Geforce GTS 250 vs Ati 4850

[Guest]

Since my 5 year old geforce 6800GT died yesterday I need a new graphics card. But I'm not sure on which one to get.

I've seen this ATI 1GB 4850 for £76
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-P...I-I-HDMI-D-Sub


Geforce GTS 250 512MB for £80
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...DTV-DVI-Retail

But would a 1GB 4850 be better than a 512MB GTS250 at the same price? Or would the 1GB GTS 250 be similar or better than the 4850?

I'll be using the likes of CS4 and Steam games like HL2 etc a lot too.

I've read mix reports that the ati is way hotter but has slighty more features especially for gaming but the gts has physx, CUDA and may be better for the likes of photoshop and flash and sony vegas.

I have a 480W PSU and I can only guess that'll be ok enough to support the cards?

 

[TheViper]

What resolution do you play?


The higher the resolution and the more use of AA will determine which card to get. As you can guess, if you want a high resolution and/or use of AA, get the 1 GB card.

 

[Guest]

It's 1152×864 that I use on my 19" CRT monitor.

 

[Guest]

From the reviews I've read here the Geforce is slightly faster except in the left4dead games but how much cooler and power consumption is between the cards? It'll be the XFX version of each card I'll get getting so power and temp does factor in for me.

 

[TheViper]

It's 1152×864 that I use on my 19" CRT monitor.

At that resolution it won't matter which card you use, both will run just about everything well into the 60+ fps range. Go for best price, rebates, features, bundles, warranties.

 

[ubernoobie]

go for the 4850 since it's cheaper

 

[redgarl]

4850, cheaper and stronger...

You can get an OC version for the same price. Check for Gigabyte and HIS models at 700 MHz.

You don't need a 1 GB card if you are not playing at higher than 1080p. If I were you, I would grab a 512mb 4850 OC. It's probably even cheaper than the 1 GB card.

 

[deadcell]

The quantity of RAM that the GPU employs doesn't have a direct impact on software performance, but it can have an indirect impact. GPU RAM will only negatively affect performance if there isn't enough to handle what a specific software requires. The point is that all other factors being exactly equal, a GPU with 1GB RAM should perform exactly the same as a GPU with 512MB as long as the software's graphics memory requirements are below 512MB. If the software's settings and resolution require more than 512MB of GPU RAM, the 512MB card will demonstrate a performance penalty compared to the 1GB card. I thought I should clearfy this first since it is an imperative concept. Both of the cards that you are looking at should run just fine with your maximum res. of 1152×864. The 4850 does run hotter. ATI always did. I personaly recommend the 250, it is the faster card in this selection. However, I would HIGHLY recommend spending a few dollars more and getting the 1G version of the 250. The 1G will give you more head room in RAM capacity, should you need it someday. Last thing you want is noy having enough RAM to process information at hand, hence bottleneck. As for your PSU, look at the min. power requirments for the GPU you are purchasing. The recommended min. wattage for these cards is the min. power required for the card plus your other components to run without causing any problems. Starve your PSU and you be seeing a lot of "suprise" shutdowns performed by your PC due to not sufficient amount of power. However, I thing that 480W, should be enough power for these cards (have seen a 360W PSU handle 4850 512MB before). Hope that I helped a bit here, let me know if you have any comments towrds my 2 cents...
deadcell

 

[rescawen]

wow nice book ^^

 

[Bluescreendeath]

4850 and GTS250 performs about the same. Get whatever is cheaper.

Neither card has enough power to use 1GB of memory even at high resolutions...unless you put two of them in SLi or Xfire.

 

[Nashsafc]

to be honest get the 5750, i think it costs cheaper than a 4870 and has even more power than a gts 250 or ati 4850

 

[Nashsafc]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177117. it's an absolutelytiny card as well and it only consumes 86 watts.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

^ The only thing is the 5750 costs $130-$150 on Newegg, and for the same price, you can get either a 4870 512mb or 4870 1GB.

So it's energy savings/DX11 vs power and performance

 

[Guest]

So for the likes of CS4 and having AA and AF at 2x or maybe 4x would the extra 1GB on the GTS 250 be worth the extra £20?

And I take it the gigabyte version will be the same and the 1GB asus version?

 

[Bluescreendeath]

You will get the same performance with the 512mb and 1GB, regardless of whether or not you use AA x4.

Neither card is powerful enough to use 1GB of RAM unless you plan to SLi/Xfire two of them.

 

[clutz]

I must've had a POS 4850 (512mb) because it was very disappointing for me. I couldn't even run wow at max settings. Mind you, It was from Diamond, not from Sapphire.

Now that I got the BFG OC GTS 250 1GB, its fantastic. I can even run Crysys at high settings @ 1680 X 1050 and run wow at full effects and resolution.

If you do buy the 4850, do not buy a diamond one. If I got one from Sapphire, I probably be still using it today.

 

[amdfangirl]

That's weird?

What drivers did you use?

 

[clutz]

For the 4850, I always used the latest drivers from the AMD site.

 

[amdfangirl]

Can the GTS 250 run WOW at full settings?

 

[clutz]

yep. Was even suprised I can run crysys on high settings now.

I think Diamond messed up on the 4850, especially when they put a stupid plate on the back.

 

[clutz]

After looking at the new 4850 diamond had, I must've had the older version of the card because the newer one doesn't have that plate on the back. Older version had an red box as well, not a black one.

 

[Pharaun]

My 6800GT died after 5 years too. Weird I'm also looking at GTS250 right now but almost everyone here says buy an ATI and I think they are right, so I'll probably gonna wait for the nvidia equivalent of a HD5750 with dx11

 

[Guest]

gts 250 is better then ati 4850..first thing is nvidia have physics x. ati does not, i agree gts 250 is g92b chip which first on 8800gt, but now they are very well tuned, i sugest u...to se results of the cards..u see gts 250 is slightly better....i not nvidia or ati fan boy

 

[amdfangirl]

4850 has Dx10.1, GTS 250 does not.

 

[hell_storm2004]

My 6800GT died after 5 years too. Weird I'm also looking at GTS250 right now but almost everyone here says buy an ATI and I think they are right, so I'll probably gonna wait for the nvidia equivalent of a HD5750 with dx11

Then i guess, you would have to wait for another 4-6 months, depending upon when nVidia guys wake up and release GT300!

HD4850 is DX10.1 of course, but the GTS250 slightly edges out the HD4850 in benchmarks. PhysX should not be the sole reason for buying a card.