Radeon HD 4870 vs GeForce 9800 GTX+

[mcguinty]

I am currently constructing a new computer and have every component except for a graphics card. My current setup is

ECS BLACK SERIES GF8200A AM2+/AM3 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition Kuma 2.8GHz CPU
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM
Rosewill RG530-2 530W power supply
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case (which will probably last until the end of time.)

CD/DVD drive will be supplied by a friend, I have some extra hard drives laying around, and plenty of old massive monitors. I intend to upgrade these three things when I get the money and play many graphics heavy games.

I have my choice for a GPU narrowed down to two. I've looked at hundreds of graphics cards and been to a few comparison sites but the direct advice of more knowledgeable people would help a lot. My absolute price limit is $130 and these seem the best within that limit. Both of these are able

HIS Radeon HD 4870 GDDR5
The best I could find on newegg. I would buy this one today if I hadn't found out about SLI

from newegg and gpu review
HIS H487FN512P Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5
Core Clock: 750MHz
Shader Clock:750MHz
Memory Clock:3600MHz(NE) 1800 MHz(3600 DDR)(GPUR)
Stream Processing Units:800
Memory Bandwidth:115.2
GFLOPS:1200
Pixel Fill Rate:12000 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate:30000 MTexels/sec?
DirectX: 10.1
OpenGL: 2.1

BFG GeForce 9800 GTX+ GDDR3
This GPU I would be able to use Hybrid Power with the GeForce 8200 but I don't know if it can be enhanced graphically by the 8200. So I think I would buy this one if it can have the performance upped to about the levels of the HIM GPU with GeForce Boost, which is unlikely. Is there any way to run a 9800GTX+ in sli with the on board GP 8200)

from newegg and gpu review
BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXPOCBE GeForce 9800 GTX+
Core Clock: 760MHz(NE) 760(GPUR)
Shader Clock: 1836 MHz
Memory Clock: 2250MHz(NE) 1125MHz(2250?DDR)(GPUR)
Stream Processors: 128
Memory Bandwidth: 70.4 GB/sec
GFLOPS: 470.016
Pixel Fill Rate:11808 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate:47232 MTexels/sec?
DirectX:10
OpenGL:2.1

 

[Bluescreendeath]

4870 ~ GTX260
4850 ~ 9800GTX+

4870 > 9800GTX+

Rosewill PSU = bleh

 

[meodowla]

9800GTX+ have no option for GeForce boost. GeForce Boost is currently supported by 8400GS and 8500GT.
8200+8400GS=8500GT
8200+8500GT=8600GT
All with dedicating a 512MB of RAM for 8200.
If you use 9800GTX+, 8200 will be enabled to utilise Hybrid Power. It'll be a good idea, only if you are bothered about Electricity bills..
Also if you bother lot about PhysX and other stuffs which nVidia only supports, then go for 9800GTX+... Its a good card... And if you give more importance to performance, go for HD4870..

 

[Bluescreendeath]

8600 = piece of crap
8500 = piece of sh*t

You can get 9500GTs, 4650s, and 4670s for equal to or cheaper than 8500/8600 and will outperform them by a good deal.

 

[mcguinty]

Thank you for your help meodowla and blue screen the question was answered. I am sorry for the wall of text. I thought it might help to have the specs on hand. everything else could have been edited out. :/


It would be nice if the 9800 was supported but with Windows 7 dropping sli support the sli ship's already sunk.

 

[meodowla]

It would be nice if the 9800 was supported but with Windows 7 dropping sli support the sli ship's already sunk.

Don't worry.. Microsoft Officials not yet banned support for Hybrid SLi in Windows 7. They said Hybrid Boost is not worth giving performance in games. Hybrid Power is given fully supported by Windows 7 O.S. If you plan to go for 9800GTX+(GTS250), no problem.