Why are Most People Still Recommending the 4870?

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ajaidevsingh

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
563
0
0
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"
 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
0
0
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.
 

ajaidevsingh

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
563
0
0
Originally posted by: BFG10K
Originally posted by: ronnn

I am confused with this, as I thought 512mb of ddr5 is better than 768 of ddr3? Not that I don't think more is better.
Better at transferring data on a narrower width, but not better at storage space.

More is not better every time.. More Ram means more access time and means slower performance...

In my view Memory Transfer bandwidth would be more important...!!

Eg: You can clear a 1 rooms in 10secs or 2 rooms in 20secs...

Also why did no one mention the Memory Interface.. ATi has 256bit and Nvidia 260 has 448 and still they have similar bandwidths with ATi leading...!!

112 vs 115
 

Qbah

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 2005
3,754
10
81
The HD4870 is faster and cheaper. At least it is where I live (not everybody lives in the US ;)). And I also had only problems when running my 7800GT. Though it's not like I say *Do not buy a GTX260 for you will burn in the depths of hell if you do!* :p Cheaper + faster + less problems = win.

Not to menion monthly certified drivers. Unlike waiting half a year for *one* update for the 8-series :p
 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
0
0
Originally posted by: Creig
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Anybody know when the 1GB version of the 4870 is going to be released? Cost?

1GB 4870's have already appeared for pre-order on a German site:

http://geizhals.at/?cat=gra16_...el&xf=653_ATI~132_1024

The price for a standard 512MB 4870 on their site is 221 EUR which is $340 US. Their pre-order price for a retail 1GB 4870 is 244 EUR which is $375 US. They also have a bulk/lite version available for $235 EUR which converts to $361 US.

So it appears that a 1GB 4870 is going to ask a $30-$35 premium over the 512MB version. Not a bad price for those who use very high resolutions with AA.

Interesting... any benchmarks available yet?
 

evolucion8

Platinum Member
Jun 17, 2005
2,867
3
81
Originally posted by: taltamir
Originally posted by: evolucion8
The Physix on GPU's is a nice feature, but yet far from being ideal with current GPU's, the performance drop is just too great. We all know that the UE3 engine performs quite fast and is very efficient, I would be hard to see GPU PhysX running smooth in more demanding tittles when is not even that smooth on the UE3 Engine. Physix on GPU is nice, but not until we have more powerful GPU's. HD 4870 is overall better than the GTX 260. I would pick the HD card.

that is not what I am seeing:
Physics (software): 11fps
Physics (with GPU acceleration): 40fps
no physics effects at all: 66fps.

The game is nice and smooth without any physX effects, with physX effect the game play itself jumps ahead by years, cloth, water, destructible environment, hail, secondary destruction. everything is just increased to futuristic levels. with the CPU only it makes you drop down to unplayable 11fps, with GPU acceleration you only drop down to 40fps.

This isn't an unacceptable drop, people take bigger drops for AA which brigs you a slightly sharper image, which is nothing compared to all those things physX brings.
It is also hard to quantify exactly how much performance you are giving up, because there are differing amounts of graphical features add, how many destructible items are on the screen? how much water? what about fabric?

The way I read the above figures is that GPU physX accelerate give you 3.64x the performance. The drop to 1/6th speed when doing CPU render only is just an indication of how much new physics effects were added. Games could add more, or less, depending on their target hardware. But for a given card, it can almost quadruple its FPS by accelerating physX.

The cool thing is, that NGO said they ported physX to AMD cards, and both nvidia and AMD engineers are now aiding them in developing it further. So I am sure it is only a matter of time before we see physX on AMD cards.

