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NVIDIA GeForce with CUDA GTX280 vs ATi Radeon HD4870 X2 help

I was assuming he meant 2x 4870X2 v 2x 280GTX so the 295GTX would have given a ballpark figure against 4870X2 crossfire.
 
Well i will give you my opinion, having gone from GTX280 SLI to dual 4870X2's and back to GTX280 SLI

When games support proper crossfire, it is far faster as you would imagine.

But, a lot of games seem to have fairly poor support

for example. the in game benchmark for FEAR would give an average FPS of 75 but it would have a minimum of 18FPS, wheres the GTX280 SLI would have a minimum of 60FPS.

Tomb Raider Underworld (in the scene with the giant Octopus in front of you) the frame rate on the QuadFire system would be around 35, on the GTX280 SLI its over 100.

At the end of the day, my decision to move back to Nvidia was because they have most of the big name manufacturers in their pockets and the games are consequently heavily optimised to run on their hardware.

User creatable SLI profiles are a big win as well, the ATI drivers are notoriously bad and i was sick and tired of having to go to the catalyst control panel and manually choose the AA level for each game i played. God knows when ATI will wake up and implement this feature in their drivers. On many games, my 2nd 4870X2 was sitting idle and doing nothing.

Hope this helps
 
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somewhatdamaged said:
Well i will give you my opinion, having gone from GTX280 SLI to dual 4870X2's and back to GTX280 SLI

When games support proper crossfire, it is far faster as you would imagine.

But, a lot of games seem to have fairly poor support

for example. the in game benchmark for FEAR would give an average FPS of 75 but it would have a minimum of 18FPS, wheres the GTX280 SLI would have a minimum of 60FPS.

Tomb Raider Underworld (in the scene with the giant Octopus in front of you) the frame rate on the QuadFire system would be around 35, on the GTX280 SLI its over 100.

At the end of the day, my decision to move back to Nvidia was because they have most of the big name manufacturers in their pockets and the games are consequently heavily optimised to run on their hardware.

User creatable SLI profiles are a big win as well, the ATI drivers are notoriously bad and i was sick and tired of having to go to the catalyst control panel and manually choose the AA level for each game i played. God knows when ATI will wake up and implement this feature in their drivers. On many games, my 2nd 4870X2 was sitting idle and doing nothing.

Hope this helps
Click to expand...

So would you think I would benefit with the 2x 280 x2 instead of the 2x 4870 x2?

I looked at ure sig, isnt my quoted pc specs nearly the same as ures...

Intel® Core™ i7 940 Quad Core Processor (2.93GHz,8MB Cache,4.8GT/s)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English
CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 Professional Silent Chassis with 1000W PSU
ASUS P6T Deluxe Mainboard - Intel Core™ i7 - ATX - Dual Mode SLI & CrossfireX
6GB 1333MHz Triple Channel DDR3 SDRAM - ( 3x2GB )
1TB (1x 1000GB) Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive with 32MB Buffer
2x 1GB NVIDIA GeForce with CUDA GTX280 SLi Configuration
Click to expand...
 
The 4870X2 is a great card, adding another didn't really make much difference in most games with the exception of Fallout 3, Oblivion and Devil May Cry 5

The GTX 280 SLI has consistently given me a higher minimum frame rate in 80% of the gaes i have tried.

Plus, you will save yourself quite a bit of money as well.

Only advice i can give is if you buy the P6T Deluxe you won't be able to go Tri-Sli, which in hindsight i wish i had done - what with the cheap GTX280 prices!

Oh, i wouldn't bother with the 940 either, stick with the 920 and put an Ultra 120 Extreme on it with a couple of Noctua fans - it will be just as fast and save you some cash.
 
somewhatdamaged said:
The 4870X2 is a great card, adding another didn't really make much difference in most games with the exception of Fallout 3, Oblivion and Devil May Cry 5

The GTX 280 SLI has consistently given me a higher minimum frame rate in 80% of the gaes i have tried.

Plus, you will save yourself quite a bit of money as well.

Only advice i can give is if you buy the P6T Deluxe you won't be able to go Tri-Sli, which in hindsight i wish i had done - what with the cheap GTX280 prices!

Oh, i wouldn't bother with the 940 either, stick with the 920 and put an Ultra 120 Extreme on it with a couple of Noctua fans - it will be just as fast and save you some cash.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your advice, The 940 is included in the basic anyway so it dont make much difference to me in price :S but I think I will get a different board and run SLI with the 280's.. Which board would you suggest which would work well with my setup?
 
lol well i meant to say 'games'!

If just going SLI then the P6T is great, no problems here - but very overpriced as all X58 boards are!

If going TRI, then i believe the Gigabyte can do that.

Good luck anyway mate!
 
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