Buying a new card - gtx260 vs 4870

I

irriadin

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Feb 24, 2005
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I've spent hours trying to figure out which is better, to no avail. It seems that the two cards are very close in price and performance, and features as well (i.e. the 4870 uses better memory and supports dx 10.1, but has less overall memory than the gtx 260).

Here is my current setup:

Intel Q6600 @ 3.0GHz
4GB DDR2-800
8800 GTS 640 MB
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W
1680 x 1050

I mostly play Age of Conan at the moment. Any suggestions as to which card I should get?
 
I favor the 260 because

if you get one now, you can get one from a company that will step you up to one of the 55nm wich will atleast overclock even higher than they are clocking now..which is high
better brands, lifetime warrenty
no fan problem, runs cooler
overclocks to very close of the speed of the 280, the 4870 doesnt

at stock speed, there pretty neck and neck, in price and performance
 
From what I've been seeing the 4870 OC's pretty well itself. Most are only limited by the the program. The 260 OC's like nothing I've ever seen. People are hitting 700+ from a stock speed of 576....that's insanity.

I would vote for a Evga or BFG 260 because of the 55mn step-up that's almost guaranteed; however if they ever release the 1gb non-reference cooled 4870 then I would buy that hands down.
 
You didn't list your motherboard. I'm assuming you have an intel chipset. Which chipset is it? If it can support crossfire, then you may want to go with the ATI card so that you can have the option of upgrading to crossfire in the future.
 
mbmadness said:
You didn't list your motherboard. I'm assuming you have an intel chipset. Which chipset is it? If it can support crossfire, then you may want to go with the ATI card so that you can have the option of upgrading to crossfire in the future.
Click to expand...

My motherboard is an abit ip35 Pro, chipset is intel p35 / ICH9r. It doesn't seem like doing crossfire on this motherboard will be worth it, since the second pci-e slot has only 4x bandwidth...
 
Right now I think these prices are still too high. I think you shouldn't have to pay over 250 for a 260 and 270 for a 4870.

I got a Evga SC 260 for 225 from newegg after rebate (which was approved by Evga two days ago) so I would wait until prices drop further if I were you.

The reason I put the price of a 4870 at 270 is because they perform better at 19x20 with 4x aa. If you only game on a 22" then a 4850 in crossfire should fit you well.

Edit- Didn't see the 4x bandwidth.....ouch. A step-upable 260 at around $240ish should be absolutely perfect for your resolution. Time to play the waiting game ;)
 
the current best deal on a 260 is the $245AR?...its been that way for like 2 1/2 weeks

i want an EVGA or XFX for that price....or a 10-30 bucks cheaper..thats what its worth to me..

waiting for that sale
 
seriously guys there are so many threads about this, do we need more?

hd 4870 for age of conan, the reviews say it all. it performs better in that game period.
 
OK. So, xfire is not a factor because of your motherboard.

This recent Anandtech review shows an advantage to the 4870 vs the 260 at all resolutions for Age of Conan. So, it seems like the ATI card does have the edge.

http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3466

They are both pretty close and I can see your delima. What you may want to do is instead of looking at the technology is look at the companies that offer the cards. Companies like BFG offer a 100 day trade up program that you may want to take advantage of, plus a lifetime warranty. If you think you think you would want those features then you may want to go with a 260. I am not aware of a company selling ATI cards that has the same level of support and trade up. Maybe someone else knows if there is an ATI company that can compete with BFG?
 
Armoured said:
Edit- Didn't see the 4x bandwidth.....ouch. A step-upable 260 at around $240ish should be absolutely perfect for your resolution. Time to play the waiting game ;)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand evga's step-up qualifications... it only applies to cards running at reference speeds? So if I got the Superclocked version that would be ineligible?
 
Any card that Evga makes is eligible.

However if you do step up.....you can only step up to a standard version. Say if you buy a SC and step up to a Gtx 290.....it would be at stock reference speeds. You wouldn't be able to step up to a FTW version or any of the super clocks.
 
Dethman said:
overclocks to very close of the speed of the 280, the 4870 doesnt

at stock speed, there pretty neck and neck, in price and performance
Click to expand...

No, no. The 4870 overclocks better than the GTX 260.
As for the other statement, it is also wrong.
The conclusion is that you should buy a HD4870.
 
