Which 4870 1GB?

[Mr. Lennon]

Right now I'm looking at the ones that have the heatpipe cooling on them.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814131120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127397
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121291
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102801

Which one do you guys think I should go for?

 

[adairusmc]

Your links seem to be broken.

I have this one paired with my 4870x2, and it runs real nice. The cooler works really well fixed at 30%, keeping it below 55C at load.

 

[Mr. Lennon]

Originally posted by: adairusmc
Your links seem to be broken.

I have this one paired with my 4870x2, and it runs real nice. The cooler works really well fixed at 30%, keeping it below 55C at load.

Woops, links working now.

I think it's coming down to the asus vs the sapphire you linked.

 

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: Zeppelin2282

Originally posted by: adairusmc
Your links seem to be broken.

I have this one paired with my 4870x2, and it runs real nice. The cooler works really well fixed at 30%, keeping it below 55C at load.

Woops, links working now.

I think it's coming down to the asus vs the sapphire you linked.

Well, the Asus card is an awesome card, but go with the one that has the best warranty. The asus card was not even out when I got mine, so I went with the sapphire. Not sure how Asus compares to sapphire when it comes to warranty though.

 

[msi1337]

even though I own a 512mb Sapphire, I have heard some horror stories about their warranty process

from what I gather, you have to pay to do an RMA, its like a $20 fee..and you have to ship your card back to Hong Kong.

I would personally go with the MSI one, but I am biased

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: msi1337
even though I own a 512mb Sapphire, I have heard some horror stories about their warranty process

from what I gather, you have to pay to do an RMA, its like a $20 fee..and you have to ship your card back to Hong Kong.

I would personally go with the MSI one, but I am biased

Holy crap......that sucks

 

[Cheex]

I bought the stock cooler HIS first and then the Sapphire heat pipe cooler card. Unfortunately I won't be able to keep both (can't afford it....mixup resulted in me buying two).

Anyway, I'll be selling the stock cooled HIS and keeping the heatpiped Sapphire.
Haven't overclocked it yet but right away I see waaaaaay better temperatures than the stock cooled HIS.

Sapphire gets my vote. :thumbsup:

 

[error8]

My Sapphire needed a stupid bios update to work properly. I noticed that crashes in GTA IV were only related with the stock bios of the card. I almost RMA it, until I've read that quite every "blue PCB" had the issue.
And just because of this, I'll never buy another Sapphire videocard. A videocard should work out of the box, not after bios updates or other stuff.

Personally I wouldn't get any of those linked, being scared about the VRM cooling, since I don't know how those little heatsinks installed on them will be enough in the long run. The stock cooler of the 4870 is the best for this card. But maybe I'm little paranoiac and they would be enough. I don't know....

 

[Cheex]

The Sapphire card that I have is a "blue PCB" and it works right out of the box.
Also, the main heatsink is directly on top of the thermal pads on the VRAM chips.
Also, it has a second heatsink attached to the power circuitry.

 

[AshPhoenix]

SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB :thumbsup:

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Cheex
The Sapphire card that I have is a "blue PCB" and it works right out of the box.

I had the same impression for like, 3 months, until I had a screen corruption in Dead Space , then Autocad was the one that failed on me and finally GTA 4 was totally unplayable, it crashed at every 5 minutes.

Who knows, maybe the latest batch doesn't have this issue. But I wouldn't risk taking another Sapphire card from now on.

 

[Cheex]

Well I understand. I just got mine. I hope I don't end up with those problems.

 

[Quiksilver]

MSI or Asus would be my choice.

 

[Zillatech]

I would check out the new HIS 4870 IceQ4+ 1GB card. It should be hitting retail any day now ~

http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-414.shtml

 

[aggressor]

You can just buy mine so I can pick up a gtx260 216

 

[solofly]

Originally posted by: Cheex
The Sapphire card that I have is a "blue PCB" and it works right out of the box.
Also, the main heatsink is directly on top of the thermal pads on the VRAM chips.
Also, it has a second heatsink attached to the power circuitry.

Mine works great too...

http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic11yz1.jpg

 

[dguy6789]

There was a bad batch of Sapphire cards. A bios update was released promptly that completely solved the problem, and of course the new cards they produce don't have the defective old bios. At least they offered the bios update at all, other companies would likely just force you to rma or never even acknowledge that the problem exists. Sapphire fixed the problem without people even needing to send their card in.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
There was a bad batch of Sapphire cards. A bios update was released promptly that completely solved the problem, and of course the new cards they produce don't have the defective old bios. At least they offered the bios update at all, other companies would likely just force you to rma or never even acknowledge that the problem exists. Sapphire fixed the problem without people even needing to send their card in.

Yeah, we should give them credit for that. At least they've released a fixed bios and they had good instruction on how to flash it, without killing the card. But, then again, this issue shouldn't have been there in the first place.