ATI Still the best choice for performance per dollar

[FreedomEclipse]

I see a lot of people compairing ATi 4870 to a GTX280 in reviews... or at least thats what the overclockers club review was doing...

since my HD4870 1Gb Toxic is arriving tomorrow - I only payed £220 for it compared to a 280GTX which costs around of £270

For the money - the GTX280 'did' piss all over the HD4870 Toxic in most tests but thats what you are paying for. theres no doubt that even the standard HD4870 cards that go for under £200 are still great value for money.

 

[Frizz]

So what? That is your point of view towards the THG article that didn't take Australian prices to begin with (and much less that etailer)?

I can just take two-three conclusions from there:

- The aussie dollar is weak at the moment or that etailer is just way too expensive.

- The etailer has a very reduced and brand exclusive portfolio. <<- When that happens prices tend to be high, crazy and are not consistent with overall prices (in the country or in the world). Mind that prices are chosen according to the price it was paid for the item. It happens a lot here in Spain too. In 2 out of three mayor etailers the 9800 GT's were much much cheaper than the 8800 GT. And now the GTX295 is actually cheaper than most HD4870 X2's except a few exceptions where the stock was consumed and replaced. At launch, every GTX295 was cheaper than any X2.

- You have a very limited options there if that is the best etailer you can choose from. Sorry man.

Anyway, as I said, THG is recommending for the US afaik, so it matters very little what happens in Australia, to whether their article is usefull and misleading or not. The reality presented in THG just happens to be true for you, congratulations. It is NOT here at all (Spain), but did I used that as a proof of anything? And Spain has more than twice the population of Aurstralia, so if it were about which reality represents more people, and we had to base the decision presenting the reality in our respective countries, I think it would be clear who would be the winner. But the article was about US and there the reality is another one. Yes, just as an example, HD4870 512 is much cheaper, but the 1GB one is not. Regular GTX260 192 NO longer exists, so it doesn't matter how much their remnants cost. Thing is that GTX260 216 is both faster and cheaper than 1GB HD4870 cards and at $210-230 are a very good buy, and BOTH are much faster than the 512MB model where it most matters. I would never recommend the 512MB model to anyone, specially with futureproofing and Crossfire in mind.

AUD calculates just about the same price as USD plus 20 - 50 AUD added. Its always been like this in Australia, we are behind. Games and Technology cost way more in Australia than America or Japan. Americans can buy ps3 game for 49.99USD there, here its 100 - 120AUD.
But you live in spain... why am I having this talk with someone who lives in spain, this is quite retarted. there's hardly any difference to consider to USD, except australia requires a fraction or abit more money per performance.

PCCaseGear is one of the best online shops atm for me, overnight delivery and the correct prices in australia. You're not gonna find em anymore cheaper/accurate here, even if you do there's gotta be some bad service behind it. This etailer was recommended to me by the great mod Mussels Lol. You don't have a damn clue to be saying that I have limited options because its the same go for every aussie out there, you don't live nor shop in Australia.
Local retailers are even worse they overprice products you don't know crap about, there are still alot of reference 4870x2's priced over 900 near my local stores. So FYI this is completely normal from where I live, pity on me as much as you want but there's a price for living in a great country like this one.

Those links I posted were in reference to anyone who didn't understand my situation eye to eye, guess it helped. Here in Aus ATI has always been cheaper and there are smaller gaps in performance vs larger gaps in price with NVIDIA cards. My bro bought a 9600GT for 180 AUD, imagine if he'd had known to spend just 50 dollars(Note: 50 dollars is easy to pull out of ones' ass as long as they have a job) more he could've had a much faster 4850 for 230 or less (this was before recession).

Look man, I don't know which card is better than which card. I don't own all of them? I'm simply supplying some real world price facts from where I live. 4870 vs gtx260, I could hardly care but if you've noticed a 4870 1gb thats factory clocked and has an IceQ4+ cooler is 60 dollars cheaper than a gtx260 216 superclocked it would still be debatable to which is a better buy.