The 4870s already run hot, good luck getting much of an overclock. The 4870 is basically just an overclocked 4850.

The 260's overclock very well and will surpass the 4870 in most benchmarks. Not to mention Physx support.

The hype on the 4xxx series has finally died down and reality has set in.

Hell you can get a 9800GX2 for half the cost of ATIs top card and it will keep up just fine.
 
The stock GTX 260 already surpasses the 4870 at many games. Once overclocked, It'll almost reach the 280 performance levels.

Not sure why people are still saying that the 4870 is the best thing ever. It's a great card indeed, especially for the price, but so is the 260.
 
Seems like the busy bees of the forum sales men are in a frenzy allready.

I would suggest OP reads atleast 4 different review sites through to get overall view about how the cards perform in the games he plays. You cannot get unbiased view around here you know.

Don't be a sheep and follow the leader, make up your own mind.
 
Wow this thread just flooded with nV fanboys, how about the people who reached 900 mhz+ stable with the 4870 then?
 
I thought AoC was clearly better on the 4870? I'd wait for a 1GB 4870 and go that route. Should be available any day now.
 
You have an almost identical hardware list as compared to my newly built pc,
I am looking to get myself a GTX260 also in addition to a 600+W PSU.
Currently I am running on a 8600GT which is performing decently.
 
either one will be good for you, though I would go with the GTX 260 if it was me.
 
PRIME1 said:
The 4870s already run hot, good luck getting much of an overclock. The 4870 is basically just an overclocked 4850.

The 260's overclock very well and will surpass the 4870 in most benchmarks. Not to mention Physx support.

The hype on the 4xxx series has finally died down and reality has set in.

Hell you can get a 9800GX2 for half the cost of ATIs top card and it will keep up just fine.
Click to expand...

No, 4850s use GDDR3, and 4870s use GDDR5. There's a big difference there.

And for my OC on my 4870, I get 820/975, which isn't too bad.
 
Is the only way to get the HD4870 clocks above 790 to flash the BIOS?

OP, I was in the same situation as you were. Having some gift certificates to BB, I decided to get the HD4870. But with the announcements of the PhysX (I upgraded from an 8800 gts), I might return it and get a GTX 260.
 
mrmetal_53 said:
Is the only way to get the HD4870 clocks above 790 to flash the BIOS?

OP, I was in the same situation as you were. Having some gift certificates to BB, I decided to get the HD4870. But with the announcements of the PhysX (I upgraded from an 8800 gts), I might return it and get a GTX 260.
Click to expand...

Which PhysX games are you most interested in?
 
I don't know, I don't really know too many games. I guess it would be for the future, in case games that I want to play have that feature :p Maybe I'm worrying for no reason; my HD4870 is a screamer.
 
I was in the same boat. I am in Germany right now and just picked up a GTX 260 for 205.95 EU shipped. I have a crossfire motherboard (P5KC), but will not be using crossfire. I believe either card will get the job done. For me, the issue with the ATI cards was the heat and needing to use a hack in the settings to have the fan spinning at a certain speed to keep it acceptably cool. That was with an HD4850 which I returned. Mind you, it gamed well, just too hot before I modified my settings. It should run correctly out of the box. Period.

Conventional wisdom may say 4870 from many review sites, but when you factor realistic OC'ing out of the box for the GTX260, power draw, and the fact these cards run neck and neck mostly, it is more complicated. Also, in America you have XFX double lifetime warranty (only 2 years in EU), EVGA, or BFG are great vendors as well with step up programs and lifetime warranties as well.

In the end, I was considering the 4870, but the GTX 260 has more memory ( I believe memory buffering could be an issue with some future games at higher resolutions), runs cooler, is less of a hassle to setup out of the box (fan settings, running at correct temps, etc), and is far easier to OC. I played around with the ATI cards. If pure performance is your thing, and you are willing to fiddle with bios flashing as well as modifying settings in order to keep the fan running at a certain speed, perhaps the ATI is better for you.Especially if you would consider crossfire in the future. Still, ATI has never shown me to have as good of drivers as Nvidia, which is another factor. For MY needs and expectations, the GTX 260 is just the better all around card at the present price point. So, unless your going to do crossfire, I say go for the GTX 260...
 