Heck, then remove your nVGoogles and see reality, 26fps drop in performance on a single player map on a not very demanding engine is not that nice. Raise the Anti Aliasing levels, raise the resolution, use a multi player map, use a more demanding engine like Crysis and see if the drop in performance would be the same, because it wouldn't. PhysiX on nVidia hardware runs on some areas of the chip which are idling and doing nothing/or takes away some stream processors for physX calculation which will leave less execution resources for graphics, it doesn't work like magic, remember, each nVidia Stream Processor can only do 1 operation per clock, from 128 stream processors, 35 could be used for PhysX (Don't know exactly, but for the impact in performance seen, seems that is more), and the 93 left for graphics which may not be sufficient once the load increases.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

did you miss my O/C'ing results?:
Well, i did not get so much of an OC without hitting 85-C and getting a VPU recover message in 3DMark06. The problem appears to be the low fan speed. It never really cranks way up like my 2900xt does. i will look for utilities to force it to 90% or so and try again ,,, later

However, stock is 750/900 and CCC pushes it to 790/1100. With AMD GPU Clock Tool, i could stably get 810/1150 and then i ran into heating issues and a too quiet VGA fan.
[EDIT] i get 12656 at stock 4870 speeds [or a bit below my 2900 crossfire pair at 13090]. At 790/1100 i got 13193 and at 810/1150 i got 13222 [the highest ever for my system, so far]

actually that isn't too bad for "free"

Of course, my CPU might also be holding me back a little bit; and i will remedy this shortly, but that is no reason to keep the higher GPU OC for now.
 

ajaidevsingh

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
563
0
0
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

Actually 4870 does get a good boost.. As good or better than the 260 in some games. The RV770 is a great core rumors were about that it could go up till 1000Mhz which seems truer by every day...!!!

 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
0
0
Originally posted by: apoppin
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

did you miss my O/C'ing results?:
Well, i did not get so much of an OC without hitting 85-C and getting a VPU recover message in 3DMark06. The problem appears to be the low fan speed. It never really cranks way up like my 2900xt does. i will look for utilities to force it to 90% or so and try again ,,, later

However, stock is 750/900 and CCC pushes it to 790/1100. With AMD GPU Clock Tool, i could stably get 810/1150 and then i ran into heating issues and a too quiet VGA fan.
[EDIT] i get 12656 at stock 4870 speeds [or a bit below my 2900 crossfire pair at 13090]. At 790/1100 i got 13193 and at 810/1150 i got 13222 [the highest ever for my system, so far]

actually that isn't too bad for "free"

Of course, my CPU might also be holding me back a little bit; and i will remedy this shortly, but that is no reason to keep the higher GPU OC for now.

Oh sorry I didn't see that. Was 790 the highest you could go before heat became an issue?
 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
0
0
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

Actually 4870 does get a good boost.. As good or better than the 260 in some games. The RV770 is a great core rumors were about that it could go up till 1000Mhz which seems truer by every day...!!!

That would be quite cool! Has anything been released to break the OCing cap on the 4870s? I know for a while CCC was the only reasonable way to OC it, anything like Rivatuner been updated to OC that sucker?
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
Originally posted by: dadach
Originally posted by: taltamir
people took "there is no reason to get the GTX260 at this price" which was said by every reviewer out there as "there is no reason to get the GTX260". The GTX260 is actually cheaper now. I would recommend it over the 4870.

Also AFAIK most countries simply looked at nvidia's price slashing, laughed, and kept on selling the GTX260 for 700$ and the GTX280 for 1000$ (current prices in india for example).

how can you claim that you know what other people thought?

because they said so?


Originally posted by: Scoop
Must suck to live in a country where the HD 4870 is more expensive than GTX260. Glad I don't live there :p

It is called the united states... and having a 4850 for 125$, a GTX260 for 225$, and a 4870 for 240$ is as far from "suck" as you can get.
 

Munky

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2005
9,372
0
76
The GTX 260 doesn't handle AA nearly as well as the 4870, longer card, generally at stock doesn't pump out as many FPS as the 4870.

That right there is enough reason for me to pick a 4870 over the gtx260. I don't care about 3rd party vendors, unproven OC potential, unproven PhysX performance at gpu-bound resolutions, and debatable subjective features like the cooler.
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
all those things are proven, not unproven. They just matter less to some. Making an informative choice is the key. know how much it is worth to you compared to the other card, see how much it sells for in your country, and buy the one that is the better deal.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: apoppin
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

did you miss my O/C'ing results?:
Well, i did not get so much of an OC without hitting 85-C and getting a VPU recover message in 3DMark06. The problem appears to be the low fan speed. It never really cranks way up like my 2900xt does. i will look for utilities to force it to 90% or so and try again ,,, later

However, stock is 750/900 and CCC pushes it to 790/1100. With AMD GPU Clock Tool, i could stably get 810/1150 and then i ran into heating issues and a too quiet VGA fan.
[EDIT] i get 12656 at stock 4870 speeds [or a bit below my 2900 crossfire pair at 13090]. At 790/1100 i got 13193 and at 810/1150 i got 13222 [the highest ever for my system, so far]

actually that isn't too bad for "free"

Of course, my CPU might also be holding me back a little bit; and i will remedy this shortly, but that is no reason to keep the higher GPU OC for now.