 

[phanbuey]

lol i got my 750i for $80 open box.. $114 for non-open box.... that price on that EVGA is nowhere near what its worth.

 

[DarkMatter]

AUD calculates just about the same price as USD plus 20 - 50 AUD added. Its always been like this in Australia, we are behind. Games and Technology cost way more in Australia than America or Japan. Americans can buy ps3 game for 49.99USD there, here its 100 - 120AUD.
But you live in spain... why am I having this talk with someone who lives in spain, this is quite retarted. there's hardly any difference to consider to USD, except australia requires a fraction or abit more money per performance.

PCCaseGear is one of the best online shops atm for me, overnight delivery and the correct prices in australia. You're not gonna find em anymore cheaper/accurate here, even if you do there's gotta be some bad service behind it. This etailer was recommended to me by the great mod Mussels Lol. You don't have a damn clue to be saying that I have limited options because its the same go for every aussie out there, you don't live nor shop in Australia.
Local retailers are even worse they overprice products you don't know crap about, there are still alot of reference 4870x2's priced over 900 near my local stores. So FYI this is completely normal from where I live, pity on me as much as you want but there's a price for living in a great country like this one.

Those links I posted were in reference to anyone who didn't understand my situation eye to eye, guess it helped. Here in Aus ATI has always been cheaper and there are smaller gaps in performance vs larger gaps in price with NVIDIA cards. My bro bought a 9600GT for 180 AUD, imagine if he'd had known to spend just 50 dollars(Note: 50 dollars is easy to pull out of ones' ass as long as they have a job) more he could've had a much faster 4850 for 230 or less (this was before recession).

Look man, I don't know which card is better than which card. I don't own all of them? I'm simply supplying some real world price facts from where I live. 4870 vs gtx260, I could hardly care but if you've noticed a 4870 1gb thats factory clocked and has an IceQ4+ cooler is 60 dollars cheaper than a gtx260 216 superclocked it would still be debatable to which is a better buy.

I didn't meant to offend you with the pricing and availability of products. I certainly wasn't saying you had less options than any other aussie or something like that neither. It's just that we have better deals and more to choose from here and it's a surprise for me that the situation is better to such an extent, that's all.

Contrary to what happens in Australia, here Nvidia has always been cheaper than Ati, although the prices do oscilate more with Nvidia. But you can always have a good branded Nvidia card for much less than what the comparable Ati card would cost. To show how extreme can be, for example my 8800GT costed me 203 € and HD3870's were going for 220-240. The 8800GT's were going for 200-270 on the other hand. 270 for the highly overclocked ones from EVGA and BFG.

As you can see, you CAN'T provide real world price facts posting one retailer, you can hardly post real australian price facts that way. But all this means squat for the point we've been discussing. We have demostrated that prices can change a lot, with the time and from region to region, retailer-retailer. And looking how that happens IMHO it's stupid to recommend one over the other. No publication should recommend cards against other, period. Another different thing is to give your blessings to a particular model, which is what Wizzard and most other reviewers do, THG included (at least in the past). You review a card and say this card is good or is not good. People learn it is a good card, has charts to compare it to other cards and he can lately search the prices HE can find for the cards he finds interesting. I think it's the best. No one is stupid enough to not be able to search for good deals, that guy doesn't exist. What it does exist is the halo effect, which would make lazy people go directly for the recommended card, no matter if it is the best option in their area, favourite retailer or if they are just following a monthly article that is 25 days old and doesn't reflect at all the actual prices and performance of the cards.

EDIT: What I mean is that many/most people who read that article, would just go and try to buy the cheaper HD4870 they can find, but won't take into account the GTX260 which could be cheaper by the time or in his area. The article says to not bother with that card and so they don't even learn the name of the card. Is that guy buying the best card he could find? Certainly not.

