gtx280 or 4870x2

[cakofony]

The title basically sums it up. I am trying to decide between buying a gtx280 (evga for oc warranty and stepup) and an ati 4870 x2. The early benchmarks all show the x2 beats the 280 by 5-30% but i think this is best case scenario. single gpu is always better though, and absolutely no microstutter. I also enjoy overclocking my vid card, and ati doesn't seem to like that (I don't know if they cover oc damage in their warranty).

I dont want to create an ati vs nv flame war, just compare what ppl think about these two cards.

[xMrBunglex]

the 4870 X2 will be quite a bit faster in games that scale well with CrossFire and about 20%(?) slower on games that don't. ATI drivers have a built-in overclocking utility in CCC, so they obviously aren't afraid of their customers overclocking their cards. think of the 4870 X2 as a faster version of the 9800 GX2. Anandtech said heat and noise are on par with a single GTX280.

[Serpentarius]

4870X2

think bout the mobo costs ... sli mobos is costly and o/c limited

[zanzabar]

u cant damage an ati card with an OC if u use CCC, and since u cant change the voltage u wont hurt anything


and on the and anandtech review the x2 was beating the 280 by a large margin on everything but crysis, but the final benches will have better numbers and it looks like u need to have a 400mhz or a 450mhz fsb to use the card

[Charles Wirth]

GTX 280, solid drivers, Im a gamer.

[tiro_uspsss]

4870X2 - previews say it all: 4870X2 > GTX280 EOD :D

[cakofony]

Do you know if there's any word on the 4870 x2 linux drivers? I am a gentoo freak... and support from would be nice, i hear that the other 4 series cards shipped with linux drivers in box. I dont know if this will because of crossfire. I guess it doesnt matter much because i dont really game in linux, but nvidia has always been good to me in the past.

I also like step up, is the 55 nm 280 supposed to be faster than the 4870? because i could step up to it.

I really want to believe that the 4870 x2 is going to dominate everything, but looking at crossfire scaling, i dont think its going to happen

[perkam]

Do you know if there's any word on the 4870 x2 linux drivers? I am a gentoo freak... and support from would be nice, i hear that the other 4 series cards shipped with linux drivers in box. I dont know if this will because of crossfire. I guess it doesnt matter much because i dont really game in linux, but nvidia has always been good to me in the past.

I also like step up, is the 55 nm 280 supposed to be faster than the 4870? because i could step up to it.

I really want to believe that the 4870 x2 is going to dominate everything, but looking at crossfire scaling, i dont think its going to happenThe GTX 280 is out, and the performance numbers out now for the 4870X2 are preview numbers which aren't final. AMD has said that it is working on the Crossfire scaling...though I hope you're talking about two 4870X2s, because the onboard xfire between the two 4870 cores on a single 4870X2 work flawlessly.

The micro-stutter is also lower than the 9800GX2 and the 3870X2. It will take the crown from the GTX 280 and will dominate the Xtreme 3D section (which makes me puzzled after reading Fugger's post 0_o ) so choose wisely.

Perkam

[cakofony]

Do you think the 55 nm 280 will beat it?

I was talking about the onboard crossfire, I dont have the cash for two of those beasts.

[perkam]

Do you think the 55 nm 280 will beat it?

I was talking about the onboard crossfire, I dont have the cash for two of those beasts.Onboard crossfire works fine and in a few apps needs fine tuning but that will be dealt with (hopefully) by launch in August.

You can buy the GTX 280 now, just don't look back on it when even Fugger ends up picking a pair of 4870X2s for his Skulltrail rig :lol:

Perkam

[zanzabar]

Do you think the 55 nm 280 will beat it?

I was talking about the onboard crossfire, I dont have the cash for two of those beasts.

the 55nm has a 0% chance for 24/7 beating the x2 overall, and the single is 4870 is within 10% so u would need a huge clock increase, but the next gpu will have a chance

and ifu can only buy one card then the x2 would be the best pick since it has dx10.1 that will help with the 10.1 games coming out in december and latter and the added IQ if its like the single and xfire 4870 should make it so u wont need more than 4x narrow AA for anything, were the 280 can need 8x or more to match the 4x


Onboard crossfire works fine and in a few apps needs fine tuning but that will be dealt with (hopefully) by launch in August.

