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What video card should i get?

B

Byte

Platinum Member
I was originally going to get a Powercolor 4870 512mb since its freakin $115 ar since its freakin almost $100. But then I kinda talked myself into getting a Asus 1GB for $150 since i run 24" and figure i can one day xfire it for $100 and probably beat whatever 5870. But since i'm spending $150, i figure i'd go with nvidia gtx260 because i like their drivers better and idle power is so much less. So now I'm generally debating to get an MSI ocv3 with the better cooler and o/c or an XFX for the double lifetime warranty. What do you guys think? Would it be worth the risk in warranty for the better cooler? Also is the MSI cooler more quiet than 8800GTS stock? If you got all the way down here thanks for reading!!
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when i was going to pull the trigger on the 4890 i got a few weeks ago, i came down to two choices: sapphire vaporx and powercolor pcs series.

i think both are solid choices. if you dont mind the noise and have good case cooling i would opt for the powercolor.

i was also considering a gtx260, but opted for the 4890 because of the non reference coolers.
 
if you can afford xfx go with that. i owned one and it's real peace of mind. although I think I overpaid like 20 for it compare to a soso brand like msi. however I;m using a msi OC edition of 4850 with an excellent zalman ripoff cooler, it's very quiet. but if you oc the card, I recommend setup another 120mm blow across it to dissapate heat. i like this msi cooler a lot, well made, simple and sturdy. my old 8800gt by xfx is louder if you need to know.
 
Originally posted by: Yukmouth
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but isn't the ATI 3800x2 dual core board faster than the 4850's/4890's?
Click to expand...

yea and it also runs hotter and louder, using more power, and it has scaling issues last i checked. i also havent seen one for sale in ages
 
Originally posted by: Spikesoldier
when i was going to pull the trigger on the 4890 i got a few weeks ago, i came down to two choices: sapphire vaporx and powercolor pcs series.

i think both are solid choices. if you dont mind the noise and have good case cooling i would opt for the powercolor.

i was also considering a gtx260, but opted for the 4890 because of the non reference coolers.
Click to expand...

What did you buy? The Vaporx?
How is it?
 
The MSI 260 is the way to go. It comes with 55nm B3 chips. Unless you get an XFX Black Edition, there is no guarantee their regular 260s use the newer B3 chips.

Check out this review and overclocking of the MSI board:
http://www.overclockersclub.co...gtx_t2d896_oc_v3/5.htm

Having said that, the MSI board will dump all the heat into your case.

But, the 4890 with cash back: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...de=10010282&ps=homain1 is the better value imo if you are going to be overclocking. I myself was debating between the MSI 260 OCV3 and for $25 more went for the 4890 board.

Also there is a rumour that ATI may release their new cards on September 10th.
 
Originally posted by: faxon
Originally posted by: Yukmouth
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but isn't the ATI 3800x2 dual core board faster than the 4850's/4890's?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

No, it's not even close. 3870 X2 only has 512MB for each GPU on board and the fact that 4890 1ghz OC is sometimes nearly double the performance of a 4850.

Let's compare the specs in stock form:

Manufacturer: ATi
Series: Radeon HD 4890
GPU: RV790
Release Date: 2009-04-01
Interface: PCI-E 2.0 x16
Core Clock: 850 MHz
Shader Clock: 850 MHz
Memory Clock: 1950 MHz (3900 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 124.8 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1360 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 13600 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 34000 MTexels/sec

vs.

Manufacturer: ATi
Series: Radeon HD 3870 X2
GPU: RV670 x 2
Release Date: 2008-01-28
Interface: PCI-E 2.0 x16
Core Clock: 825 MHz
Shader Clock: 825 MHz
Memory Clock: 900 MHz (1800 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec
FLOPS: 1056 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 26400 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 26400 MTexels/sec

When you overclock the 4890 OC to 950gpu/4400 memory, you will get:

Memory Bandwidth: 140.8 GB/sec (22% more than 3870 X2)
FLOPS: 1520 GFLOPS (44% more than 3870 X2)
Pixel Fill Rate: 15200 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 38000 MTexels/sec (44% more than 3870 X2)

3870 X2 also will not scale 100% so you cannot even take its theoretical performance figures at 100% face value.

Also 3xxx series had inferior AA implementation which wasn't running off the shaders. So 8AA performance is dismal.
 
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