 

[wolf]

AUD calculates just about the same price as USD plus 20 - 50 AUD added. Its always been like this in Australia, we are behind. Games and Technology cost way more in Australia than America or Japan. Americans can buy ps3 game for 49.99USD there, here its 100 - 120AUD.
But you live in spain... why am I having this talk with someone who lives in spain, this is quite retarted. there's hardly any difference to consider to USD, except australia requires a fraction or abit more money per performance.

PCCaseGear is one of the best online shops atm for me, overnight delivery and the correct prices in australia. You're not gonna find em anymore cheaper/accurate here, even if you do there's gotta be some bad service behind it. This etailer was recommended to me by the great mod Mussels Lol. You don't have a damn clue to be saying that I have limited options because its the same go for every aussie out there, you don't live nor shop in Australia.
Local retailers are even worse they overprice products you don't know crap about, there are still alot of reference 4870x2's priced over 900 near my local stores. So FYI this is completely normal from where I live, pity on me as much as you want but there's a price for living in a great country like this one.

Those links I posted were in reference to anyone who didn't understand my situation eye to eye, guess it helped. Here in Aus ATI has always been cheaper and there are smaller gaps in performance vs larger gaps in price with NVIDIA cards. My bro bought a 9600GT for 180 AUD, imagine if he'd had known to spend just 50 dollars(Note: 50 dollars is easy to pull out of ones' ass as long as they have a job) more he could've had a much faster 4850 for 230 or less (this was before recession).

Look man, I don't know which card is better than which card. I don't own all of them? I'm simply supplying some real world price facts from where I live. 4870 vs gtx260, I could hardly care but if you've noticed a 4870 1gb thats factory clocked and has an IceQ4+ cooler is 60 dollars cheaper than a gtx260 216 superclocked it would still be debatable to which is a better buy.

In in Perth and honestly i find ATi and nvidia cards to be priced every similarly, with competing models usually being within $20 of each other, which you can agree is nothing for the card of your choice.

its a bit unfair to say its generally 20-50$ more than USD, as the GTX295 is $500 USD and i paid $879 AUD for mine.... still was within $50 of a 4870X2 when i bought up, which to see is totally worth the performance difference, especially after a "mild" overclock.

Pccaseegar is awesome ill agree, but being in Perth shipping is still about a week so i rely on a couple of reputable walk in stores, PLE computers and Austin Computers. for walk in prices they are very good (generally matching aussie etailers like pccasegear) and generally they stock both ATi and Nvidia counterpart.

Here i have found the 1Gb 4870 to be quite pricey, and almost always lines up with a GTX260 c216, which is why i bought one

@Darkmatter, agree.

 

[Frizz]

This is turning out to be another NVIDIA vs ATI thread, I understand what you two are trying to say. But what does one card being slightly faster than the other matter? They fall within same performance ranges and are balanced out by their price from where I live.
For this whole time all I've been trying to say is that ATI setups are cheaper than NVIDIA setups from me at least. Its fact, the rest is debatable by Green/Red team fans and is determined by personal preference.

@Wolf, seeing you own a gtx295, what would you know about building a complete budget build from scratch? I've been a student and have been relying on small income. There is no way in hell I would go with an NVIDIA setup as it would surely cost a few hundred more than going ATI.
I'm now talking from personal experience from NSW and when I've upgraded chipsets and GPU's ATI have always been the cheapest alternative and if NVIDIA cards were THAT much faster then the two companies wouldn't even be selling at the same price ranges infact the two companies wouldn't be competing at all.

I am tired of this thread, ATI > NVIDIA that is all

PS: www.9289.com.au , www.ITestate.com.au , www.pccasegear.com.au , www.jw.com.au

http://www.shopbot.com.au/graphics-cards/components/australia/83 <----- Search engine for all or most etailers in Australia selling a particular product you're looking for. Do your own research if you don't understand my posts.

 

[phanbuey]

@Wolf, seeing you own a gtx295, what would you know about building a complete budget build from scratch? I've been a student and have been relying on small income. Why the hell would I pay alot more for an NVIDIA setup when I can just get ATI and a P45 Mobo for a few hundred cheaper?

