New GTX260 vs 4870 1GB

[Wreckage]

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15651/12

If anything, the GTX 260 Reloaded was a smidgen faster than the 4870 1GB overall in our test suite. The GTX 260 is based on a much larger chip with a wider path to memory, which almost certainly means it costs more to make than the 4870, but as a consumer, you'd never know it when using the two products, so I'm not sure it matters much for our purposes. Even the GTX 260's power consumption is lower than the 4870's, and its noise levels are comparable. In the grand scheme, Nvidia may have a slight edge on AMD in some difficult-to-quantify ways. For instance, GeForce cards generally performed better with the newest game we tested,

Cooler heads will prevail, or my prevailing action will be to put heads in coolers(i.e. I start vacationing people). It's your choice.

-ViRGE

 

[AzN]

Factory overclocked vs non overclocked card. Yes really.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Exactly! FN Bias BS!

GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! Edition
(896MB GDDR3, 650 MHz Eclk, 2100 MHz Mclk, 448-bit,DVI)

Where's the OC 4870?

 

[apoppin]

i do agree with this .. for any 512mb card:

Only in a couple of cases?Warhead at 1920x1200 and GRID at 2560x1600?did we see the 4870 1GB's extra memory make a difference versus the 4870 512MB. But the difference in GRID was night and day. Personally, given the choice, I'd pony up the extra cash for the 1GB card, just for the peace of mind

i do not agree that a 512mb 4870 is sufficient for 19x12, however

 

[SlowSpyder]

*edit - Didn't realize this was a factory overclock card for the GTX260 216 core. I should have looked at that. That explains why it is faster then the GTX280 in a few cases. Just Wreckage doing what he does best, spreading biased fud.

Looking at the numbers they basically tied in CoD4 (4870 seemed to do better at lower res, GTX260+ at higher). In HL2 it's the same story as CoD4 (4870 at lower res, GTX260+ at higher). Enemy Territory Quake Wars, same thing again, 4870 wins the two lower resolutions, GTX260+ wins the two higher resolutions. In Crysis Warhead the GTX cards are a good deal faster. In Grid the Radeon cards are a good deal faster. If anything all I got from this review is that the GTX260 216core and the Radeon 4870 (apparantly either 512MB or 1GB) are good competitors for one another.

One thing I noticed was that the numbers were a bit odd though. In HL2 the GTX260+ is faster then the GTX280 at some resolutions. Seem odd to anyone else? Of course it doesn't really matter, they're all over 60FPS at every resolution. Also, not sure if it's just a driver thing, but the 9800+ is faster then a Radeon 4870 in Crysis Warhead. Dunno, maybe with a really new game AMD needs an updated driver?

Anyway, the cards are clearly very close to one another.

 

[Zebo]

He can't read his own tests. They were tied in every game but grid where 4870 took over. And this was an overclocked GTX 260 the 4870 1GB was competing against.


4870 1GB is better card, even bone stock. 200 series is about the smallest upgrade since 5900 series and has dustbuster noise to match. Luckily I water cool mine.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Azn
Factory overclocked vs non overclocked card. Yes really.

Same price card vs same price card.

:shocked:

 

[Zebo]

nVidia should price the GTX 280 @ $299 and the Core 216 @ $199 to remain competitive - that's all those cards are worth relative to their competition. At those prices they would offer more bang for the buck.

 

[Ares202]

Nvidia must be making a loss on every GT200 sale they make when prices are so low

I doubt ATI want prices to go any lower or itll start to hurt them a little too

 

[deerhunter716]

Originally posted by: apoppin
i do agree with this .. for any 512mb card:

Only in a couple of cases?Warhead at 1920x1200 and GRID at 2560x1600?did we see the 4870 1GB's extra memory make a difference versus the 4870 512MB. But the difference in GRID was night and day. Personally, given the choice, I'd pony up the extra cash for the 1GB card, just for the peace of mind

i do not agree that a 512mb 4870 is sufficient for 19x12, however

I disagree. I run ALL modern games except Crysis with 4XAA/8XAF without one single issue at 1920x1200 on a 26" monitor. I will agree that it is not sufficient if you want to absolutely MAX out AA/AF; but that is not required at that resolution and the benchmarks prove that.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Azn
Factory overclocked vs non overclocked card. Yes really.

Same price card vs same price card.

:shocked:

That is true.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Zebo
the smallest upgrade since 5900 series and has dustbuster noise to match.

OT I know, but to be fair to the 5900 it did correct two big problems with the 5800 ("dustbuster" cooler and 128-bit vRAM), and so was a reasonable upgrade. Still OT, more recently the release of the 8600 (G84?) GPUs produced tangible disappointment on AT.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Azn
Factory overclocked vs non overclocked card. Yes really.

Same price card vs same price card.

:shocked:

That is true.

True my ass.

EDIT

Radeon HD 4870 1GB $269.99 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121277

GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! Edition $299.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814500068

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Zebo
nVidia should price the GTX 280 @ $299 and the Core 216 @ $199 to remain competitive - that's all those cards are worth relative to their competition. At those prices they would offer more bang for the buck.

The less expensive GTX260 is better than a more expensive 4870. So the price is very much correct. The GTX280 is still the fastest GPU available.

Originally posted by: Zebo
4870 1GB is better card, even bone stock. 200 series is about the smallest upgrade since 5900 series and has dustbuster noise to match. Luckily I water cool mine.

Test show the 4870 to be louder and slower than a GTX280. So I would guess the 4870 is the smallest upgrade since...... well, it's really not even an upgrade.

 

[razor2025]

Factory overclock is really useless. It just decreases the headroom you have from manually overclocking. A fair comparison would've been to overclock the 4870 to the average of what people are getting on the net. If GTX260 rev 2 overclocked is roughly equal to 4870 1gb stock in performance, than 4870 would wipe the floor if it's overclocked. Thus, 4870 is better value. Why would you pay extra bucks for something you can easily do yourself?

