Nvidia GTX260 or ATI 4870?

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Mopower

Gawd
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Feb 13, 2006
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I've always owned ATI cards in the past but since they can't get drivers that aren't complete crap and I can't install more than 4 gb of ram without the video card drivers crashing I am thinking of going Nvidia. I have a 1080p monitor. Would a 1gb 4870 be better than a GTX260 896gb? Or are there driver fixes to allow more than 4gb of ram? Even the newest drivers crash on my 3870 if I have more than 4gb of system memory. I have my cpu overclocked but get the same result at stock speeds. Thanks for any advice.
 
The Radeon 4870 and GTX 260 are about equal in performance.

What OS are you using?
 
Vista 64. I haven't tried more ram in Windows 7. I might try that this weekend.
 
Keep in mind that the 4780 will do Audio for blu-ray/HD-DVD over HDMI via a DVI/HDMI adapter.

The 260 will does this as well but the sound is not as good and you have to hook up that little SPDIF cable thing which is annoying.

If you're focus is gaming I'd buy the 260 in a heartbeat.

I just picked up 2x 4890 and I am not impressed with the way it handles COD4 on max settings compared to GTX 285 and 8800 Ultra.
 
If by chance you Fold with your GPU, then definitely get the GTX 260. ATI cards are horrible at Folding. For gaming it's a toss up but I would still lean towards the 260.
 
4870 would be a good choice if you are using Vista, nVidia driver fails me a lot of times on Vista already, but XP works fine out of box....
 
If you don't have any special needs (HTPC, Folding, etc.), the GTX 260 is probably the best bet purely based on pricing... Judging by Newegg's prices anyway. Plenty of people are using current-gen ATI cards with more than 4GB of RAM w/o any issues though...

I actually wanted a 4870 myself because it fit into my older/smaller case better, but the cheapest one was like $174 and made by MSI (XFX cards were all $200). Meanwhile Newegg has an offer going right now for an XFX GTX 260 at $160 and it even includes Farcry 2 and CoD5, so I opted for that instead, was too hard to pass up.
 
You can usually find a good GTX260 for cheaper than a 4870. Since performance is roughly equal, the GTX260 edging out on a few games, I would say pick the GTX260. That is unless you find a 4870 for cheaper. I wouldn't blame ATI drivers solely as I can throw in an extra 2x1GB of RAM into my system (Vista Ultimate x64) giving me 6GB with no crashing or any stability issues whatsoever.
 
AParsh335i said:
Keep in mind that the 4780 will do Audio for blu-ray/HD-DVD over HDMI via a DVI/HDMI adapter.

The 260 will does this as well but the sound is not as good and you have to hook up that little SPDIF cable thing which is annoying.

If you're focus is gaming I'd buy the 260 in a heartbeat.

I just picked up 2x 4890 and I am not impressed with the way it handles COD4 on max settings compared to GTX 285 and 8800 Ultra.
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The 4870 wont do audio for blu ray any better than using SPDIF / Optical, identical quality as that is exactly what it uses to feed the DVI to HDMI adapter.
You cannot get hidef sound from a 4870.
 
Great input on this post, I bought a Dell XPS with 2 crossfire 4870 cards installed, but I have a 260 I bought last week , for another computer I plan to sell. I will admit it, I am a NVIDIA fanboy, but the price was killer for what I was able to get this XPS from the dell outlet site. I am thinking of selling the 4870's, and buying another 260 and going that route, or selling all 3 and going with 2 280's . Any ideas?
 
jg3 said:
Great input on this post, I bought a Dell XPS with 2 crossfire 4870 cards installed, but I have a 260 I bought last week , for another computer I plan to sell. I will admit it, I am a NVIDIA fanboy, but the price was killer for what I was able to get this XPS from the dell outlet site. I am thinking of selling the 4870's, and buying another 260 and going that route, or selling all 3 and going with 2 280's . Any ideas?
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Best make your own thread about it!
Also you need to explain what you use it for and if you want more responses, detail the hardware you have as making us do more homework for you isnt what we find most fun :p
 
+1 for the 260 216.

