The last time I was up-to-date on video cards was when the 8800gt just came out. Can someone bring me up to speed?
Nvidia launched the 9000 series, which was generally viewed as a disappointment since they were more-or-less the same as the 8000 series. The 9800 GX2 was the flagship card and was powerful but stupidly expensive and sucked more power than an air conditioner.
ATI came out with the 3870 series which were okay but still lots out to 8800s so no one really bothered with them.
A few months later (around may) Nvidia announced some new cards, the 260 and the 280. These are using new architecture and are dramatically different from the chips inside the 8000 and 9000 series.
In june a whole bunch of cards came out - ATI launched the 4870 and 4850, which are priced to no longer compete with Nvidia's high-end flagship cards. The $299 4970 beats the 9800GTX and GTX+ pretty soundly, while the 4850 is a match for the 8800GT or 9600GT.
The new Nvidia cards are still the fastest single GPU solutions, with the GT280 being more powerful than any single GPU card but also costing $600, which makes it a pretty horrible value. The GT260 is somewhere in between, but since it's still more expensive than a 4870 it's not really worth it either.
After the past few years of being beat up by Nvidia, ATI seems to be making a solid comeback.
The last time I was up-to-date on video cards was when the 8800gt just came out. Can someone bring me up to speed?
Nvidia launched the 9000 series, which was generally viewed as a disappointment since they were more-or-less the same as the 8000 series. The 9800 GX2 was the flagship card and was powerful but stupidly expensive and sucked more power than an air conditioner.
ATI came out with the 3870 series which were okay but still lots out to 8800s so no one really bothered with them.
A few months later (around may) Nvidia announced some new cards, the 260 and the 280. These are using new architecture and are dramatically different from the chips inside the 8000 and 9000 series.
In june a whole bunch of cards came out - ATI launched the 4870 and 4850, which are priced to no longer compete with Nvidia's high-end flagship cards. The $299 4970 beats the 9800GTX and GTX+ pretty soundly, while the 4850 is a match for the 8800GT or 9600GT.
The new Nvidia cards are still the fastest single GPU solutions, with the GT280 being more powerful than any single GPU card but also costing $600, which makes it a pretty horrible value. The GT260 is somewhere in between, but since it's still more expensive than a 4870 it's not really worth it either.
After the past few years of being beat up by Nvidia, ATI seems to be making a solid comeback.
There are a few problems with what you said. the 4870 is actually not competing with the 9800GTX(+) cards, but the GTX 260. the GTX 260 is $100 more than the 4870, and the 4870 is about 5% faster than it. The 4850 competes with the 9800GTX and GTX+, and performs about equal to them, for the same price, smaller formfactor, and less power. the 4850 is faster than the 8800GT and 9600GT.
ATI will also be releasing in the near-ish future a 4870X2, which will have two 4870GPU's on one board, will probably perform about the same/better than the GTX 280, and cost about the same as the 280. the advantage the 4870 has over other dual GPU solutions like the 9800GX2 is that the 9800GX2 is basically two 9800's in SLI that plug into the same PCI-e slot, where the 4870X2 is seen as one card, so this way games that don't play nice with Crossfire/SLI will still use both GPU's instead of the situation with the 9800GX2 where if a game doesn't support SLI it'll only use one of the GPU's in the card.
personally paying a bit more is worth not having to deal with ATI's drivers.
That's my problem there my first two cards were ATI and the drivers were like the plague, my friend just got a 4850 though and the card was running at 78 degrees celcius in idle. It was rediculous, you hae to fiddle around with it to get the fan speed back to normal but not everyone will be compfortable doing this so what the hell do they do, we didn't play any games on it until we got the idle temp down as he was afraid it might damage the card under load.
personally paying a bit more is worth not having to deal with ATI's drivers.