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: razor2025
Factory overclock is really useless. It just decreases the headroom you have from manually overclocking. A fair comparison would've been to overclock the 4870 to the average of what people are getting on the net. If GTX260 rev 2 overclocked is roughly equal to 4870 1gb stock in performance, than 4870 would wipe the floor if it's overclocked. Thus, 4870 is better value. Why would you pay extra bucks for something you can easily do yourself?

Care to prove that? Many people can and do push their factor overclocked cards to higher speeds, and just because it performs well at stock doesn't mean that the 4870 will be able to OC as high as let's say the GTX 260 216. On another note, a lot of people that overclock their CPU's don't overclock their video cards, so if you look at this from the price standpoint it's fair competition. Both cards are awesome buys though.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Factory overclocked vs non overclocked card. Yes really.

Same price card vs same price card.

:shocked:

ASUS 1GB 4870 is now even $269.99 after rebate. Still think it's fair
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121277

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt

Originally posted by: razor2025
Factory overclock is really useless. It just decreases the headroom you have from manually overclocking. A fair comparison would've been to overclock the 4870 to the average of what people are getting on the net. If GTX260 rev 2 overclocked is roughly equal to 4870 1gb stock in performance, than 4870 would wipe the floor if it's overclocked. Thus, 4870 is better value. Why would you pay extra bucks for something you can easily do yourself?

Care to prove that? Many people can and do push their factor overclocked cards to higher speeds, and just because it performs well at stock doesn't mean that the 4870 will be able to OC as high as let's say the GTX 260 216. On another note, a lot of people that overclock their CPU's don't overclock their video cards, so if you look at this from the price standpoint it's fair competition. Both cards are awesome buys though.

And non overclocked cards overclock higher than factory overclocked clocks.

Second tired of these 3rd party trying to charge more for something you can do it yourself.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: razor2025
Factory overclock is really useless. It just decreases the headroom you have from manually overclocking. A fair comparison would've been to overclock the 4870 to the average of what people are getting on the net. If GTX260 rev 2 overclocked is roughly equal to 4870 1gb stock in performance, than 4870 would wipe the floor if it's overclocked. Thus, 4870 is better value. Why would you pay extra bucks for something you can easily do yourself?

On the 4870 they tested, overclocking it would void the warranty. So you can either buy the faster 260 for the same price or void the warranty on the slower 4870.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: razor2025
Factory overclock is really useless. It just decreases the headroom you have from manually overclocking. A fair comparison would've been to overclock the 4870 to the average of what people are getting on the net. If GTX260 rev 2 overclocked is roughly equal to 4870 1gb stock in performance, than 4870 would wipe the floor if it's overclocked. Thus, 4870 is better value. Why would you pay extra bucks for something you can easily do yourself?

On the 4870 they tested, overclocking it would void the warranty. So you can either buy the faster 260 for the same price or void the warranty on the slower 4870.

Who's going to know? Yourself? Do people actually live life without bending the rules?

 

[lavaheadache]

What I think is rediculous is that depending on which review site you get your benchies from you either decide that the 1 gig hd4870 is equal or a little bit faster that a gtx 280 or from a different site it looks like a OC'ed Gtx 260 is faster. Talk about cherry picking benchmarks!

 

[krnmastersgt]

It's not so much cherry picking, the systems they bench with are all different, not to mention not every card performs the same. As for saying that non-factory OCed cards can go to higher, wouldn't that mean the EVGA 260 216 that isn't OCed on the egg would be competing in the same price range as that cheaper 4870 1gb? And EVGA covers OCing in the warranty, which basically means if you trash your card by over-volting it or something, they'll replace it.

 

[GaiaHunter]

One of the cards that died on me was an MSI GF 6800 nU. It was overclocked and had the extra pipes and shader unlocked. They still send me a GF 6800 GT to replace it

About stock cards overclocking the same as pre overclocked ones, I'm a bit more dubious. 3rd parties do seem to pick the better cores for the pre-oc ones.

There is a thread around here with that guy with an 4850 pre-oc model with 790 core (that is insane, my CCC only goes up to 750 for my 4850) and some other pre-oc cards I've seen and own go up to 740 on core.

Anyway, sooner or later factory oc 4870 will be on the street.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Zebo
nVidia should price the GTX 280 @ $299 and the Core 216 @ $199 to remain competitive - that's all those cards are worth relative to their competition. At those prices they would offer more bang for the buck.

The less expensive GTX260 is better than a more expensive 4870. So the price is very much correct. The GTX280 is still the fastest GPU available.

Originally posted by: Zebo
4870 1GB is better card, even bone stock. 200 series is about the smallest upgrade since 5900 series and has dustbuster noise to match. Luckily I water cool mine.

Test show the 4870 to be louder and slower than a GTX280. So I would guess the 4870 is the smallest upgrade since...... well, it's really not even an upgrade.

The 4870 is huge upgrade from previous gen ati cards. 100%.

G200 not so much for nV. About 40%.

And stop lying the GTX 280 is louder and slower in some games Than 4870 1GB.
http://www.techreport.com/r.x/...870-1gb/noise-load.gif

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: Zebo
the smallest upgrade since 5900 series and has dustbuster noise to match.

OT I know, but to be fair to the 5900 it did correct two big problems with the 5800 ("dustbuster" cooler and 128-bit vRAM), and so was a reasonable upgrade. Still OT, more recently the release of the 8600 (G84?) GPUs produced tangible disappointment on AT.

the whole GF5 was a dud much like the G200 admit it - as a fan it's good for nVidia to point out weakness and not whitewash..