8800GTX upgrade to a ATI HD 4870 512Mb?

[Shadow_ID]

Hi all iv got a 8800 gtx and am thinkin of upgrading to a 4870 512
I want to know if you all think its worth it for £180?

for want iv seen you get about 30 to 60 fps more with the 4870.... dont know if thats right though

 

[FilipM]

TBH, I would not, unless you really need more oomph...

 

[Flyordie]

If you are a hardcore gamer, yes.
If you are a mainstream gamer.. if you have money to burn, sure.
If you just want to play games for their story content and not eye candy.. No.

 

[Shadow_ID]

im a good gamplay and eye cany guy..... so i guess i would go with hardcore gamer

 

[a_ump]

but do you actually need it?, are there any games besides crysis that you can't run at max at 1680x1050 that don't average 30+ fps?, if the answer is no then i'd wait for possibly the next gen supposed to release H1 09, idk if nvidia is supposed to release any cards i thk they were waiting till early H2 09, but ATI is supposed to release their next gen Q1-Q2 09.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

4870 just dropped to 199

 

[Asylum]

I would say wait....That 8800 gtx is a really good card. Your not going to tell that much difference in that upgrade!!

 

[TRIPTEX_CAN]

The 4870 will give you better results with AA and AF but you'll never be able to run 2 of them on your board.

 

[HolyCow02]

Down with the price cuts, I would say go for it. I would even suggest going up to the 1GB version now that they are $239 USD which is only £160 now

 

[chris89]

If ur going to get the 4870 Get the Gigabyte verisons. As in the UK they've gone back to £199 again now, But i have no idea what that is in $.

 

[Jeffredo]

If you have an OC'd 8800 GTX (which is at that speed is pretty much the equal of an HD 4850 or 9800 GTX+) and are playing on a 20 inch monitor with a Q6600 - I would hang on one more generation.

I went from a stock 8800 GTX to a factory OC'd GTX 260 and also play at 1680x1050. I saw about a 10 FPS (well, once in a while 15) increase in most games. Its nice, but not the knock-your-socks-off increase I would have liked. I definitely could have waited for a new PC build (probably next year) with what I had.

 

[erocker]

If you really want to upgrade go for the 1gb 4870. Soon, more and more games are going to be demanding more than 512mb of vmem.

 

[magibeg]

I would skip a generation or wait for the shrink of the nvidia cards which should be happening sometime soon. An 8800GTX is by no means a poorly performing card and there's no reason to upgrade it quite yet.

edit: the 4870's in canada are still like $300+++

 

[DarkMatter]

I'd wait. Your card is just 5-10% slower than stock clocked HD4870 at your resolution and as you might know HD4870s aren't the best overclockers. You can probably overclock your card more and offset the difference a bit more.

I don't know where you have seen 30-60 fps difference but that's absolutely not the case, unless we are speaking about 200 vs 230-260 fps.
Also IMHO the only game(s) where you'd need the extra power that the HD4870 would give you is Crysis and there the difference is even smaller. NEVER buy a graphics card for games to come, buy it if you really need it. I would only make that upgrade if:

- I was about to buy a new screen.
- There's a game I can't play smoothly and I know the other card will fix my problem.
- I can get the new card for a price relative to the performance increase. i.e if I want to buy a card for 200 euros that offers a 10% increase over the one I have, I'd have to be able to sell the old one for 180 or very little less.

 

[spearman914]

I would suggest get the 4850 since it's about 20-40 bucks cheaper and its just an underclocked version of the 4870. So buy a 4850 and just OC it.

 

[Flyordie]

I would suggest get the 4850 since it's about 20-40 bucks cheaper and its just an underclocked version of the 4870. So buy a 4850 and just OC it.