That's my problem there my first two cards were ATI and the drivers were like the plague, my friend just got a 4850 though and the card was running at 78 degrees celcius in idle. It was rediculous, you hae to fiddle around with it to get the fan speed back to normal but not everyone will be compfortable doing this so what the hell do they do, we didn't play any games on it until we got the idle temp down as he was afraid it might damage the card under load.
that's a bit hot, and while the 48x0 series cards run a bit hot, 78 is a bit much. I'd look at RMA'ing the card.
The last time I was up-to-date on video cards was when the 8800gt just came out. Can someone bring me up to speed?
Nvidia launched the 9000 series, which was generally viewed as a disappointment since they were more-or-less the same as the 8000 series. The 9800 GX2 was the flagship card and was powerful but stupidly expensive and sucked more power than an air conditioner.
ATI came out with the 3870 series which were okay but still lots out to 8800s so no one really bothered with them.
A few months later (around may) Nvidia announced some new cards, the 260 and the 280. These are using new architecture and are dramatically different from the chips inside the 8000 and 9000 series.
In june a whole bunch of cards came out - ATI launched the 4870 and 4850, which are priced to no longer compete with Nvidia's high-end flagship cards. The $299 4970 beats the 9800GTX and GTX+ pretty soundly, while the 4850 is a match for the 8800GT or 9600GT.
The new Nvidia cards are still the fastest single GPU solutions, with the GT280 being more powerful than any single GPU card but also costing $600, which makes it a pretty horrible value. The GT260 is somewhere in between, but since it's still more expensive than a 4870 it's not really worth it either.
After the past few years of being beat up by Nvidia, ATI seems to be making a solid comeback.
There are a few problems with what you said. the 4870 is actually not competing with the 9800GTX(+) cards, but the GTX 260. the GTX 260 is $100 more than the 4870, and the 4870 is about 5% faster than it. The 4850 competes with the 9800GTX and GTX+, and performs about equal to them, for the same price, smaller formfactor, and less power. the 4850 is faster than the 8800GT and 9600GT.
ATI will also be releasing in the near-ish future a 4870X2, which will have two 4870GPU's on one board, will probably perform about the same/better than the GTX 280, and cost about the same as the 280. the advantage the 4870 has over other dual GPU solutions like the 9800GX2 is that the 9800GX2 is basically two 9800's in SLI that plug into the same PCI-e slot, where the 4870X2 is seen as one card, so this way games that don't play nice with Crossfire/SLI will still use both GPU's instead of the situation with the 9800GX2 where if a game doesn't support SLI it'll only use one of the GPU's in the card.
Sorry, I wrote that last night when I was not exactly coherent. I was talking from a price standpoint, which is the same way ATI has been marketing the 4000-series (4870 vs 9800 GTX, 4850 vs 8800/9600), although that has changed recently.
personally paying a bit more is worth not having to deal with ATI's drivers.
That's my problem there my first two cards were ATI and the drivers were like the plague, my friend just got a 4850 though and the card was running at 78 degrees celcius in idle. It was rediculous, you hae to fiddle around with it to get the fan speed back to normal but not everyone will be compfortable doing this so what the hell do they do, we didn't play any games on it until we got the idle temp down as he was afraid it might damage the card under load.
that's a bit hot, and while the 48x0 series cards run a bit hot, 78 is a bit much. I'd look at RMA'ing the card.
Looking around through google this is pretty common so I doubt rma'ing the card would help, especially after fiddling with the fan speed we got the temp to 46 idle
personally paying a bit more is worth not having to deal with ATI's drivers.
That's my problem there my first two cards were ATI and the drivers were like the plague, my friend just got a 4850 though and the card was running at 78 degrees celcius in idle. It was rediculous, you hae to fiddle around with it to get the fan speed back to normal but not everyone will be compfortable doing this so what the hell do they do, we didn't play any games on it until we got the idle temp down as he was afraid it might damage the card under load.
that's a bit hot, and while the 48x0 series cards run a bit hot, 78 is a bit much. I'd look at RMA'ing the card.
