Heh, couldn't help myself - had to put the 6600GT in 
I used it to confirm some suspicions I had.
Well, here we are, follow up to the GTX280 / 4870 1GB First Impressions Thread. Technically I'm still at the first impressions stage, but I think my findings will be helpful to people who aren't sure which road to go down. I do all my testing at 1920x1200, the native resolution of my monitor - a Dell 2707.
My 4870s have dual fans, not the standard stock cooling. This is important! I talk about noise, and this is a critical change over the stock models.
First, some initial points to try and minimise confusion:
I have tested thus far with the following games:
Right, on to general performance observations:
If you need more performance info, I'm sure there are a bazillion reviews you can check out. Now for the much more important stuff, what are these solutions like to live with?
Some CrossFire-specific observations:
Few miscellaneous observations:
So what conclusions can we come to? Well, NV have the fastest GPU, full stop. The 4870 X2 is two GPUs, so it's the fastest card. But as I've noticed with the CF setup, having two GPUs isn't the kiss of death like it used to be.
If you can't afford the 280, then the 4870 1GB is really a no-brainer. It's brilliant value, has no major issues like ATI cards of old, and isn't even noisy like ATI cards of old!
But what if you can afford a 280? Then life gets a whole lot more complicated. The 280 is stuck between the 4870 1GB and 4870 X2. If it was ~£20 cheaper, the 280 would definitely win. I think it comes down to the following:
- If you don't want to use lots of power, and prefer a quieter PC, the 280 makes much more sense. Remember more power consumption = more noise from the PSU, and more money to the leccy company.
- If you want to play a game without worrying about drivers etc. The 280 makes more sense.
- If you want all-out performance, then the 4870 X2 is for you.
I wish it were an easier choice, and I'm sure this is why some people are so passionate over getting the 'right' one. Except here is a situation where they're all the 'right' one, just right for different people.
I used it to confirm some suspicions I had.Well, here we are, follow up to the GTX280 / 4870 1GB First Impressions Thread. Technically I'm still at the first impressions stage, but I think my findings will be helpful to people who aren't sure which road to go down. I do all my testing at 1920x1200, the native resolution of my monitor - a Dell 2707.
My 4870s have dual fans, not the standard stock cooling. This is important! I talk about noise, and this is a critical change over the stock models.
First, some initial points to try and minimise confusion:
- This isn't an out and out performance comparison - it is a guide covering acceptable performance, and how the cards handle
- This isn't about which is the 'best' - as with most things there is no 'best', just the product that best (heh) fits your requirements
- I don't have a 4850 or GTX260 - so they're not in the comparison
I have tested thus far with the following games:
- UT3
- Crysis
- Stalker: Clear Sky
- Bioshock
- Mass Effect
- Fear
- HL2
- 3D Mark Vantage
Right, on to general performance observations:
- The 4870s in CrossFire perform about the same as the GTX280. That is not to say the FPS is the same - but the general gameplay is. The CrossFire set up has a slight advantage however, and if the game supports it, is more enjoyable. You can increase the AA/AF and get a better overall experience. However, its from from a landing blow with a sledgehammer.
- The 4870 1GB performs well. If you're on a budget and have a large screen, you can't go wrong with it. IMHO you would be foolish to go for the 512MB or 4850. But I like smoothnees and pretty pictures.
- The GTX280 works with everything, and always performs well with 4x AA outside of games like Crysis.
- CrossFire doesn't dramatically increase playability, it does however, smooth things out.
If you need more performance info, I'm sure there are a bazillion reviews you can check out. Now for the much more important stuff, what are these solutions like to live with?
- In Mass Effect, some of the particle effects show their boundaries on the 4870, so instead of a nice circle, you could see the square outline of the quad the texture was on. I'm not sure if this was due to the ADAA and AF I had enabled - will test in a few mins...
- Clear Sky no longer even boots up for me on the ATI cards
Single or otherwise. I can run in DX8 mode only. - In Crysis, the pulsing effect on your suit is a solid colour. Initially in the first level speed pulses for a while, then goes solid. Same happens with strength. Later levels its solid from the outset. This is 4870 only. I tested with both the 280 and a 6600GT - both retain the pulsing effect indefinitely.
- In Clear Sky, the camo netting doesn't render on the 4870 in DX9 mode (when I could run it).
- In Bioshock, the GTX280 supports AA in DX10 mode. 4870 doesn't.
- Transparency AA looks much better on the 4870 - however, if you enable lots of AF, the quality is the same as NV's
- I think AA looks a little better on ATI, but its subtle
- I think the shaders in Crysis look very slightly better on ATI, however the trees are slightly better on NV. Again, very subtle and could be my imagination.
- The GTX280 is noisier than the 4870
- The 4870 has a range of RPM where the fan makes a whiney sound, this is irritating
- Both cards radiate a lot of heat. Obviously the CF set up radiates a lot more, its quite disturbing how I have a warm patch on my sidepanel just above the cards.
- Both the GTX280 and 4870 can throw up artefacts in the Jane Nash demo of Vantage. However, I think this is a 3D Mark thing, since 03 also had a tendency to artefact. The 4870 in CrossFire threw up more than the single cards (which rarely artefacted).
