Help! I think I am being ripped off ???

[Rickp300]

Good evening guys,

Hope you're all keeping well.

There is a really dodgy computer shop near me who I think are being unfair and I would really appreciate your expert advice.

I am not 100% clued up on this so any technical things I can fire back at my local pc shop would be great.

Just to let you know bad they are they recently charged me £70 for "compressed gas cleaning" of dust on my pc.

I bought an Asus 4870x2 2048mb from them new 2 years ago. The gfx really has been a nightmare. I took it to them and they tested it. Said it was faulty. Sent it back to ASUS.

Two months later they said ASus said it is faulty and they want to send me a XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 in exchange. I said that I do not think this is fair.

Please can you help me are there any good things I can say as to why this isn't a fair swap. The manager told me I could "have that or nothing".

So stressed. Please help me win a better card

Thank you so much in advance. I am such a n00b.

Rich.

 

[bystander]

It's a reasonable deal to me. They are comparable in performance and the 5870 is quieter, cooler and has DX11 support.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=628791

 

[JDFan]

I'd have to agree with bystander --- the 5870 is at least equal to and mostly better than the 4870x2 - doesn't have the problems inherit in the dual GPU design of the 4870x2 and all the warranty states is that they will provide a replacement of equal value in cases where the cards have been discontinued which is what they are offering.

Now the paying 70 pounds to have the system cleaned that does seem excessive but you agreed to it before they did it so can't really fault them for charging what you are willing to pay !! (If it was more than you thought was fair you could have declined the service and done it yourself) Unless it was part of the troubleshooting to determine the video card was defective in which case you should ask ASUS to pay that as well under the warranty.

 

[purple stain]

I would say go ahead and trade for the 5870.In a couple benchmarks i've seen the 5870 is a tiny bit faster.Also the 5870 has DX11 which is somewhat useful compared to the outdated 48xx.And it free's up another slot if you wanted to crossfire with the 5870 which are currently dropping in prices' every week or two.Unless you are using a really big display(3000x900 or something like that)that would actually utilze the 2G, than their is no reason why you shouldn't take the the deal.

Did they say which versoin of the 5870 they would give?

For cleaning your computer just get a can of Compressed Gas you can find probably in their store or some other electroinc store.Very simple to use,spray and clean.No need to be paying $100 for your computer to get cleaned.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

take the 5870. Compressed gas cleaning for 70 pounds is expensive. If that is their hourly rate they are rippoffs. also it takes like 10 mins to do that yourself.

 

[bystander]

I would say go ahead and trade for the 5870.In a couple benchmarks i've seen the 5870 is a tiny bit faster.Also the 5870 has DX11 which is somewhat useful compared to the outdated 48xx.And it free's up another slot if you wanted to crossfire with the 5870 which are currently dropping in prices' every week or two.Unless you are using a really big display(3000x900 or something like that)that would actually utilze the 2G, than their is no reason why you shouldn't take the the deal.

Did they say which versoin of the 5870 they would give?

For cleaning your computer just get a can of Compressed Gas you can find probably in their store or some other electroinc store.Very simple to use,spray and clean.No need to be paying $100 for your computer to get cleaned.

I agree with most of what you said, but the 2Gb dual GPU cards are misunderstood a lot. Each GPU on the card only gets 1Gb each. Due to each card needing it's own copy of all the textures and needs it's own memory for each frame rendered in most cases, they perform like 1Gb cards.

 

[purple stain]

So cards with 2G's will perform like 1G's in crossfire?

 

[purple stain]

Also,here is a review of the 4870x2 and the 5870 in Crysis
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/09/23/ait-radeon-hd-5870-1gb-review/6

 

[bystander]

So cards with 2G's will perform like 1G's in crossfire?

Dual GPU cards listed as having 2GB's of ram, are like 1Gb cards in crossfire. Since it does technically have 2Gb's of ram on board, they get away with calling them 2Gb cards, despite the fact that each GPU only gets 1Gb.

 

[purple stain]

SO if you had crossfiring 6950's they would perform like 1G versions?

 

[bystander]

No. They perform like 2Gb cards, because each GPU (each card) has 2GB of ram.

I think you might misunderstand what a 4870x2 is. It's actually a single card, like the 5970.

the 4870x2 has 2 GPUs on 1 card, with 2Gb's of ram. That leaves 1Gb of ram per GPU.

 

[purple stain]

oooooo,didn't know the 48xx series had dual gpu's,thought you meant dual gpu's like 2 cards.

 

[bystander]

Ya. I kind of liked how they were named (x2), but I'm starting to see how that naming system did have bad points now.

 

[Rickp300]

Ho hum I feel ripped off

 

[purple stain]

1x 5870 is better than a x2 4870.SO you could crossfire with a another 5870 later and still be fast.