Ati 4870 or Nvidia GTX260

Already have an opinion (Thanks Jack), but gunna open it up to discussion on which is better.

They're both within £15 of each other so it doesn't matter in terms of price.

I've checked benchmarks on a variety of games and the GTX260 wins overall, however in some games it's beaten by the 4870.

Which one?

I was just thinking about this, actually. For me, though, it came down to which companies were manufacturing the cards. The popular one for the 4870 was some crap company with a bad warranty / rma. The popular ati manufactures had bad ratings for some reason. So being as I personally like XFX from past experience, I could see myself buying the xfx GTX 260.

I have a Sapphire Radeon 4870 512 MB and it plays all my games quite well. The one you're looking at is the newer 1GB one and it's even faster than mine thanks to the increased memory size. I've had no problems with it, it worked fine out of the box, regular driver updates have sped it up a tad, it's quiet but it's hot (idles at 78 C lol), and it's a very good card. Also, if you will be using the HDMI-out this card is very good because it can carry sound through HDMI, which is a bug plus. Buy from Sapphire if you can, I wouldn't trust other companies. Whatever you buy, buy it now before prices go up thanks to this damn recession. Prices have already gone up for computer parts here in Canada, by like $20.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

I have a Sapphire Radeon 4870 512 MB and it plays all my games quite well. The one you're looking at is the newer 1GB one and it's even faster than mine thanks to the increased memory size. I've had no problems with it, it worked fine out of the box, regular driver updates have sped it up a tad, it's quiet but it's hot (idles at 78 C lol), and it's a very good card. Also, if you will be using the HDMI-out this card is very good because it can carry sound through HDMI, which is a bug plus. Buy from Sapphire if you can, I wouldn't trust other companies. Whatever you buy, buy it now before prices go up thanks to this damn recession. Prices have already gone up for computer parts here in Canada, by like $20.

If I were you I wouldn't let the drivers overclock it that high running at 78 C IDLE really isn't good.

GTX260 would be my choice.

Nvidia fanboy's would buy GTX and Ati nerd would buy a 4870.

Well, I used a 8800GT before my 4870 so I aint really a fanboy of these brands.

pick 4870. Cheaper for the performance better and sexier.

The 4870 beats the 260 though

GO ATI GO ATI GO ATI!!!! : )

I would go with the 4870 because it uses less power and beats the 260 on most games plus ATI driver support is much better.

Quote from mcintyrej :

If I were you I wouldn't let the drivers overclock it that high running at 78 C IDLE really isn't good.

Sometimes I really do wonder how long this card will last if it idles at 78 C!
But it hasn't caused any problems for me yet, and when I game it doesn't heat up much more than that, I believe it's up to 83 C when I run games. The only reason it stays so hot is because the fan spins really slowly, it's usually around 900 RPM. This was done to reduce noise. The driver lets you control the fan speed manually if you wish. If you really want you can run the fan at the full speed of 4700 RPM and the temperature falls down to 35 C in less than a minute. But it's very loud at that speed.

How much Power does the 4870 actually require?

Well I don't know the exact number, but it's somewhere around 150W-200W max. I run a 550W power supply and it's more than enough, I'm thinking that 450W is probably the minimum you can have. When I was buying my power supply all I looked for was one which had two 6pin PCIe power connectors and an 8pin motherboard power connector, and that's when I found my Cooler Master Real Power Pro 550W power supply, which is excellent btw, I fully recommend it.

Alright thanks, that's all i needed to know.

I've got the 4870's little brother the 4850, and it's fantastic.

Overclocked to 780mhz with nary a problem... only 65C under load.

4870 at 820/1000 here

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I've got the 4870's little brother the 4850, and it's fantastic.

Overclocked to 780mhz with nary a problem... only 65C under load.

i have 2 of these, they are great indeed, mine do 40 and 45 on idle, and 50 and 55 on full load.

Quote from Takumi_lfs :

4870 at 820/1000 here

And now?

I'm not a fan boy for either company. For the most part I've been sticking with what has worked for the past 15 years for my family, ATI.

I've had 2 Nvidia cards, and they both bit the bullet rather quickly. Got an ATI right after both, and in the same computer, it never died.
I still have my old Rage pro AIW 8mb PCI, it still works.

I won't say Nvidia sucks, they make good cards, but from what I've heard, ATI has better drivers for thier PCI-e cards right now.

My experience with ATI is the same as yours lol. ATI's cards just worked for me so I will just keep buying from them until they are clearly outmatched by Nvidia.

I dont know about the X2 but the 4870 runs extremely hot!



I wouldn't be surprised if the 260 passes the 4870 when both cards are overclocked. I'd put that into consideration when buying, especially since the GTX260 is now the cheaper GPU to buy.



edit: Interesting read. These new driver's from ATi and NVIDIA makes this comparison worth a re-look

http://techgage.com/article/at ... x_260216_896mb_follow-up/

I have an GTX 260 896mb, really nice card never warm for me around 60 after some hours of playing(idle 40). Runs good on every game I have tested (crysis warhead, GRID, wic etc..)

I can overclock it within the warantys (dunno if it is just a Gainward thing thought)



But I think you should go for the ATI card more card for the money..

4870 is more future proof IMHO, cos it has more shaders.

Also ATI with its amazing street price made nvidia drop their prices, so its a way of saying thanks to ATI for lowering the overall video card prices.