Price, not an issue

Hi im planning to build a new gaming rig, but after reading a few of the post here bout the HD4870, im in a bit of a doubt.

Im planning to get either

2x HD4870 1GB

or

1x HD4870x2 2GB, so maybe later im capable of upgrading to one more (dont think itll happen but you never know)

However theres alot of post with this card failing and other stuff.

So my question is, is this a good card ?, according to THG it should be realtivly fast. or should i reconsidere and go with the 280 nvidia ?

thankyou

2 4870 X2s don't scale to justify the cost, but it is the fastest GPU solution available if that tells you anything.

Why 3 GTX 280s? More money than 2 4870 X2s and pretty much the same performance with less benefits such as DX 10.1. Unless he has an SLI board I can not see why he would go Tri-SLI...

"Pretty much the same performance" is not "The same performance" Tri-SLI 280's and if money is not the issue and price is not the concern then you may as well get the best there is, even if its little more than to stretch the e-peen.

Once again, the smart thing to do is to wait until November and that is still my recommendation.

DX10.1... great if the only game you ever plan on playing is Far Cry 2, otherwise... somewhat unnecessary.

nVidia's new line is November and they are probably going to make a big to knock the HD4870x2 off the throne, if nothing takes his fancy from that lineup then wait until ATI's next offering, this is still the end of the life time of being the Flagship cards for both the 280 & the HD4870x2, the end of Oct is a bad time to be making a heavy investment in a Video card.

if price REALLY doesn't matter... then get a GF...

I'm not sure what you guys are reading. I did a LOT of research and found that the 4870 X2 and Tri SLI 280 GTX are about even with them winning in different games. Tri SLI 280 GTXs has a little bit more horsepower, but it does not have much room for improvement, while the 4870 X2 crossfireX drivers are still in beta more or less and should get improved soon (ATI is taking it's sweet old time). 8.10 was supposed to give a boost in performance for the 4870 X2 crossfireX, but did not deliver. From what I can see the 4870 X2 crossfireX performs 99% as well as Tri SLI'd 280 GTXs, but the 4870 X2 crossfireX still has a lot of room to improve. Add this and the DX 10.1 which might allow the card to be fully compatible with DX 11 according to popular rumors and the enhanced video quality of the ATI cards make the 4870 X2 crossfireX the best GPU solution to date, in my opinion atleast... I will admit that the 4870 X2 does not perform as well in older titles, but none of the 4xxx series does and honestly what does it matter when your hitting triple digit FPS?!

Excellent, at least you have a goal in mind and if Far Cry 2 is your poison of choice then the 4870X2 all the way sir, however if you are waiting on building the system until the Nehalem is released, then wait on buying the GPU until you get the CPU, the prices for everything will have gone down by then and we should see a handful of new cards on the market to toss back and forth on the benchmarks.

Nothing is going to appear from nvidia in the next 90 days that will top the 4870 X2, it will just be a die shrink. Get the 4870 x2.

Go for Core 2 Extreme instead of Nehalem. Its better established and pretty close to Nehalem's performance, except for the 8 threads. There's nothing that utilizes 8 threads anyway. As for the gfx, just go for the 4870x2. Its memory bandwidth and flops are higher

Oh my, looks like I've started the old Nvidia vs ATI . Thank you all for all the imputs and suggestions.

This is my plan for now, i Think ill go with the Q9550 until it get obsolete, since i do not think that there will be any games in the neer future which would utilize the Nehalem fully anyways. However i will wait for the Nehalem to be launched or at least announced so the prices on all the other hardware will drop. which would mean that i have to wait at least 2 weeks.

However I cannot wait half a year for the Nehalem as some of you suggest, since my current system have started to behave weird. Plus I've been looking at water cooling parts for the system as well and if i have to wait until Nehalem is out plus for the makers to make a cooling block for it. it will be close to the middle of January before i get a new system.

Also i do think simply by having a GFX which is DX10.1 compatible will give me a better advantage over Nvidia in future games .

so all in all my current system config will look something like this


Core 2 Quad (Yorkfield) Model Q9550 (2.83GHz), Quad Core
Asus Rampage/Formula, Intel X48, LGA775

Corsair Twin2X 2x2048MB DDR2, PC8500 DDR1066 - Might change them to finde something else

EAH4870X2/HTDI/2G, Radeon HD 4870X2, 2048MB GDDR5
Velociraptor 300GB
Real Power Modular RS-700-ASAA-A1, 700 Watt, 120mm Fan

Step up program wont help because anything new coming out will not arrive in the 90 day period. Stick with the Q9550 if you want a quad or get the E8600 which outperforms all the quads in games and many other areas. Change that power supply to the Pc Power and Cooling 750w, the one you listed is junk.

The "step-up" program is from EVGA which develops Nvidia vga cards and motherboards. Here is a link: http://www.evga.com/stepup/
I think it is valid for europe also.
Unfortunately, I am not privvy to Nvidia's plans like some other posters here would have you believe. That does not keep me from offering my own speculation. What you should see from Nvidia before the Christmas selling season is a 55nm die shrink of the GTX260 and GTX280 series. They can either make them smaller and cooler, or give them higher clock rates. I am betting on the latter. Nvidia very much wants to take the single card throne away from the 4870X2. With the GTX280, they are not very far away.

If you have a cpu that has a clock rate of 3.0 in today's cpu architecture, you can drive the strongest single vga card out there, and play any games very well. More than that, in cpu, or vga card, you are getting rapidly diminishing returns with each increase in power. I also would not get an extreme cpu if money or value was an issue. Assuming that Nehalem arrives in November, as many are indicating, you will not be happy with a Q9550 purchased today. At that time, the i7 cpu's will be so very much better that the price of competing current generation quads will have to be greatly lowered to clear out the inventory.

For the PSU, the first concern should be the quality of the unit. Low quality units deliver inconsistent power. They do so only at an unrealistic 20c instead of the 40c which you might actually see in a case. The watts claimed are peak watts, not continuous, and are delivered to the 3.3 and 5.0 v rails instead of the 12v rails where modern computers need them. Quality units come from Corsair, PC P&C, seasonic, antec for starters. The primary determinant of psu requirements come from the vga configuration. In a simple way, look at how many 6 and 8 pin pci-e connectors you need for your vga configuration. A quality unit can power those leads fully with enough elsewhere for your system. For example, a PC P&C silencer610 has two 6/8 pin leads, and can power the 4870X2, the most power hungry single card out there. The silencer750 has 4 leads and can power two 4870x2 units. It is not a bad idea to increase the psu a step above the minimum, though. That will let the psu operate in it's most efficient mid-range.

For EVGA step up, consider 9800gx2 at $280.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130338

It's old, but still outperforms gtx280, slower only to 4870x2 and nothing else.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=13
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=14
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=16
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=17
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=18
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=19

You can always step up later if something better comes up in 90 days. If not, you still have the 2nd fastest card on market.