Because they are almost identical prices when on a budget, and if you OC, then NV is faster. Honestly, this is a moot point, 4870 1gb and gtx 260 216 are virtually indistinguishable in performance and are within $10 of each other ... $10 on a $200 purchase... i spent $10 on coffee and sandwiches today.

this is like the coke vs pepsi war... if i sat you down with the 4870 and the 260 (hidden), and made you play a videogame you've never played before, you wouldn't be able to tell which one was which. And since the prices are the same, i would say ATI=Nvidia unless you're a loyalist in which case your argument is emotional ...

 

[Frizz]

Because they are almost identical prices when on a budget, and if you OC, then NV is faster. Honestly, this is a moot point, 4870 1gb and gtx 260 216 are virtually indistinguishable in performance and are within $10 of each other ... $10 on a $200 purchase... i spent $10 on coffee and sandwiches today.

this is like the coke vs pepsi war... if i sat you down with the 4870 and the 260 (hidden), and made you play a videogame you've never played before, you wouldn't be able to tell which one was which.

Agreed, but not everyone OC's with third party software or hard modding, its mostly dependant on driver software and personal preferences.

 

[wolf]

the rest is debatable by Green/Red team fans and is determined by personal preference.

i agree.

@Wolf, seeing you own a gtx295, what would you know about building a complete budget build from scratch? I've been a student and have been relying on small income. There is no way in hell I would go with an NVIDIA setup as it would surely cost a few hundred more than going ATI.

all my systems are built on a Budget mate, honestly i take exception to that comment, i have had some very cheap setups before this one (8600GT - 9600GT etc), and i had to make some serious sacrifices to get that GTX295.

and the statement that an NVIDIA setup will "surely cost a few hundred more than going ATI" is just bogus, im sorry but it is, you say yourself the prices are even, how can it surely cost a few hundred more than going ATI??

I am tired of this thread, ATI > NVIDIA that is all

not only false but a huge fanboy statement.

Honestly man i don't want an argument, and i want us all to get along, maybe agreeing to disagree is best, there arent many TPU'ers in Aus and i want to get along with you all.

 

[Frizz]

i agree.



all my systems are built on a Budget mate, honestly i take exception to that comment, i have had some very cheap setups before this one (8600GT - 9600GT etc), and i had to make some serious sacrifices to get that GTX295.

and the statement that an NVIDIA setup will "surely cost a few hundred more than going ATI" is just bogus, im sorry but it is, you say yourself the prices are even, how can it surely cost a few hundred more than going ATI??




not only false but a huge fanboy statement.

Honestly man i don't want an argument, and i want us all to get along, maybe agreeing to disagree is best, there arent many TPU'ers in Aus and i want to get along with you all.

Lol I know its a fanboy statement, its the only cards I own and thought I could provide some humor without igniting serious flames. And that statement where nvidia would've costed me before, is true to me as I showed before the SLI mobo costed 349 whereas a p5q PRO costed me 199 aud plus not only that it was only later til nvidia decided to finally drop prices and add the fact I would have needed to buy a better powersupply early for 9800gtx and up requiring more than one pcie connectors as I only had a generic 420watt psu then a generic 500watt I only upgraded to a hx-620watt when I finally got the money for a second card. If I went NVIDIA there was noway I was going to be able to go SLI with my budget and would be still stuck with a single 9800gtx til now.

The cards are similar prices but there are differences that are not enough to consider, this is without reference to what kind of setup anyone has, just the cards themselves.

I wouldn't know how else to end these posts, but I'm definitely not trying to offend anyone and sorry if I have. I'm just one consumer who has saved alot of money going with my current system choice . I'm guarding the fact that THG isn't completely misleading as darkmatter has said before the article has been completely true to me. Except I don't know whats going on with the 4870 vs gtx260 thing and I don't wanna get into that because I dont own one and not planning to.

