which to buy 260 or 4870

260 it's cheaper and everything from fan control to third party overclocking works. plus it will equal or surpass a 280 at stock when overclocked.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Depends, the decision is close, the extra VRAM on the 260 is great and the ability to FORCE antialiasing for games is nice (it didn't work for me on my 4870 pretty much ever, nor did trying to force anisotropic filtering). I went from a 280 to a 4870 + 4850 simultaneously, to a 280 again and am sticking with the 280. Drivers and profiles are much smoother and the antialiasing/anisotropic forcing in the drivers just plain works, which is good because I play a few games regularly without the proper options in-game. With the 260 running less than a 4870 by a little now, I'd have to recommend the 260 over a 4870 as of now unless you want to go crossfire and own an SLI motherboard.
Click to expand...

Best reply

Too bad theres no real good motherboards for SLI, I know alot of people like their 790/780's but honestly when I went back to intel I could never look back.

I'm a heavy fanboy of the 4870's right now, I love mine, they run great, I'm a little peaved too right now about their profile situation and being a PITA to get working with other games, but as always I usually have more patience then most and will wait till the next official drivers come out to fix it. Also I just feel like its good practice to purchase the product of the company that forced this increadible price war!

Right now the 260 and 4870 is just so an awsome buy, and when the X2's come out they will probably force Nvidia's hand again on the 280 forcing it to become the better then the 260/4870 as well.
 
Ogilvy said:
Thank you for proving my point. ;)
Click to expand...

I'm sure you can prove he is lying, right? Or just because you and a few others got bad cards, we all did?

That said I would (and did) go with the GTX 260.
 
OpStar said:
I'm sure you can prove he is lying, right? Or just because you and a few others got bad cards, we all did?

That said I would (and did) go with the GTX 260.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree...it seems that people are getting bad cards. I doubted it for a while.

But not going over 72c in furmark? Yeah...that's the truth.

Definitely.
 
+1 for the GTX260. BFG support has been nothing but awesome when I've dealt with them.

Also, to continue the temp discussion, I just ran Furmark and it leveled out at 80C. I only have a very slight factory OC though. But the card is currently in a small mid-tower HP box until my Q9450 shows up. It is absolute crap for airflow. So I really think it is a minority that shoot up over 100c. It sucks, and they should work on the QA a little more, but I'm sure the problem will be gone soon.
 
I ordered a 4870 from a friend in NY and he got it from BB at 325$. Those 25$ hurts :(
 
Without rebates....

-The cheapest 4870 on newegg is $275

-The cheapest GTX260 on newegg is $300

Unless I missed another site with better prices, I don't see why people are claiming the 260 is cheaper.
 
Ok, I am going to run Furmark again. At idle at 60% fan speed my gpu temp is 45c. I will bump up my fan speed to 80% and run Furmark again.
 
Ok, it was a one minute test and my temp peaked at 64c this time at clocks of 695/1465/1150. My o3Marks score was 3857. I will run the Stability Test now.
 
Unless you are trading up like me(or want better customer service), the 4870 would be the better card.
 
natty said:
Without rebates....

-The cheapest 4870 on newegg is $275

-The cheapest GTX260 on newegg is $300

Unless I missed another site with better prices, I don't see why people are claiming the 260 is cheaper.
Click to expand...

When you're talking such a small difference be careful about the cheapest. If you buy a BFG or eVGA don't forget about the step up. Since the GPU market is so competitive right now, having a step up might come in very handy.

These cards overall are so close in performance and price just pick one and be done with it unless one card favors a favorite game. There's just not enough difference to spark a lengthy debate if you're objective about it.
 
Ok, I ran the Stability test for 5 min and my load temp was 84c. Maybe you just got a bad card, but please don't call the rest of us liers.
 
Whichever is cheapest. I've got dual 4870s but if I were buying a single card today I'd probably get a 260.
 
I really think it is just your card, you may have been one of the unlucky ones. I just got done playing Crysis for about 30 minutes. 1680x1050, all settings at high except for shadows at medium, 2xAA, 8xAF and at the end my max load temp was 78c at 80% fan. My lowest frame rate I noticed was 24.
 
natty said:
Without rebates....