> I'd wait for a 1GB 4870 and go that route. Should be available any day now.

If by "any day now" you mean "in about six-eight weeks", then sure.
 
I'd go with a 4870 just because it rules in Age of Conan. PhysX is basically a farce considering the paucity of current games utilizing it, and the likelihood that future games are probably going to be too shader intense to make PhysX on the GTX260 at top visuals viable at all. It's like SM3.0 on Nvidia's 6000 series all over again. I'd go with the AA optimizations made possible with DX10.1 (see Assassin's Creed) and AMD's custom filtering AA options over PhysX just for those reasons. As for heat? I haven't heard of anyone's card dying because of high temps unless they were being a Furmark fiend. Besides the fan fix is easy enough to apply just from Windows (and ATI Tray Tools already has fan support for the 4800s); no BIOS flash required.

If it weren't Age of Conan you're worrying about I'd probably just flip a coin and get it over with given how close these cards are though.
 
I can't make heads or tails out of card choices.

4870 - Every review on newegg CONS the heat.. but no PhysX
GTX 260 - No DirectX 10.1, but this doesn't seem to be a deal breaker. What game is going to alienate every Nvidia machine?

I'm building a new box, as a badly needed upgrade for Warhammer, which is wearing the Nvidia badge. My main problem has always been temperature, not squeezing another 10 fps. With heat being my #1 enemy, the last thing I want to do is buy something I have to rig a fix for, straight out of the box. So I'll be going the 260 or the 9800GX2 route.....

* i hate hardware *
 
Clemson said:
as a badly needed upgrade for Warhammer, which is wearing the Nvidia badge.
Click to expand...

This means nothing. EQ2 has had the nvidia badge since day 1 and since day 1 ATI cards have handled the game better. Although eq2 is a very CPU intensive game, based on it's architectural direction at that time (fast single cores), ATI cards run the game better anyday. In other words, don't let that badge influence your decision.
 
Clemson said:
I can't make heads or tails out of card choices.

4870 - Every review on newegg CONS the heat.. but no PhysX
GTX 260 - No DirectX 10.1, but this doesn't seem to be a deal breaker. What game is going to alienate every Nvidia machine?

I'm building a new box, as a badly needed upgrade for Warhammer, which is wearing the Nvidia badge. My main problem has always been temperature, not squeezing another 10 fps. With heat being my #1 enemy, the last thing I want to do is buy something I have to rig a fix for, straight out of the box. So I'll be going the 260 or the 9800GX2 route.....

* i hate hardware *
Click to expand...
EA, Sega and Blizzard to come with DX10.1 games
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8463&Itemid=1

to note its true the new blizzard signed a deal with ati so yes dx10.1 matters just like it did in assassins creed before nv bitched like a little baby to ubisoft and removed support dx 10.1 support
 
eloj said:
> I'd wait for a 1GB 4870 and go that route. Should be available any day now.

If by "any day now" you mean "in about six-eight weeks", then sure.
Click to expand...

Its already listed on sites in Australia (HIS, Powercolor and Sapphire versions). Although unless you buy it from dodgy online sites (sites with many claims of bad customer service) the cost really isn't worth while. You can get a HIS one for as low as $363 (opposed to about $320 for the cheapest 512mb version) but I wouldn't trust the sites. Trustworthy sites its more like $420+.
 
If you have a NV chipset motherboard go with a 260 - if you have CF capable Intel chipset go 4870.

Pretty easy.
 
I didn't read all the threads but from personal testing I can answer this very simply.

If you are OK with overclocking, get the 260GTX HANDS DOWN, unless you plan on later upgrading to 2 4870's for crossfire. 1 4870 will not even come close to the potential of an overclocked 260 GTX (not factory overclocked, REAL overclocking).

Also if you have crossfire as an option I would consider 2 4850's in CF over either if you have a board that supports it for not much more money. I have run all 3 of these setups and that was much faster than the other 2.
 
There's no heat with the GTX 260. They run like 10c at full Crysis load. And all the stuff on message boards and youtube about defective GTX series cards being sold and people needing to RMA 2 and 3 times...all lies. So the GTX 260 is the way to go IMO.
 
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