Which Video Card should I get? ... ( HD 4870 vs. GTX 260 FTW Edition )

[Tonuss]

I replaced a NVIDIA 8800GTS and NVIDIA 7800GTX cards with ATI Radeon 4870s and they work great. One system runs a single WoW instance at 1920x1200, the other runs four WoW instances at 800 x 600 (1600 x 1200 total).

I went with the 4870 because the performance looked very good and the price was much lower than NVIDIA's at the time ($290 for the radeons, like $400 and up for the NVIDIA cards). I think that either card you get will do the job, so shop by preference or price.

[-silencer-]

If you have good case cooling, go with the 4850/4870 - lower fan noise and the case airflow will help keep temps reasonable.
If you have a more 'closed' case, go with the GTX 280 - higher fan noise and lower card temps.
I don't see a point in buying a GTX 260 at its current price point, unless you're using a very enclosed (noise-reducing) case and need to save some cash.
My roommate just bought a GTX 280, and I was completely turned off by the sound of a vacuum cleaner inside his case. It's *much* louder than my 8800GTX, and we have the same Antec P182 case.

[Naysayer]

and I was completely turned off by the sound of a vacuum cleaner inside his case.

rofl

[sqeaky4100]

If you have good case cooling, go with the 4850/4870 - lower fan noise and the case airflow will help keep temps reasonable.
If you have a more 'closed' case, go with the GTX 280 - higher fan noise and lower card temps.
I don't see a point in buying a GTX 260 at its current price point, unless you're using a very enclosed (noise-reducing) case and need to save some cash.
My roommate just bought a GTX 280, and I was completely turned off by the sound of a vacuum cleaner inside his case. It's *much* louder than my 8800GTX, and we have the same Antec P182 case.

From "my" research this is how it goes down.

The 280 smokes both the 4870 and 260 in 95% of the tests... The 4870 occasionally beats it in certain game tests for some odd reason.

The 260 and the 4870 are pn par with eachother. The 4870 is said to be roughly 6% faster.

The gtx 260 FTW edition is overclocked to be around 10% faster. This card is HANDPICKED from the testing line. So when a card does well stock, it gets picked to be a FTW edition. Then it also gets OC'd up the A**.

So I find the 4870 to be better than the 260 stock conditions... but the 260 can be overclocked to reach a lot more. Plus it doesn't have stupid fan problems ( I dont want to make a profile, and use it everytime I want a working fan )



HOWEVER; is it possible to return either video card to newegg if I dont like it? Theres a bestbuy down the street with a 4870 for $300 that I can try if I find I dont like 260 ftw

[entoptic]

boxing 5 accounts on a quad core q6600 with 4 gigs ram and a HD4870. The display is a 30" LCD and I have 4 windows in 800x600 with everyone turned low and the active window is at 1024x768 with everyone to max.

It's super clean, super fast, has HD goodness and is quite. I hear my hard drives over it. Oh and the venting is nice as the rest of my box stays nice and cold.

[Steph]

I am having serious trouble with 2x 4850. I bought two Sapphire 4850 512MB PCI-E cards. My system is very unstable, crashing every single time when reaching the windows desktop if both the Catalyst drivers are loaded and the Crossfire cable in place. My MSI P45 Ultimate mbx with a Q6700 and 8GB DDR2 memory is taunting me by looking pretty in my Thermaltake Armor case with Noctua CPU cooler. Running Vista Ultimate 64bit.

I updated the BIOS, tried both 32bit and 64bit, made sure I have all Windows Updates, tried the newest drivers. Tried a 800W instead of 650W PSU. Tried both PEG slots and cards seperately. No joy. Even using only one of the cards the system isn't fully stable.

I found a '4800 hotfix' marked as beta on the AMD site today, which is my last resort before I give up, return the shit and get a different graphics card. :cursing:

[entoptic]

One works just fine man. I believe I heard that WoW sucks nuts in crossfire or SLI mode anyway.