-The cheapest 4870 on newegg is $275

-The cheapest GTX260 on newegg is $300

Unless I missed another site with better prices, I don't see why people are claiming the 260 is cheaper.
Click to expand...

Ummm, because IT IS cheaper with rebates. Go ahead and apply your rebates from ATI vendors. That was the MAIN deciding factor when I bought my GTX260. The only other minor factors were that I wouldn't have to go through driver hell trying to switch over and that Nvidia vendor warranty support is better than ATI vendors with the exception of Visiontek (which is the only ATI card I would even consider buying).

I bought it for $269, shipped AMIR, which was cheaper by 40 bucks than the cheapest 4870 from any of the REPUTABLE vendors like Newegg, ZZF, Mwave, Frys, etc.

My second GTX260, which will be on its way soon, I only paid (yes I did the math right this time) $260 out of pocket plus shipping. That comes with 3DMark Vantage too. You have to take this into account because ALOT of EVGA owners are able to step up to GTX260s for very little and sometimes even for free. Not a single ATI card owner can claim being able to do this with their older cards.

I'm using RT to set my fan profiles and running Fur, my max temp is 62C. Idle is low 40s

Finally, I'm seeing mad overclocks on my GTX260. I'm currently at 740/1200. It seems that most GTX260s will at least hit 700 core. Let's face it, we're mostly all overclockers here. I would like to see a database of the average OC that 4870 owners achieve and their game benchmarks vs the average OC of a GTX260 and their game benchmarks. I don't care about benchmarks where a 4870 gets 270 FPS vs a GTX260's 240FPS in some old game like HL2 at 1280x1024. Who cares, both cards destroy games like that. I'm talking about games that bring both cards to their knees at higher resolutions and all I care about is min FPS and average FPS.

I may get a Visiontek on my next build (I already have a buyer for my current rig) if a reasonably OC'd 4870 will beat a reasonably OC'd GTX 260 based on my above comments AND it's priced within 20 bucks with or without rebates from a REPUTABLE dealer.

Lastly..................I'm now an EVGA whore. I'll take it up the $#@@#$ for them. Seriously, they've treated me so well from step-ups, to support, to taking criticism that I'm a lifelong fanboy of EVGA. It's too bad they don't make ATI cards as someone else mentioned. I don't know if I'm willing to give up that kind of support to switch over to ATI.
 
TBH to me its a toss up. I guess if you have an SLI mobo i would go with the 260gtx.

Otherwise i would go with the 4870 since it is future proof i guess (dx10.1)

But i guess its preference.

I was so gung ho on a 4870, and I still want one, but if those 280 gtx's get around $400 I might snag one up. But i'll see first :) I want to see some mature driver benchmarks

DASHlT
 
ClearM4 said:
NO ITS NOT! Here is both with rebates from Newegg:

Asus HD4870 $255 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121258
Powercolor HD4870 $260 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131113

Cheapest GTX260 is $270 AR

The HD4870 is also cheaper without rebates and is cheaper on average too.
You also have the annoying click to see price BS with nvidia.
Click to expand...

Well there ya go. Those rebates only came available within the last couple of days. Visiontek now needs to come up with one.

Actually the cheapest GTX260 can be had for $247 AMIR plus shipping at ZZF
 
MassiveOverkill said:
Well there ya go. Those rebates only came available within the last couple of days. Visiontek now needs to come up with one.

Actually the cheapest GTX260 can be had for $247 AMIR plus shipping at ZZF
Click to expand...

Whats your point... the GTX260 was $450 a little over a week ago.
 
[H] seems to be the only real place where I still see some people buying 260s.

Most of the normal forums don't have that much nForce boards, given, but outside the US the 260 and 280's an utter ripoff.

I'd get the 4870 because you know why? They're basically ~$300 internationally, whichever country you go (sans currency and VAT markup). IF ONLY nVidia's pricecuts in other countries were even 50% of what they did in the US... In fact, they're pretty much doing such a good deal only for the US, as everything influential internationally has a part in these sites.