You can buy the GTX 280 now, just don't look back on it when even Fugger ends up picking a pair of 4870X2s for his Skulltrail rig :lol:

Perkam

i dont think that that would happen, fugger didnt go for the 2900 or X2 for 3dmark06 benches that i saw

[cakofony]

Alright, I am still worried about the linux drivers, but if a regular 4870 works, then the x2 worst case scenario is that it just runs as a regular single-gpu card half power.

What you said makes sense, and crossfire 4870 (single) cards beat 280 (i think crossfire 4850 cards beat it too). Most new games should support crossfire anyway, and crysis is an outlier, I think its engine is coded badly, because it doesnt scale well.

How good is the amd warranty? If i use their tool to oc the card, and it dies, will they send me a new one free?

also, i have an older psu (antec trio 650W) that has 2 6-pin pcie connectors, if I put them to an 8 pin, and put 2 standard power into a 6 pin converter, will I lose any performance or oc ability? I know i should probably upgrade psu....

[Anemone]

Wait and watch. First adopters paid a high price. Wait and watch. Drivers "could" be a weakness on the 4870x2. Good reviewers and of course our crew here will expose that if it exists. That is what Fugger alludes to I think, that no matter how fast a card is, it's junk if it won't run games without bugs.

Prices are getting more reasonable every week. And we haven't yet seen all the cards the players are playing. So enjoy you 8800, because it's not old yet. And there is a lot to learn over the next 30 days.

[strange|ife]

if you want native linux support outside of using a virtual machine, go with a NV card. NV has better linux support.

had no problems with my NV card with ubuntu or fedora. But the new 4870 is flake right now, it works but compiz crashes more..and QW performance is lower in linux..which i found out recently going back to RED.

the 280 is slower, but with the price cut's, and by the time 4870x2 comes out..the 280 will be maybe less then 400.

its up to you though, the 4870x2 owns it in games for the most part in windows, if it supports multi GPU. otherwise it's a crapshoot. And both cards will serve you well

in the end how many games do you play? how much..is what you should think about.

[Heretic]

How good is the amd warranty? If i use their tool to oc the card, and it dies, will they send me a new one free?

also, i have an older psu (antec trio 650W) that has 2 6-pin pcie connectors, if I put them to an 8 pin, and put 2 standard power into a 6 pin converter, will I lose any performance or oc ability? I know i should probably upgrade psu....

First, AMD/ATI doesn't package and distribute their own cards...the situation is similar to Nvidia. You buy the cards from Sapphire, Asus, Visiontek, etc and they all have different warranties. Visiontek has the only lifetime warranty and from the actual terms, none are as OC friendly as some of the Nvidia partners. That said, I seriously doubt you'll have a problem RMA'ing the card if you do anything short of volt-modding it.

if you want native linux support outside of using a virtual machine, go with a NV card. NV has better linux support.

had no problems with my NV card with ubuntu or fedora. But the new 4870 is flake right now, it works but compiz crashes more..and QW performance is lower in linux..which i found out recently going back to RED.


AMD/ATI has gotten behind *nix in a big way. Their drivers are improving and quickly at that. Just curious, QW performance is lower compared to what? Performance in Windows?

[zanzabar]

First, AMD/ATI doesn't package and distribute their own cards...the situation is similar to Nvidia. You buy the cards from Sapphire, Asus, Visiontek, etc and they all have different warranties. Visiontek has the only lifetime warranty and from the actual terms, none are as OC friendly as some of the Nvidia partners. That said, I seriously doubt you'll have a problem RMA'ing the card if you do anything short of volt-modding it.


AMD/ATI has gotten behind *nix in a big way. Their drivers are improving and quickly at that. Just curious, QW performance is lower compared to what? Performance in Windows?

the ati cards are all made reference by ati then badged, binned and flash by the oem

and the linux/unix drivers are open source and they have huge improvements and have better OGL performance than NV (with the last gen rv670/g92) but dont work as good with dx emulation. and not to mention that linux isnt meant for GUI or grafix its a server os and should be used as such

[Scubar]

Its not even a Contest, the 4870X2 blows the GTX280 away. It even beats GTX280 SLI and costs less than half the price. Talk about major FAIL on nVidias part.

[XS Janus]

Its not even a Contest, the 4870X2 blows the GTX280 away. It even beats GTX280 SLI and costs less than half the price. Talk about major FAIL on nVidias part.

