Just got my newegg RMA and can't decide

FerraraZ

Gawd
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Feb 4, 2010
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My Sapphire ATI 4870 X2 burnt out on me almost a month ago and Newegg has allowed me to replace it with the original purchase price of $349.99.

What video card from newegg should I get to replace the 4870 x2?

Just looking for suggestions and some benchmarks if you have them.
 
The 470 is a little faster than the 5850 in benchmarks, but in games the difference not there, and it uses a pretty good bit more power and is louder.

Starting from the bottom up, we would say the least relevant video card is the GeForce GTX 470. In all our gameplay testing today, not once did the GeForce GTX 470 provide a superior gameplay experience compared to the Radeon HD 5850, even in Metro 2033. In fact, performance was very close between both video cards, and in some cases the Radeon HD 5850 proved to provide faster framerates. Looking strictly at performance, these video cards are equal.


http://hardocp.com/article/2010/03/25/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/

That all said, the gaming experience is pretty much on par.
 
I decided to spend alittle and get this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125316


Thoughts?


That was actually what I would have suggested but your first post seemed pretty tight on budget. You did exactly the right thing. Metro 2033 will show you that the 5850 is getting a little long in the tooth, so looking forward beyond that you made the right call IMO.

Hope you clicked through one our commission links to buy it!
 
From various [H]ardforum postings, I'd have to say that maybe be a bad choice because of issues some people have had with the Gigabyte card.

I remember one had RMA's his his because it was crashing all the time. Another guy was trying to figure out a cooling solution for it because he found that the twin fan design of the Gigabyte was noisy. The card also has no ramsinks! The ram chips sit bare.

Both guys, IIRC returned/RMA'd their Gigabyte cards for reference 5870s.

qx2yp1.jpg


yfmev.jpg
 
Well hopefully he has adequate cooling in his case, which may have been a problem with the first one burning up. Maybe should get a new case.
 
Good point about the case. They are critical for a fast and stable PC. lol took me 5 years before I decided to splurge on an awesome case!

As far as the pics go, looks like a thermal grease application is in order.
 
I saw on another forum a reply from Gigabyte to an owner of this card. One of the problems apart from constant BSOD's and when gaming or viewing HD content was that there was no 2D/3D mode, meaning the fans were running at full speed all of the time. The Gigabyte response was that there was a BIOS update on the way, and looking at the Gigabyte site, a new BIOS was posted last Tuesday:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/VGA/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=3355

Just a heads up!
 
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