4870 1GB vs GTX260-216 game off

Yes, I *really* like sites that include minimum framerates in their reviews because that's at least as usefil to know, if not more so, than averages. xbitlabs does it as well, they just get reviews out slower.
 
Sure, picking one graph is always fun. Like this one:

1229309371083nfsNxLm_4_3.gif

1229309371083nfsNxLm_4_4.gif


In Summary, all NVIDIA GPU based video cards were playable at this resolution in GTA IV, albeit with some lowered settings. On the AMD side only the Radeon HD 4870 X2 was playable at 2560x1600, the 4870 1GB, 4870 512MB and 4850 were not playable at this resolution.
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Now show me one where the 260 sucks that hard as the HD4870 here...

Madman0 said:
Yes, I *really* like sites that include minimum framerates in their reviews because that's at least as usefil to know, if not more so, than averages. xbitlabs does it as well, they just get reviews out slower.
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Showing graphs is even better.
 
Just giving a number is something different then showing a graph.

One framedrop to 10fps in the whole run is something I don't care about compared to a drop to 20fps every 5 seconds. That's something a number won't tell you, but a graph will.
 
wow wtf happened to the 4870 at 2560... Everything on low/1s and still slower than the 260gtx?? Somethings wrong...
 
Chix4mat said:
Hi all:

I'm the one who wrote the Techgage article, and I'd just like to respond to a few comments here.

(shorted down)

I have to agree. We should have used 8xAA, and to be honest, I'm unsure why the thought didn't cross my mind. To call us biased is truly ridiculous, however, especially due to a chosen setting in one game. We put a ton of effort into both our testing process and methodology, and we aren't just going to blow that by being biased. Besides, I'm not sure how we can be biased when we concluded that both cards are essentially equal...

That aside, thanks to anyone who commented on the article, and we'll be sure to better choose our anti-aliasing settings for our future GPU content.
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Thanks for answering. Its a bit better discussing an article with the actual writer posting. :D
Its not based upon a single graph, but multiple graphs you are being biast. Lets look at what you did in the article:

You start off in the article with:
Headline:
ATI HD 4870 1GB vs. NVIDIA GTX 260/216 896MB
Using Nvidia selected games, but also uses some more which is good.

Results:
Call of duty - world at war: 260 have highest framerates.
crysis warhead: 4870 have highest framerates (about equal though)
Dead space: 260 have highest framerates (look at firingsquads review with 8X AA and you get a different picture).
Fallout 3: 260 at low res, about equal at middle res, 4870 at high res.
Farcry 2: 260 at low res, 4870 at middle res, 260 at high res (but they are about equal in all res)
Left4dead: 260 have highest framerates
Stalker: 4870 have highest framerates
UT3: 4870 have highest framerates

Your conclution:

When writing a head-to-head article and we see one of the models dominating the other, it's not so difficult to come up with a conclusion. That was the case with our article two weeks ago. NVIDIA's offering proved to be faster, more power efficient, and cheaper. It's impossible to misinterpret that. NVIDIA clearly had the better card. It's simply something that couldn't be argued.
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Not difficult to come up with a conclution? Only in three of the games (of 8), the 260 was faster and one of them could go the other way with 8X aa (and you couldn't get the 260 to run the highest res). The rest was about equal or victory goes to 4870. I would find it difficult to come with a conclution even upon your own results, unless my conclution wasn't based upon the results itself.
 
jcvjcvjcvjcv said:
Sure, picking one graph is always fun. Like this one:

1229309371083nfsNxLm_4_3.gif

1229309371083nfsNxLm_4_4.gif




Now show me one where the 260 sucks that hard as the HD4870 here...



Showing graphs is even better.
Click to expand...
rockstars sucks not ati before beta drivers nvidia cards were as bad as radeons
 
My thoughts:

They're both great cards with their ups and downs. Who cares which one is better, go with which one is cheaper at the time, your favorite manufacturer, which one looks like it would taste better.

:)

I actually wish i would have gone with the 4870 just so i could crossfire later on, i've just always had more luck with Nvidia. Guess its a superstitious thing.
 
Chix4mat said:
Hi all:

I'm the one who wrote the Techgage article, and I'd just like to respond to a few comments here.



