NVIDIA or Radeon

Hi, I am about to build a custom computer for myself and not so sure if I should (or can) go with the GTX (more likely 260, less likely 275 or above) or the 4870/4890, cross fire or SLI. Is it better to use two 512MB or one 1GB? Two 1GB or one 2GB? So far I have Gigabyte x38-dq6 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 (5-5-5-15) Q9550 Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 2x150GB Raptor 850W PSU Cooler Master Mysticque 632 I plan to use my system mainly for: Video editting/converting/ modifying/etc. Game Thanks in advance.

I have a feeling this is going to spark a Fan-Boy War....

For video editing/converting, it wont' really make a difference. CUDA (Nvidia) might work out at some point, but I believe you get better results with CPU converters last I checked. You really only need the card for gaming. A single GTX260 or 4890 will work well for most monitors. Without knowing your resolution, its hard to say what you should get. Try to stick with one card, 1GB is fine unless your gaming at 2560x1600.

There are more CUDA applications for video editing and encoding than Stream (ATI) currently, so based on that alone I'd say NVIDIA. But I'd need to know precisely what applications you want to use to make a better judgement.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150436

$140, free shipping and double lifetime warranty (XFX)

deadcell has the RAM issue mostly right, but 2 cards with 512 each do not perform like they have 1 GB; Tom's found this out in their initial review of the HD5870 (look at the GTX 295 (only 896 MB RAM per GPU) in the GTA4 benchmark @2560 X 1600). This only happens in really high resolutions, so it really depends on what res you game at.
The HD 4870 1 GB and the GTX 260 (216 Core) are pretty much neck and neck with each other; they trade blows across all the benchmarks (http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards,1.html). I recommend the 4870 due to the fact that you have CF mobo, allowing you to add an additional graphics card in the future, and because it is much cheaper than the GTX 260 (HD 4870~$140 vs. GTX 260~$165 (cheapest one I saw on newegg))

So do you have two GTX 260's? If so, the GTX 295 is just a tad better (the GTX 295 is essentially two GTX 260's on the same board; clocks are all the same, but it has a few more stream processors) the resulting performance discrepancies are negligible, however. (http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/compare,1451.html?prod[2657]=on&prod[2670]=on).

The reason it doesn't combine the RAM is because the GPU's work in parallel, kind of like a dual or quad core cpu with cache. The RAM is like level 1 cache (albeit not nearly as fast, however) in the sense that it can't be shared with the other GPU, like most cpus' level 2 and 3 cache can be shared between the different cores.

I don't have the 260 in SLi. I have the BFG GTX295 1792MB. The GTX295 is a bit of a hybrid, as stated by many sources, between the 260 and the 280 GPUs. You take this "hybrid" and multiply it by 2 folds and you get the GTX295, which is an internal 2-way SLi graphics. As for the GTX295 being faster than the 260 in SLi, you are correct. Nvidia 200 series speaking, only the GTX280, 275 or the 285 in 2-way SLi can outperform the 295. Also, thanks for explaining the RAM combination question that I had, it did help. I understand completly. Now, the reason that I not only purchase, but also highly recommend BFG cards is because of three main reasons; 1. They are great performers with extremely minimum to no problems, 2. They carry a life-time warranty once registered and 3. They are tradeable through BFG. If you want to trade your old BFG card for a new and better performer from the company, BFG has a trade-up program with registered GPUs that you can use. The trade will not be the same price that you paid for, but the value of the card at the time being. Still, it will ease the upgrading approch financially. But thats just a preference. Someone else might dispute these reasons or prefer other brands. Again, thanks for the usefull informations, I sure appreciate it.

XFX and EVGA have similar options; XFX offers a double lifetime warranty, meaning if you sell your card to someone else, the warranty follows (and they sell ATI), and EVGA offers a lifetime warranty and a step up program, which is similar to BFG's trade in program.

For ongh69, I would recommend the and XFX HD 4870 (the one I posted above), as he has a CF board.