Gtx 260 Vs. HD 4870 - Same Price

Jon_di2 · #1 (**permalink**) July 16, 2008, 10:59 PM

GTX 260 and HD 4870 dropped to the same price, Which one to buy? - Expreview.com

Now that the prices are the same, which one is better? With close benchmarks, which one will prove to be better for games in the future?

EVGA E-GEFORCE GTX 260 576MHZ 896MB 2.0GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card - $267.86CAD after mail in rebate

Diamond Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 PCI-E 2XDVI-I Video Card - $268.32CAD

Opinions? I'm thinking that the Gtx 260 might prove to be better for future games. And there might be some advantages to one or the other if you are using Crossfire or SLI, and in regards to overclocking. But really its a coin toss at this point.

burebista · #2 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 12:51 AM

I dunno, it's a hard decision. If you want raw power and PhysX go for nVidia. If you want somehow better IQ and HD decoding go for ATI.
Frankly I'm a nVidia user. From GeForce 2MX to 8800GT. But now I'd go for HD4870. My impression is that it's overall better than GTX 260. Only drawback is the same old story for ATI: drivers, but with patience will appear good drivers.

Companion_Cube · #3 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 01:22 AM

nVidia vs ATI;
drivers - nVidia (Catalyst will always be a resource hog)
dual card - ATI
PhysX support - nVidia (soon to be both nVidia and ATI)
Havok - ATI

Bottom line the 4870 gets a few more FPS.

Mibs · #4 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 03:28 AM

At this point now that the prices are the same there really is no clear winner here. It's now basically up to the consumer if they want to go nvidia or amd. There are loads of benchmarks that will show that it all depends on the application for deciding which is faster.

howettl · #5 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 04:25 AM

I gave in and bought an EVGA GTX 260 FTW (factory overclocked) from NCIX. Was originally going to go for the 4870 but after seeing the evga card approach GTX 280 performance in many tests and even suprass it in Crysis performance (EVGA GTX 260 FTW Edition Review - Overclockers Club) I thought what the hell I'll shell out an extra $50 or so after rebate and go for the extra power.

Jon_di2 · #6 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by howettl

I gave in and bought an EVGA GTX 260 FTW (factory overclocked) from NCIX. Was originally going to go for the 4870 but after seeing the evga card approach GTX 280 performance in many tests and even suprass it in Crysis performance (EVGA GTX 260 FTW Edition Review - Overclockers Club) I thought what the hell I'll shell out an extra $50 or so after rebate and go for the extra power.

Remember the OC'd ones make more heat and take more power (you will need a better psu), also you can overclock it yourself (probably not as well as the factory OC though)

Cheator · #7 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 05:52 AM

It depends. Power consumption is about on par for both cards at stock, performance evens out to be mostly the same... I'd go for the 4870 just because of Crossfire, adding a cheap 4850 in the future will make that rig fly. But in other ways its a toss up.

**Eldonko** · #8 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 08:09 AM

Personally I would go with 4870 because I find CF is better than SLI, however when performance is this close it comes down to brand preference and what kind of board you already own. I also find that in general there are more goof CF boards than SLI boards.

The only reason I would even consider nvidia right now is for folding performance.

lowfat · #9 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by burebista

I dunno, it's a hard decision. If you want raw power and PhysX go for nVidia. If you want somehow better IQ and HD decoding go for ATI.
Frankly I'm a nVidia user. From GeForce 2MX to 8800GT. But now I'd go for HD4870. My impression is that it's overall better than GTX 260. Only drawback is the same old story for ATI: drivers, but with patience will appear good drivers.

I don't know where you've been the past few years, but ATI drivers are significantly better than Nvidia's.

burebista · #10 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowfat

I don't know where you've been the past few years, but ATI drivers are significantly better than Nvidia's.

Even I live in Romania we have net here. And TV too.

It's your opinion about ATI drivers, let me have my own, OK? Thanks.

howettl · #11 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon_di2

Remember the OC'd ones make more heat and take more power (you will need a better psu), also you can overclock it yourself (probably not as well as the factory OC though)

My psu is within the requirements specified by evga so I'm not worried about it. As far as heat goes, I'm very impressed with my newly built P182's ability to keep temperatures down, my CPU tends to idle at ~24 degrees, with the mobo around 37 (35 cpu, 40 mobo under load). I probably could have bought a stock GTX 260 and done the overclocking myself, but I don't have much experience oc'ing video cards, and for an extra $50 I thought I'd avoid the hassle and have it done by the factory.

belgolas · #12 (**permalink**) July 17, 2008, 05:37 PM

Well when you get your card download precision from EVGA's website(have to create a forum user). Precision is so easy to use. And you picked a good card.