Oh sorry I didn't see that. Was 790 the highest you could go before heat became an issue?

No .. 790Mhz was the original limitation imposed by CCC. i got 810 stable with AMD's GPU tool. i bet i could get 825 pretty easy in a cold room with the VGA cooler cranked up. it seems like 1165hz[x4] or so is max on the DDR5 - not bad up from 900Mhz

so from 750/900 = 12656 for 3DMark06
to a max 810/1150 = 13222

that is a fair increase for a medium OC

Edit: actually this is a fairer representation of the Graphics subsystem as the CPU scores are pretty similar:


SM 2.0 Score 5593/SM 3.0 Score 6633 at 750/900
SM 2.0 Score 5807/SM 3.0 Score 6935 at 810/1150
 

ronnn

Diamond Member
May 22, 2003
3,918
0
71
Originally posted by: taltamir
all those things are proven, not unproven. They just matter less to some. Making an informative choice is the key. know how much it is worth to you compared to the other card, see how much it sells for in your country, and buy the one that is the better deal.

I agree, get what you like at a decent price and enjoy.

Reasons for buying fantasy gaming equipment is based on the subjective ... so only serious if you have a vested interest in selling the stuff.
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
11,144
32
91
Originally posted by: apoppin
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

did you miss my O/C'ing results?:
Well, i did not get so much of an OC without hitting 85-C and getting a VPU recover message in 3DMark06. The problem appears to be the low fan speed. It never really cranks way up like my 2900xt does. i will look for utilities to force it to 90% or so and try again ,,, later

However, stock is 750/900 and CCC pushes it to 790/1100. With AMD GPU Clock Tool, i could stably get 810/1150 and then i ran into heating issues and a too quiet VGA fan.
[EDIT] i get 12656 at stock 4870 speeds [or a bit below my 2900 crossfire pair at 13090]. At 790/1100 i got 13193 and at 810/1150 i got 13222 [the highest ever for my system, so far]

actually that isn't too bad for "free"

Of course, my CPU might also be holding me back a little bit; and i will remedy this shortly, but that is no reason to keep the higher GPU OC for now.

why don't you make a custom profile? I set my fan to 37% with a custom profile and it works just fine. I bump it up to 60-70% when running furmark but otherwise just leave it where it is.
 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
0
0
Originally posted by: apoppin
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: apoppin
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I would really like to see a one on one GTX 260 vs. 4870 OCing benchmark that shows performance, heat, power numbers and such. If anyone can link me to one, that would be appreciated. The 4870 will definitely get my attention when a third party cooler is released.

4870''s cooler is good no matter what anyone says.. The fan runs very slow to be quite and thats the main reason why the card runs hot... Fix fans speed and it will run quite cool!!!!

By default 4870 come ahead by a sweet small lead but when the 260 is OCed it behaves almost like a 280 non - OCed...

So an 260 OCed ~ 4870 non-OCed

In power terms they are almost equal i would think an OCed 260 would eat a little more but not much..

Also an OCed 4870 can wipe he OCed 260's shiny behind...

As it stands in single core :-

280<4870<260<4850 "In any case OCed or otherwise"

I've heard that the 4870 doesn't get a big increase in performance compared to the OC of a GTX 260, but then again that is just what I heard.

did you miss my O/C'ing results?:
Well, i did not get so much of an OC without hitting 85-C and getting a VPU recover message in 3DMark06. The problem appears to be the low fan speed. It never really cranks way up like my 2900xt does. i will look for utilities to force it to 90% or so and try again ,,, later

However, stock is 750/900 and CCC pushes it to 790/1100. With AMD GPU Clock Tool, i could stably get 810/1150 and then i ran into heating issues and a too quiet VGA fan.
[EDIT] i get 12656 at stock 4870 speeds [or a bit below my 2900 crossfire pair at 13090]. At 790/1100 i got 13193 and at 810/1150 i got 13222 [the highest ever for my system, so far]

actually that isn't too bad for "free"

Of course, my CPU might also be holding me back a little bit; and i will remedy this shortly, but that is no reason to keep the higher GPU OC for now.