Yep Yep. But wait a bit... HD4 series got a price cut that hasn't fully taken effect. ;-)
HD4830 should fall to $99-105
HD4850 should fall to $129-139
HD4870 should fall to $189-210
HD4850X2 should hover around $399.99 till end of January.
HD4870X2 should fall to $479.99
I personally have an ASUS HD4850 and it OC's beautifully. Up to 780Mhz w/o the Vmod (I pushed the voltage delivered by the VRMs a bit more than what they are set to stock). I have not done the Vmod in hardware. As for the RAM... 1.18Ghz is in-game stable/F@H Stable. 1.2Ghz is stable for maybe 25-30 minutes in-game. Heat just gets to it or somthing...
Thats my take on the HD4850 in a KISS post.

 

[flyin15sec]

Buying a HD4850 is not an upgrade.

 

[spearman914]

Buying a HD4850 is not an upgrade.

What are u talking about? The 4850 outperforms the 8800gtx. And if u crossfire the 4850, it'll even outperform a 9800gtx+ by a lot.

 

[erocker]

What are u talking about? The 4850 outperforms the 8800gtx. And if u crossfire the 4850, it'll even outperform a 9800gtx+ by a lot.

Actually a single 4850 will outperform a 9800GTX by itself.

 

[niko084]

You would save power and get slightly more performance, but I would probably hold off unless you have a buyer for your GTX.

As for the 9800GTX+ is pretty much on par with a hd4850, same with an 8800gtx they are all pretty close.

 

[grahbani]

i have the gts 512, my first nvidia in about 8 yrs, and its the only one that didnt constant maintenance and driver updates. Had the 9600 pro, 9800 pro x800 xt, 1950 xtx... never noticed much a difference at every upgrade. Went to 8800 gts, blew em out. I think my drivers are a year old, and still max cs source, bf2, and CoD4, i can even record while playing with only a percent drop in FPS... Keep that card, or take your sweet time getting a new one and read the specs. Also Boosting RAM and making sure your system has good specs is MORE important than switching cards when you are going from one great card to another.

 

[DarkMatter]

Actually a single 4850 will outperform a 9800GTX by itself.

That was true at launch, but I have my doubts about that right now. I know for sure that 180.xx drivers magic works on my card, they made it 10-20% faster in most of my most demanding games (1600x1200 or 1280x960 with 4x/2x AA). The 9800GTX+ my brother just bought, with both my card and his card using the 180's, mantains a difference in performance similar to that seen in benchmarks, so I guess it affects performance in that card too (e installed directly the 180s for obvious reasons, so I don't know the improvements empirically). Reviews show that 180.xx drivers have made the GTX260 faster than the HD4870, so IMHO we are talking about improvements across the board. 9800GTX is probably faster than HD4850 right now.

What are u talking about? The 4850 outperforms the 8800gtx. And if u crossfire the 4850, it'll even outperform a 9800gtx+ by a lot.

A less than 5% difference is NOT an upgrade... Hell, I wouldn't even pay 50 euros for a 10% upgrade, much less 170 euros.

 

[Flyordie]

What core is your 8800GTX based on? If its part of the faulty cores, I would get the HD4850 anyway. ;-)

 

[wolf]

I have both... honestly i prefer the 8800GTX.

the 4870 is faster, but not by THAT much (20-25%)

this difference gets smaller as res goes up too, as the GTX has more memory and a very decent memory bus.

honestly given how kickass your GTX is, i'd stick with it will at least the 55nm GTX260's come out (GTX270) or the new ATi card, (core RV870)

the GTX stick kicks ass for a 2 year old card, respect.

 

[Jeffredo]

Buying a HD4850 is not an upgrade.

Agreed. At launch it was a few FPS faster than an 8800 GTX and about even with an 8800 Ultra. After the 180.48 drivers I would imagine the 8800 GTX (especially the OP's OC'd one) would pull up to it in many games and pass it in Nvidia friendly titles. At 1680x1050 it would be a complete waste of money to buy an HD 4850 (and retire an 8800 GTX). Just look at any recent GPU review on TPU and it has all cards listed on their comparison grid (including the HD 4850 and 8800 GTX).

The general consensus about the HD 4850 makes me laugh sometimes. Its a good mid-range card, but from its fans you would think it could cure cancer and find a solution to world peace (in addition to trouncing every Nvidia card on the market).