4870 depression

[dreadloxx]

I recently traded my 9800gtx+ OC for the HD 4870 today and i was told i would be amazed at the diffrence. so i installed everything and updated the drivers and wouldnt u know it, no diffrence from the nvidia card. it almost seems like its not running as well as the nvidia. i ran the auto tune in the catalyst program which oc'd it a little. Anyone using this card that has the settings perfected? im new to ati so im still not familar with everything...been an nvidia fanboi for awhile.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Whoever said itd be a great upgrade, shame on them. Its an upgrade, and certain games, youll certainly see it, such as Grid, but other than that, the person who said that needs to get corrected. Sorry to hear you were an instrument of bad advice

 

[techgeek]

I recently traded my 9800gtx+ OC for the HD 4870 today and i was told i would be amazed at the diffrence. so i installed everything and updated the drivers and wouldnt u know it, no diffrence from the nvidia card. it almost seems like its not running as well as the nvidia. i ran the auto tune in the catalyst program which oc'd it a little. Anyone using this card that has the settings perfected? im new to ati so im still not familar with everything...been an nvidia fanboi for awhile.

Some more details would be helpful. What resolution and detail settings are you using, with which games? One can assume that you have left all settings the same between cards. If the detail settings and resolution are set too low, it maybe a case of CPU bottlenecking.

 

[dreadloxx]

guess that would help...my specs are

phenom 9950
ocz fatal1ty 2x2 gb
antec 650w psu
HD 4870
vista 64
1680x1050 res

i mainly play WoW and my framerates arent as amazing as everyone makes them out to be with this card. also CoD5 and FEAR 2 wouldnt think the cpu would be hurting me but im messing with alittle oc'ing to get it up to 2.8ghz.

 

[photonboy]

HD4870 vs 9800GTX+ OC

Yeah, what you did was replace a pretty great card with a NEARLY IDENTICAL one. It varies by the game but there is very little difference. Some games are identical.

In fact, by going ATI you just sacrificed the Physics portion of many games until ATI finally supports it.

Live and learn I guess, but that's also what benchmarks are for. It took me less than five minutes to get a brief overview of the difference between your cards.

FYI, you can use the latest "ATI Tray Tools" to turn on VSYNC if it's not being supported. For LCD monitors which run at 60Hz anything above is a waste. I have some older game that run at over 400FPS meaning my CPU and GPU work over 6x harder than they need to. Use FRAPS or the ATI Tray Tool version to look at the frame rate.

New card?

You've got a good system. You should wait at least another year before getting another video card and make sure it's much faster or don't bother. I'd wait and get a 32nm die.

SLI:
You were a prime candidate for SLI. I'd sell your spare card ASAP though as the new ATI 40nm DX11 are right around the corner and NVidia is due for a significantly better card within the next four months.

 

[jennyh]

The 4870 is a good deal better at higher resolutions. I upgraded from an 8800gt OC to a 4870 and the difference is all settings go to max in every game without fail.

It's the difference between playing Empire Total War on Ultra or or Medium/High, the difference between 16x AF and 8xAA and 4x and 4x. You won't notice it quite so much because the 9800gtx is just one step below, but you should see that your games mostly default to the highest settings where they didn't before.

If you are disappointed with the 3d mark 06 score then don't be, my 4870 only scored about 1500 more than my 8800gt but that is because it cant run the benchmarks on high settings.

 

[wh3resmycar]

if you're playing below 1680x1050, you wont notice a difference as both card will give you 40-60fps on most games. but when you go up on the resolution, 1920x1080, that 9800gtx+ will struggle a bit while the 4870 1gb will give you quirky smile on your face.

i first had a 9600gt then a 4850, i was playing @ 1440x900, theres a big difference alright. then i went up to a 4870 playing @ 1440x900 before a monitor upgrade. i was loathing my 4870 1gb as it didnt offered any impacting difference compared to my previous 1gb 4850 (only that i can play nba2k9 and farcry2 @ 16xAF with not a single hint of stutter).

then lo and behold, my 1920x1080 monitor came.

anyway, cod5 favors the nvidia cards, cod4 favors ati.

 

[dreadloxx]

by traded i mean took the 9800gtx back and got the 4870. thanks for all the responses btw. now since the 4850 is equal to the 9800gtx then i would be just fine with the 4850? the reason i switched is because my motherboard has the ati chipset and i would like to run crossfire eventually. i thought that the 4870 would mesh better with my system but like i said, im not seeing much improvement. i guess i should take this one back and swap it for the 4850 and get some cash back

 

[kingtz]

When you say you don't see much difference, are you talking about literally seeing better graphics, or are you objectively benchmarking this somehow (3DMark, COD4, etc)?

I guess in terms of how pretty things looks, your screen resolution pretty much bottlenecks any cards better than the 9800GTX+ or HD4850. If you were running something like COD4, you should be able to see a boost in fps, ceteris paribus. My 4850 gives me around 120-130fps in COD4. With a 4870, at the same resolution, i should get at least 10-15fps more, if not more.

If I were you, I'd just keep the 4870, and then cf with another 4870 later on when I need more gpu power. Of course, you'd have to consider things such as whether you'll be getting a bigger screen down the line or if your 650w PSU could support 2 4870s.

