GTX 280 vs. 4870 1gb

Hello! I'm building a system and I'm wondering which card I should buy for 1280x1024 - the BFG Tech GTX 280 or the 4870 1GB. Before you jump to your answer (4870), look at what I'd like to do:

Crysis, 4xAA, 8xAF, All High/Gamer

I would like that to go as close to 60fps as possible. Would getting the GTX 280 give me a significant boost for that? Also, if you could estimate (no benchmarks, please, real world gaming estimate), what do you think I'd get on both of those cards playing Crysis with those settings? Thank you!

ZeCow read my mind. That's a pretty low resolution for a 4870 or gtx280. A 4850 would probably be your best bet. At that resolution your CPU will be the biggest bottleneck no doubt. Some specs of your machine would help...

Nope. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 1,747.html Even with a core i7 I'd imagine you hover around 37fps MAX with AA and AF enabled.

With a 4870 or 280 you won't see hardly any difference between the two. The CPU works alot harder at lower resolutions instead of the graphics cards doing most of the work. At higher resolutions you offload more work to the GPU. With a machine like that, it's kinda a shame not to be gaming at LEAST at 1680x1050.

Actually, with the desired settings and a core i7, the bottleneck will be entirely on the GPU, mainly because Crysis, even at 1280x1024, at full settings with 8xAA, is quite a load for any graphics card. I'd say that a 4870 would work great for that, and should probably get a playable framerate even with AA.

actually that's crysis at just high (not very high) and w/o AA and trilinear. this is the correct link with all eye candy on and very high quality: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 1,756.html

looks like ur going to have to aim pretty high to get playable fps even at that resolution.

To me it seems like he already knew the answer but wanted everyone to know he had a GX280 and an I7. $$$ on his mind...

The GTX 280 will be a little faster than the 4870 1Gb.
In Crysis at 1280x1024 with no AA/AF, high quality and very high shaders the GTX wins by about 2 FPS.
Nothing can run Crysis Very High with 16xAF and 8xAA at 60FPS even at your low resolution.
Luckily for you, Crysis is perfectly playable without AA in the 25-30FPS range.


From Anandtech's 4870 1Gb Review.

So many crysis haters out there lol. I thought it was a good game, especially since I got it for $20 on a weekend special.

That Anandtech review shows them using high settings and very high shaders. I never thought of doing that. I use all very high settings and get 20-30fps with my 48701gb @1680x1050. I hate it when it drop in the low 20's. Maybe I'll switch the settings next time if it doesn't look to different. I've played through this game 5 times already and it never gets old for me. I fight a battle differently everytime...so fun.

Thank you everyone who submitted a helpful reply - I am going with either a 4870 1gb or a GTX 260 core 216 for now.

Alright! I have decided on the GTX 260 core 216 due to the fact that I much prefer Nvidia and BFG (vs. ATI and Sapphire). Nvidia has superior drivers and chipsets and SLI scales much better if I ever get a bigger monitor.

...Intel makes good graphics chipsets? Or do you mean ATI? The only Intel GPU I've heard of is in my MacBook as integrated graphics. Nvidia chipsets, I find to be better. I have a lot of trouble with ATI chipsets and especially Sapphire boards and coolers. Especially in Ubuntu - fglrx failed and Nvidia runs 10x faster, esp. in GLXgears.

NOt anymore lol seeign as they switched to intel for the i7s

Ahh. That makes sense - nvidia integrated graphics aren't that bad, and are certainly better than the Intel ones. I was referring to the NB/SB.