- I noticed with ATI, the AF can be quite aggressive. 90% of the time, it results in a nicer image. However, on textures with transparency (any amount, including dirty windows), you can get a kind of moire or flickering effect. Its somewhat distracting and doesn't seem to happen on the NV cards. Additionally ATI's AF nullifies their much better transparency AA, which is extremely disappointing since its beautiful without AF.
- I prefer the CCC to NV's control panel.
- There is no 'disable AF' option in the CCC
Some CrossFire-specific observations:
- It's much better than SLI. Sorry, but ATI seem to have really got their act together since the 2900XT.
- Enabling / Disabling happens without reboot every time, and there doesn't even seem to be any lag.
- I uninstalled the ATI drivers with CF enabled, then reinstalled them. The only way I could get the secondary card to install, was to remove it, boot into Windows, shut down, insert the secondary card, then boot up again. This reset the previously set CF mode, and enabled Windows to install the card. CF enabled automatically after that - no reboot required.
- Performance increase is appreciable. Most importantly is that it lets you enable AA with ADAA. This makes games pretty
- With CF enabled, they match a single GTX280 in Crysis. I would give a small nod to the CF set up for being slightly smoother. But its very subtle and you would be very happy with both.
- Microstutter! Yes its still here, but greatly reduced and I do mean greatly. I would say, take off ~10% of the fps and that's how it feels in comparison to a single card. Suffice it to say its nothing like the microstutter of old.
- ATI support dual monitors with CrossFire enabled. Pwned NV.
- Don't need a horrible, horrible NV chipset. No offence NV, but I've been through 6 NV chipset boards trying to get a stable board.
- CF doesn't support a version of NV's HybridPower. HybridPower is AWESOME, and would really help with the power hungry ATI cards.
- Ironically, the HybridSLI/HybridPower switcher on supporting chipsets fixes a lot of the enabling/disabling SLI issues you get with NV. However, this just matches CF, and only 90% of the time.
- The two cards together get hotter & noisier, and at stock were no quieter than the 280. In fact, due to the pitch they were downright irritating. Fortunately the heatsink is wide open with just a red plate over the top for mouting the stock fans. I mounted a 120mm fan at the end of the cards, blowing nice cold air from front to back over the heatsinks of both cards. Noise dropped significantly, now only slightly noisier than a single card.
Few miscellaneous observations:
- The uninstaller of both manufacturers is much improved. An uninstall of the drivers was sufficient, no need for driver cleaners etc.
- I found my system was generally more stable with an NV card in it.
- The 4870 1GB is in no way faster than the GTX280. While we know its faster in some benchmarks - the 280 is still pulling in sufficient numbers. When things get tough, the 280 stays high while the 4870 starts to fall behind.
- The 1GB VRAM makes a difference. In the final level of Crysis on the carrier plummeted in FPS on my 8800GTX which had 768MB RAM. On both the 4870 and 280 it remains fine. If you have less than 1GB - turn down the texture quality from high to medium, this will solve the FPS issue. When the carrier level is reloaded later on, you can increase it back to high. It seems its only when you first land on the carrier that the textures take up a lot of room.
- I still don't know whether I prefer the 280 or the 4870 CrossFire setup. This says a lot for ATI's dual GPU solution, its come a long way from that external dongle.
- I'm still oh-so-confused by ATI and their image quality. They offer great AA/AF/ADAA quality - yet the AF is too aggressive and almost appears to be part unsharp mask filter. Add to this, aggressive driver optimisation to remove 'unseen' objects from view. I can only assume they're trying to not render invisible stuff, since things just disappear from time to time with ATI. (I even saw a truck in Crysis with a missing wheel! You could shoot the wheel and see the ricochets off of it - but the wheel itself - missing. Game bug? Maybe, but it didn't happen on the 280) Edit: This missing wheel is a game bug. ATI need to worry less about performance in benchmarks, and more about quality of gaming. Or do they? All people seem to care about are the FPS numbers on a graph using a canned benchmark that can be heavily optimised in drivers to give an unrealistic view of actual performance.
So what conclusions can we come to? Well, NV have the fastest GPU, full stop. The 4870 X2 is two GPUs, so it's the fastest card. But as I've noticed with the CF setup, having two GPUs isn't the kiss of death like it used to be.
If you can't afford the 280, then the 4870 1GB is really a no-brainer. It's brilliant value, has no major issues like ATI cards of old, and isn't even noisy like ATI cards of old!
But what if you can afford a 280? Then life gets a whole lot more complicated. The 280 is stuck between the 4870 1GB and 4870 X2. If it was ~£20 cheaper, the 280 would definitely win. I think it comes down to the following:
- If you don't want to use lots of power, and prefer a quieter PC, the 280 makes much more sense. Remember more power consumption = more noise from the PSU, and more money to the leccy company.
- If you want to play a game without worrying about drivers etc. The 280 makes more sense.
- If you want all-out performance, then the 4870 X2 is for you.
I wish it were an easier choice, and I'm sure this is why some people are so passionate over getting the 'right' one. Except here is a situation where they're all the 'right' one, just right for different people.
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