260 and 4870 are the same price. Help!

[astronomy10]

Now that both the 4870 and the 260 are $270, what is better to choose?

I will be buying 1 card now and another one to run sli/crossfire in the future.
I will be running flight simulators, cod4, crysis, and video editing software.


Thanks


And please! Stop arguing, just give me the facts and your opinion about the subject, not about each other's opinions

 

[mathiasschnell]

4870 has been shown to run slightly better than GTX 260 and will improve over time with a driver update and some hotfixes each month. Get that.

 

[astronomy10]

About how long do you believe it will take for the updates to come out?

 

[mathiasschnell]

There's one every month. Don't know when exactly. The next update is Catalyst 8.7 and it should come very soon if it hasn't already. And it will be the first driver to officially support the 4xxx series I've heard.

 

[astronomy10]

Ok, thanks

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Agree, the 4870. The G260 will be eol or end of life soon, as the newer 55nm version comes out. Also, where the 4870 leads in games, it can really dominate, whereas the G260 may only edge the 4870.

 

[night_wolf_in]

i think at this point the 4870 is better than the 260. it gives the 280 run for its money. if i was you. ill get the 4870.

 

[homerdog]

Right, the 4870 is faster so if they're the same price... this probably doesn't need explaining

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Heres an example of that domination http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14990/9 It even beats the G280 here

 

[invisik]

just wondering how much better is 2 gtx 260 vs 1 9800gx2?

 

[homerdog]

just wondering how much better is 2 gtx 260 vs 1 9800gx2?

OT?

I don't know google it.

 

[invisik]

couldnt find any good reviews with the gtx 260 in sli. =[

 

[dos1986]

Benches from alot of games

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerbase.de%2Fartikel%2Fhardware%2Fgrafikkarten%2F2008%2Ftest_radeon_hd_4870_cf_geforce_gtx_260_sli%2F23%2F&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=de&tl=en

 

[astronomy10]

Looks to me like the 260sli is substantially better than 4870 cf.

 

[concrum]

wow even 4870 CF cant beat Nvidia's mid-range GTX260 SLI LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

 

[dos1986]

Not really, 260 sli vs 4870 cf is very close, win some, lose some.

Sli scales better across the board that is fact, Crossfire boards are way better than Nvidia boards.

 

[robx46]

There is no guarantee that ATI will put out some driver that really gives it some kind of advantage.
I personally don't bank on stuff I have no guarantee of. For all we know the drivers could get worse or just continue to suck.

Looking at the here and here, the 4870 and GTX 260 perform very much the same. Maybe the 4870 is 2 or 3 fps faster in some games, yet the 260 wins in other games.

On top of that (and not sure why this doesn't get mentioned), the GTX 260 is definitely the better overclocker. I know one person with a 30% overclock. I know 2 people who can't even reach a 10% OC with the 4870. When you add OC'ing in as a factor, which you damn well should since everybody and their mother does it (and companies like eVGA are even throwing in their own OC software), then the 260 is the better buy IMO, you really can't make a bad decision here.

The 260 also has the better cooler, and the better drivers right now. You here that the 4870 *will* have better drivers coming. Even if that is true, we need to consider that Nv will be putting out better drivers as well. And you never know when that Cuda will come in handy.

Also, with the software you mentioned you are running, you might want the 400mb more memory the 260 offers. Granted it isn't DDR5, but the 260's DDR3 is still plenty fast and its memory bandwidth is not all that far behind that of the 4870's.
If 512mb of memory is enough for you in all situations, then clearly DDR5 is the better choice. But let's remember that we already have games released that recommend 512mb.

Cut to 5 months from now and games/software will only be more vid ram hungry. There comes a point where if your rig is wanting a tad more vid ram, it doesn't matter how fast ddr5 is when you don't have enough of it. More ram can cure many things that faster ram can't.

I'm not telling you what to get, but rather helping you look at the entire big picture here. What is best for you might not be the best choice for somebody else, especially if you are considering SLI'ing one of these cards in the future.
The 260 definitely isn't a clear loser here. Nor is the 4870. If you run at lower resolutions, are fine with 512mb ram, and don't overclock, then perhaps the 4870 is your better choice. If you do run at higher rez's, think you'll want or need more than 512mb ram, and do want to overclock, then I say the 260 is the way to go.

Think about these things and you really can't make a wrong choice.

