What Videocard Should I Buy?

[James Yates]

The GTX 260 is slightly better in some games than the 4870 1GB, i prefer nVidia - mainly because of their drivers so i would recommend the GTX260 216 core over the 4870. Whichever one you pick will give great performance in games.

If you get a GTX 260, there is no point in the black edition as all it is, is a pre overclocked card with no other differences. You may aswell save the £30 by buying the normal GTX 260 216 and overclock it up to or past the black edition speeds.

 

[Lee Downham]

The GTX 260 is slightly better in some games than the 4870 1GB, i prefer nVidia - mainly because of their drivers so i would recommend the GTX260 216 core over the 4870. Whichever one you pick will give great performance in games.

If you get a GTX 260, there is no point in the black edition as all it is, is a pre overclocked card with no other differences. You may aswell save the £30 by buying the normal GTX 260 216 and overclock it up to or past the black edition speeds.

+1 ... I use RivaTuner for overclocking my GPU - lovely bit of kit :good:

 

[Anthony Pahl]

I don't think you could go wrong with either GTX 260 216 or 4870. About 5-6 weeks ago I bought a 1GB 4870 and it runs all my racing sims @1920x1200, full details. In Australia the GTX 260 216 was $100 more expensive, so a pretty easy decision.

In regard to temps, if you buy one of the 4870 cards with non-reference heatsink, the temps are around 50-60 celcius

 

[Jacek Kozlowski]

few weeks ago i went from 8800gts512mb to ATI 4870x2,and it was good decision as i have in moste games big improvment......but still when it comes to GTRevo nothing really have changed.And when commparing drivers i think that nvidia have better once...

Wright now probably there is no card that You can compare to 4870x2 when it comes to fps count in games but when gtx280x2 is launched im sure its gonna be better than Ati top choice.
As if i would have to choose between gtx260 and 4870 i would go for nvidia,i have tryed from both sides and with nv i had less strange problems with drivers i didnt have to change settings to each game in nvidia control panel as i have to do now with cathalys control center i could really see improvment in next driver relase wich i dont see with ati..using nvidia card was just less painfull -even that now i have more gpu power wich was my main goal when buying new card.

If i would have two similar gpu power cards to choose from i would always go for nvidia!

 

[Rich Tranter]

Personally being a cheapskate I just upgraded to an ASUS 9500GT and have not found a single game so far I can't play on full whack.

There is better out there though for a bit more cash, my card was only £80 odd.

 

[Leandro Lage]

GTX 260 i always prefer nvidia.

 

[Oliver Amos]

Personally being a cheapskate I just upgraded to an ASUS 9500GT and have not found a single game so far I can't play on full whack.

There is better out there though for a bit more cash, my card was only £80 odd.

What resolution do you use? I can think of many you can't.

My vote - GTX260 maxcore.

 

[Damian Henderson]

What resolution do you use? I can think of many you can't.

My vote - GTX260 maxcore.

Probably 1280x760 / 800x600 or whatever :chuck: + for around £90 you can buy a 8800GT which just owns a 9500GT.

 

[Leandro Lage]

Nvidia 7900 GS.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

i had the 3850 one for a bit. aparrently you should watch out tho because the powercolour ones have ropey drivers.

gotta be carefull of bottle necks tho. after all it designed to run on pci-e and the lower bandwidth on agp buses can cause some issues at higher levels in some games.

 

[Dave Gardner]

my pc is usualy on 24/7 as well, 1 thing that bothers me about the 4870 is the higher temps it runs at even on idle.

i run the 4870 nigel, and the temp for me never seems to rise above 48, but that is with manually setting the fan to 70% when playing games.

it is an exceptional card imo a it runs all games for me on max, with optimal quality settings on card and it gives me a steady 60-80 fps in all games.

and my pc is very low spec at present.still runnig a 3.4ghz prescott at this moment in time.

Dave

 

[David Lemon]

For what it's worth Nigel, I changed to a 4870 from a 9800gtx because I was getting screen freeze in GTR evo and I haven't had one since It does run hot but as Dave said it's simple to up the fan speed a bit to keep the temp down, it's a great card for the money, IMO :dance2:

 

[Dave Stephenson]

seen them running on my bro's the 4870s. theyre very nice. if you do go with a 9 series definately aim higher than a 9500. maybe better with an 8800 if you get afford higher than a 9500 just for the extra fill rate.

 

[Damian Henderson]

I would forget 9 series just get GTX260 216 core version if you go Nvidia , Faster then 4870 by around 40% in most games overall, uses less power and is less noisey

The GTX295 is coming out soon which is suppose to be faster then a 4870x2, that should bring prices down if your waiting a bit longer.

 

[Mark Birney]

Yes, a new GTX 295 is coming out january, so GTX280/260 prices will drop after that. I think I am going for the GTX280 in this case.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

good plan. i smell a way to spend some christmas readys

 

[Nigel Atkins]

thanks guys, i`m in no rush so i`ll wait and see what the January prices are

 

[Matt Alpeter]

don't know how i missed this thread but i'll jump in. when i was upgrading my graphics card, the EVGA GTX260 SSC (super-super clocked) was the same price as the GTX260 216 Core. I chose the SSC because of the faster stock clocks and also because many are saying the 216 isn't worth it, it is only minimally better than the stock 260.

 

[Damian Henderson]

The 216 version can have quite a big performance advantage in some games over the old version.

 

[Matt Alpeter]

yeah but only in extreme games like Far Cry 2 and with full resolution. otherwise my SSC dominates everything else.