Oh sorry I didn't see that. Was 790 the highest you could go before heat became an issue?

No .. 790Mhz was the original limitation imposed by CCC. i got 810 stable with AMD's GPU tool. i bet i could get 825 pretty easy in a cold room with the VGA cooler cranked up. it seems like 1165hz[x4] or so is max on the DDR5 - not bad up from 900Mhz

so from 750/900 = 12656 for 3DMark06
to a max 810/1150 = 13222

that is a fair increase for a medium OC

Edit: actually this is a fairer representation of the Graphics subsystem as the CPU scores are pretty similar:


SM 2.0 Score 5593/SM 3.0 Score 6633 at 750/900
SM 2.0 Score 5807/SM 3.0 Score 6935 at 810/1150

Not bad at all. I wonder how that compares to an OC'd GTX 260.
 

Munky

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2005
9,372
0
76
Originally posted by: taltamir
all those things are proven, not unproven. They just matter less to some. Making an informative choice is the key. know how much it is worth to you compared to the other card, see how much it sells for in your country, and buy the one that is the better deal.

YMMV with any OC, there's nothing "proven" about it. And I've yet to see gpu physx show any benefit in an actual game using a single card and resolutions 1920x1200 or higher. As far as the cooler goes, the gtx260 may not run as hot, but it runs louder, so it's a trade-off either way.
 

praesto

Member
Jan 29, 2007
83
0
0
Despite which clocks appopin may, or may not reach with his hd 4870 taking a look at xtremesystems where people are editing their bios' to get above 800 core on the 4870 shows that the 4870 is ''inferior'' compared to a 260 gtx if you overclock both. The common oc on a hd 4870 seems to be something like 810-820/1100. Many people are reaching 680+ core and 1500 shaders on their 260 gtx.

But who can guarantee you that the 260 YOU buy will be able to overclock this much? Nobody. Who can guarantee you that the 4870 will perform better on stock clocks than a 260 gtx? Just about everybody. And it handles AA better.

From what I've seen, a 680+ overclocked 260 gtx performs just about the same as a 4870 except in those games where the 4870 beats a 280 gtx, then it obviously also beats an overclocked 260 gtx.

http://www.computerbase.de/art...hnitt_uebertaktbarkeit

In this test, computerbase.de manage to overclock the 260 gtx to 729/1512/1120 which yields 18% extra performance in company of heroes, world in conflict and Jericho. Now that does put it ahead of the 4870 in some occasions, obviously everybody won't be able to get such high clocks.

If both were priced the same, I'd take the 260 gtx just because I like hardware with lots of overclocking potential (without resorting to hard-mods). A gtx 260 costs 50 $ more than a 4870 in my country, and the 260 gtx won't even fit in my case, so the choice is very easy for me.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: praesto
Despite which clocks appopin may, or may not reach with his hd 4870 taking a look at xtremesystems where people are editing their bios' to get above 800 core on the 4870 shows that the 4870 is ''inferior'' compared to a 260 gtx if you overclock both. The common oc on a hd 4870 seems to be something like 810-820/1100. Many people are reaching 680+ core and 1500 shaders on their 260 gtx.

But who can guarantee you that the 260 YOU buy will be able to overclock this much? Nobody. Who can guarantee you that the 4870 will perform better on stock clocks than a 260 gtx? Just about everybody. And it handles AA better.

From what I've seen, a 680+ overclocked 260 gtx performs just about the same as a 4870 except in those games where the 4870 beats a 280 gtx, then it obviously also beats an overclocked 260 gtx.

http://www.computerbase.de/art...hnitt_uebertaktbarkeit

In this test, computerbase.de manage to overclock the 260 gtx to 729/1512/1120 which yields 18% extra performance in company of heroes, world in conflict and Jericho. Now that does put it ahead of the 4870 in some occasions, obviously everybody won't be able to get such high clocks.

