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4870 1GB vs. GTX280 First Impressions

Boogle

Boogle

Boogle

Soldato
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Well, I've had both for 3 days now, and have had a chance to do a little gaming, so thought I'd give my first impressions. Hopefully a nice neutral post rather than 'omg ATI r0x0rs my b0x0rs NV cheat and steal babies' or 'NV pwn all NV rule the world, ATI drivers suck'.

I think I'll present my findings in easy to read bullet points:

  • During BIOS/Windows bootup, the resolution output seems to be 4:3 with ATI, 16:10 with NV. It seems NV cards decide that very low resolutions should be scales automatically whereas ATI just outputs what it receives. +1 to ATI cause the stretching is annoying, my monitor is set to scale with the correct aspect ratio not warp everything into a mess.
  • ATI's CCC is much improved over how it used to be. It hasn't crashed on me, and it's better laid out. +1 to ATI.
  • NV's handling of monitors is both more logical and easier. ATI have all sorts of weird, pointless options to work around issues / bugs with high resolution digital displays. +1 to NV
  • NV allows for automatic profiles associated with games. Pretty cool, but annoying that you have to set the same settings for different games over and over. ATI you create a profile, and then apply it from the right-click menu. Both have their faults and improvements. Tie.
  • ATI's drivers are more aggressive re. applying their settings to games. FSAA in UT3? Yes please! +1 to ATI, bigtime.
  • ATI's transparancy AA is pure bliss, love it. +1 to ATI
  • Narrow-Tent causes a big performance drop. -1 to ATI for breaking something that worked well on the 2900XT.
  • NV has more AA modes, and they're all useful in different games. ATI its restricted to just box and edge, the other modes are too slow. +1 to NV
  • NV has WAY fewer driver bugs re. games. +1 to NV
  • Neither cards have crashed or caused unneccesary agro. Tie.

Now for performance:

  • Anyone who says the 4870 1GB can outperform the GTX 280 is kidding themselves. Both cards perform well, but with the 4870 you're never sure what kind of performance you'll get in a game. However, with the 280 it's so consistent you know how it'll perform, and with difficult settings the 280 is much better. So basically you know with a 280, you can play anything with high detail and AA. The 4870... not so much.
  • Crysis performs predictably better on the 280.
  • Stalker: Clear Sky performs about the same in actual playability - but there seems to be some graphical anomolies with ATI.
  • FEAR runs ludicrously well on the Radeon, stupendously well.
  • 280 performs better in Mass Effect, esp when AA is applied. No framerate counters - going purely on responsiveness and smoothness.

Now for noise:

The 4870 1GB model I got is the one with dual fans as offered by Palit / Gainward / Xpertvision (Palit own Gainward and Xpertvision). At idle both the 280 and 4870 are for all intents and purposes, silent. I have 3 low-speed 120mm fans in my case, and its no noisier than them. At load the 280 can vary between barely registering, to really quite noisy. It's never horrible, but you do get a lot of wind sound. If you play a graphically intense, silent game, it could bother you. It bothers me a little. The 4870 stays quiet, it will spin up a little. The first notch it spins up to the pitch increases and it can be very slightly annoying, then it spins up slightly more, the pitch falls back down, and it's basically silent again. Quite odd.

In summary, both are great cards. If I could only have one, and the price difference didn't matter, I would definitely get the 280. However, the 4870 definitely punches above its price point. Very well priced.

Pretty picture of the card:

 
fireisdangerous said:
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I'm afraid due to the no competitor rule, I can't link you anywhere :( Basically if you search for Xpertvision 4870 you'll probably come up with something. The bundle is basic as sin though - no CrossFire cables whatsoever. Had to pick some up on the bay.

Stimpy_7: Thanks, its far from exhaustive at the moment, these are literally just first impressions at the moment. I'll have more interesting info later on when I've had the chance to test a wide variety of games. If you're on a budget, the 4870 is the clear winner.
 
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Nice work Boogle, good summary of the cards in day to day use rather than running a load of benching tests on them.
 
I guess another +1 for the 280 is that it will exhaust hot air out of the case. The problem with the 4870 cards with the "better cooling solution" is that the hot air is simply added to the internals of the case.

I am looking to see a HIS ICEQ4 1GB 4870 card....a good compromise.
 
Never tried the 1GB 4870 but I would agree. The 280 is all about consistent performance which is why I like the card so much.

With regard to the fan noise. I have had 4 GTX 280's and 2 suffered from overheating. My first BFG 280 OC pretty much fried itself within 30 seconds of playing a game. The 2nd BFG 280 OC also overheating but to a much lesser extent but the fan was much noiser due to the additional cooling. My 3rd BFG OC works perfectly with temps of around 79'c in Crysis and the fan is pretty much silent. So if you have a noisy fan in Crysis it could be your card is suffering from a overheating problem.
 
Very interesting, for me though, at current price points, the 4870 should be pitted against the 260, and the 280 against the 4870X2 as it costs little extra (I got my X2 for £310).
 