 

[wolf]

Lol I know its a fanboy statement, its the only cards I own and thought I could provide some humor without igniting serious flames. And that statement where nvidia would've costed me before, is true to me as I showed before the SLI mobo costed 349 whereas a p5q PRO costed me 199 aud plus not only that it was only later til nvidia decided to finally drop prices and add the fact I would have needed to buy a better powersupply early for 9800gtx and up requiring more than one pcie connectors as I only had a generic 420watt psu then a generic 500watt I only upgraded to a hx-620watt when I finally got the money for a second card. If I went NVIDIA there was noway I was going to be able to go SLI with my budget and would be still stuck with a single 9800gtx til now.

The cards are similar prices but there are differences that are not enough to consider, this is without reference to what kind of setup anyone has, just the cards themselves.

I wouldn't know how else to end these posts, but I'm definitely not trying to offend anyone and sorry if I have. I'm just one consumer who has saved alot of money going with my current system choice . I'm guarding the fact that THG isn't completely misleading as darkmatter has said before the article has been completely true to me. Except I don't know whats going on with the 4870 vs gtx260 thing and I don't wanna get into that because I dont own one and not planning to.

at this stage buying up either ATi OR nv in the mid/high end in Aus will cost you the same as theyare both do-able on an X58, but i have noticed nvidia boards being more pricey than intel chipset ones supporting crossfire, note ati dont make that chipset, intel does, probably a cost factor there.

the cards themsleves in Australia seem to match up every evenly in price, eg 4870 1Gb or GTX260 C216 are both about $450.

cheers for the reply mate.

 

[dieselcat18]

I found this artical about performance/ dollar from AnandTech (although based on multi-Gpu) to be interesting......

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=4

*+

 

[Frizz]

at this stage buying up either ATi OR nv in the high end will cost you the same as theyare both do-able on an X58, but i have noticed nvidia boards being more pricey than intel chipset ones supporting crossfire, note ati dont make that chipset, intel does, probably a cost factor there.

the cards themsleves in Australia seem to match up every evenly in price, eg 4870 1Gb or GTX260 C216 are both about $450.

cheers for the reply mate.

Its more of an argument between enthusiasts nowadays because their the ones who own X58 motherboards that support both SLI and Crossfire. But who knows how long it'll take for these chipsets to become mainstream. I myself will wait til I get a decent job after study or if ever when the prices decrease a reasonable amount.

yeah intel makes crossfire motherboards not ati themselves, I could see it as a more mainstream choice for people aiming at Multi-GPU. My theory is (as flawed as it is) crossfire is targeted for people with a certain budget to reach some sort of mid-range to high-end performance whereas SLI is targeted for people who want the best of the best, thus the gap between SLI and Crossfire motherboard prices.

 

[wolf]

Its more of an argument between enthusiasts nowadays because their the ones who own X58 motherboards that support both SLI and Crossfire. But who knows how long it'll take for these chipsets to become mainstream. I myself will wait til I get a decent job after study or if ever when the prices decrease a reasonable amount.

yeah intel makes crossfire motherboards not ati themselves, I could see it as a more mainstream choice for people aiming at Multi-GPU. My theory is (as flawed as it is) crossfire is targeted for people with a certain budget to reach some sort of mid-range to high-end performance whereas SLI is targeted for people who want the best of the best, thus the gap between SLI and Crossfire motherboard prices.

i tend to agree to that mate, nvidia does seem to be targeted at the best of the best sort of enthusiasts, whereas ATi cards seem to try and go for the slightly more affordable yet more bare packages. (also depends on manufacturer bundle)

Pity that X58 entails a new CPU and DDR3 to boot i really cannot afford that, gunna stick with my almost 2 year old Q6600

realistically 2x4850 or a 4850X2 is a very cheap yet powerful setup, but personally ive been down the 4870 route (and added another a month later for CF) and didn't like it, but again as you say, that's all down to personal choice and brand preference.

oh and if you need a job in sydney, come work for iiNet like me, gotta love discounted Internets, and for nerds like us, supporting an ADSL connection is not very hard.

