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Help me with decision on new gfx card

which one?

  • Sapphire 4850x2

    Votes: 11 36.7%

  • EVGA gtx260 216

    Votes: 6 20.0%

  • Palit 4870x2 triple slot cooler

    Votes: 13 43.3%
  • Total voters
    30
ShogoXT said:
CPU bottlenecks still exist, even on your powerful processor. Also I feel the X2s only shine at ultra high res with a higher clocked CPU than what we have.

4870 1GB or GTX 260 (more core) would make you set me thinkz.
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I have a 4870x2 on a q9550. No bottleneck. The only bottleneck I've noticed is with main memory speeds. I got higher frames when I switched from 1333 to 1600MHz DDR3.

Reguardless of what GTX260 he gets it's going to rock, and the 4870 1gb is an amazing card. With temperatures as a concern the GTX260 produces less heat & the fan makes less noise. Also the 4870 will have some good room for an OC. I could push my cards to 830/1050 :) Great frames in Crysis even though the models I owned were 512gb.
 
There will be games though, Binge, that you cannot get any faster because of your CPU. A 4870X2 tends to hit that high point unless your running 2500 resolution.
 
A cpu will always map movements and things that a gpu can not do and is not designed to do which makes the game run more smoothly. I get an average of 50 fps in warhead on Enthusiast @ 1680x1050. That's pretty freaking awesome.
 
Duffman said:
doing a single 4870 is still sitting in the back of my mind...
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That's what I would do. The 1 gig 4870 will handle todays games without a problem. Plus like you said earlier, it leaves the option to change your mind about dual cards.
 
What do we think about this card?

Sapphire 4870 1gb

I like the cooler, the 1gb memory.
 
how long is this upgrade going to last you, how much are you willing to spend, personally i would probably go with the 4850x2, as there is nothing between that and the 4870x2. but its entirely dependant on those 2 factors, and afaik the x2 cards arent as buggy as crossfired cards, but ive found when ive had a problem setting up crossfire or with drivers etc, its normally a user created problem and not to do with dual cards anyway.
 
Well, my budget isn't that limited. I've got about $500+ in expendable cash right now earmarked for this upgrade. My wife's compy is in need of upgrading too. All i need for that now is a MB. That being said, a lower card would mean extra dough to upgrade hers as well.

The timeline is of course up in the air but i'm looking at least a year and a half to two years. Maybe more
 
you should really consider the 4850x2 then or just go for one 4870 1gb, if that will suffice, i think you already have a fair idea about what is hot and whats not so i think even afetr all our input its going to come down preference, so what are you leaning towards?
 
With good drivers 8.10+ I've had no graphical errors or bugs with my 4870x2. What kind of games do you intend to play Duffman? Are you going to go with stuff from Blizzard/Valve or is it going to be more titles that are optimized for nVidia like Crysis?
 
Crysis, Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 are the currents

I was leaning towards the 4870X2 Palit card before...
 
My 4850 runs all of them on my 56 incher great so a 4870 would be great.
 
Any future titles? Right now it looks like the GTX series (260 or 280) would be your best bet. :)
 
Lol, i am (obviously) big into FPS so whatever comes around probably!
 
I say 4870X2 custom designed

1. You have to almost own the production company to be able to come up with your own design.(PALiT does own one:) )

2. Custom designs almost always OC better

3. The 4870 X 2 will be as fast as the next BIG 1 single card that AMD/ATi releases next year sometime.

:) hope my views help
 
I am leaning that way. I would rather have a non-reference design for that and other reasons. That future-proofing is another reason. I know there is no such thing as really future-proof in PC components though. But since i have the cash now, I can stretch it out as long as possible.
 
Triple slot cooler FTW!!! Or wait for quad slot if possible.:laugh:
 
I was thinking of one that takes up all the expansion slots...;)
 
get a 4870 toxic,everything else is overkill. and no crysis isnt worth spending money on.but thats my opinion.
 
Don't mock Crysis Wars.... that game is so awesome!
 
Binge said:
Any future titles? Right now it looks like the GTX series (260 or 280) would be your best bet. :)
Click to expand...

I find it interesting you say that when they dont have GDDR5 or DX10.1.
 
I also find it odd since I've owned 3x 4870s, and now I own a 4870x2 and a GTX260... man that must mean that I've had experience with all of the cards in question O.o I consider myself an expert OMGOMGOMG xD :roll:

Seriously! Don't hate on nVidia. A game title that is supports nVidia will not use dx10.1 even in future titles because they don't have to. The GDDR5 memory is nice but the timings on the memory itself can sometimes bottleneck your system, so you have to pull the mem speeds back or you loose performance. Pushing a 4870 to the max mem has never gotten me any gains except in 3D mark Vantage.

I bought into ATi because what they have is the future. 55nm and GDDR5 came to mind but never DX10.1. nVidia will adopt those technologies if they are smart, but since they've dropped prices on their cards with brilliant (but large but still brilliant) gpus they don't look like such bad buys now as they did back when I bought my first 4870 at the end of April.
 
Thinking of going with a single 4870.

What do you guys think between the Visiontek and the Sapphire:

Sapphire

Visiontek

Or up to the 1gb version of the Sapphire
 
Yo, we have the same monitor. Go with the 1gb! 512mb is enough, BUT not enough framebuffer.
 
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