Best HD4870 Card

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maverick786us

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I am looking for an HD4870 Card of 1GB Version for my sister. Her budget is around 230 bucks. The reason she has choose HD4870 instead of GTX 260 is because she is going to purchase the same mobo as mine (my signatures) and P5Q pro does'nt support SLI. She wants her gaming rig to be feature proof for another couple of years so if she feels like she might purchase another 4870 if needed
 
I am looking for an HD4870 Card of 1GB Version
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Thanks. In terms of overall performance is it the best one??
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What struck me about your post is that by being so specific you sorta have painted yourself in a corner, All (with a very few exceptions) 1GB HD4870's are the same card. This is true for both Nvidia and ATI as the factory reference design is used by almost all manuf in 95% of the cards made and the only difference is the minor clock speed "tweaks" from the factory. These clock speed "tweaks/increases" may be obtained by the "stock speed" cards in many instances but the factory OCing is one way of ensuring a slight (very slight in most cases) performance improvement.

For example all of these are the same basic card except the Power Color which has the GPU overclocked to 800MHz (others are 750MHz) and memory at 925 MHz (others are 900) and the Power Color seems to have a slightly different, no idea if better, cooling solution but all the others are basically the same exact card with just a different sticker on the fan housing and are going to perform identically.

What I am tying to say is that unless you where looking to buy at the high end, and you are not, I would be concentrating on which card has the best warranty and if I could find it, customer satisfaction and an easy RMA process. A nice sale or rebate would also be important.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0048 106792627 1067940678 1068320729&name=1GB

That list is by no means an example of everything that is out there but mainly just serves to help make my point. With your budget constraints you are looking at the standard cards and will not be getting into the price range where a particular card can be said to perform any better than any other card. There are exceptions and perhaps someone knows of a lower priced 4870 that stands out from the pack.

Just something to think about, check the warranty, visit the manuf site and look at the support section as I think this is about the only thing that will set those cards in or close to your price range apart from one another.
 
The only thing different with the 4870s is what the vendors may offer for a warranty and a cooler. Pre-Overclocked editions aren't worth spending money on, since you can do it yourself.

If your sister is satisfied with the regular cooler, I guess this one is good. Just check on the ASUS warranty. I think it is 3 years, but don't quote me on that.

Depending on how long she wants to wait, there will probably be good deals on the 4870 1GB cards in the next month for christmas.
 
... the best HD4870 is.... the GTX 260. After having an ASUS and 2 x HIS HD4870s die on me I went with a GTX 260 and couldnt be happier. Overclocks great (756core), is much faster (even than HD4870 @ 900 core), and hasn't died (3 months strong, each HD4870 died within 30 days!). Consider it.
 
You overclocked them to a 900 core? Is that with volt modding? ATI never made the card to withstand that sort of clock. Its your own fault if you pushed them that high and died on you.
 
As stated it basically comes down to warranty and brand cooler design. It's still all reference boards. I know what it's like sifting through customer reviews, but keep and eye out for people mentioning general problems like squealing fans, DOA, and such. While some of the general public may be a bit on the full'o bs side, certain reliability trends can be spotted. The Asus is the cheapest I could find, and their warranty is okay...can't see a problem there.
 
BillParrish said:
What struck me about your post is that by being so specific you sorta have painted yourself in a corner, All (with a very few exceptions) 1GB HD4870's are the same card. This is true for both Nvidia and ATI as the factory reference design is used by almost all manuf in 95% of the cards made and the only difference is the minor clock speed "tweaks" from the factory. These clock speed "tweaks/increases" may be obtained by the "stock speed" cards in many instances but the factory OCing is one way of ensuring a slight (very slight in most cases) performance improvement.

For example all of these are the same basic card except the Power Color which has the GPU overclocked to 800MHz (others are 750MHz) and memory at 925 MHz (others are 900) and the Power Color seems to have a slightly different, no idea if better, cooling solution but all the others are basically the same exact card with just a different sticker on the fan housing and are going to perform identically.

What I am tying to say is that unless you where looking to buy at the high end, and you are not, I would be concentrating on which card has the best warranty and if I could find it, customer satisfaction and an easy RMA process. A nice sale or rebate would also be important.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0048 106792627 1067940678 1068320729&name=1GB

That list is by no means an example of everything that is out there but mainly just serves to help make my point. With your budget constraints you are looking at the standard cards and will not be getting into the price range where a particular card can be said to perform any better than any other card. There are exceptions and perhaps someone knows of a lower priced 4870 that stands out from the pack.