 

[Frizz]

oh and if you need a job in sydney, come work for iiNet like me, gotta love discounted Internets, and for nerds like us, supporting an ADSL connection is not very hard.

Haha I'll look into that mate, right after I finish my diploma in systems admin then doing part time uni.

 

[wolf]

Haha I'll look into that mate, right after I finish my diploma in systems admin then doing part time uni.

ahahha in that case your probably after a more high profile job than tech support mate

 

[Frizz]

ahahha in that case your probably after a more high profile job than tech support mate

Haha I'm not expecting any higher than level 1 helpdesk while doing uni with my current experience.

Thats a thread for another time.

 

[wolf]

Thats a thread for another time.

agreed. another place and another time, now back to this hilarious ATi vs Nv thread

 

[Tatty_Two]

I see a lot of people compairing ATi 4870 to a GTX280 in reviews... or at least thats what the overclockers club review was doing...

since my HD4870 1Gb Toxic is arriving tomorrow - I only payed £220 for it compared to a 280GTX which costs around of £270

For the money - the GTX280 'did' piss all over the HD4870 Toxic in most tests but thats what you are paying for. theres no doubt that even the standard HD4870 cards that go for under £200 are still great value for money.

Agreed but two £110 HD4850's would be faster than both!

 

[Blacklash]

Bah, buy what you like.

There are many good options out there. For people gaming @ 1920x I think the HD 4850 X2 2Gb is great price vs performance for about 275usd @ Newegg.

I run HD 4850 1Gb Crossfire myself and have no complaints.

If I were an nVidia fan I'd try to scare up a GTX 280 and OC it before I plopped down money on the GTX 285. Clock for clock they are the same. The 285 is only better if you are going for an OC over 700 on the core. People satisfied with overclocking to medium high levels should try the 280. The GTX 260 Core 216 is also a good option when OCed.

If I were buying a single GPU card myself right now I'd just grab a Sapphire Toxic HD 4870 1Gb. Primarily for the solid silent cooler and because I play a lot of AoC.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102815

I play a lot of AoC and have tested GTX 280s and GTX 260 SLi vs HD 4870 and HD 4850 1Gb Crossfire. They are largely the same @ 1920x with filtering on and all enabled. One glaring exception would be Crossfire is 20-25FPS faster in deep heavy grass situations. I am talking on the order of 60FPS vs 35 in said situations. In cities and dungeons there are no differences to be felt.

If you like something else, get it.

EDIT for doubters on AoC:

Here's one old test I tried three times, AoC same quality settings.

HD 4870 1Gb Crossfire, 62FPS- (Stock)
http://img60.imageshack.us/my.php?image=4870crossfirein9.jpg

Overclocked GTX 260 Core 216 SLi, 35FPS- (711|2300)
http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=260trilslipq6.jpg

8.10 was used for ATi and 180.48 for nVidia. You can see the FPS counter in the upper left corner.

GTX 280 SLi @ 700 on the core was only 5FPS faster than the noted 260 cards. I was running 1920x 8xAA|16xAF bloom on, all enabled, max ground quality radius, SM3, and the rest set to "high".

When prices dropped on 280s I briefly tried two in SLi in my main rig and promptly sent them back after I saw a performance boost of 5FPS in AoC in demanding situations.

 

[DrPepper]

If you only saw a 5% increase after sli'ing two gtx280's then that shows there wasn't an sli profile created yet. Ever since their release Nvidia has been pushing out far better drivers and performance increase's in some games has increased 50% for single cards.

 

[Hayder_Master]

honestly i have always found the call of duty 4/5 engine to be very responsive to GPU power, and can be a very accurate measure of your MAX gain from an overclock.

I suspect this may be why W1z used COD4 to display the overclocking gains.



The old GTX260 was no slouch either man, just needed a little more on the shader clocks to pull ahead as well as a c216 does. and also the drivers are on a roll man, im willing to bet on 182.06 a 192 sp GTX260 beats a 4870 in "most" scenarios, weve talked about the exceptions before so i wont go there.

thanks for your opinion dude, means alot to me.

sorry im late to replay im was very busy in work
you right COD4 have great engine and to test some card need games have perfect engine like cod4 , but this not my point there is also other game have cool engine which is FEAR , but you see at least this games use pixel shader 3 , so if take other card use pixel shader 3 well like 7950gx2 you see this card beat many card's come after , and other things this games not use whole GPU , i mean GPU's like gtx260 and 4870 , so with card test need many games but not depend on one game and keep your eye on games use whole gpu.
and you are right must tests gtx260 beat 4870 but it is not mean gtx260 much better , cuz if you see the gtx260 have more ROP's and texture units , but 4870 have high memory speed and more SP , seems like cards are equal and if you see booth of them have same bandwidth which 115G , there is many things depend like ATI care much on AA and nvidia do great drivers , duum nvidia programmers impressive me they do drivers make games always run better
and thanx im also care about your opinion , and im enjoy when i talk with you

 

[DarkMatter]

and you are right must tests gtx260 beat 4870 but it is not mean gtx260 much better , cuz if you see the gtx260 have more ROP's and texture units , but 4870 have high memory speed and more SP , seems like cards are equal and if you see booth of them have same bandwidth which 115G , there is many things depend like ATI care much on AA and nvidia do great drivers , duum nvidia programmers impressive me they do drivers make games always run better
and thanx im also care about your opinion , and im enjoy when i talk with you

Just one punctualisation. RV770 has 16 ROPs, but those have twice the raw pixel per clock throughoutput. That means that on most favorable conditions (i.e 2560x1600 8xAA) they act like 32 ROPs and in worst cases they act like 16. Average within the games is probably near 24 ROPs (minus clock difference) and that's why they perform similarly. It's a characteristic of Ati's architecture, raw power with high inefficiency, versus Nvidia's architecture which is more headed to making the available resources work more efficiently. Don't jump yet, making the chip more efficient at resource level, makes it more complex and innefficient at silicon level (silicon/raw power), so both are valid approaches and it's only at discretion of luck which one performs better in each condition.

 

[Jeffredo]

ATI have the best cards... No doubt...

Nvidia are corruptible (driver wise), over priced pieces of S***

To get any "real" performance you have to go SLI... My 4870 out performs a GTX 280 on some resolutions

How ridiculous. ATI is very good - so are many Nvidia cards. I can't stand generalizations. Everything you said against Nvidia I've heard people say against ATI. Neither company makes junk and neither company is so good they are completely without issues.

 

[Blacklash]

If you only saw a 5% increase after sli'ing two gtx280's then that shows there wasn't an sli profile created yet. Ever since their release Nvidia has been pushing out far better drivers and performance increase's in some games has increased 50% for single cards.

Let me clarify.

There was only a 5FPS difference between GTX 280 SLi @ 700 on the core and GTX 260 Core 216 SLi @ 711 on the core in heavy grass situations in AoC. If there was no SLi profile I would not have been getting close to 300 FPS indoors. I tried these tests with SLi on and off. With SLi off a single GTX 280 hovered around 24FPS in the same grass situation at the noted quality settings in my other post.

When SLi was on, I could turn off the grass at that area and the FPS would jump to near 90.

The ATi solutions are simply faster in deep grass situations in AoC. Even stock HD 4850 1GB Crossfire will turn in 45FPS there.

I did test the HD 4870s, GTX 280s, and GTX 260 Core 216s on an Evga X58 motherboard with 6GB ram and a Core i7 920 @ 3.96GHz. The 4850 numbers I just mentioned were put up on a Phenom II 940 @ 3.6GHz. I have yet to try them in my Intel system. It is possible the much higher bandwidth would see an increase in their numbers.

As I mentioned before, outside of the grass scenarios, the noted setups feel and perform remarkably similar in AoC @ 1920x with the quality|filtering settings I use.

If AoC is your favorite flavor and you play 1920x with filtering active, I'd look long and hard at a HD 4850 X2 2Gb for 275usd.