If people can care about something as trite as overclocking, ethics can certainly be taken into issue.


If you don't care about all that, there's still another issue:
If you can wait till September/October, do so. You should be seeing custom 4850s/4870s with custom coolers, lower temps, and higher clocks. Maybe 4870 at the same price, but 4850s in non-reference boards should drop in price.
 
I'd go with the 4870. It's clearly the better performer. Visiontek does have a lifetime warranty on the card which is quite attractive.
 
If you keep a level head you'll realize the following:
1. They trade blows
2. They're both practically the same price
3. The 260 uses less power
4. 260 from the big 3 will come with infinitely better warranty and customer service
5. The 260 is longer, this may be an issue for you
6. Supporting ATI for coming out with a kickass card could be a good thing.
 
I think a lot of people have decided and don't want to see numbers or logic that prove that the other side has a point too.

The two cards are close enough in price and performance that other issues such as plans to run two cards, noise, heat, power draw, drivers, warranties, and lets face it - your fanboy instinct - plays the real deciding role.
 
Well it was only a couple of days ago I found a GTX260 for $400AUD (I can pick up a powercolor 4870 for $345, or a sapphire one for $365 and gigabyte/asus for $370ish).

So its still a toss up. 4870 gets better performance in almost all the games I've seen, but driver support seems to be better with nvidia, and people saying you can't force AA and VSync on the 4870 worries me. Also the GTX260 has more ram, which may make a difference in games with very high resolution textures (if you run out of video ram, often you still get good framerate, but it stutters like hell and sometimes glitches, so more video ram is always good).

However the 4870 is beating the GTX260 in most benchmarks, the GTX260 only wins in some games, and even then its usually only at specific resolutions that it wins. The GTX260 has also had the benefit of being released for longer and so SHOULD have better drivers, so hopefully the 4870 has more room to improve with better drivers.
 
I'd get the card with the better performance...(Hint: 4870 > GTX260). Not sure about how much power these cards draw at load..but I would think that the 55nm on the 4870 would draw less power than the 65nm on the gtx260..?
 
This is reminding me of those old Miller Lite commercials, "Less filling! Tastes great! The number of hairs being split is remarkable.

Let's say it again. There's not enough performance or price difference between a 4870 and a GTX 260 to matter overall. Period. That's the truth no matter how people spin it. One might look at benches and go with the card that performs better in a favorite game.

It's amazing to see a four page thread about this subject. We'll now that I think about, maybe not. Perhaps that's an indication as to just how close these cards are.
 
heatlesssun said:
This is reminding me of those old Miller Lite commercials, "Less filling! Tastes great! The number of hairs being split is remarkable.

Let's say it again. There's not enough performance or price difference between a 4870 and a GTX 260 to matter overall. Period. That's the truth no matter how people spin it. One might look at benches and go with the card that performs better in a favorite game.

It's amazing to see a four page thread about this subject. We'll now that I think about, maybe not. Perhaps that's an indication as to just how close these cards are.
Click to expand...

That's what you meant to say right? Because the GTX280 is still too expensive.
 
MassiveOverkill said:
That's what you meant to say right? Because the GTX280 is still too expensive.
Click to expand...

Actually, after reading GTX280 I had a look at the anandtech review again and looked more closely at the benchmarks. I noticed at 1680x1050 the 4870 is equal to and sometimes slightly faster than the GTX280... not 260, 280!

So if you plan on playing at 1680x1050, go for the 4870 for sure, its just as good as the GTX280.
 
Tudz said:
Actually, after reading GTX280 I had a look at the anandtech review again and looked more closely at the benchmarks. I noticed at 1680x1050 the 4870 is equal to and sometimes slightly faster than the GTX280... not 260, 280!

So if you plan on playing at 1680x1050, go for the 4870 for sure, its just as good as the GTX280.
Click to expand...

I would tend to agree though its not an across the board victory. A GTX 280 at below 1920x1200 is a waste IMHO. That's not what its for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top