My gtx 260 vs. my hd 4870

[nkdesistyle]

I have a bfg gtx 260 and I was able to clock it to 756/1533/1200 rock stable and tested with furmark and atitool and got no artifact, and have gamed for hours. so I decided to bench it with my previous hd 4870 I had in my system which I put in another system and sadly can't really run benches on that any more, but I will compare whatever I benched when I had the card.

so here it goes.
gtx at 756/1533/1200 and hd 4870 at 790/1100
drivers used 177.66 for gtx 260, and 8.7betas for hd 4870(note these beta for hd 4870 drivers are newer revision than the official release and they seem to give a good boost in vantage to hd 4870)
cpu is q9450 at 3.9 on air(24/7) temps 65c prime load on highest core
motherboard p5q-e

all games are run at 1920x1200 other than 3dmark06 and vantage.

Lost Planet dx 9 4xAA everything high, hdr medium, and motion blur medium

snow benchmark
gtx 260 = 67.1
hd 4870 = 59.9
cave
gtx 260 = 93.7
hd 4870 = 86.2

now same settings with 8xAA
snow
gtx 260 = 59.6
hd 4870 = 57.4
cave
gtx 260 = 88.1
hd 4870 = 84.7

now with 4xAA and everything at high including hdr and motion blur
snow
gtx 260 = 54.9
hd 4870 = 44.9
cave
gtx 260 = 82.1
hd 4870 = 65.8

crysis dx9 1920x1200
gtx 260 = 44.1
hd 4870 = 40.265

crysis dx10 1920x1200
gtx 260 = 39.23
hd 4870 = 34.54

crysis very high 1280x720
gtx 260 = 40
hd 4870 = 36

stalker 1920x1200 and all sliders to max-all selections highlighted
short_timedemo
gtx 260 = 136
hd 4870 = 114

bulidings_timedemo
gtx 260 = 142
hd 4870 = 115

fear 1920x1200 softshadows on
gtx 260 = 134
hd 4870 = 99

world in conflict benchmark very high 1920x1200 0xAA 16xAF
gtx 260 = 46
hd 4870 = 38

3dmark06 ran in windows xp to reduce any limitations vista poses.
gtx 260 = 19831
hd 4870 = 18162

3dmark06 8xAA 16xAF
gtx 260 = 12735
hd 4870 = 10728

Halflife 2 episode 2 4xAA 1920x1200 everything maxed
gtx 260 = 155
hd 4870 = 114 (taken from expreview.com sorry did not run the bench, you can add a few fps on for higher core clock of 790/1100)

now episode 2 with 8xAA
gtx 260 = 143
hd 4870 = 104 ( again taken from expreview.com)

3dmark vantage gpu score(I am including just the gpu score because I have physx drivers installed)
gtx 260 = 9991
hd 4870 = 9066

my gtx 260 I have is a really good overclocker, and also I am planning on stepping it up to something better may be the 55nm version or the 65nm gtx 280 later if the 55nm does not come out in time, that is the only reason I purchased a gtx 260 and I really loved the hd 4870 but I handed that over to my cousin because I was debating to get the gtx 260, and I am glad I did, I am not a big fan of multigpu no matter how good they are.

this short review is not to start a flame war but to say that most gtx 260 tend to run around 700 but mine runs great at 750 with fan at 60% bearly noticeble and it scales really well.

EDIT: do note that I am using the 177.66 drivers but I dont think that is the reason I am getting kick ass 8xAA performance, I think that is due to the high core clock, because gtx 260 at 575 I believe is really starving for more clock speed when you enable high AA, I might be wrong but with a 30% clock increase I am seeing performance through the roof with this card specially when enabling 8xAA and the performance hit is minimum.

I did this to compare gtx 260 at 750 vs hd 4870 @ 790/1100, hd 4870 really has very efficient ROP's but the core clock is also higher than gtx 260 which might be the reason it performs far better than gtx series.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

how much will you sell the 4870 for. i could buy it off you

 

[natty1]

Was the bfg gtx260 originally a stock card? Or was it an overclocked version?

 

[SickBeast]

That's impressive.

It would be a more "fair" comparison if you were to have overclocked the 4870 however.

Could you do me a favor and benchmark the last boss fight in Crysis? I would be interested in seeing how my outdated rig compares with yours. I'm running an 8800GTS and that stage brought my computer to its knees. Another good level to try would be the "flight sim" one.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Looks like the hd4870 is overclocked, but not by much i guess compared to the OCed clocks of the GTX260. Did you hit a wall when OCing the HD4870? 790MHz on the core means a 40MHz bump from stock.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Looks like the hd4870 is overclocked, but not by much i guess compared to the OCed clocks of the GTX260. Did you hit a wall when OCing the HD4870? 790MHz on the core means a 40MHz bump from stock.

