Radeon vs geforce

What do you mean not supported? They both work in all games, though the multi-GPU setups are somewhat more picky for maximum performance. Something like the 4830 or 4850 would be a huge upgrade from an 8600, and not too expensive.

A lot of games have Nvidia ads all over them, but ATI is supported in all games.

Right now ATI pretty much rules the low-midrange cards. In the high end there's competition between the GTX260 216 and the HD4870 1GB and in the ultra high end there's the GTX295 and HD4870X2.

Jberry, what video games do you play? What resolution do you play at? What does the rest of your computer look like? What power supply do you have? These are questions that should be answered before we start throwing card ideas at you.



i like the games such as crysis, bioshock, f.e.a.r etc... resolution is 1680/1050(22 inch widescreen monitor) im running a 650watt ps. running a older nforce 570 slit a mb with a pen. d 830 3ghz(o/c to 3.7) ( and also will be getting a make over with that part of the pc as well). yes i am sorry i really worded my questions wrong as in not supported. its just you never see ati in anything(advertised that is) with the games.

future updates is the ci7 cpu and new mb but that wont be until next year. i just want a card that plays these games on high graphics and has a good shader to them. also id like to have one pci-e with hd connectors. also what is the better brand name out there in the ati world(manufacture).

is this one a pretty good card? HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX - 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, CrossFireX Ready, (Dual link) Dual DVI
or
HIS Radeon HD 4850 Video Card - 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, CrossFireX Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, HDMI Support, VGA Support 4 Users Rated





i hear that the q4 is a small o/c but has great benchmarks on that little bit of o/c.

One thing to keep in mind is that the 4850 as a high idle unless you manually turn up the fan. I have a Visiontek 4850 (visiontek offers a lifetime warranty)that idled at ~60 until i turned the fan up from the stock 20%. My card has the stock cooler which is a single slot so any card with a dual slot will cool the card quite a bit better. ATI designed the card to have a high idle temp so it's nothing to be alarmed about.

Yes, you can use an ATI card in an nvidia chipset. Of course, you can't use crossfire.

It's actually the other way around, you need a Nvidia chipset or X58 to run SLI. On the other hand many AMD and Intel chipsets can run crossfire.

It's basically ATI's version of it.

I was in a similar debate when I put together my current system. I ended up with a Gigabyte x38 motherboard supporting crossfire and have 2 hd3870's in crossfire right now.

There are a lot fo good articles out there explaining the difference between the 2. In a direct head to head, sli tends to beat out crossfire, expecially with AA enabled. That being said, a particular game must be specifically coded to work with SLI, where crossfire will work with anything, just by the nature of how they both work.

Regardless of what you pick, just keep in mind, in 6 months, a faster, better card will come out for probably less money. So, don't wait too long, get something that will play the games you want and pull the trigger. At this point, make sure you get a chipset that supports pci-e 2.0 and has dual x16 pathways. That's about all the future proofing you can do at this point.

But seriously now... have you read this month's article?

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2118.html

It's really good reference.

The 4850 outperforms the 9800GTX. That one is a fairly simple one.

Now, the 4870 vs the GTX 260 is closer, especially the 4870 1GB vs the GTX 260 core 216, and they are pretty much dead even in most titles.

Nvidia is definetly the future, not only is it easier to overclock, it is a lot more competitive for the price imo, has stereo 3d technology so you can play games in 3d like imax 3d, has physx for games that more and mor eutalize it like cryostasis and mirrors edge.

Never compare number of shaders, clock or memory speed between cards that are not the same generation.

The only thing important is the performance they offer. Memory bandwidth and processing power might be an indicator.
You cannot compare radeon and geforce in terms of shaders, clock or memory. There are different architectures involved. They do pretty much the same thing using different methods.
In the end you are interested in what it can do not how it does it.
Just see which one achieves the highest most consistent framerate at an affordable price.

Read a few reviews and watch the frame rate charts.
You can find them all here and on other sites.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/revi [...] s-Cards,4/

Search benchmarks for
Radeon HD 4830, 4850, 4870, 4850x2, 4870x2
Nvidia 9800GTX, GTX 260, GTX 280, GTX 295

Decide which one of the cards offers you the best performance for what you can afford and buy it. You might want to read 2-3 reviews entirely, you will start to understand things a lot better. After that just check the frame rates, power consumption and price.

4830 < 9800GTX < 4850 < 4850 1GB < 4870 < 260 < 4870 1GB < 260 (216) < 280 < 4850x2 < 4870x2 < 295

Pick one card and then check all it's variations... for factory overclocks, cooling solutions, sound generated accessories and prices.

