4870X2 vs GTX280 Poll

[nRollo]

As NVIDIA fired a price drop across ATis bow today, and ATi has responded with a soft launch in hopes of slowing down those GTX280 sales, which are you planning to buy and why?

Or neither and why.

Different people have different hot buttons, I'm curious to see what the board is thinking.

 

[bryanW1995]

neither. my 3870 is overkill for the games I play at 14x9... Of course, if I ever get into crysis then it could be nice to actually use very high with some AA...

 

[n7]

Should have my GTX 280 tomorrow or next day, & i hope to get it installed & maybe benched this weekend.

I may buy a 4870X2 to compare later, similar to how i bought a HD 2900 XT 1 GB & HD 3870X2 to compare with my 8800 GTX.

 

[SSChevy2001]

I would go the 4870x2, just because I think price vs performance it's better. Idle power is my only concern, but's that's not official yet. Also I game on a HDTV so winning anything higher than 1080p means nothing to me.

Honestly though I'm waiting for farcry 2 benchmarks, before I get my next card.

 

[kreacher]

Price/performance is better at the $299 mark so neither for me.

 

[Compddd]

4870X2, better price/performance for the games I play.

 

[taltamir]

neither, for some games I am already CPU bound (at under 60fps) with my E8400 OC 3.6ghz, for others, I don't think the extra performance justifies the extra price (cost, cost of PSU, cost of electricity, etc).

I will either keep my 4850, or give it to my brother and get a 4870 / GTX260 until Q1/2 09 or so when nehalem arrives, then get a nehalem quad + next gen video.

 

[Sylvanas]

4870X2. It is clearly the fastest single card solution and for my resolution of 1920x1200 it will allow me to play with a level of AA I have never used with many modern games.

 

[nib95]

Neither, but if I was to buy one, it would definitely be the 4870 X2.

 

[BFG10K]

I still don't know what I'm getting but what I do know is that I'm not getting the 4870 X2.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Neither at the moment, waiting for the dust to settle and DisplayPort cards to appear from the new generation. I have an extensive back catalog of games from the late 90s, early 2ks to play until then...

 

[betasub]

Neither, still to pricey.

Anyone else have a 9800GTX+ yet?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

with my proposed monitor upgrade to 19x12, the 4870x2 looks like a great card that can run high levels of AA/AF. will definitely NOT buy the 280 because of the way nvidia has treated their customers for the past 2 years.

 

[Kuzi]

I voted for the 4870x2, but not 100% sure I will get it, want to see more tests first. I was waiting for the 1GB 4870 to be released, but decided with the X2 now. Will get a 24" or 26" LCD to go with it (probably a new PSU too).

 

[Cookie Monster]

I dont get it. nVIDIA treated us with G80, then 8800GT, then 9600GT etc. Now they are pricing their GTX series cards at $299/$499 (260/280). Am i missing something here?

 

[CKTurbo128]

At this point, I'm leaning towards the 4870 X2, but the power consumption and the heat emission are somewhat a concern.

 

[nitromullet]

Where's your "both" option?

 

[Triton67]

4870X2 (or 4870 crossfired) vs 4850 crossfired = 100W differance in load, don't like that at all. For me (1680x1050 today), a single 4870 would last another year.

Nah, waiting for more 55nm nvidia and ati gpus, 2x6pin fed max !

 

[MarcVenice]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I still don't know what I'm getting but what I do know is that I'm not getting the 4870 X2.

Why not ? I don't see what's wrong with it, judging from the previews? You rather get cf-ed HD4850's, or cf-ed HD4870's instead? No ati at all ? 55nm gtx ?

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Nope he'd rather get all Nvidia hardware since he's an Nvidia fanboy. That's blatantly obvious from his posts, his bias is clearly evident. Dismissing every positive thing about ATI whenever he can.

 

[Hauk]

Can't vote right now, still weighing the pro and cons.

I'd jump on a GTX 280 any day at $449, I can say that though. A single GPU powerhouse that assures me 100% GPU utilization, which in itself is a value add. It would work for my requirements for a year, and if GT200b proves to be a near reality, it would likely be a $50 step-up option at most. EVGA/E-tailors need to bite the bullet and make the $449 price adjustment however. Gigabyte is already $449.

The 4870 X2 has advantages as well, as it appears to offer best in class performance. I like having the best available, and that also means having what's in demand. The main reason, I like knowing I can ebay it and have a strong buyer market when the time comes.

Clearly though, the GTX 280 has fewer cons than the X2. This is a battle of the psche, needs vs. wants. Gotta run... need to bang my head into the wall a few times..

 

[coreyb]

Neither. My 8800gtx does the job nicely right now. Won't be buying a new card anytime soon.

 

[Extelleron]

Already bought a GTX 280.

The 4870 X2 looks good but it's not the GTX 280-killer I thought it was going to be. The performance is there sometimes, but not always. Crysis performance is pretty disappointing, but more disappointing is that the card seems to rely just as much on CF scaling as the 3870 X2 did. The only difference is no microstutter this time around. So while you get incredible performance when the card scales well, other times it is around the same speed as the GTX 280.

The power consumption is a deal breaker for me. The GTX 280 hardly consumes a small amount of power, but compared to the 4870 X2 it is nothing. The 4870 X2 consumes 100W+ more than the 280 at full load. I'm not one to care about power consumption much, but that is insane. I'd need to go out and buy a new PSU if I wanted to buy an X2.

 

[ginfest]

Originally posted by: OneOfTheseDays
Nope he'd rather get all Nvidia hardware since he's an Nvidia fanboy. That's blatantly obvious from his posts, his bias is clearly evident. Dismissing every positive thing about ATI whenever he can.

Are you running a current ATI card? 48xx or even 38xx and the Cat drivers? If not, you probably can't understand why not everyone is fawning over them
My 4870 is going back as soon as my GTX arrives. The 3 games that I play all have problems and that's with the "Hotfix" which supposedly fixes these issues. I also have had 3 BSOD (Vista style-"the graphics driver has stopped responding....etc") since I installed the 4870/Cats and those were the first in over a year!
Add to that the "weird" fan spin-ups/downs, excessive heat and the other "quirks" and the Cats are a no-go here!
The 48xx series is a good product in general and has helped knock the over-priced NV stuff down which is nice. But for trouble-free ops in my machine NV works the best.
I guarantee that if I put screens side by side with the same game running, most folks couldn't pick out the NV or ATI side, other than blind chance.
nRollo, I wouldn't put too much faith in the poll results, but only go but the responses in the thread. With the rampant anti-NV sentiment here lately, I would guess thatmore than half the folks claiming they will buy the 4870x2 are FOS

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: ginfest
nRollo, I wouldn't put too much faith in the poll results, but only go but the responses in the thread. With the rampant anti-NV sentiment here lately, I would guess thatmore than half the folks claiming they will buy the 4870x2 are FOS

Well, it's true it's easier to say you'll buy something than buy it, and $549. is a lot of money to most people. I'm sure some are simply voting their support of their favorite company.

Nonetheless, it's a good thread to debate the merits of buying one or the other, thanks for your user experiences with the 4870.