Just something to think about, check the warranty, visit the manuf site and look at the support section as I think this is about the only thing that will set those cards in or close to your price range apart from one another.
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I know that there hardly any difference with few exceptions. I remember when I purchase my rig 3 months I didn't do much research on HD4850s and ended up purchasing the basic version of Palit 4850.

Although I wouldn't about this card but I would have been much happier if I would have gone for MSI or Sapphire or a 1GB version of HD4850. I didn't want the same mistake to be repeated for my sister thats why wanted to know your opinion. She can slightly extend her budget to meet this requirement.

Thanks a lot anyways.
 
xBanzai89 said:
You overclocked them to a 900 core? Is that with volt modding? ATI never made the card to withstand that sort of clock. Its your own fault if you pushed them that high and died on you.
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no, just one. 3 of them were stock clock and died.

One was a good overclocker, water cooled, no mods to the card, it was doing 900 core just fine.

The cards love to spontaneuosly die. Check the forums here, XS and rage, alot of 4870 cards just up and die. They are unreliable. The GTX 260 has been rock solid.
 
Question: Does your sister really need a 4870 1gb?
That's at the higher end of "mainstream" performance.... only gamers who demand the very best (or otherwise have large monitors) will require a card like that. If she really is that serious... give me her phone number =P lol.

I personally think that future proofing is an unintelligent idea. Buy a cheaper card now, and in two years buy another cheap card, replacing the old one. Ading a 2nd 4870 in a year or two will not give you as big a performance jump as replacing the old 4870 with the new card (6870?)

In fact, I'd recommend getting a 512mb 4850 for her. I only got the 4870 1gb because of my 24" monitor. I'm still going to wind up selling it in 2 years instead of CFing another 4870 1gb, which will be hard to find at that time.
 
noobman said:
Question: Does your sister really need a 4870 1gb?
That's at the higher end of "mainstream" performance.... only gamers who demand the very best (or otherwise have large monitors) will require a card like that. If she really is that serious... give me her phone number =P lol.

I personally think that future proofing is an unintelligent idea. Buy a cheaper card now, and in two years buy another cheap card, replacing the old one. Ading a 2nd 4870 in a year or two will not give you as big a performance jump as replacing the old 4870 with the new card (6870?)

In fact, I'd recommend getting a 512mb 4850 for her. I only got the 4870 1gb because of my 24" monitor. I'm still going to wind up selling it in 2 years instead of CFing another 4870 1gb, which will be hard to find at that time.
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Initially I convinced here for 4850. But when she played Crysis at high settings at 1680 X 1050 resolution in my PC . She was bit disappointed. And crysis is a game which has braught even the best card on to its knees. So at 1680 X 1050 if a card can play Crysis smoothly with high settings, it can smoothly play other future release games upto an year or even more. She is looking for setup in which can play high end games developed within an year or maybe 2
 
dnottis said:
no, just one. 3 of them were stock clock and died.

One was a good overclocker, water cooled, no mods to the card, it was doing 900 core just fine.

The cards love to spontaneuosly die. Check the forums here, XS and rage, alot of 4870 cards just up and die. They are unreliable. The GTX 260 has been rock solid.
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I'm calling total BS on this. I'm going to agree with the previous posts and say that you were asking for it by pushing the cards beyond their limit. Crossfire owns GTX.
 
Once again, you should do a search on this topic as it has been covered many times.

ALL of the ATI video cards are the same GPUs and practically the same cards made by different manufacturers with different coolers. In terms of performance, you cannot say that one card is better than another because overclocking is just a matter of getting a golden card versus one that overclocks worse.
 
noobman said:
I personally think that future proofing is an unintelligent idea. Buy a cheaper card now, and in two years buy another cheap card, replacing the old one. Ading a 2nd 4870 in a year or two will not give you as big a performance jump as replacing the old 4870 with the new card (6870?)
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1) 4870 is not considered a cheap/budget card.