130FPS is not impossible at 1680x1050, as the chart shows. In addition to the information shown on the graph itself, we also include direct screenshots from each game used to show exactly how it was configured (the L4D screenshots show Vsync enabled though, when it was actually disabled in order to achieve high FPS), and I can assure you, our results as as accurate as possible. Like [H], we don't utilize timedemos, and we re-run each setting/game multiple times in order to achieve accurate results.

The exact run goes as follows:

Benchmarking begins in the last safe house for that mission, and Fraps' FPS recording is started right before the door is opened. I proceed up the stairs and through the doors, hop on the trash can that's lying on its side and shoot the zombies up and down the hall. I then proceed to run down the hall, stopping at each doorway to take care of zombies that might be in each room.

At the end of the hallway is the metal grate which must be shot out, and after taking care of zombies, I make my way up the ladder to the roof and run to the top-left corner, then look down at the helipad. That's when I stop Fraps recording.

If you don't trust my results, apply the same settings and follow my general instructions there. Each run varied between ~1 - 3 FPS, so I wouldn't expect anyone's results to stray far.



I have to agree. We should have used 8xAA, and to be honest, I'm unsure why the thought didn't cross my mind. To call us biased is truly ridiculous, however, especially due to a chosen setting in one game. We put a ton of effort into both our testing process and methodology, and we aren't just going to blow that by being biased. Besides, I'm not sure how we can be biased when we concluded that both cards are essentially equal...

That aside, thanks to anyone who commented on the article, and we'll be sure to better choose our anti-aliasing settings for our future GPU content.
Click to expand...

its bull let me tell you :p

I have tried both card on myself on same settings but better CPU etc, and both of the GTX 260/4870 are unable to perform 130fps average under 4xAA, more likely to be about 90-100fps average.....

the only time that happen to be 130fps is right at the beginning, or when there is no zombie in the "ROOM", that is the only time that actually get to 130...

overall, both card perform exactly the same, even on higher resolution..

------------------------------

About that HardOCP review on L4D, its entirely not accurate, especially on that Graphical Glitch part, I remember this had been discuss many time earlier before, and most people seem not to have those problem at all, some claim they have happen to both nVidia/ATI Card...

But from my experience, that does exist for static object if you alt-tab out the game and come back in... Also its fix in latest ATI driver....
 
jcvjcvjcvjcv said:
Just giving a number is something different then showing a graph.

One framedrop to 10fps in the whole run is something I don't care about compared to a drop to 20fps every 5 seconds. That's something a number won't tell you, but a graph will.
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'Graph' can mean a lot of things and bar graphs are graphs too! Hence the ';)' in my reply...which you obviously didn't understand.

I'm not sure why you quoted me to pimp the [H] reviews though, they include minimum framerates and graphs of a different type as well so are included in my statement as being ones I really like.
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
Your conclution:
When writing a head-to-head article and we see one of the models dominating the other, it's not so difficult to come up with a conclusion. That was the case with our article two weeks ago. NVIDIA's offering proved to be faster, more power efficient, and cheaper. It's impossible to misinterpret that. NVIDIA clearly had the better card. It's simply something that couldn't be argued.
Click to expand...
Not difficult to come up with a conclution? Only in three of the games (of 8), the 260 was faster and one of them could go the other way with 8X aa (and you couldn't get the 260 to run the highest res). The rest was about equal or victory goes to 4870. I would find it difficult to come with a conclution even upon your own results, unless my conclution wasn't based upon the results itself.
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If you read what you quoted from the review, you might notice that the conclusion you're referring to was reached two weeks ago in a previous review that did not include the new ATI drivers. In this review, the GTX260 won every test.

So you have effectively taken something that Techgage said over two weeks ago in a previous review, and used it to support your argument that their current review is flawed. :confused:

If you read past what you quoted from the Techgage review, you can find the updated conclusion:
The conclusion? There is no conclusion. Given the pricing information above, I think both cards come out equal. ATI's card costs $20 less, but isn't quite as powerful as NVIDIA's card in certain games (most notably, Call of Duty: World at War). On the other hand, NVIDIA's card costs $20 more, but it runs a bit cooler, is more power efficient, and supports PhysX, which may be a big thing next year. It's really difficult to conclude on this one, so it's a matter of choosing what's more important, money saved now, or the certain perks that NVIDIA's card carries (namely PhysX). The good thing? It's difficult to go wrong with either.
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Nicepants42 said:
If you read what you quoted from the review, you might notice that the conclusion you're referring to was reached two weeks ago in a previous review that did not include the new ATI drivers. In this review, the GTX260 won every test.