Looking around through google this is pretty common so I doubt rma'ing the card would help, especially after fiddling with the fan speed we got the temp to 46 idle
yea I'm seeing that a lot more. It's kinda weird, because my 4870 has been idling around 65C since I installed it. not great, but not horrible enough for me to start tinkering with fan speeds.
Note, I'm gonna change the thread title here to the Video Card thread, since that's kinda what it's become.
personally paying a bit more is worth not having to deal with ATI's drivers.
That's my problem there my first two cards were ATI and the drivers were like the plague, my friend just got a 4850 though and the card was running at 78 degrees celcius in idle. It was rediculous, you hae to fiddle around with it to get the fan speed back to normal but not everyone will be compfortable doing this so what the hell do they do, we didn't play any games on it until we got the idle temp down as he was afraid it might damage the card under load.
that's a bit hot, and while the 48x0 series cards run a bit hot, 78 is a bit much. I'd look at RMA'ing the card.
Looking around through google this is pretty common so I doubt rma'ing the card would help, especially after fiddling with the fan speed we got the temp to 46 idle
yea I'm seeing that a lot more. It's kinda weird, because my 4870 has been idling around 65C since I installed it. not great, but not horrible enough for me to start tinkering with fan speeds.
Note, I'm gonna change the thread title here to the Video Card thread, since that's kinda what it's become.
I would imagine you have a better air flow in your case though, his old x800 was about 10 degrees hotter then the average listed temp. He has one of the Xion II cases, my old one actually :P It wasn't the best case for moving air as say something like the 900 which is pretty awesome
I'm doing a half-assed upgrade to keep my four year old computer semidecent for anoter couple of years. I don't expect to run Crysis, but I am hoping to get Starcraft II looking decent.
My plan was to get a $99 or below card once the price drops from the new cards has shaken out, but since I'll be doing a real, full upgrade in a couple of years, I'd like to save a few bucks if I can.
So, Nvidia dropped prices a lot on their cards. For example, a MSI-branded GTX280 can be had from Newegg for $499 after rebate, and it is factory OC'd higher than the EVGA SSC edition ($650). I am probably going to buy one, but there's a problem. While my PSU is up to the task in terms of amps/watts, it only has 2x6 pin connectors, while the 280 requires 1x6 and 1x8 connectors. The other, more expensive bundles include a 2x6 to 1x8 adapter. Does anyone know where I could buy one of these adapters separately? Newegg doesn't have them, and a bit of googling has turned up nothing.
I've been waiting for months for the price to drop on the 9600gt in response to all these new cards and it just hasn't. It only has one more week to drop and then I'm buying it one way or another.
But I'm not pleased.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
I've been waiting for months for the price to drop on the 9600gt in response to all these new cards and it just hasn't. It only has one more week to drop and then I'm buying it one way or another.
But I'm not pleased.
they really have no need to drop the price of that part though as it's really the only thing in it's price range that performs anywhere near that level. every other price drop has been because of pressure from ATI. as soon as ATI releases more lower end cards in the 4000 series I could see nVidia drop the price of the 9600GT, or hell, just replace it with another GT card based on the GTX 2x0 at the same price.
Buy this and overclock it yourself. Or get the AMP'd Edition thats at 750 Mhz for only $199.00.
Zotac a good brand?
Zotac/Sapphire is an excellent brand. Before EVGA, Zotac's parent company, Sapphire, was considered one of the top 3rd party producers on the market.
By the way, for anyone trying to figure out the difference between EVGA, XFX, BFG, Zotac, MSI, or any of the other nVidia 3rd party manufacturers - for the most part, you're not buying "anything different" in their individual cards - you're pretty much just buying their unique warranty. Pretty much the cards are the same, aside from differences in the addition of a 3rd party cooler, or stock OC'ing.
yea I'm seeing that a lot more. It's kinda weird, because my 4870 has been idling around 65C since I installed it. not great, but not horrible enough for me to start tinkering with fan speeds.
Note, I'm gonna change the thread title here to the Video Card thread, since that's kinda what it's become.
do they have a way to increase the fan speed yet? i was looking for a way and coulding find one a week ago.
The 4870 will perform better at higher resolutions and with more AA. It will be more future proof than the 4850 when it comes to more graphically intensive games as well.
I hate that I have to look for a specific, unstated case measurement "Distance between the back of the case and %NEAREST_OBJECT%" to see if a video card will fit these days.
Also, WTB 4850 with a factory dual-slot cooler plz.
PeregrineFalcon on
Looking for a DX:HR OnLive code for my kid brother.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
I gotta say, with the price drops, a 280 GTX is tempting me more now. It takes 2 4870's in crossfire mode (not always supported and 100 dollars more expensive) just to slightly beat one 280 GTX. Then later when games get more demanding, and prices drop, I can add a second (hopefully, I am aware it has to be an identical card).
Really pulling my hair out this time trying to put together my shopping list for a high end machine without just throwing away money on shit that won't show much return.
I gotta say, with the price drops, a 280 GTX is tempting me more now. It takes 2 4870's in crossfire mode (not always supported and 100 dollars more expensive) just to slightly beat one 280 GTX. Then later when games get more demanding, and prices drop, I can add a second (hopefully, I am aware it has to be an identical card).
Really pulling my hair out this time trying to put together my shopping list for a high end machine without just throwing away money on shit that won't show much return.
ATI will have a 4870x2 come august that can most likely crossfire with the 4870. i somehow doubt they will be able to make a 280x2 this year. most likely they will come out with a 380x2 next year that will incorporated a 45nm process and cost 1200 dollars.
I gotta say, with the price drops, a 280 GTX is tempting me more now. It takes 2 4870's in crossfire mode (not always supported and 100 dollars more expensive) just to slightly beat one 280 GTX. Then later when games get more demanding, and prices drop, I can add a second (hopefully, I am aware it has to be an identical card).
Really pulling my hair out this time trying to put together my shopping list for a high end machine without just throwing away money on shit that won't show much return.
ATI will have a 4870x2 come august that can most likely crossfire with the 4870. i somehow doubt they will be able to make a 280x2 this year. most likely they will come out with a 380x2 next year that will incorporated a 45nm process and cost 1200 dollars.
yea, the 4870X2 will (supposedly) be competitive with the GTX 280 and not have to worry about any of the SLI/crossfire support issues because games will recognize it as one card instead of current solutions like the 9800GX2 which is just SLI'd cards using a single PCI-e connector.
I just bought 4870 for my computer, but I forgot to check the power supply. Is 450W supply enough? I don't have any other external cards in my motherboard.
I just bought 4870 for my computer, but I forgot to check the power supply. Is 450W supply enough? I don't have any other external cards in my motherboard.
that *should* be enough. what are the rest of your specs?
the 4870 requires 2 of the 6 pin PCI-e connectors. it comes with 1 adapter so you can take two 4 pin molex and convert that to a single PCI-e power.
Buy this and overclock it yourself. Or get the AMP'd Edition thats at 750 Mhz for only $199.00.
Zotac a good brand?
Zotac/Sapphire is an excellent brand. Before EVGA, Zotac's parent company, Sapphire, was considered one of the top 3rd party producers on the market.
By the way, for anyone trying to figure out the difference between EVGA, XFX, BFG, Zotac, MSI, or any of the other nVidia 3rd party manufacturers - for the most part, you're not buying "anything different" in their individual cards - you're pretty much just buying their unique warranty. Pretty much the cards are the same, aside from differences in the addition of a 3rd party cooler, or stock OC'ing.
Um, looks like I'm ordering this card. But I got a question, do I have to use drivers from Zotac? Or can I use any drivers for a 9800 GTX?
I just bought 4870 for my computer, but I forgot to check the power supply. Is 450W supply enough? I don't have any other external cards in my motherboard.
Give us the model of your power supply. The most important thing are the amps on the 12v rail. IF they do not meet the 4870s requirements it either will not work or your PSU will die in a short amount of time. Which could take everything else with it.
Buy this and overclock it yourself. Or get the AMP'd Edition thats at 750 Mhz for only $199.00.
Zotac a good brand?
Zotac/Sapphire is an excellent brand. Before EVGA, Zotac's parent company, Sapphire, was considered one of the top 3rd party producers on the market.
By the way, for anyone trying to figure out the difference between EVGA, XFX, BFG, Zotac, MSI, or any of the other nVidia 3rd party manufacturers - for the most part, you're not buying "anything different" in their individual cards - you're pretty much just buying their unique warranty. Pretty much the cards are the same, aside from differences in the addition of a 3rd party cooler, or stock OC'ing.
Um, looks like I'm ordering this card. But I got a question, do I have to use drivers from Zotac? Or can I use any drivers for a 9800 GTX?
You get your drivers from Nvidias website. I would suggest you buy from an American company (if you are in NA) that has a lifetime warranty.
Buy this and overclock it yourself. Or get the AMP'd Edition thats at 750 Mhz for only $199.00.
Zotac a good brand?
Zotac/Sapphire is an excellent brand. Before EVGA, Zotac's parent company, Sapphire, was considered one of the top 3rd party producers on the market.
By the way, for anyone trying to figure out the difference between EVGA, XFX, BFG, Zotac, MSI, or any of the other nVidia 3rd party manufacturers - for the most part, you're not buying "anything different" in their individual cards - you're pretty much just buying their unique warranty. Pretty much the cards are the same, aside from differences in the addition of a 3rd party cooler, or stock OC'ing.
Um, looks like I'm ordering this card. But I got a question, do I have to use drivers from Zotac? Or can I use any drivers for a 9800 GTX?
You get your drivers from Nvidias website. I would suggest you buy from an American company (if you are in NA) that has a lifetime warranty.
Posts
For consumers, I agree. There's little incentive to go there, unless you happen to have the hardware anyway.
Nvidia launched the 9000 series, which was generally viewed as a disappointment since they were more-or-less the same as the 8000 series. The 9800 GX2 was the flagship card and was powerful but stupidly expensive and sucked more power than an air conditioner.
ATI came out with the 3870 series which were okay but still lots out to 8800s so no one really bothered with them.
A few months later (around may) Nvidia announced some new cards, the 260 and the 280. These are using new architecture and are dramatically different from the chips inside the 8000 and 9000 series.
In june a whole bunch of cards came out - ATI launched the 4870 and 4850, which are priced to no longer compete with Nvidia's high-end flagship cards. The $299 4970 beats the 9800GTX and GTX+ pretty soundly, while the 4850 is a match for the 8800GT or 9600GT.
The new Nvidia cards are still the fastest single GPU solutions, with the GT280 being more powerful than any single GPU card but also costing $600, which makes it a pretty horrible value. The GT260 is somewhere in between, but since it's still more expensive than a 4870 it's not really worth it either.
After the past few years of being beat up by Nvidia, ATI seems to be making a solid comeback.
I still can't believe I'm so sold on an ATI card.
The 9800GTX can be had for $199. Even NewEgg has it for just a little over $200. The 9800GTX competes with the 4850, not the $299 4870.
There are a few problems with what you said. the 4870 is actually not competing with the 9800GTX(+) cards, but the GTX 260. the GTX 260 is $100 more than the 4870, and the 4870 is about 5% faster than it. The 4850 competes with the 9800GTX and GTX+, and performs about equal to them, for the same price, smaller formfactor, and less power. the 4850 is faster than the 8800GT and 9600GT.
ATI will also be releasing in the near-ish future a 4870X2, which will have two 4870GPU's on one board, will probably perform about the same/better than the GTX 280, and cost about the same as the 280. the advantage the 4870 has over other dual GPU solutions like the 9800GX2 is that the 9800GX2 is basically two 9800's in SLI that plug into the same PCI-e slot, where the 4870X2 is seen as one card, so this way games that don't play nice with Crossfire/SLI will still use both GPU's instead of the situation with the 9800GX2 where if a game doesn't support SLI it'll only use one of the GPU's in the card.