If both were priced the same, I'd take the 260 gtx just because I like hardware with lots of overclocking potential (without resorting to hard-mods). A gtx 260 costs 50 $ more than a 4870 in my country, and the 260 gtx won't even fit in my case, so the choice is very easy for me.

No need to edit any BIOS; the AMD GPU clock tool will allow you to OC as high as your 4870 will go.

At the time i had it, i had no fan adjustment tools. i guess RivaTuner supports it now. And i guess my 4870 is falling right in with the average - 810/1150 .. a substantial increase.

But then i am no GPU overclocker. i'd much rather keep it stock [or a mild 790/1100] and add a 4870x2 for an X3 solution which will handle any game at 19x12 with max AA [except perhaps Crysis at 'very hi' :p]
 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
0
0
I've been reading some PhysX previews / reviews of the PhysX Pack, and it sounds like the added PhysX is quite cool. I think it will be interesting to see how it is implemented into future games. Seeing fully destructible environments would definitely get my attention.

Regarding the FPS drop with PhysX, of course there would be, why would anyone think that adding higher quality physics would be a "free" upgrade? When you add more effects to a game, it generally requires more power. Too many people are scrutinizing PhysX because it bogs down your FPS compared to no PhysX at all. I think running physics on the GPU compared to the CPU is a more fair comparison, showing a HUGE increase in FPS. If going from no PhysX to PhysX makes your game unplayable, then welcome to progression, it can suck at first for some, but this can really make gaming a more immersible experience for today and the future.

IMO being able to add a second card that is dedicated to physics is an awesome idea. It will allow anyone with an old DX10 card to still utilize it (given you have 2 PCI-E slots).
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
2
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Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Not bad at all. I wonder how that compares to an OC'd GTX 260.

GTX 260 @ 640MHz Review

Both cards scale well with increased clockspeeds, the 260 typically gets at least 1:1 with core/shader increases in that review with an 11% overclock. Many users report OCs in the 15-20% range over stock.

The RV770 also scales very well, as the 4870 is essentially a 20% overclocked 4850 with more bandwidth. It shouldn't be much surprise the 4870 is typically 20-25% faster than the 4850. Overclocking headroom is much lower on RV770 however, as creating a stable 4870 clearly ate up room for much improvement.
 

Sureshot324

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2003
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Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
PhysX and DX 10.1 are both vaporware in terms of game support that anyone should care about, so count both out for now.

Hot Deals prices for both have been in the low 200s so calling one cheaper isn't always accurate either.

Both ATI and nvidia have had driver issues, and the better nvidia vendors must be balanced against alleged manufacturing quality problems with the GTX cards.

At stock, the 4870 is faster. Setting a Catalyst profile is very easy then the card runs cool.

So: unless you plan to overclock and aren't able to watch for deals, the 4870 is still the better choice in my opinion.

At $2xx instead of $4xx the GTX 260 is now a decent choice though.

The manufacturing defects seem to be limited to the GTX 280, but with the GTX 260 being so similar in design, it makes me wonder if similar issues will start popping up for the GTX 260.

The GTX 260 basically IS a 280 with manufacturing defects. They just disable the defective parts.
 

airhendrix13

Senior member
Oct 15, 2006
427
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Originally posted by: chizow
Originally posted by: airhendrix13
Not bad at all. I wonder how that compares to an OC'd GTX 260.

GTX 260 @ 640MHz Review

Both cards scale well with increased clockspeeds, the 260 typically gets at least 1:1 with core/shader increases in that review with an 11% overclock. Many users report OCs in the 15-20% range over stock.

The RV770 also scales very well, as the 4870 is essentially a 20% overclocked 4850 with more bandwidth. It shouldn't be much surprise the 4870 is typically 20-25% faster than the 4850. Overclocking headroom is much lower on RV770 however, as creating a stable 4870 clearly ate up room for much improvement.

Interesting to hear. If the GTX 260 OC's like my 8800GTS 640, then the GTX 260 can OC well beyond 640mhz.

Thanks for the link!