So you have effectively taken something that Techgage said over two weeks ago in a previous review, and used it to support your argument that their current review is flawed. :confused:

If you read past what you quoted from the Techgage review, you can find the updated conclusion:
Click to expand...

I agree. I had both reviews open and compared, so mistakes was made by me. In addition, rereading the review with only one up this time ;) I withdraw my statement that the review was biast. My apologies to the reviewer.
 
I went with an ASUS EAH4870 Dark Knight 1GB. It seemed that the core and memory clocks were higher than the 260 and I've always gone Nvidia (I upgraded from a 7950GT) and I wanted to try something new, plus my new mobo and Phenom are all ATI/AMD so why not get an ATI card for a change?

So now looking at this thread it seems I may have picked the slower card?

I receive the card on Friday. I'm sure it will run far Cry 2 well.
 
a question to those who have the 4870, does the ati drivers have color setting controls like the nvidia control panel, where you can change contrast ratio/brightness/gamma and stuff?
 
The GTX260 is the better pick IMHO. Mainly because the 1GB of VRAM isn't really that useful on the HD4870 even at higher resolutions due to the 256bit bus and Nvidia has better drivers, Physx support right on the card, and more games are optimized for Nvidia. Personally I would rather have the HD4870 512MB over the 1GB version because the 1GB HD4870 cant reach the high memory clocks that the vanilla HD4870 can.
 
QuickS said:
The GTX260 is the better pick IMHO. Mainly because the 1GB of VRAM isn't really that useful on the HD4870 even at higher resolutions due to the 256bit bus and Nvidia has better drivers, Physx support right on the card, and more games are optimized for Nvidia. Personally I would rather have the HD4870 512MB over the 1GB version because the 1GB HD4870 cant reach the high memory clocks that the vanilla HD4870 can.
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Dude, are you on something?
 
Green team for the win baby.
I am still on a 9800gtx oc.I dont need all that video card power considering I am playing under 1680x1050.I love to see threads like this.What all this means to me is us as consumers have a win win situation
 
alg7_munif said:
Dude, are you on something?
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Are you? Take a look at Crytek,Eidos, Valve, Bioware, etc....
All of those company's develop their game engines around the Nvidia cards so they run a lot better on the Nvidia cards and new Nvidia drivers are always being released and are better than ATI's drivers. Now with all of the GTX 260 deals out there at the moment I see no reason that someone would go with a HD4870 unless they are on a crossfire motherboard.
Now that Nvidia has bought out Physx and they are starting to utilize it on their cards it makes Nvidia even more appealing. To be honest I would only buy an ATI card if I was on a budget and my main concern wasn't pc gaming.
 
picture quality has been superior on ATI cards for years. Nvidia drivers are a main reason Vista got a bad first impression. ATI has been sharper and more realistic side by side IMHO
 
HSADJADI said:
picture quality has been superior on ATI cards for years. Nvidia drivers are a main reason Vista got a bad first impression. ATI has been sharper and more realistic side by side IMHO
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Never could tell the difference in iq between the two. Wait - let's get a screenshot and a microscope! : )
 
eric66 said:
rockstars sucks not ati before beta drivers nvidia cards were as bad as radeons
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They most certainly were not.
:rolleyes:

180.48 WHQL runs it equally as well as 180.84 Beta or 181.00 Beta and I've got over a dozen benchmarks conducted to prove it.
 
QuickS said:
Are you? Take a look at Crytek,Eidos, Valve, Bioware, etc....
All of those company's develop their game engines around the Nvidia cards so they run a lot better on the Nvidia cards and new Nvidia drivers are always being released and are better than ATI's drivers. Now with all of the GTX 260 deals out there at the moment I see no reason that someone would go with a HD4870 unless they are on a crossfire motherboard.
Now that Nvidia has bought out Physx and they are starting to utilize it on their cards it makes Nvidia even more appealing. To be honest I would only buy an ATI card if I was on a budget and my main concern wasn't pc gaming.
Click to expand...