I have some minor issues in SLI with some games, but otherwise they're beasts.
 
4830 + 8gb ram = no problems

Go with whichever is cheaper. 95% of ATI hate is just trash.

Only real reason to go nvidia over ati is if you run linux. For 2 performance equal cards, get whichever is cheaper. I am extremely pleased with the radeon 48xx series.
 
Malakai said:
4830 + 8gb ram = no problems

Go with whichever is cheaper. 95% of ATI hate is just trash.

Only real reason to go nvidia over ati is if you run linux. For 2 performance equal cards, get whichever is cheaper. I am extremely pleased with the radeon 48xx series.
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Actually, if you run linux ATI is good option as well. ATI has been fully supporting catalyst Linux drivers as of the past 8 months or so.
 
Both are good cards. You'll be happy with either. Just go with the one that's cheapest. I would say the 260 only because nvidia's vendors have better waranty than Ati's
 
htphm42 said:
Both are good cards. You'll be happy with either. Just go with the one that's cheapest. I would say the 260 only because nvidia's vendors have better waranty than Ati's
Click to expand...

XFX also makes ATI cards, but besides them it is a bit dry on the ATI side in terms of warranties.
 
GTX 260's have been slightly cheaper than 4870's recently, and you can't go wrong with EVGA/XFX/BFG warranties.
So I vote for the 260. Unless the 4870 is significantly cheaper or you prefer ATI...
 
To my understanding, the 260 benches a bit higher then the 4870, but you will be happy with either one, no less.

So I guess it narrows down to special features either one provides, or price tags.
 
I bought one of the Evga GTX260 that was in the hot deal section for 160 from newegg. Very happy
 
Niteflite said:
To my understanding, the 260 benches a bit higher then the 4870, but you will be happy with either one, no less.

So I guess it narrows down to special features either one provides, or price tags.
Click to expand...

it really depends on which game you play, it will shows another story.....
 
As many other have said go with which ever is cheaper, which right now is usually the 260, just make sure you get the 216 version.
 
UtopiA said:
GTX 260's have been slightly cheaper than 4870's recently, and you can't go wrong with EVGA/XFX/BFG warranties.
So I vote for the 260. Unless the 4870 is significantly cheaper or you prefer ATI...
Click to expand...

I agree too. I also bought a EVGA 260 core, my vote is for 260 GTX
 
Are there any GTX 260s that aren't 10+ inches long? My 8800GT barely fits in my case (Lian-Li with the hard drives in "backwards" in the HD cage for cleaner wiring) and I don't think a GTX 260 would fit.
 
Daggah said:
Are there any GTX 260s that aren't 10+ inches long? My 8800GT barely fits in my case (Lian-Li with the hard drives in "backwards" in the HD cage for cleaner wiring) and I don't think a GTX 260 would fit.
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Not that I know of. The reference design is 10.5 inches. On the up side, at least they had the sense to put the power connectors on the side of the card. That's how the XFX I have is, and I think that's standard.
 
I prefer the GTX260. Overall Nvida's driver, game and customer support in my opinion, is better than ATi's.
 
zandor said:
Not that I know of. The reference design is 10.5 inches. On the up side, at least they had the sense to put the power connectors on the side of the card. That's how the XFX I have is, and I think that's standard.
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Bah. I don't want to change the way I have my hard drives installed. Maybe I'll measure it out at some point, but it sounds to me like the 4870 might be my only option.

Of course the reasonable side of me is saying, "but you don't even play PC games very often any more, is it really worth upgrading?"
 
Daggah said:
Bah. I don't want to change the way I have my hard drives installed. Maybe I'll measure it out at some point, but it sounds to me like the 4870 might be my only option.

Of course the reasonable side of me is saying, "but you don't even play PC games very often any more, is it really worth upgrading?"
Click to expand...

Wait until you have a game you want to play then upgrade.
No point in buying early if you dont need to, you can lose on price and speed.
Keep an eye out for impending price drops and/or new products coming out as it may be worth waiting a few weeks to get a better deal.
 
I would go with a 4890. If you shop around you should be able to find a great deal on one and it won't let you down.
 
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