AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB

hmm not much of a difference between the 512 and 1gb to justify the cost, I wonder if the real difference is seen when when in Crossfire?

What a steal...

Originally Posted by Goty
Am I the only one who was hoping for a more tangible performance gain?

I think ATi had thought more forward for this card, with the large memory size preparing for the tangibly near-present-future market.

Originally Posted by HourBeforeDawn
hmm not much of a difference between the 512 and 1gb to justify the cost, I wonder if the real difference is seen when when in Crossfire?

The price difference is ~8 percent and the performance improvement is anywhere between 0 and 15 percent. Typically with 4xAA the performance difference is around 7-15 percent, which is pretty reasonable when you think about how much you get taken for a ride when you buy a flagship product. This still maintains its value pretty well despite being a purported high-end product.

Originally Posted by Tim S

Quote:

Originally Posted by murtoz
Would love to see these benchmarks with an 880GTX stuck in so I can make my mind up about upgrading...

8800 GTX performs about the same as a 9800 GTX+ in round terms.

The 9800 GTX+ only has a 512MB Frame Buffer whereas the 8800 GTX has a 768MB, I would love to see the old 8800 GTX as well, because I have two in SLi, and boy they still run everything so well.

I personally would not go to the current generation cards if you have a 8800 GTX, I would wait for the first DX11 cards to appear.

Look at these charts from Guru3D, they give a good indication how a 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra performs against the newer cards.

It confirms my statement above that if you have a 8800 GTX or Ultra (SLi) there is really no need to upgrade now as it will be able to handle most newer games.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/vga_charts/

I for instance have my 8800 GTX's overclocked to 630/1500/1996 24/7

Originally Posted by Nictron
Look at these charts from Guru3D, they give a good indication how a 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra performs against the newer cards.

It confirms my statement above that if you have a 8800 GTX or Ultra (SLi) there is really no need to upgrade now as it will be able to handle most newer games.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/vga_charts/

I for instance have my 8800 GTX's overclocked to 630/1500/1996 24/7

I dunno, I upgraded from an 8800 GTX to a 4870 and I noticed some big performance improvements in the games I'm playing. I can now enable at least 4xAA and sometimes 8xAA at 1680 x 1050, whereas before I found that I couldn't enable more than 2xAA in most of the newer games coming out.

The Crysis numbers are a little misleading in the VGA charts because they're run at "medium" quality not "high" or "very high". I think you'll see a much larger difference with higher in-game quality. Also, Crysis and COD4 are really the only two 'new' games in that list. I think what Hilbert has done is great, but it really needs to be looking at performance with higher details in Crysis. We're finding some CPU limitations on a 4870 with a 3GHz dual-core in Crysis at medium for example.

As for your previous post about the 9800 GTX vs 8800 GTX - the frame buffer has very little to do with it. There are occasions when the memory bus will make a difference, but rarely the frame buffer... at resolutions below 2560 x 1600, or in SLI with high levels of AA. The 8800 GTX will be faster at 2560 x 1600, but it's unlikely to be playable (like the 9800 GTX).

Best Bang For Bucks (BBFB)

GTX260:
places in game bench:
Crysis: 6
COD4: 10
GRID: 12
WIC: 5
DMC4: 12
HL2: 8

Total: 53
devided by 6 games:
Score: 8.8
Lowest price euro: 232.-


GTX280:
places in game bench:
Crysis: 2
COD4: 4
GRID: 7
WIC: 1
DMC4: 4
HL2: 2

Total: 20
devided by 6 games:
Score: 3.3
Lowest price euro: 357.-

HD4870 1GB:
places in game bench:
Crysis: 7
COD4: 2
GRID: 1
WIC: 6
DMC4: 2
HL2: 6

Total: 24
devided by 6 games:
Score: 4
Lowest price euro: 229.-


Score Ranking:
1) GTX280
2) HD4870 1Gb
3) GTX260

Price Ranking:
1) HD4870 1Gb
2) GTX260
3) GTX280

BBFB ranking:
1) HD4870 1Gb
2) GTX260
3) GTX280