 

[invisik]

thanks dos1986 much appreciated.
=]

 

[astronomy10]

There is no guarantee that ATI will put out some driver that really gives it some kind of advantage.
I personally don't bank on stuff I have no guarantee of. For all we know the drivers could get worse or just continue to suck.

Looking at the here and here, the 4870 and GTX 260 perform very much the same. Maybe the 4870 is 2 or 3 fps faster in some games, yet the 260 wins in other games.

On top of that (and not sure why this doesn't get mentioned), the GTX 260 is definitely the better overclocker. I know one person with a 30% overclock. I know 2 people who can't even reach a 10% OC with the 4870. When you add OC'ing in as a factor, which you damn well should since everybody and their mother does it (and companies like eVGA are even throwing in their own OC software), then the 260 is the better buy IMO, you really can't make a bad decision here.

The 260 also has the better cooler, and the better drivers right now. You here that the 4870 *will* have better drivers coming. Even if that is true, we need to consider that Nv will be putting out better drivers as well. And you never know when that Cuda will come in handy.

Also, with the software you mentioned you are running, you might want the 400mb more memory the 260 offers. Granted it isn't DDR5, but the 260's DDR3 is still plenty fast and its memory bandwidth is not all that far behind that of the 4870's.
If 512mb of memory is enough for you in all situations, then clearly DDR5 is the better choice. But let's remember that we already have games released that recommend 512mb.

Cut to 5 months from now and games/software will only be more vid ram hungry. There comes a point where if your rig is wanting a tad more vid ram, it doesn't matter how fast ddr5 is when you don't have enough of it. More ram can cure many things that faster ram can't.

I'm not telling you what to get, but rather helping you look at the entire big picture here. What is best for you might not be the best choice for somebody else, especially if you are considering SLI'ing one of these cards in the future.
The 260 definitely isn't a clear loser here. Nor is the 4870. If you run at lower resolutions, are fine with 512mb ram, and don't overclock, then perhaps the 4870 is your better choice. If you do run at higher rez's, think you'll want or need more than 512mb ram, and do want to overclock, then I say the 260 is the way to go.

Think about these things and you really can't make a wrong choice.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I think about it for a while and see. I want the new computer to be able to last several years before updating the hardware.

Here is another question that might affect my choice. Is the 780i mobo or the x48 mobo "better"?
I was looking at the GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS4 costing $225 or the xfx 780i costing $220

Thanks again

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Please check the AA used in that bench, and who are these people?

 

[dos1986]

Its a legit German site, they are the german version of Maxishine.

 

[homerdog]

Please check the AA used in that bench, and who are these people?

+1

I was ready to give up on this thread, good to see all is not lost.

@astronomy10: The X48 is far better than the 780i. It's seriously not even a competition. Until we see the one nondescript "performance rating" chart from a German website showing that the NVIDIA product is clearly superior 😀

 

[johnnyq1233]

Several weeks ago when the GTX260/280 was alone out there in the market and Nvidia was price gouging their faithful to the tune of 400/650 dollars plus. Then when the ATI cards hit the shelf at less then half the price and very close performance. People were buying these ATI cards like it was boxing day!
Now that Nvidia has finally brought their cards down to the price they should have launched at we have a real choice to make.
Myself being a long time Nvidia fan have decided to jump camps and go the ATI way. My brother has one and the image is quite nicer looking than the Nvidias.
Just my thought on the subject.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Lets look closer to home , here we see CF and the x2 killing the G280 in sli http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzMSw0LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA== OK, and here another more respected and known nsite, we see that this game is obviously cpu limited until you get to 25x16, where unless the G280 in sli sees 100% scaling, it wont best the 4870 in CF . Also, the x2 does better than CF. http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14990/9 So, unless you really do your homework and know your sources, anybody can show anything they want, after all this is the internet

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Plus Ill add this quote from [H], arguably NOT a favorite for ATI "AMD’s 4800 series and NVIDIA’s GT 200 series maintain a very competitive antialiasing image quality. However AA framerate performance is a bit different story. In real world gaming scenarios, with enthusiast-level 4870 X2 and GTX 280 cards, both in single GPU and SLI/CrossFireX configurations, AMD’s high-end antialiasing techniques are more likely to be useable than NVIDIA’s. We can finally say that all of these super-quality AA settings that have been little more than marketing fluff in the past have finally become attainable with the right hardware." So, in conclusion, what was shown is an exception, not the rule, where the 4870 in CF or the x2 win out