2) Theres no point/reason in speculating the performance of future cards that dont even exist yet (6870 wtf?)
 
kompulsive said:
I'm calling total BS on this. I'm going to agree with the previous posts and say that you were asking for it by pushing the cards beyond their limit. Crossfire owns GTX.
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Ok. I'm calling your comment BS since you didnt have 3 of them die. What a stupid comment to make :rolleyes: I only got to overclock 1, the rest died before I got that far.

Crossfire has too many issue - driver profiles, low min FPS, FPS dips. Doesnt sound like you know anything about dual GPU solutions either:rolleyes:
 
dnottis said:
Ok. I'm calling your comment BS since you didnt have 3 of them die. What a stupid comment to make :rolleyes:

Crossfire has too many issue - driver profiles, low min FPS, FPS dips. Doesnt sound like you know anything about dual GPU solutions either:rolleyes:
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if you had three cards die on you it's either (a) some other component in your system is the culprit, or (b) you got unlucky and somehow bought 3 cards from the same bad batch (extremely rare). the laws of probability are against you.
 
Porter_ said:
if you had three cards die on you it's either (a) some other component in your system is the culprit, or (b) you got unlucky and somehow bought 3 cards from the same bad batch (extremely rare). the laws of probability are against you.
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well it's not anything in my system causing the problem, the PNY 260GTX has been running in the same system with all the same hardware for 3 months now without a single problem.
 
dnottis said:
well it's not anything in my system causing the problem, the PNY 260GTX has been running in the same system with all the same hardware for 3 months now without a single problem.
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that doesn't omit the possibility of something in your system not playing nice with the 4870's. if i had three cards die on me i'd point the finger at my system, not claim the manufacturer is producing crap products.

OP: if i were in your (her) shoes i'd purchase an SLI board and get a 260. they seem like great cards for the price.
 
Porter_ said:
that doesn't omit the possibility of something in your system not playing nice with the 4870's. if i had three cards die on me i'd point the finger at my system, not claim the manufacturer is producing crap products.

OP: if i were in your (her) shoes i'd purchase an SLI board and get a 260. they seem like great cards for the price.
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If it were something in my system I'd still be having a problem. Its not on my end, trust me. The cards all died the same way... booting up. Had stability issues with one before it died after having it for 2 days, stock was artifacting and overheating. The one that was doing 900 mhz lasted 32 days before dying.

Do you really believe if it were my motherboard or PSU or something that would selectively kill just HD4870s? Do you think my machine was trying to make an example lol. they just died. Alot of people's HD4870s have up and died.

I really dont have the time to argue about this, all I know is since I installed the GTX 260 I've been happier - games are faster, benchmarks are faster and I havent had to RMA a GPU since I took the last dead 4870 out of my machine.
 
My speculation is, that it would be best to wait some eight weeks for Xmas to pass and the New Year. The retailers and companies are waiting for Xmas sales and this year with the economy downturn and poor Holiday sales, expected, price cutting is bound to happen and in a big way. The 4870 1 Gb. could well drop to your budget price of $230.00 or much more. Make your wallet happy with a little waiting.
 
Bunkey said:
My speculation is, that it would be best to wait some eight weeks for Xmas to pass and the New Year. The retailers and companies are waiting for Xmas sales and this year with the economy downturn and poor Holiday sales, expected, price cutting is bound to happen and in a big way. The 4870 1 Gb. could well drop to your budget price of $230.00 or much more. Make your wallet happy with a little waiting.
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No man, I've got a much better idea. Why not wait 4 or 5 years and then get the 4870 1GB for 19.99$ in a yard sale?
 
Bunkey said:
My speculation is, that it would be best to wait some eight weeks for Xmas to pass and the New Year. The retailers and companies are waiting for Xmas sales and this year with the economy downturn and poor Holiday sales, expected, price cutting is bound to happen and in a big way. The 4870 1 Gb. could well drop to your budget price of $230.00 or much more. Make your wallet happy with a little waiting.
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Sounds good. In fact she is planning to purchase one somewhere around black friday. Thanks for the suggestion
 
dnottis said:
Ok. I'm calling your comment BS since you didnt have 3 of them die. What a stupid comment to make :rolleyes: I only got to overclock 1, the rest died before I got that far.

Crossfire has too many issue - driver profiles, low min FPS, FPS dips. Doesnt sound like you know anything about dual GPU solutions either:rolleyes:
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I'd suggest you re check your whole power set up, starting from the psu ending with your socket. Three hd4870 just dont die one after another because they are hd 4870s.
 
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