HD 4870 Memory Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec
GTX 280 Memory Bandwidth: 141.696 GB/sec

HD 4870 1GB Memory Clock Speed: 1800 MHz (3600 DDR)
HD 4870 512MB Memory Clock Speed: 1800 MHz (3600 DDR)

How many PhysX games are there worth playing other other than Mass effect, Mirror's edge, UT3, GRAW
 
Hamidxa said:
They most certainly were not.
:rolleyes:

180.48 WHQL runs it equally as well as 180.84 Beta or 181.00 Beta and I've got over a dozen benchmarks conducted to prove it.
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hmmm many ppl reported jump in fps may be it was for specific cards don't know but nvidia suggested beta drivers too so there must be something special for gta
 
QuickS said:
Are you? Take a look at Crytek,Eidos, Valve, Bioware, etc....
All of those company's develop their game engines around the Nvidia cards so they run a lot better on the Nvidia cards and new Nvidia drivers are always being released and are better than ATI's drivers. Now with all of the GTX 260 deals out there at the moment I see no reason that someone would go with a HD4870 unless they are on a crossfire motherboard.
Now that Nvidia has bought out Physx and they are starting to utilize it on their cards it makes Nvidia even more appealing. To be honest I would only buy an ATI card if I was on a budget and my main concern wasn't pc gaming.
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Well he is on something if he thinks a 512MB card is better in any way, shape or form than a 1GB card. He brought absolutely NOTHING to the table other than stating that the GTX260 is a good deal/on sale rightnow.
 
Stanley Pain said:
Well he is on something if he thinks a 512MB card is better in any way, shape or form than a 1GB card. He brought absolutely NOTHING to the table other than stating that the GTX260 is a good deal/on sale rightnow.
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The 512MB is the better card because the memory overclocks a lot higher than the 1GB version and the 512MB version is a lot cheaper. I don't think that you read my full post if you think that's all I brought to the table. ^^ The 1GB on the HD4870 cant be fully utilized because of the 256bit bus.
 
QuickS said:
The 512MB is the better card because the memory overclocks a lot higher than the 1GB version and the 512MB version is a lot cheaper. I don't think that you read my full post if you think that's all I brought to the table. ^^ The 1GB on the HD4870 cant be fully utilized because of the 256bit bus.
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A lot cheaper? I picked up my Sapphire 1GB card for $315CDN, whereas the 512 was $299. $15 for 512MB of more memory, sign me up. Heck the diamond cards have dropped below $300 right now, with the 512 sitting under $230. Even then $60-70 is worth the price of admission for the reason stated below.

You can clock the memory as high as you want it won't matter much in resolutions > 1920x1200, especially when you want to run with AA on in just about any modern game.

Show me proof on how a 256bit bus is limiting the 4870 1GB.
 
QuickS said:
The 1GB on the HD4870 cant be fully utilized because of the 256bit bus.
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Of course. The 1GB version is completely useless. It's not like it's faster than the 512MB version. Oh wait, it is! Must be because of magic leprechauns then :rolleyes:

Saying an inferior version is better because theoretically it can overclock slightly more than the superior version is just fail.
 
QuickS said:
The 512MB is the better card because the memory overclocks a lot higher than the 1GB version and the 512MB version is a lot cheaper. I don't think that you read my full post if you think that's all I brought to the table. ^^ The 1GB on the HD4870 cant be fully utilized because of the 256bit bus.
Click to expand...
HD 4870 Memory Bandwidth: 115.2 GB/sec
GTX 260 Memory Bandwidth: 111.888 GB/sec

:rolleyes:
 
QuickS said:
The 512MB is the better card because the memory overclocks a lot higher than the 1GB version and the 512MB version is a lot cheaper. I don't think that you read my full post if you think that's all I brought to the table. ^^ The 1GB on the HD4870 cant be fully utilized because of the 256bit bus.
Click to expand...

I mentioned this earlier but it didnt register hey ;)
GTA IV needs more than 512MB ram otherwise you severely restrict the graphics quality you can use in game.
Getting a 512MB card now isnt a good idea if you intend on playing GTA IV.
It isnt the first game to need more than 512MB either and the situation is not going to improve for 512MB or lower memory cards.
 
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