• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

ATI vs NVidia Help

The 260-216 has a lower idle wattage. Depends if you use the computer a lot on the desktop.

Physics on the Nvidia card wins over dx 10.1...look at Cryostasis for example with the diff. in frame rates.

Can overclock the 216s to 280 stock performance.

imo the Control Panel of Nvidia's is better than the ati's equivalent.

You tend to get a longer warranty with nvidia cards.

I did read that there were probs with the 4870s too with a higher failure rate and driver issues.. might be fixed now though.

Is this new Sapphire cooler guaranteed to be on all their 4870 cards?
 
Last edited:
VortexA1 said:
The 260-216 has a lower idle wattage. Depends if you use the computer a lot on the desktop.

Physics on the Nvidia card wins over dx 10.1...look at Cryostasis for example with the diff. in frame rates.

Can overclock the 216s to 280 stock performance.

imo the Control Panel of Nvidia's is better than the ati's equivalent.

You tend to get a longer warranty with nvidia cards.

I did read that there were probs with the 4870s too with a higher failure rate and driver issues.. might be fixed now though.

Is this new Sapphire cooler guaranteed to be on all their 4870 cards?
Click to expand...

High failure rate on the 4870's were due to outselling nvdia gtx series by a large margine. I prefer ati control panel over the nv one just because i have used it more. Its true nv do offer a longer warranty but most of us don't keep gpu's over 2 years. The new cooler i think comes on all the sapphire 4870 1gb i think. Physx does not win over dx10.1 i think most people would take free 4xaa over some crappy physics affects that we are seeing atm but this is a mute point atm as there are not many decent physx games nor dx 10.1 games. The gtx260 is the best overclocker out of the 2 cards.

Performance on the 2 cards is equal on the newest drivers. Don't buy a card on physx or dx10.1. Both the control panels are simple to use not sure why people complain about one or the other these days. As said flip a coin it makes no real difference which card you get they are both great.
 
Both are cracking cards despite what the little green or red trolls might say. I've gone for the 4870 purely because it was £3 cheaper than the 216 at the time. Before that I had a 8800GTS which was awesome as well. You will be well pleased with both cards. Again, ignore those who sings the praises of 216 over 4870 or vice versa, it's only based on emotion :)
 
Red or green trolls that's a bit harsh.

The OP was asking for peeps to give merits of each camp - they just answered what he asked.
 
Last edited:
Agreed - it seems very little in it at the moment. I'm still trying to weigh up physx v DX 10.1 (personally I think DX 10.1 would be more important as MS seems to be pushing games for windows which will be based on this).

Then there's the DDR5 vs DDR3 debats. Finally there's the 860mb vs 1024mb...

Choices choices... thanks though all.. :)



M.
 
well.....i have a 4870 512 mem card....running on a p45 chipset....am looking at getting a 280gtx...or another 4870 for crossfire....which would be the best option...1x gtx at 16x pciex or 2x4870 at 2x8 lanes pciex...any help much appreciated
 
rounddodger said:
Ignore this review as it only uses 180.47 drivers. The since released "Big Bang 2"
drivers 180.48+ have significant performance gains over the 48xx cards.
Click to expand...

The since released "Big Bang 2"
drivers 180.48+ have significant performance gains over the 48xx cards using 8.11.
Click to expand...
Fixed
Is the best you can claim with out links to back them up from more than one source.
 
they are dead mate again, the 1gb performces about the same as a 216 core GTX260 with the 8-12 drivers and its a more powerfull card to bad ATI can't build drivers properly or that wouldn't happen. but both are cracking cards, it depnds what you do with it looking a bit tech and yeah even my HD4870 512 can beat the gtx260:O but than 8-12 drivers are better :P hope 8-13 are good :P
 
Last edited:
AMG said:
they are dead mate again, the 1gb performces about the same as a 216 core GTX260 with the 8-12 drivers and its a more powerfull card to bad ATI can't build drivers properly or that wouldn't happen. but both are cracking cards, it depnds what you do with it looking a bit tech and yeah even my HD4870 512 can beat the gtx260:O but than 8-12 drivers are better :P hope 8-13 are good :P
Click to expand...

8.13s will never come... :p

There will be 9.01s though, they go by the year and the month, 2008 month 12.
 
kylew said:
Ahh I see, sorry. At the moment I don't have any links, I'm on my iPhone at the moment so I can't copy and paste :p but you should be able to find some on techpowerup of the older drivers. :)
Click to expand...

Hi kylew, thanks. The only review I could find is here written by TweakTown which analysis the performance between the Catalyst 8.11 and the Catalyst 8.12 drivers.

The only noticeable performance gains from the Catalyst 8.12 drivers are in Far Cry 2 on Windows Vista using an ATI Radeon 4870 X2. Even then, I believe the only reason for this rather large performance boost is because the Catalyst 8.12 addressed a previous issue that was affecting the performance in Far Cry 2. So, since we are talking about the Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 and the ATI Radeon 4870 1024MB, which ever driver set you are using, it will make very little difference in the performance you get when playing games.

Unfortunately, I still can't seem to find any articles that compare the Nvidia 180.47 to the latest Nvidia 180.48 drivers. If anyone does have any links to any articles that compare the performance between these two driver set, please feel free to post. :)

rounddodger said:
Ignore this review as it only uses 180.47 drivers. The since released "Big Bang 2"
drivers 180.48+ have significant performance gains over the 48xx cards.
Click to expand...

Hi rounddodger, have you got any links to any articles that back this up or is this purely from word of mouth?

Thanks. :)
 
Last edited:
6 quid more for a GTX260 216? Get that.

But both cards you will be happy with.

Anyone saying anything like this:
X card has lower build quality
X card had higher failure rate
X company has better drivers

Anything of that sort, don't listen to them, each company has their problems with drivers and as far as build quality and failure rate goes it's load of rubbish what people say.

I've had minimal problems with ATi, the only thing I would like is more AA support in games via CCC, hardly any games I have support AA in the CCC, with NV this was a smaller issue.

I prefer NV driver control panel, this is a personal preference.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom