Why does everybody recommend 4870's?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130441
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121291

These two cards come within $5 of each other.

Now to compare CPUs:

The GTX 260 has 216 Cores, and the 4870 has 800, but they measure it differently, so it really only has 160 NVIDIA-Equivalent cores.
The GTX 260 runs at 675 MHz. And the 4870 runs at 750 Mhz.

Multiply these with the cores, and the NVIDIA wins 145,800 to 120,000.

Now to compare the memory:

The GTX 260 runs at 2304 MHz, with a 448-bit Bandwidth. The 4870 runs at 3600MHz, and 256-bit bandwidth.

Multiply these speeds and widths, and the NVIDIA wins again, 1,032,192 to 921,600.

The GTX 260 has 896MB Memory, and the 4870 has 1024MB Memory.

Multiply the capacities with speeds (Then divide by 1000 to make the number smaller), and the NVIDIA's memory score loses to the 4870, 924,844 to 943,718.4.

So, Recap. The NVIDIA's Memory has roughly 98% of the 4870's potential. The NVIDIA's CPU has roughly 122% of the 4870's potential. Being the same price, it looks to me as if the GTX 260 Core 216 wins.

I don't know a ton about these cards, but from a specs-point of view, the GTX 260 Core 216 wins.

Additional Sources:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/top- [...] 216-test/9
http://techgage.com/article/ati_hd [...] 16_896mb/7
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cI [...] ageID=5839
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

That last review also shows the GTX OC'd from 675 to 700, yet the 4870 from 750 to 840. Yet the NVIDIA wins over 75% of the time again.

According to the majority of the reviews I've found, the GTX acutually beats the 4870 usually. I also linked one of the most GTX 260 Core 216's out there.

Did I only talk about clock speed in my first post? Self Answer: No, he also talked about Memory Speed, Bandwidth, Capacity, Price, and CPU Cores.

What? THese cards have changed and gotten a LOT cheaper in the past year. And it's a great time to argue over the GTX 260 Core 216 and 4870 1GB.

Pretty much. That point would be that the EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 SSC is better than the ATI Radeon HD4870 1GB.

GTX 260 Core 216
$159.99
and Free Shipping

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127409

I was going to say nice, but its a weekend special. Hopefully Nvidia will start releasing some nice sub $200 cards soon.

I would try to point out that while dividing by 5 is only an approximation of "nvidia shaders", and core clock speed only means something if the cores are of the same family, but I doubt it would do any good. I would urge the OP and others reading this to just look at the benchmarks. Yes the GTX260 216 is faster. The GTX260 192 isn't really, which is why the 216 model came out. The reason why people suggest the 4870 is that it comes close to the performance, and is generally cheaper. Why spend an extra $25-75 if something else will give you nearly the same results?

All of your "calculations" are garbage. You can't just arbitrarily say that 160 Nvidia SPs=800 ATI SPs. It doesn't work that way. Sure, there are rough estimates, but there isn't a direct equivalency. For one, the ratio of various components of the core is different between the ATI and Nvidia designs. You have to look at benchmarks, in which the 4870 1GB keeps up with the GTX 260 216 almost 100% of the time, and even beats it in a number of games. Basically, the 4870 is just as fast, and usually a bit cheaper. That is why it is recommended.

and i would add that you would have to be retard to buy an nvidia motherboard

Well that just made the whole thing difficult again.

Then buy 2 of each and return which ever is slower LOL.

Thats a nice board by ASrock, why do you say its dumb? You would rather pay a premium for these features?

ASRock also has one of the better X58 boards.

Both great cards. Performs on par with each other. Both have there weakness and strengths choose based on games you play where either the gtx260 or 4870 shines.

Whats the bus size ? Maybe thats why the ram size?

Double the 448 and you have 896. Quad 256= 1gig. Multis of 2 of the bus

You also have throughput to consider. GDDR5 with a 256 is actually faster as well, and thats with GDDR5 at only 900Mhz, which we will soon see at 1250. Having more doesnt help unless you can move it out, or having 1: a larger bus or 2: a faster ram. Of course the core has to be able to push it all as well, and the game needs to be able to use it as well

again thats true, but to me it just seems to waste the 260 GTX when compared to the upcoming 4890 (I'm not going to say the 4870), since its Bus Limited.

Though making it 512 bit, would just mean a 280 GTX with lower SPs, which wouldn't justify the cost.

I want to see the GDDR5 potential. If the 285 GTX would've been GDDR5, I think we would've seen things we wouldn't be able to understand

GDDR5 dosent need the 512mb Bus, its speed makes up for the small bus size. If they were to slap a 512mb bus on a GDDR5 board it would produce some nice benches though. And yea, I wish my GTX 285 was GDDR5

Hasnt all this already been discussed before Refer to my second post in the thread up top. This thread is pure bait.

Protip for fanboys: Recommend opposing sides product, get yours cheaper

Yea, but sum pepple dint lern sew gude

I rememeber when the X300 first came out. The performance was mind blowing. Then Nvidia killed it with the 6600GT. My timeline might be a little off but you get the idea

If you remember to add in the rest of the specs, like Intel's HTT, SSE4, The fact that i7's are Quad Core, you would see that from an OVERALL SPECS POINT OF VIEW, the new i7, even with it's lower Clock Speed, CRUSHES your *** Pentium 4.

........ WOOSH!

No, Nvidias memory is not faster than ATI's. The GDDR5 on the 4870/4870X2/4890 is faster than the GDDR3 Nvidia uses.

I'm surprised that you are unable to apply that same logic to graphics cards.

So tell me, specifically. What other SPECS about the graphics cards should I consider or that I forgot to mention?