The Asgard said:
So if you have a noisy fan in Crysis it could be your card is suffering from a overheating problem.
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Normally its not noisy, but if its a warm day, and I'm running for an extended period of time the fan can spin up to about 90% (80c). Having said that, even on a normal day with a normal game, the fan does increase in RPM, which is noticeable. My PC is very quiet most of the time, so if any fan increases in speed I can usually hear it. Suffice it to say, the 280 is quieter than a reference 4870 X2, and probably a reference 4870 too - esp if you have to manually increase the fan speed. The 4870 with twin fans is very quiet, which I like. I would estimate they only increase in rpm by 300 or so. However, due to the small amount of heatsink, the capacity of the cooling solution will be low. Cases with poor airflow will (I imagine) cause the fans to spin up a great deal - and at max they sound like a tornado.

I guess another +1 for the 280 is that it will exhaust hot air out of the case. The problem with the 4870 cards with the "better cooling solution" is that the hot air is simply added to the internals of the case.
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I think this 'problem' is overrated a great deal, no doubt due to the ludicrously hot stock cooling. There's a small vent in the rear, where basically no heat goes out through. Internal case temps haven't increased over the GTX280. The heatpipes on the card itself will burn you if you leave your finger on them - but ultimately the heat is mostly contained to the GPU itself. My exhaust fan seems to handle the little bleed into the case.

If you have poor airflow though, I would imagine it would be an issue. The 4870 definitely runs warmer at idle. At load, the 4870 is actually cooler!
 
Great little review; interesting because it doesn't just discuss performance for once. I think we get a little too wound up over frame rates and forget that both companies have very different products that have different features.
 
Boogle said:
I think this 'problem' is overrated a great deal, no doubt due to the ludicrously hot stock cooling. There's a small vent in the rear, where basically no heat goes out through. Internal case temps haven't increased over the GTX280. The heatpipes on the card itself will burn you if you leave your finger on them - but ultimately the heat is mostly contained to the GPU itself. My exhaust fan seems to handle the little bleed into the case.

If you have poor airflow though, I would imagine it would be an issue. The 4870 definitely runs warmer at idle. At load, the 4870 is actually cooler!
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I have to agree with u there Boogle, people seem to always mention this in terms of coolers! Like you I agree that with sufficient cooling in your case the exhaust system doesnt matter much at all.

People have their preferences however.....

Oh yeah nice read :)
 
Thankyou Boogle that was an interesting read and very helpful, currently trying to decide on a new card and have narrowed it down to a 1GB 4870 or GTX.

Which version of the Ati drivers were you using out of interest?
 
Nice review Boogle. However, it may have been slightly more useful if you had recorded some of the results so we could see the actual difference between the two graphics cards. I think you also have to remember that the Nvidia GTX 280 is over £100 more than the ATI Radeon 4870. :)
 
Gaman said:
Which version of the Ati drivers were you using out of interest?
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Latest Catalyst 8.10 :) It's a touch choice between the 4870 and GTX due to the price difference. TBH I'm not sure which is better (given the price diff), and won't until I've really given the Radeon a work out tomorrow.

Fire Wizard said:
Nice review Boogle. However, it may have been slightly more useful if you had recorded some of the results so we could see the actual difference between the two graphics cards. I think you also have to remember that the Nvidia GTX 280 is over £100 more than the ATI Radeon 4870.
Click to expand...

Thanks. There's plenty of reviews out there with regards to figures. I personally don't believe in performance numbers as any more than a general 'guide'. For example, lets say, I gave Crysis an FPS of '30'. Is the game playable, or not? 30fps in Crysis is different to 30fps in UT3 which is different to 30fps in Supreme Commander. The level matters, even the play style makes a difference. Spray 'n' pray doesn't need a supremely high FPS, while sniping does. Then there's the fluctuations you get through different levels, etc. I wouldn't even consider a 4870 512MB, purely due to stutter / pausing from time to time from texture swapping. FPS is fine, but gameplay... not so much :\ I'm after a more subjective 'is it playable?' rather than objective 'how many FPS?'.

This is where the 4870 really impressed me, its playable a lot more than I expected it to be. However, its also what separates the 280 from the 4870. As many people have shown, the 4870 can be faster in benchies than the 280. But in actual gameplay and 'playability', the difference is in the 280's favour. I realise the 280 is ~£100 more expensive, but I don't have a 260 to compare :( The 260 216 core isn't too far away from the 280 though. I'm going to be comparing CrossFire 4870s to the 280 later to even up the odds :)
 
Why are ATi cards so inconsistent with performance? I mean it was same with 3870, 3870X2, now 4870 and all that.

Is it drivers or that 256bit interface??
 
Interesting and good article

Am a bit surprised to here the 4870 isnt consistent though, and mention of perhaps struggling with high AA as I thought high AA is where the 4870 did well esp at high resolutions

For me though it'd come down to £190 v £300+ and low stock levels if I were choosing today
 
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