Radeon HD 4870: Better Than GTX 260!

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Im not a fanboy but I might end up getting a 260 over 4870, at the end of the summer im buying whatever runs AOC better, and right now Ati is sucking in that department, hopefully they will get out some game fixes; and release a bad ass 4870x2 in August.
 
4850 = Pro
4870 = XT
4870 X2 = X2
4890 = XTX
4890 X2 = XTX X2

two cards are out, 3 more to go. if AMD/ATI is really serious in dethroning nVidia in high-ends/ultra high-ends, they should or they MUST release the remaining three.
 
It seems strange all the cards tested has performance so close to each other. Not like the old days when new cards will clobber the previous gen cards. The TNT2 vs. 3DFX, Ati 9700 pro, Nv 6800 GT, etc.
It seems some zenith has been reached or the bottleneck is someplace else.
 
dont you think the heat problem in 4800 series cards are with the drivers? when i installed 8.6 drivers my idle temps gone up from 54C to 71C. Then i installed ATI TRay Tool and load fans settings automatically then its cool again to 54 idle
 
has anyone overclocked a 4850 yet? with a better cooler i mean? because it seems like the sort of thing that would overclock well with a decent one...
 

I think there isn't much of a need (at normal resolutions) for anything faster than an 8800GTX at the moment, probably because of the console-first mentality that developers have been subscribing to. So everyone seems to be shooting for G80 performance at <$200, which ain't bad in my opinion.
 
[citation][nom]homerdog[/nom]I think there isn't much of a need (at normal resolutions) for anything faster than an 8800GTX at the moment, probably because of the console-first mentality that developers have been subscribing to. So everyone seems to be shooting for G80 performance at <$200, which ain't bad in my opinion.[/citation]

Yep, i completely agree to that. The only real reasons i've seen lately to pick up the new cards are for those of us running 1920+ resolutions for any real big increases in performance. One things for sure, i haven't seen prices like this in a long time for the newer cards. THANK YOU ATI FOR DRIVING PRICES DOWN. :)
 
hey , don't you think that is to much power energy here?
i consider to bay nvidia 9600 because is the most eficient in enargy comsunction and is work well too.
this amd card are good but they eat to much energy. i think theat a 9600 is the card that wort to bay and use at home PC.
 
[citation][nom]chazwuzzer[/nom]Just ordered one from Antares. Wish I had it before the weekend, but whatever. Looking forward to replacing my 8800GTS, which was the most disappointing nVidia product I ever purchased. Don't get me wrong - I've bought a stinker from ATi before too - but this new card would have to burst into flames to bum me out more than the GTS.[/citation]

Are you talking about the 8800 GTS 512? Aside from a little stutter issue when my frame buffer ain't cutting it at high resolutions, I've loved it.
 
[citation][nom]nukemaster[/nom]ATI's drivers are allot better then they have been in the past. I have found Nvidia's Vista 64 drivers to be much worse then there XP drivers(several games just crash, some old games run poorly). Nvidia seems to concentrate on there newer cards while leaving the old ones out with updates(look at how long it took to get TV overscan on the 8800GTX, but not much else is worked on for those cards anymore, its all 9xxx and 2xx drivers[I know you can mod the new drivers to work, and thats what i am running now]).ATI's drivers seem to be about the same on both(Those games that do crash, did not crash on my test ATI card(X1900XT) and those old games run just like XP).[/citation]

This would be why you, or anyone else should buy a Video card from a company such as eVGA. eVGA continues to put out drivers for their cards long after nVidia has stopped. My 7600GT just got an update not long ago, and if I were to look again today, It would not surprise me to see another.

I'm sure Sapphire does things similar.
 
No matter how you slice it, no matter what company you like better, there are a few facts that should be considered.

you have to spend more than 250 bucks on a GPU to play crysis at 1080p on max settings. ( 2x 9800 GTX - $380, 4870 - $310, GTX 260 - $310). All of these set ups are over-kill for all other game engines out atm.

So in the end, you should buy the brand that you trust. Personly, eVGA has never sent me a defective card, AND they have the step up program which is one of the best offers i've ever seen, and hell, ATI can't even get their cards to work for all games (GRID).
 

EVGA takes Nvidia's latest drivers(so the same ones i get from nvidia but with there setup image) and adds to the inf file to make it run on old cards. This is something most users do anyway(my Geforce4 has the latest drivers this way too). That is how I am running driver 177.26 on my 8800GTX(even though it was only released to gtx 2xx users). Evga's easy access to drivers is a good thing, but not a deal breaker from one card to another.
 
But Nvidia get support every games... I think This is very very important others subject... Because some games dont't work ati vga. Peoples usually like nvidia. SRHT...
 

I have an 8800GT and it definitely doesn't cooperate with some games out there.

*Throws his Splinter Cell Double Agent box across the room*
 
These tests were done with old drivers for the gtx 260 try again i updated my drivers to the newest release for nvidia on my evga gtx 280 my frame rates doubled in all games.
 
I bought a GTX 260 for $370.00 and I DO NOT feel cheated in the least. . .I know that this card will only get a bit better as newer drivers are released. . .

The new ATI 4870 card seems to be absolutely awesome - especially for the price/performance But, the GTX 260 is PRETTY DAMN GREAT TOO! So. . .in the end, no matter which card you choose to go with, you are going to get phenomenal performance. . .I for one am a little more comforatble with Nvidia - I have not owned an ATI card for quite some time (this is because Nvidia has OWNED ATI for a long time) - It is GOOD to see that ATI has made a STRONG comeback though!!! I really hope that ATI continues to build AWESOME CARDS! THis can only mean better, faster, and cheaper cards for ALL of us. . .no matter if you like ATI or Nvidia. . .We all win when there is TRUE competition!!!

 
I think they meant to say %33 decrease in price from the 4870 to the 4850 Using Newegg's 300 and 200 prices, 200 is 67% of 300 and therefore a 33% decrease. A 60% decrease means the 4850 is 124 dollars.... so where do I buy one of those?
 
Sorry if this is a double post, but I was just reading last week that ATI can run Nvidia's own physics on the 4xxx series with altered drivers. I thought that was kind of cool. But I'm pretty sure Nvidia will do something so that all their CUDA and physics software won't work with ATI for long.
 
[citation][nom]inglburt[/nom]But I'm pretty sure Nvidia will do something so that all their CUDA and physics software won't work with ATI for long.[/citation]
Game devs are more likely to use universal software development platforms, so Nvidia is going to cut their own throat if they actualy try to prevent the use of CUDA on Radeon cards. On the other hand, Nvidia seems to be in cutting-your-own-throat mode right now anyway.
 
ATI has Bridgman =]

IMHO: CUDA is just a phase anyway. When Nehalem and Fusion cores come out, there won't be a point of having a physics thread running on your VGA. You're going to want to have your VGA do what VGA is supposed to do.
I heard that ATI could in theory lower their prices even more whereas GTX 200 based cards are just about as cheap as they're going to get.
In any case, 4870/4850 is great performance for the price. Last bargain like that was 8800gt and before that was x1950pro. Although the performance delta is not so big from generation to the next nowadays. Though the Radeon 4800's broke that trend regarding 3800's vs 4800's. Let's just hope this keeps going!!

*PS: I take great pleasure in watching Nvidia fanboys squirming helplessly, please keep it coming saying how your 8600gs is more godly than 4870's in quadfire for reasons of your own inadequacy to make a point.
 
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