Graphics card dilemma, opinions

PogMoThoin

I'm planning on upgrading my gpu next week as I've been holding out long enough. I've been surviving on a 256MB 7900 Gt and need to upgrade now as I cant game well on the 24" with it. I'm confused as to what to go for, hoping you all can advise.

I've got a crossfire mobo, although its p35 hence 16x+4x crossfire (if its worth it), therefore Sli is out of the question. So its crossfire or a single card. Monitor is 24" so native resolution is 1920x1200 which is why I've ruled out the 8800 series.

So the contenders are :
9800 GX2, price could drop next week
GTX 260,
GTX 280,
2x HD4850, are 2x faster than GTX 280 on my mobo?
Wait for HD4870 X2 and have the option of another later


Opinions folks please

Thanks in advance

Pog

uberpixie

wait a week or two. Hell wait 3-4. You have toughed it out for this long a few days won't make much of a difference.

I would skip the 9800GX2. Yes it is as fast as a GTX260/280, and cheaper than a 280, but it will only perform as long as Nvidia support it in their drivers.

Long term I do not think it is a good bet.

I would look at the GTX260. You can get them as cheap as €350 if you look:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=355878

Same ball park performance of the GX2, better perfomrance in games that do not support sli well.

Def wait and see what ATI come out with.

A price drop will eventually kick in for the Nvidia stuff in order to compete with the ATI but that will not be for another while yet.

Other than that pick up a cheap 2nd hand 8800GTX.

I will be getting a 24" at some stage this year so I will be in a similar dilemma.

PogMoThoin

uberpixie wrote: »

wait a week or two. Hell wait 3-4. You have toughed it out for this long a few days won't make much of a difference.

I don't think i can hold out, I'm itchin at this stage. I've found an excuse everytime i thought about it until now as there was always something better on the horizon. Now with a 24" monitor I'm playing COD4 at medium settings

Sqaull20

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/724-8/preview-ati-radeon-hd-4850.html

Wait for the HD4870 ( out 6 July ), the HD4850 is beating 9800gtx and 8800Ultra, one can imagine how fast the HD4870 will be

Or just get a HD4850

tramoredude

That graph confuses me whats lndice?

Liquid Nitrogen / Dry Ice?! In what game etc etc

AlmightyCushion

tramoredude wrote: »

Liquid Nitrogen / Dry Ice?!

It's a form of cooling. I assume they were attempting some major overclocks on the cards.

PogMoThoin

Sqaull20 wrote: »

[IMG]Wait for the HD4870 ( out 6 July ), the HD4850 is beating 9800gtx and 8800Ultra, one can imagine how fast the HD4870 will be Or just get a HD4850 [/img]

U sure its 6th of july? I've not seen a date anywhere. Where's your proof of this, link. My plan would be to get 2 of these 4870's as i have the cash or get 1 and add another when the price drops. How would 2 work in a 16x+4x mobo?

Looks like the way to go.

TerrorFirmer

Surely that can't be real? The 4870 absolutely trashing a 9800GX2 on it's own....seems too fantastic to be true, if that were true, 3dmark'06 in Crossfire would be in the ballpark of 25k!!

WEST

€163 for a Sapphire Radeon HD4850, I just hope that price is not a typo!!

http://azerty.nl/producten/product_detail/165/80943/sapphire-radeon-hd4850-512mb-gddr3-pci-expr.html

Maybe you are better off getting 2 of these.

Sqaull20

PogMoThoin wrote: »

U sure its 6th of july? I've not seen a date anywhere. Where's your proof of this, link. My plan would be to get 2 of these 4870's as i have the cash or get 1 and add another when the price drops. How would 2 work in a 16x+4x mobo?

Looks like the way to go.

That bench is fake I think, HD4870 will be fast but wont be beating a Gx2, like that bench shows..

They come out on the 6th or 8th of July, HD4850 are out on now, but alot of places wont be shipping till 25th

HD4850 €147

http://www.grosbill.com/4-sapphire_ati_radeon_hd4850_512_mo_ddr3_pci_express-76848-informatique-ati

Wouldnt bother with crossfire yet, you will need a very fast cpu and good motherboard not to bottleneck the cards..

HD4850 is faster than the 8800gtx and would be a huge jump from your 7900gt, I would get that or wait 2 weeks and get HD4870 ( suppose to be 30% faster )




http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=7

PogMoThoin

Sqaull20 wrote: »

Wouldnt bother with crossfire yet, you will need a very fast cpu and good motherboard not to bottleneck the cards..

:rolleyes: Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz and P5K Deluxe

Think now i'll wait for the hd4870 and have the option later of another in crossfire.

Sqaull20

I know with 8x8x has no performance drop, so it's the same as if they were using 16x16x

I'm quite sure 8x8x slots are much beter than 16x + 4x ( you would have to double check that )

I would think that the 4x will be a bottleneck in some/most cases, but it should still give you a nice performance increase since Crossfire drivers seems pretty optimized. It might not be as much as in a 16x16x or 8x8x mobo, but I'm sure you'll still get a good performance boost

uberpixie

Sqaull20 wrote: »

I know with 8x8x has no performance drop, so it's the same as if they were using 16x16x

I'm quite sure 8x8x slots are much beter than 16x + 4x ( you would have to double check that )

I would think that the 4x will be a bottleneck in some/most cases, but it should still give you a nice performance increase since Crossfire drivers seems pretty optimized. It might not be as much as in a 16x16x or 8x8x mobo, but I'm sure you'll still get a good performance boost

x16 + x4 does seem to run a bit slower alright.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/10/12/crossfire_comparison_intel_x38_versus_p35/7

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2837


some games it is virtually nil, others its 10-20 frames.

PogMoThoin

So is it worth considering crossfire at all?

uberpixie

PogMoThoin wrote: »

So is it worth considering crossfire at all?

Yes, especially if you are gaming @ 1920 x 1200

If you look at the benches any difference between 8x + x8 and 16x + 4x generally begins to even out at 1920x1200 in the cases where there is a gap.

Most games there does not seem to be a huge gap bar call of duty 2 or company of heroes or benchmarks such as 3mark etc..

World in conflict and supreme commander: there is almost no difference between setups bar 2-3 frames, Quake wars 3-4 frames.

Most games that support crossfire seem to be ok from what little benches there are.

So in general a 16x + 4x setup will play pretty much the same as the other setups bar the odd game where there will be a drop of anywhere between 10-25 frames.

I would def think it is worth considering but would have to consider the potential performance drop in some titles depending on how well optimised the game is in the ATI drivers.

MooseJam

who goes and makes fake benchmarks ? , why do it , can't see any point to it apart from baiting

PogMoThoin

MooseJam wrote: »

who goes and makes fake benchmarks ? , why do it , can't see any point to it apart from baiting

They have all used different tactics to improve benchmarks and even sabotage the opositions. Nvidia hid the fact that the pci bus was being overclocked on benchmarks on their chipset motherboards. A setting was enabled in their driver gave their gpu even higher scores over Ati by secretly overclocking the pci bus.

PogMoThoin

Ok, I've decided I'm gettin a HD4870 on first release and adding another later, seems like the best choice.

MooseJam

is the 6th a firm release date for the hd4870, if they are **** hot i might get one myself, i've been with nvidia for too long now, 9800 was the last ati card i had

PogMoThoin

Just to keep you guys updated, ordering this later. Although I'd probably find it slightly cheaper if i look around, I'm ordering from Hardwareversand.de as I've dealt with them before. I'll add another HD4870 in a few weeks.