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4870 to GTX280

TheRealDeal said:
Toxic you do know that the gtx series are far louder than the 4 series card. Think i seen 1 chart that showed the 4870 load noise to be around the gtx series idle noise. So moving ship won't fix that for you. It really baffles me how some people can have so much problems with a certain brand of card and don't on the other. I have had 4 ati cards with no problems at all on 3 different pc's. I have had 2 nvidia cards on 2 different pc's with no problems. Could it be because i don't heavily overclock my pc's so they are more stable?
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I think a not 100% stable system can have a big impact.
I see problems posted in this forum that i only every ever get when i have pushed my over clocks to far on ether FSB/CPU/MEM/GFX.

First common for me is applications & processes terminating, followed by View styles in draw & folders changing randomly & that is enough for me to reboot & sort out the clocks before any real harm is done to the install & as soon as i back off the OC things soon settle down to what they should be.
 
bfar said:
Any time in the past I owned a card with driver issues, I always swore I would have happily paid an extra £70 for good drivers from the outset.

I put up with poor ATI drivers in the early days, and then the nvidia/vista fiasco of early last year. Never again.
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Yeah but like you said, those were ATI's early days and that was nVidia getting used to vista - both are fixed now.
 
Like the OP I'm wavering about selling my 4870 when the 55nm GTX 280 refresh comes out.
I bought the Powercolor card with the non-ref cooler - I had to do a lot of fiddling to fix the fan noise. I'm unlucky enough to be in the minority with driver problems resulting in no DVI signal in Vista. It's a good card but not worth these problems.
 
Strife212 said:
Yeah but like you said, those were ATI's early days and that was nVidia getting used to vista - both are fixed now.
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Well that depends on each persons individual circumstances doesn't it? People are still having problems.

I've just installed my fancy new gtx280 (along with a spanking new Western Digital AAKS :D) and I'm not one bit disapointed. Everything works absolutely perfectly, and whoa man it's like a rocket! I didn't want issues and I definately don't want to be one of those people who changes their gfx card every other week (there's a handful of those people on these boards :eek:).

So in my case at least I feel the extra few quid was justified. Most of us don't have the luxery of testing several cards before we buy, so what can you do? Just make an informed decision based on the info out there. That's what I've done and I'm pleased with the outcome.

In those few games where the 8800gtx was starting to struggle, the gtx280 just completely destroys it. This will also do nicely when mty 1080p tv finally arrives ;)

Thanks to everyone here who helped me decide, these forums rock.
 
got the cash get the GTX 280
strap on cash get the 4870

for me, i'll wait for few more months to which card will be the best buy. strap on cash at the moment, hehe.
 
Randell said:
single 4870 beats 280 in GRID in both 1920x1200 and 2560x1600

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354&p=7

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14990/13
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It's funny, every time there is this debate someone busts out the GRID scores.. Yet I'm sat here playing grid at 1920 x 1200 with ultra mod on a single 8800gt and it's absolutely fine?

People really really *really* need to stop taking benchmarks for gospel and actually play the game. I think many people would be pleasently surprised what realistic setups result in playable gameplay. Grid will be perfectly playable on a 280 too, crap like that is for epeen willy waving and naff all else.
 
The GTX280 IS faster... but only by about 10% overall in everything... though in some very specific games it will be ahead by around 30%... and in others behind my a smaller margin. However I did notice a trend in many benchmarks for it to have a higher minimum framerate than tha 4870, and to me that's a big plus. I don;t think the gTX280 is worth £70 more than a 4870, but having said that I think I would personally buy one over a 4870 now that the prices have come down to sensible levels and you can get them used for around £215, which really makes them worth it imo.
 
Personally I'm going for the 4870X2 as it offers brilliant performance in the games I play.

And at the end of the day if the game doesn't support Xfire I still get a 1gb 4870.

I'm hoping that by the time I can afford one that the driver issues will be resolved.

Oh and any word on when the 55nm 280 is due out?
 
Adrianr said:
It's funny, every time there is this debate someone busts out the GRID scores.. Yet I'm sat here playing grid at 1920 x 1200 with ultra mod on a single 8800gt and it's absolutely fine?

People really really *really* need to stop taking benchmarks for gospel and actually play the game. I think many people would be pleasently surprised what realistic setups result in playable gameplay. Grid will be perfectly playable on a 280 too, crap like that is for epeen willy waving and naff all else.
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It's funny how people go off half-cocked when they think that someone is insulting their card/brand. What did yout hink I was posting? At what point did I saw you couldn't play GRID on a 280? What kind of idiot do you think you posting a reply to? Stop and think what I posted before ranting away.

Several times on this thread people have stated as fact that a 280 is faster than a 4870 in GRID and several times people have said the 280 will be faster at 2560x1600.

I was just linking to at least two reviews say otherwise. How on earth did you read into that any fanyboy comments about lack of playability in a single sentence post?

People really *really* need to stop imagining things that aren't there.
 
Oh get off the Internet and calm down for a minute. You type that as if you would talk to someone like that in real life!? The rant is perfectly justified, nor aimed specifically at you (before you get too high up on your 'argue on the Internet' horse).. I'm well aware which card is faster in Grid, I'm just annoyed that it seems to pop up in every thread as some sort of final end point of debate.

I don't give a monkeys about brands, I'm really not into computers enough to have any loyalty to anyone, just like everyone else should be.

If you feel angry that it was aimed at you, il just let you down lightly, it wasn't :) hence the use of the word "people" and not "you" ;)
 
Tbh if i had lots of money i would get a 4870 as it does destroy a gtx280 at 30 inch monitor res and if i was a little less better off i would get the 4870 or 4850 depending on monitor size. Nv's cards this time round just don't fit well into pricing brackets last time out they were very good in the mid range ati just improved it this time round. For me this is the best time to ever buy a gpu as you really can't lose with ati's 4 series range. You get the very best at high with 4870x2, mid high you get the very best with 4870 that can compete with a gtx280 which is nvidias high end card .At mid you get the 4850 which is light years above what you used to get for your money.
 
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