and whatever ati uses on theirs.

In the end, since the last two examples don't really work anyway but might theoretically? Your not really missing anything but SLI or Crossfire when mixmatching vid card with mobo.

Anyway I looked up the old 260 and it is only a little slower than the new one, but uses a bit less power. I thought it was on a bigger manu process but apparently they're both .65nm?

 

[happy medium]

How about a BFG gtx 260 OC MAX core (216 sp) for $155 (or best offer shipped)?

Offer him 150$.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2045344

Gtx 260 max core vs regular gtx 260 (192 sp)


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...maxcore-216sp-896mb-video-card-review-16.html

 

[AzN]

I'd rather have my 5750 overclocked faster then a 5770 (which is as fast as a 4870) then a power hog, hot 4860 with 160 less sp's with an old feature set. A 5750 overclocked to 860 ,1300 = a 5770. (guru 3d).
MIne does 910,1375 if I want it to.

Well it's an option. Some of don't care about power consumption as utility is included with rent or don't care for 50 more watts at load. With AA even your overclocked 5750 would be slower than 4870.

Just look at Mass Effect 2 benches. http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...lactic-battle-Geforce-versus-Radeon/Practice/

4870 is 17&#37; faster than 5770 with AA @ 1920x1200. If anything your 4750 behaves more like an overclocked 4850 than the 4860 does.

 

[akugami]

Nothing WRONG with it, it just allows certain timing features to be enabled (theoretically, all features like such seem to be problematic...) such as sli on nvidea boards or crossfire on ati. Also the aforementioned hybrid power and what not on nvidea and whatever ati uses on theirs.

In the end, since the last two examples don't really work anyway but might theoretically? Your not really missing anything but SLI or Crossfire when mixmatching vid card with mobo.

I know about those features but as you say, they never seem to work quite the way you want them to. The "timing feature" present on the nVidia mobo's and GPU's are just fancy "turbo" or overclocking modes anyways. I usually tune my computers manually so aside from power saving modes like Cool'n'Quiet, never use them.

Motherboards with an onboard GPU that can switch to a dedicated GPU is certainly intriguing but, and this is only currently, I find that most motherboards that cater to gamers or high performance users don't have an onboard GPU (which I would love for troubleshooting reasons). Also, most people who use dedicated GPU's that are in the mid or high performance range aren't worried about a few extra dollars tacked onto their electric bills. Not that anyone would complain if their GPU's and CPU's were more efficient and less power hungry, it's just not their top priority.

As for SLI or Crossfire, some people use them, some don't. This is probably the biggest reason to pair a motherboard and video card. Problem is most people aren't going to be using two video cards. My feeling is for the majority of users, they're not going to miss it.

Personally, I've paired ATI motherboards with nVidia cards and vice versa. I once thought I'd use SLI but never did. My brother did put SLI'd cards in his last two systems. It's just not a huge deal for me and I'd say for most people.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

EVERYONE. THE 4860 IS NOT A POWER HOG. 80W IS NOTHING for a mid-high end video card! A standard PCI-E slot gives 75w through the slot. The 4670 hits that wall with overclocking. The 4670.

Did you guys even look at the specs?

http://www.gpureview.com/Radeon-HD-4860-card-622.html

 

[Knowname]

How about a BFG gtx 260 OC MAX core (216 sp) for $155 (or best offer shipped)?

Offer him 150$.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2045344

Gtx 260 max core vs regular gtx 260 (192 sp)


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...maxcore-216sp-896mb-video-card-review-16.html

ooh! thanks for the heads up man! I will probably get that within the next 24 hours lol. just bid on the same thing off ebay lol. I should get outbid almost for sure, than I'll immediately get that hehehe. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Knowname]

Motherboards with an onboard GPU that can switch to a dedicated GPU is certainly intriguing but, and this is only currently, I find that most motherboards that cater to gamers or high performance users don't have an onboard GPU (which I would love for troubleshooting reasons). Also, most people who use dedicated GPU's that are in the mid or high performance range aren't worried about a few extra dollars tacked onto their electric bills. Not that anyone would complain if their GPU's and CPU's were more efficient and less power hungry, it's just not their top priority.

lol that's the main reason I picked this m4a deluxe over a dragon platform (am3) at the time! It's both enthusiast friendly (triple sli) and integrated. True, there's not many mobos like that out there. While it's a little counter-intuitive it's VERY handy as a backup plan lol... just in case you lose your job or the economy crashes :/ or something.