Oops! My bad!

AFAIK that's as high as the 4870 overclocks according to the reviews I've read that did it. I'm pretty sure that the CCC limits the core to 790, but my guess is that it's approaching its limits at that speed anyway.

 

[nkdesistyle]

Yes for two days the hd 4870 was running fine at 840 and and after two days it would not run anything higher than 790, tried 800/810/820 but I was running in to stability problems. I even saw messed up pixels on my 2d desktop in vista.

I gave the card to my cousin, he is happy with it, but out of curiosity I really wanted to see it for myself.

I really dont think it should matter because technically hd 4870 that I benched with was running at 790/1100 and it is still overclocked to the max stable speed.

but even at 840 It did not scale well, I mean 3dmark vantage increased a few hundred points but I did not see a significant difference between 790 and 840 in games. crysis increased on 1 or 2 frames on average.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

can i buy the 4870 or not

 

[nkdesistyle]

honestly the reason I wanted to overclock the gtx 260 was because I wanted to see the AA performance with the card is overclocked to the same speed of hd 4870 or 40mhz less, because it should make sense that with more effecient rop's and higher speed the hd 4870 is really cruising over the gtx series. with 8xAA I do see a hit larger than hd 4870 but not nearly as large as reviews with the card running at 750

 

[nkdesistyle]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
can i buy the 4870 or not

sorry, I actually gave it to my cousin, he jumped the gun on it.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

i'll offer $240

 

[Cookie Monster]

Nice review anyhow, further comments on noise heat and other observations you've noticed between the cards?

 

[nkdesistyle]

wow almost forgot, I honestly have to admit the noise diffrence is night and day compared to my hd 4870, anything higher than 38 or 40% on the fan speed on 4870 is really noticeable, and with gtx 260 the fan is nearly silent at 50% and at 60-70 it becomes noticeable but bearly if you have other system fans you would probably not notice it, but if I leave it on auto the highest temps with those speeds ar 74c under heavy load, and idles around 42-43c, I leave it on auto and if you have good airflow in the case than you should not worry about high temps, with fan at 63% the temps stay in the 60's

 

[nkdesistyle]

I am about to play thorugh the first level of call of duty 4 as I did on the hd 4870 which I have results for and I will update the list accordingly. but any further results if I do would not include the hd 4870 as I did not note any other results for the hd 4870.

by the way how do I post a screenshot in this forum, I cant seem to find the insert image button.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Hmmm. I might have a tough decision for upgrading my Intel rig. Fan noise is a big factor for me. I may tuck in a 4850 to my little X2 rig though, that looks like an ideal upgrade.

 

[nkdesistyle]

hd 4870 though with 35% fan speed cooled the card pretty good, the thing is at 35% fan speed the hd 4870 ran at 2000+ rpm while the gtx at 70% fan speed runs at 1146rpm, they both seem to work great though and gtx 260 does not have the leag blower sound that the hd 4870 has at high rpms, and they are both great cards you cant go wrong with either one.

 

[ginfest]

Nice comparison, I agree with your conclusions as I saw the same things you did re; heat and noise. I only have my 260 at 650 oc, I'm breaking it in slowly But i have seen the performance steadily rise with OC, more than my 4870 did at 790. And at 790 that thing was really producing some heat and noise (Yes I had the "hotfix" drvs and the fan/profile "trick" set but the NV drvs do a much better job with the clock/fan/heat cycle)

 

[RussianSensation]

Looks like OC GTX 260 is quite a handful for 4870! Certainly something to consider for those who dont mind OC their GPU.

 

[User5]

Was AA enabled in game, or was it enabled in CCC for the 4870? I've found that you will really only get the free AA if you enable it through CCC.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
can i buy the 4870 or not

How can you buy something he never had? This is a fake.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: spittledip

Originally posted by: x2 3600 rules sazakky
can i buy the 4870 or not

How can you buy something he never had? This is a fake.

It must be a fake, because you dont like the results!


Anyway a heavily OC'd 260 has been shown to get close to a Vanilla 280, so its not really surprising that it could meet/beat a vanilla 4870.

 

[ss284]

Any idea as to how much power the overclocked 260 draws compared to the hd4870? I remember the hd4870 taking more power at both idle and load when both are at stock.

 

[tuteja1986]

screenshot please :!

 

[idiotekniQues]

this is with cat 8.6 right?

the 8.7 increased lost planet performance a ton i thought.

 

[HOOfan 1]

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
this is with cat 8.6 right?

the 8.7 increased lost planet performance a ton i thought.

Originally posted by: nkdesistyle

drivers used 177.66 for gtx 260, and 8.7betas for hd 4870(note these beta for hd 4870 drivers are newer revision than the official release and they seem to give a good boost in vantage to hd 4870)