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4850 vs 4870

No doubt they will come at 9am or some other early time thus me missing the delivery and still getting the card on Monday! Wouldn't suprise me anyway :D

YAY! i got a 4870 a few weeks ago and i havnt stopped smiling about it!! (gddr5 is crazy!)
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Yeah its the one thing really pulling me towards the 4870 - if i got the 4850 with GDDR3 memory it will feel like a little part of me is missing :p
 
I'll wait till they come down some and the aftermarket coolers are well established then i'll sell my 4850 to some numpty on an auction site and upgrade ;)
 
hehe - I managed to offload my 8800GTX before the prices crashed, but have been "limping" along on my 7600GT since then - works great on CSS but thats about it!
 
I was in the same situation just erm, yesterday.

I went for the 4870 even though I'd convinced myself of a '50.

Reasons were native play at 1920x and not having too much of a problem at that rez in the future, also the rear exhaust helps, the 4850 would need replacing out of the box which for me was the deal clincher.

£105 + cooler = ~£120 or so, another £50 gets a 30-40% faster 4870.

Bang for buck they are both awesome, the 4850 is mr '1280x1024s' best friend for life, but not us which extra inches to spare. :D
 
allday247 said:
4870 for future proofing.
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sr4470 said:
HD4870 is more futureproof
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no such thing as futureproof, and 4850 is more futureproof than the 4870 or the 4870X2 because its cheap, and wont decrease too much in value which is the only thing that happens in the future, the card that decreases the least and is best performance per buck

Biglunn said:
^^^

Agree with above.

No point futureproofing with a 4870 over a 4850 - in a years time BOTH will probably be obsolete. Save yourself £60 (£120 for 2 in crossfire), less depreciation when coming to sell them, easier to sell them individually (low power requirements).
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£105 + cooler = ~£120 or so, another £50 gets a 30-40% faster 4870.
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Thats whats doing it for me - its only an extra 50 odd quid...

Then again, its only an extra 30-40 odd quid for 2x4850's...

Could go on like that all day!

Pretty decided on the 4870 now - as I don't know how long it will be before i could add another 4850 to crossfire if i opted for that
 
Problem with 2x4850's is the extra heat and power consumption!

The 4870 is the better middle ground. :)
 
10 minutes past mid night and I had already ordered a Powercolour 4870, 2gb crucial ballistix RAM to take me to 4gig and a 500Gb hdd for the hell of it :D
 
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Don't say you bought it from there :rolleyes:

And I'm in the same quandary too, but think I'm liking the 4850 crossfire route with the idea to get another one later, never done an SLI/crossfire setup so will look cool through the case window! Didn't realise the coolers weren't up to much on them though, that might change things...
 
mines going as soon as i get some spare cash and i'll be getting a 4870 instead. wanna play grid at 1080p and the 4850 just doesn't cut it enough for me.
 
two 4850 cards in Xfire here, both with vortex coolers. Rips through any game I've thrown at them, except crysis, and even then in XP, I'm getting 45-50fps on average I reckon, all on high at 1680 x 1050. If I want to upgrade later on, it might be easier to sell two cheaper cards than one more expensive one but I might be wrong, Regarding the heat, all that goes straight out the back with the vortex coolers. I also reckon theres no such thing as future, just wait till the next shiny thing comes along:p
 
4870 really aren't worth the extra if you like to play with the cards and clock them etc gddr5 only shows real benefits on a couple of games so far.

the 4850's clock to 830+ on the core quite easily with a simple pencil mod and for a touch over 100 notes they're amazing value....and a couple of them in crossfire absolutely fly.

for reference my overclocked 4850's to only 790 on the core bench crysis ~2fps slower than a stock 4870x2 @ 1920x1200 on HIGH, i'm just lazy and haven't gotten around to putting some more lead on the resistor to increase my clocks further, once i do that i'm sure the difference will be almost nothing.

2x4850 = £210
1x4870x2 = £350
 
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I had a pleasant surprise last night.

My 4870 hadn't arrive but my 24" had so I fired up Race07 at 1920x1200 high detail 2xaa and to my surprise my current 3870 didn't slow down, in fact it was pretty spotless and held a constant 60fps... impressive considering.
 
^ No competitors allowed to be mentioned mate
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Try not to mention competitiors homie ;-)
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Edited post - didn't think :rolleyes:

Back on topic!

4870 really aren't worth the extra if you like to play with the cards and clock them etc gddr5 only shows real benefits on a couple of games so far.

the 4850's clock to 830+ on the core quite easily with a simple pencil mod and for a touch over 100 notes they're amazing value....and a couple of them in crossfire absolutely fly.

for reference my overclocked 4850's to only 790 on the core bench crysis ~2fps slower than a stock 4870x2 @ 1920x1200 on HIGH, i'm just lazy and haven't gotten around to putting some more lead on the resistor to increase my clocks further, once i do that i'm sure the difference will be almost nothing.
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Just imagine what it would be like with a pair of 4870's instead! :D:p;)

Bang for buck ratio you really can't go wrong with the 4850, but something within me would not have felt happy getting that when i know that my heart was really set on the 4870!
 
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