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£160 Card upgrade

dr_shoe

dr_shoe

dr_shoe

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27 Nov 2003
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My 8800GTS seems to be packing up, windows is only running in safemode, so I need a replacement ASAP.

My budget is about 160 quid, the 4870s atm seem very good, but which one of them should I get?


Cheers.
 
XFX GTX 260 and oc it.

I have a 4870X2 in my main rig and hardly use it my dual core machine and GTX 260 run the games i play fine im just loving it atm after the problems ive had with my ATi card.
 
Personally, after owning both a XFX GTX260 216 Black (Factory Overclocked), a stock Asus GTX280 and a 4890 1Gb. I'd stick to Nvidia at this sort of money.

You can get a GTX 260 "Core 216" card, which will out preform almost all of the AMD/ATI cards, including the 4890 1Gb. The drivers are also more mature so you won't have to wait around for the performance tweaks for the 4890 to match the GTX 260s.

The Gainward on this site seems a good buy for £160.99: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=927&sortby=priceAsc

Or shop around, there are good deals out there. Alternatively you might be able to pick up a 2nd hand GTX280 for slightly more than your budget, a few have gone for £180 and lower on the forums and the bay.
 
Speed said:
Personally, after owning both a XFX GTX260 216 Black (Factory Overclocked), a stock Asus GTX280 and a 4890 1Gb. I'd stick to Nvidia at this sort of money.

You can get a GTX 260 "Core 216" card, which will out preform almost all of the AMD/ATI cards, including the 4890 1Gb. The drivers are also more mature so you won't have to wait around for the performance tweaks for the 4890 to match the GTX 260s.

The Gainward on this site seems a good buy for £160.99: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=927&sortby=priceAsc

Or shop around, there are good deals out there. Alternatively you might be able to pick up a 2nd hand GTX280 for slightly more than your budget, a few have gone for £180 and lower on the forums and the bay.
Click to expand...

A gtx260 216 will not out perform a 4890 you just have to look all around the net to see this. The drivers crap has been spoken about plenty of times with ati and nv drivers both having there problems. Not quite sure about what you mean by mature though as the 4870 has been around for a good while and the 4890 is basically a 4870 on steroids so drivers on both sides are very mature at this stage.
 
Agree with the above, the 260 is good but won't beat the 4890 in most test situations.

The 4870 and the 260 are on an even footing in most games, I saw a round somewhere recently and the ATI card was faster on 3 games and the Nvidia faster on the other 3 with them basically equal on the 7th title.

Either card will give you a nice boost, I have heard the stock Nvidia card is quieter than the stock Ati one but some of the cards now come with custom cooling solutions so will negate this, although I believe the Ati's still draw a fair bit more power on the PSU.

Below are a couple of benchmarks from Anandtech.

18717.png


18708.png
 
KraniX said:
Agree with the above, the 260 is good but won't beat the 4890 in most test situations.

The 4870 and the 260 are on an even footing in most games, I saw a round somewhere recently and the ATI card was faster on 3 games and the Nvidia faster on the other 3 with them basically equal on the 7th title.

Either card will give you a nice boost, I have heard the stock Nvidia card is quieter than the stock Ati one but some of the cards now come with custom cooling solutions so will negate this, although I believe the Ati's still draw a fair bit more power on the PSU.

Below are a couple of benchmarks from Anandtech.

18717.png


18708.png
Click to expand...

Now show the ones that ATI arent better in...
 
+1 for the 4870 1gb Saphire.

I bit the bullet, bought it and have never looked back.

It increased my AtiTool furry cube FPS 5 fold! (was 160 ish, then got up to 1100ish)
 
True, that may be what the reviews say, but my experience with the 4890 has hardly been great, the performance is not what I expected, my XFX GTX260 216 Black easily out performs it in COD5, Vantage, Titan Quest and some other games. As mentioned, you have PhysX on the card, which at least in Vantage, really does make a difference.

If you are going to go for an ATI/AMD card, get the 4890 at the very least, it can be had for £169, there really is no point getting a 4870 that I can see at the moment.

Again my experiences with drivers have varied, Nvidias just appear to be better.

As for maturing, what I mean't was even though it's based on the 4870, there will be tweaks and such released specifically for this new card that will boost performance.

I know we are talking about real world performance here and I'm the first to complain when people spout 3DMark scores as the only thing that matters, but it does show the differences. Here are mine:

System Info: Q6600 @ Stock Speeds with Vista 64bit Ultimate


ASUS GTX280 @ Stock Speeds 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 7.15.11.8208 Drivers)
P12559 3DMarks (CPU Score: 32102 / Graphics Score: 10440)

XFX GTX260 216 Black @ Factory Overclocks 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 7.15.11.8120 Drivers)
P12140 3DMarks (CPU Score: 32562 / Graphics Score: 10041)

4890 1Gb @ Stock Speeds 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 8.600.0.0 (9.4) Drivers)
P9327 3DMarks (CPU Score: 8486 / Graphics Score: 9646)

8800GTX @ Stock Speeds 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 7.15.11.8122 Drivers)
P7737 3DMarks (CPU Score: 26138 / Graphics Score: 6266)
 
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Overclocked, a GTX260/216 will be very close to an overclocked 4890. The GTX260 will also run much cooler and use less power.

Speed said:
ASUS GTX280 @ Stock Speeds 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 7.15.11.8208 Drivers)
P12559 3DMarks (CPU Score: 32102 / Graphics Score: 10440)

XFX GTX260 216 Black @ Factory Overclocks 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 7.15.11.8120 Drivers)
P12140 3DMarks (CPU Score: 32562 / Graphics Score: 10041)

4890 1Gb @ Stock Speeds 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 8.600.0.0 (9.4) Drivers)
P9327 3DMarks (CPU Score: 8486 / Graphics Score: 9646)

8800GTX @ Stock Speeds 3DMark Vantage (Default Settings with 7.15.11.8122 Drivers)
P7737 3DMarks (CPU Score: 26138 / Graphics Score: 6266)
Click to expand...
Let me add my overclocked GTX260 to the list.
14300 3DMarks (CPU Score: 40102 / Graphics Score 11774)

It is hard to find any 4890's that can match these numbers. Overclocked, the 260 easily outperforms a GTX280 which itself beats the 4890 in most games.
 
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May be the CPU is a bottleneck, according to the data the CPU was overclocked to 4051 MHz for the 4870. Was the 4870 at stock or overclocked?
 
Speed said:
May be the CPU is a bottleneck, according to the data the CPU was overclocked to 4051 MHz for the 4870. Was the 4870 at stock or overclocked?
Click to expand...

No orb doesn't report cpu correctly. Cpu was only 3.5Ghz on that run. 4870 was overclocked though, granted.

I do feel vantage and 3dmarks give better results to Nvidia cards than ATI cards and should only be used to compare speeds from the same manufacturer.

I know that my 3dmark06 scores were hardly any different between a 8800GTS 320mb and a 4870 512mb with cpu at the same speed yet the real world difference was amazing.

Overall I do think that the GTX260 216 overclocked is incredible bang for bucks and beats GTX280 and gives a GTX285 a run for its money.

Equally the 4890 overclocks like mad and gives a GTX285 a good run as well.

However, the 4890 is much more expensive normally so to sum up, get a GTX260 216 over a 4870 1gb any day but the 4890 is a viable alternative if you can find one for the same price as a GTX260 216.
 
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