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enough is enough. New graphics card and ram, yet another ati vs nvidia

Cew27

Cew27

Cew27

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Joined
8 Apr 2008
Posts
706
right, im sick to sh17 with nvidia driver errors and bsods under vista 64, so come christmas im getting a new graphics card to replace my ultra. im also getting some better ram. now here is where i need your views.
i was thinking of replacing my 4 x 1gb ocz sticks with some patriot ram 2 x 2gb
secondly graphics card...
here is what i was thinking
either
nvidia gtx 280
ati 4870
ati 4870 x2

sorry for making another nvida vs ati thread but i would like to hear some reccomendations.
this will be for gaming under windows and some under linux.
thanks a lot.
cew27
 
Which OCZ sticks do you have? I was tempted to swap my 4x1gb OCZ SLI 8500 sticks for a 2x2gb kit, but haven't found one that performs anywhere near these 4 sticks.

As for GPU, what's the rest of your setup, and at what resolution do you game?
 
Resolution is vital to know what card to recommend. The 4870X2 is a brilliant card but it will be totally wasted at 1680x1050 or below for example.

If you get Patriot RAM, I bought their 1066 stuff and had to RMA; I've heard similar reports around the web; reckon there is at least one bad batch floating around.
 
perhaps they are faulty then. Try RMA.

As for a GPU, you can't go wrong with the 4870x2 at that resolution
 
Hello Cew27, the memory that you currently have seems to be absolutely fine and changing it for what seems to be just different module sizes will yield no noticeable performance gains in real life situations. Though, if you are into overclocking, you may be able to overclock your system slightly easier using 2 memory modules instead of 4, so it may be worth changing it purely for that reason alone. Now, even if the memory that you already have is rated to run at 800MHz and the patriot is rated to run at 1066MHz, it will be very hard to tell the difference in real life situations. The only real reason to change for a higher rated kit is if you are overclocking your system and the memory that you have is struggling to keep up.

You say that you are receiving a few Blue Screens Of Death which could obviously be memory related. Have you tried running Memtest?

Regarding the graphics card. It really depends on how much you are willing to spend. If you are happy with spending around £380 then the ATI Radeon 4870 X2 is the graphics card to get. If I was in your situation though I would opt for the Nvidia GTX 280 because from what I have read, it seems to offer extremely good performance and also very consistent performance too. :)
 
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to be honest i want the best card i can get without spending more than £400.
the most consistent and the one that will last the longest
 
I think if your gaming at 1920x1200 i'd go for the X2, while the the benches are pretty close at 1680x1050 and both cards will give a solid 60 FPS average in most games, at the higher resolution the X2 comes out ahead in nearly every review and on practically every game, the performance drop off going from 1680x1050 to 1920x1200 is less prounced and in some cases non existant on the X2

Don't get me wrong the GTX is a great card, i have 1:), but if i had a 24" instead of a 22" i would likely have gone ATI
 
First off it is highly unlikely that the BSOD is caused by the NV drivers unless you are using beta drivers, even then I would look towards your memory.

Running 4 sticks of ram will most likely be the culprit, especially if you have an older mobo as this puts a lot of stress on the memory controller. First thing you should do is Memtest them at stock voltages, stock speed. If they error, they are faulty and they will be the cause of the BSOD. If they don't error that doesn't mean the memory aint the problem, try running two sticks and see if your problems go away, if they do it's the old 4 stick problem.

If you are adamant that NV are to blame for all your troubles then there really is only one option, the 4870x2, but don't expect consistent results.
 
well, the bsods i got were caused by nvddlmkm.sys = nvidia
i agree about 4 sticks making it less stable but im on a asus p5q deluxe, no old board
 
Nope, it can't be the nVidia drivers - everyone and their dog knows that nVidia drivers are perfect, they don't crash, BSOD, or do anything bad to the PC.

Must be your RAM.

;)
 
Cew27 said:
well, the bsods i got were caused by nvddlmkm.sys = nvidia
i agree about 4 sticks making it less stable but im on a asus p5q deluxe, no old board
Click to expand...

It doesn't necessarily mean that the root cause is NVidia drivers, display drivers are so integrated into the Vista OS that it is usually the first thing to cause a crash in an unstable system.

Perhaps you should try with just 2 sticks of RAM installed and see if that helps.

If you are absolutely convinced it's the drivers then I'm confused why G280 is even an option in your original post? it seems like you're just trying to compensate for the tens of threads of ATI problems and start another fanboy war. ;)
 
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