Which HD 4870/4850?

Whichever one I get, the 4850 or 4870, I still don't know which brand/model to get? Is XFX the undisputed king and if so does it have more to do with their warranty than card performance? Newegg has quite a few video card combos, but I don't know enough about the other companies - Sapphire, HIS, etc.

I went with the 4870 choose asus because it came with with aftermarket cooling idles at 43c under load temps go up to around 65c. Also I have dealt with asus customer service and fortunately the few encounters that I have had to deal with them where smooth they replaced the products I have had go bad without any incident. Although I did have to pay for 1 way shipping

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

but I also had to upgrade my power supply I had a 500 watt ultra ps that couldn't handle the load and would randomly reboot the pc during games. Before you make a choice check to make sure your current power supply can handle the load and find out if it can supply enough power on the 12v rails my new power supply is corsair 750tx it puts out over 60 amperes on the 12v rail more than enough for 1 video card

For power requirements you could refer to this link below If needed something I forgot to do. Although It doesn't list the actual 12v rail power requirements in amperes maybe someone else knows how to find that out.
http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon [...] ments.html

Thanks.

If you were to narrow it down to 3 brands for the 4870, which would you choose?

Go with the XFX or Visiontek Lifetime Warranty.

Go with the HD4870 if you game. I have 2 HD4850's in crossfire, But in some games a single HD4870 will beat them. Not all games scale with crossire.

1Haplo

From what I have read from different forums, XFX seems to be the better company because of their double lifetime warranty and customer service.

I've had this site bookmarked for years but never really explored it that much. Now that I'm doing my first build I'm really glad this site is available.

Thanks everyone. Appreciate the advice.