 

[dreadloxx]

i guess when i say that i dont see much difference, im talking about fps and since my monitor only supports up to 1680x1050 this new card is overkill, im just worried now if i go to the 4850 its going to drop even lower, but on the flip side of that is if i run xfire with the 4850's i would be better off then running a single 4870, so basically 2-4850's for the same price as 1- 4870

 

[coozie7]

I`d advise you keep the 4870.
Right now it`s little too much for your monitor resoloution, that is true, but it will still be playing at high/maximum settings next year whereas you may need to spend on an upgrade to CF the 4850.

 

[macabre215]

You are fine, just stick with the 4870. By the way you should check benchmarks before going from one card to another and always consider what games you play. I also play wow and have used the same card for almost three years now. I have yet to actually NEED an upgrade playing at 1600x1200.

 

[rangers]

dont think its been said, but did you clean out the nvidia drivers

 

[jay236]

Slightly offtopic, it's been proven that people have been playing WoW on Asus EEE PC's.

 

[wh3resmycar]

nows the time for you to driver force 16xAF.

 

[kingtz]

If your getting 130fps in COD4 at 1650x1080, then your certainly not running everything on high. I run everything on high with 4x AA and I get 75-93fps at 1650x1080 with a highly overclocked 4850.

Everything is maxed except for v-sync. max AA and AF. Also at 1680x1050.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 possibilities why you are getting lower fps:
1) The game, by default, caps fps at 85 or 90 (I forget). You gotta enter a console command to change your cap (I reset my fps cap at 125).

2) Your cpu is slower/older than mine. I'm using an E8400 OC @ 3.6.

 

[wh3resmycar]

why are you guys not playing with vsync on? screen tearing is annoying.

 

[dreadloxx]

does ati have a desktop program that lets u monitor temps and usage similar to nvidia's monitor?

 

[Nica Guy]

does ati have a desktop program that lets u monitor temps and usage similar to nvidia's monitor?

whoa there!
did u even erase the nvidia drivers and install CCC? CCC has temp monitoring...

 

[werxen]

i dunno about you guys but 4870 > 9800gtx any day of the week. sorry to hear it did not rise above your expectations but damn bro... like seriously the 4870 is a better card. do not feel as though you should be getting 50 more fps in every game...

 

[Euphoria_MK]

I would agree with werxen. THe hd4870 is way better than the 9800gtx.
Let me see you playing COD4 with the 9800xt with settings at 8x AA and 15Aniso at 1920x1080, or Crysis at 1920x1080 with 8xAniso.
I switched from 9600gt to hd4870 1Gb and yes I see great improvements.
Although the 9800gtx was better card then the 9600gt you should still see improvements especially if you play at higher resolutions.
If you stick at lower resolutions than you would not notice the difference with your bare eyes. You would need to use Fraps just to see increase FPS performance.

Keep the card, all you need to do in future is buy one more, when the price drops, and it will happened in a month or two, as ATI puts out the 4890.
They are already offering $30 rebates on the 4870s 1GB so you can get them for around $169 if you are lucky with the rebates from Newegg

 

[rpaulg87]

I'll say that I orignally had a Phenom 9950 @ 3.0ghz (overclocked) I upgraded to a Phenom II 940 3.0ghz, (oced to 3.6 now) however, instantly I noticed a drastic difference in games, and this was before I went crossfire. My Phenom 9950 was bottle-necking the 4870, once I put in the Phenom II, I saw around 20-30% improvement in Crysis, and quite a few other games. With cards being as powerful as they are now, it seems you really need a serious processor to fully use them. Also remember that the 4870s are designed for higher res gaming, with AA\AF, if you run at a low res, such as below 1600, you will not really been utilzeing all the power the card has, you'd be better off with a lower-end card if you game at low res, for instance 1280x1200 = stay with a lower end card, don't bother with the 4870.

 

[Techno-boy]

This thread is silly and BS. Definitely posted by an NVIDIA spokesperson or a fanboy. I am not surprise. Just because HD 4870 does not always run well in only 1 or few games but that does not mean that it is worse than 9800 GTX+ OC. Saying that it does run as well as NVIDIA without even being specific is total BS. The fact is most games run better with HD 4870 than 9800 GTX+ OC.

It depends on which game you play and at what resolution you play with. Like macabre215 said, you have to check the video cards' benchmark of the game that you wanna play before you buy a video card and check also the resolution.

 

[xx12amanxx]

by traded i mean took the 9800gtx back and got the 4870. thanks for all the responses btw. now since the 4850 is equal to the 9800gtx then i would be just fine with the 4850? the reason i switched is because my motherboard has the ati chipset and i would like to run crossfire eventually. i thought that the 4870 would mesh better with my system but like i said, im not seeing much improvement. i guess i should take this one back and swap it for the 4850 and get some cash back

Wow you traded a faster much better and newer card for an old 9800gtx?...The reason you didnt notice much difference is becuase you probably had old driver's still installed.

Doesnt matter enjoy your card.

 

[jeffredo]

Just keep the HD 4870. You're fine. At least you know you have all the GPU your CPU can handle.