Never compare number of shaders, clock or memory speed between cards that are not the same generation.


didnt the two cards come out around the same time to compete with one another?
i seen three benchmark test on the two cards i listed above. and they are about equal on the benchmarks depending on the game as in unreal tournament III the gtx+ won and like in call of duty 4 4850 won. but that was just the updated version of the cards(o/c style). the accual vanilla 4850 was left standin in the low margin on the benchmarks compared to the two cards i listed.
i dunno ill keep checking and comparing. i have a little more time before i pull the trigger and buy one.

yeah i did notice that i can get a 4870 at $200 so i may do that instead. ive read alot of reviews and they are a good card.
the iceq4 was over 200 and the gtx+ was under 200 at like 174 and the 4870 was 199 and that is suppose to be better then the other two i have listed.
can you o/c the 4870 and get accual improvements out of it?

so in general the 4870 is the best out there for 200?
all ill be running is a 22inch hd monitor on it as of now i have no plans of crossfire (cant anyways til i update my mb)(mine is sli ready) so the best bang for my buck is a hd 4870?

That guy is just a fanboy, if you look at benchmarks the HD4850 is almost always on top.

I had someone argue with me that the 9800GTX was faster because it was clocked at 675Mhz while the HD4850 was only clocked at 625Mhz. He didn't even know what a benchmark was...

lol what a load of crap. PhysX is only used in a handful of games and that 3d game thing is just a concept demonstration with no real support, not to mention expensive. That's no different than an ATI fanboy saying that ATI is better just because of DX10.1 and that tessellation unit in the GPU. Sure the features are great but nobody uses them so it doesn't matter.

I think better go for 9800GTX+ than going for 9800GTX..

man i dunno the gtx+ is around the same price as the 4870 and that is already factory o/c and the 4870 isnt.
also that is compared to the 4850 in benchmarks and wins some lose some to the 4850.
i believe that the 4870 tops the 4850 in benchmarks hands down.
link to the gtx+ benchmarks to the 4850
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gefo [...] s-review/7

yeah i was leaning more and more to the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Video Card. like what i see.
as for o/c it is just an option if i wanted to. like i did to my 8600gt just to get it to perform better til i bought a new card. and hell for 200 it sounds like a good buy.
thanks everyone for everything

i wouldnt use the words almost always here.

you count.

sites that pitted a stock 4850 against a stock gtx+

http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] w-force3d/ = the gtx+ is faster here

mass effect : gtx+
cod4: 4850
frontlines: gtx+
crysis: gtx+
wic: gtx+
vantage: gtx+
stalker: gtx+
fear:4850
grid: 4850
graw2: gtx+ (not counted, this game is so nvidia biased the gtx+ even beats a 4870)


http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341 = the gtx+ won a split decision, won by a hair.

crysis: gtx+
cod4: 4850
quakewars: 4850
assassinscreed: gtx+
witcher: gtx+
bioshock: 4850
oblivion: gtx+


http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2 [...] -roundup/1

crysis dx10 (4xaa / 8x af): 4850
cod4: 4850
wic: gtx+
hl2: tie (gtx+ has lower min fps while 4850 has higher max fps, the reviewer failed to notice that, they gave it to the gtx+ here)
assassinscreed: gtx+
grid: 4850


gtx+ = 12
4850 = 9

you forgot to confuse him even further by mentioning that there are sometimes 15 varitieties of a single card like the 9600 gso which has a 384 mb version, 512, and 1 gig on top of some of them having more bits than others for bandwith differences.

Minor problem with that.

The 3 top rated 4850's on Newegg right now, all with aftermarket coolers, are $159, $179, and $159 respectively. The 3 top rated 9800GTX+ cards are all over $170. If you find them for the same price, they are fairly even, but the 4850 is consistently cheaper, making it the better choice.

thats wrong. you make it sound like havok is a desperate countermeasure for ATI, which is a typical fan boy spat, wel it isn't. didnt you know that havok had been around for like forever?

uhh, duh, GPU-Accelerated PhysX just went primetime last year.

lol, Havok was around awhile before PhysX on the GPU. PhysX calculations also cause a performance hit since it takes away GPU power from working on the graphics. Also, there are still quite a few people with earlier Nvidia cards that don't support PhysX. Not everyone upgrades every 1-2 years.

Man you really are clueless.

I haven't heard any complaints from people with ATI cards, other than the HD4870X2 which apparently has issues. There are plenty of new games coming out that don't use PhysX at all.

Not happening anytime soon.

uh right

Sure is desperate fanboy around here.