I was just going to say a simmilar thing.
The two really aren't in the same league.
Nvidia needs to drop prices by another 100$

[cakofony]

linux isnt meant for GUI or grafix its a server os and should be used as such
how can you say that!? It is not true in the slightest! maybe if you installed a distro of linux optimized for server use (no preempting in kernel etc) than yes, it would make a bad desktop. But, linux is very flexible, you can do just about anything with it.

I dont really use 3d desktop that much, so that's not a big problem, compiz is a bit too buggy for me, and I'm normally minimalistic with desktop environments.

[Charles Wirth]

cakofony, give it a week or two for more reviews and prices to drop more. I hope not to see negative scaling with multiple gpu's in games not just a driver optimized for 3Dmark.

Multiple GPU's to beat a single... not surprised.

Dont forget you get Physx working and it seems to be far stronger than CPU driver or the Athena card PPU.

I expected PCGH to have Physx title review done but Oliver is really slacking.

[perkam]

cakofony, give it a week or two for more reviews and prices to drop more. I hope not to see negative scaling with multiple gpu's in games not just a driver optimized for 3Dmark.

Multiple GPU's to beat a single... not surprised.

Dont forget you get Physx working and it seems to be far stronger than CPU driver or the Athena card PPU.

I expected PCGH to have Physx title review done but Oliver is really slacking.Fugger...realistically speaking...how supportive of Nvidia would you have been had they not had to beg Intel to support SLI on X58?

I mean, seriously, yes Physx offers some benefits and the card has gone down in price far enough for it to be competitive, but the 4870X2 more of a match for the GTX 280 Extreme than the regular GTX 280.

If you want to go Nvidia, wait a few weeks like Fugger said, and get the Extreme with 738 Mhz core clock instead of 600 mhz core clock on the regular 280s, for only $50 more.

Perkam

[xMrBunglex]

PhysX? is that for the billions of people playing Unreal Tournament 3? i don't care much for PhysX. besides, Havok is still out there and it's more widely used.

[NKD]

Ati had zero day support for linux on hd 4870 meaning the drivers shipped on the setup cd with the retail packaging, I don't think you should worry about linux drivers and the x2, the support should be the same. ati has stepped up to the plate for linux drivers, nvidia used to have better support for linux but not anymore.

[YMAA]

If you fold, a major point to nVidia is for the folding @ home client. The PPD on nVidia cards is unmatched even by quads running dual SMP in combination, and compared to the ATI client it has extremely low CPU utilization, so you can keep folding dual SMP. With the ATI client you basically have to run single SMP or nothing to keep the clients from stepping over each other.

However, the HD4870X2 should be faster than a single GTX 280 when it's released. I'm with Fugger on this, I'd say wait a week or two to see what happens to pricing for cards on both sides.

[Bobly]

and ifu can only buy one card then the x2 would be the best pick since it has dx10.1 that will help with the 10.1 games coming out in december and latter and the added IQ if its like the single and xfire 4870 should make it so u wont need more than 4x narrow AA for anything, were the 280 can need 8x or more to match the 4x

I wouldn't hold high hopes for DX10.1 as nVidia has dropped it's plans to support it in future cards and simply jump straight to DX11 which will have a serious effect on whether game devs choose to make use of it or simply wait until DX11.

[rapid64k]

I wouldn't hold high hopes for DX10.1 as nVidia has dropped it's plans to support it in future cards and simply jump straight to DX11 which will have a serious effect on whether game devs choose to make use of it or simply wait until DX11.

This is incorrect Nvidia WILL be going the directx 10.1 route

[cakofony]

This is incorrect Nvidia WILL be going the directx 10.1 route
Are you sure? Where did you read this?

I have seen some vantage benchmarks (i only have 06, havent used vantage yet) where the 4870x2 gets scores around X7300 and the 280 gets around X7000. Does this test utilize PhysX? If so, that looks like a serious lead for the ati card.


If you want to go Nvidia, wait a few weeks like Fugger said, and get the Extreme with 738 Mhz core clock instead of 600 mhz core clock on the regular 280s, for only $50 more.

Is this just an overclocked 280, or its "ultra" version? This isnt the 55 nm, is it?

[perkam]

Is this just an overclocked 280, or its "ultra" version? This isnt the 55 nm, is it?The Extreme is a high binned ultra version. It is much more than just an overclocked 280.

Perkam