4870x2 or GTX280 ?

Which one of these cards should I get? I have a 24" monitor.

HIS Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDTV-Out, HDMI
$689($CAD)
Specifications
Chipset Radeon HD 4800 PCIe Series
Engine clock 750MHz
Stream Processors 1600 (Unified)
Fillrate N/A
Memory 2048MB GDDR5
Memory clock 1800MHz (900MHz DDR)
Memory interface 2 x 256-bit


or


eVGA e-GeForce GTX 280 FTW Edition 1GB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDTV-Out
$649($CAD)
Engine clock 670MHz
Shader clock 1458MHz
Stream Processors 240
Fillrate N/A
Memory 1024MB GDDR3
Memory clock 2430MHz (1215MHz DDR)
Memory interface 512-bit
Memory Bandwidth 155.52GB/sec



or can anyone suggest better cards/setup.

thanks for the reply, i checked out those links, question though, how can a card half the price have better results than the gtx280/4870x2? I'm really only going for these so I can futureproof myself for a while.

The 4870 x2 is currently the best that money can buy.

Other than Crysis, I can't think of a game that requires such a card. I love Crysis so I purchased the 4870 x2. I now average 42 FPS @ 1680x1050 on high with a 25.5 inch monitor.

My system is:

E8400 overclocked to 3.6
4 gigs of DDR3 ram 10666
HD 4870 x2
Antec P190 case 1200w
P5E3 deluxe motherboard
Samsung 25.5 T260 1080p

That's because 9800gx2 is old and outdated. Both 4870x2 and gtx280 is the current bleeding edge, while 9800gx2 is from last generation. It used to be $500+ at one time, only dropped in price when the current generation came out. When something is the best of its time, it takes longer to become obsolete. Still, most people will go for the "cool" new product and skip yeasterday's champ. Lower demand means cheaper prices.

Also note that it is not faster than 4870x2, only gtx280. 4870x2 is currently the undisputed best performer on market.

Nvidia has plans for their daily revisions (not literally), they are remaking the current cards they just released, and will be slightly faster, and also adding their own X2 card.

I would say you wait it out a little bit, prices will only get lower. Expected time is mid Nov.

well it was announced already so I dunno how percents work with that

http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia- [...] -november/

still a rumor

the 9800gx2 is a old bit of tech thats showing its age at high res, and dagger should change the record its getting boring

There is no way they can make a GX2 out of GTX 280s, even with the die shrink. They would need to seriously underclock it, or just use the GTX 260, also underclocked. Either way I can not see that card outperforming the 4870 X2, and if they can't claim the #1 spot then nVidia has no reason to do it.

I don't see whats so beleive, the 4870 X2 runs 50 watts lower than the 280 GTX in SLI and the 4870 X2 has on board 2 GPUs.

And with out a question 280 GX2 would outperform the 4870 X2, don't be ignorant lol 1 4870 is slower than 1 280 GTX, I mean review sites actually need to compare the 280 GTX to the 4870 X2 to get fair result.

But like Dagger said, there is always and if and a maybe I mean if they pull a 2900 XT then say bye bye Nvidia

But know how lazy non-innovative Nvidia is they'll prob go for the quick and cheap 280 GTX sandwich.

It'll generally perform lower in those games. But there won't be any artifacts or errors, if that's what you meant.

If they could force 2 FULL GTX 280s into one then yes it would, but I can't see them being able to do that with some definite underclocking. You forget that GDDR5 uses less power and a 4870 produces a lot less heat than a GTX 280. The heat and power issues would make them have to underclock the GTX 280s a good deal. At that point, the difference between a GTX 280 Gx2 and the 4870 X2 would be very minimal and would not justify the high cost. Even with a Die shrink they still will have to underclock, and heat will barely be effected. Nvidia already pulled a 2900 XT, its called the GTX 2xx series. The series is pretty good but it did not even come close to justifying the hype, so everyone hated it. The only difference is, is that there are a lot of Nvidia fans that wont buy ATI at all.

First of all, the 4xxx series isn't as hot as it seems, the fan speed bug makes them seem a lot worse. You know yourself how much heat GTX 280s produce. The GTX 200 series is like the 2900 XT. because it did not even come CLOSE to the hype. We were lead to expect 150% the performance of a 9800 GX2 or above. This is just how the 2900 XT was supposed to destroy the 8800 GTX. The GTX 200 series performs well, and performs exactly as it should, but does not come close to living up to the ridiculous hype. The 2900 XT did not come close to the hype either, but managed to perform very close to the 8800 GTX and trade blows when SLI and crossfire were enabled. Both examples did not live to the hype, but were still good cards. I just can't see nvidia doing a GX2, they would probably have heat and power problems at the normal stock levels, considering the huge transistor count and, even with a die shrink, it will still be physically large. Upon reflection I believe that there will be no GTX 280 GX2, but there is a possibility of a GTX 260 GX2. Consider this, what is the GTX 260? An underclocked GTX 280 with less VRAM. Add the extra VRAM and the GX2 might be possible. Regardless, even this seems unlikely considering how much money nvidia would lose with this mammoth card. They are not doing too bad right now, 2 GTX 280s beat 1 4870 X2 so all they must do is lower the price of the refresh cards so that they can compete, say $300? I have seen GTX 280s go for $350, so this is not all that unbelievable considering the GTX 280s with the die shrink should cost less to produce. If nVidia goes with the GX2 approach I will be disappointed and I do not expect any ground breaking performance. I am not being fanboyish, I have only ever owned ONE ATI card in my life, this 4870 X2 and I rarely recommend it considering its price/performance ratio. Sorry, to get you all worked up I did not believe the debate was getting so heated.

Edit: Oh, and the word you were looking for was empathy, and I am quite good at it.