That's my problem there my first two cards were ATI and the drivers were like the plague, my friend just got a 4850 though and the card was running at 78 degrees celcius in idle. It was rediculous, you hae to fiddle around with it to get the fan speed back to normal but not everyone will be compfortable doing this so what the hell do they do, we didn't play any games on it until we got the idle temp down as he was afraid it might damage the card under load.
that's a bit hot, and while the 48x0 series cards run a bit hot, 78 is a bit much. I'd look at RMA'ing the card.
Sorry, I wrote that last night when I was not exactly coherent. I was talking from a price standpoint, which is the same way ATI has been marketing the 4000-series (4870 vs 9800 GTX, 4850 vs 8800/9600), although that has changed recently.
Looking around through google this is pretty common so I doubt rma'ing the card would help, especially after fiddling with the fan speed we got the temp to 46 idle
yea I'm seeing that a lot more. It's kinda weird, because my 4870 has been idling around 65C since I installed it. not great, but not horrible enough for me to start tinkering with fan speeds.
Note, I'm gonna change the thread title here to the Video Card thread, since that's kinda what it's become.
I would imagine you have a better air flow in your case though, his old x800 was about 10 degrees hotter then the average listed temp. He has one of the Xion II cases, my old one actually :P It wasn't the best case for moving air as say something like the 900 which is pretty awesome
Used video cards. Yay or nay?
I'm doing a half-assed upgrade to keep my four year old computer semidecent for anoter couple of years. I don't expect to run Crysis, but I am hoping to get Starcraft II looking decent.
My plan was to get a $99 or below card once the price drops from the new cards has shaken out, but since I'll be doing a real, full upgrade in a couple of years, I'd like to save a few bucks if I can.
:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x
It's the factory overclocked "XXX edition". Get a stock one instead, it should be cheaper.
It was $205 bucks (with rebate) 4 days ago. :P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500037
Buy this and overclock it yourself. Or get the AMP'd Edition thats at 750 Mhz for only $199.00.
GTX 280: $600->$500
GTX 260: $400->$330
9800GTX: $330->$200
9600GT: $130->$130
Do you see the issue?
I've been waiting for months for the price to drop on the 9600gt in response to all these new cards and it just hasn't. It only has one more week to drop and then I'm buying it one way or another.
But I'm not pleased.
Zotac a good brand?
they really have no need to drop the price of that part though as it's really the only thing in it's price range that performs anywhere near that level. every other price drop has been because of pressure from ATI. as soon as ATI releases more lower end cards in the 4000 series I could see nVidia drop the price of the 9600GT, or hell, just replace it with another GT card based on the GTX 2x0 at the same price.
Zotac/Sapphire is an excellent brand. Before EVGA, Zotac's parent company, Sapphire, was considered one of the top 3rd party producers on the market.
By the way, for anyone trying to figure out the difference between EVGA, XFX, BFG, Zotac, MSI, or any of the other nVidia 3rd party manufacturers - for the most part, you're not buying "anything different" in their individual cards - you're pretty much just buying their unique warranty. Pretty much the cards are the same, aside from differences in the addition of a 3rd party cooler, or stock OC'ing.
do they have a way to increase the fan speed yet? i was looking for a way and coulding find one a week ago.
Also, WTB 4850 with a factory dual-slot cooler plz.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
i would say yes, especially if you're gaming on a 1680x1050 screen or higher. If you have the extra $100 to spend, go for it.
Really pulling my hair out this time trying to put together my shopping list for a high end machine without just throwing away money on shit that won't show much return.
ATI will have a 4870x2 come august that can most likely crossfire with the 4870. i somehow doubt they will be able to make a 280x2 this year. most likely they will come out with a 380x2 next year that will incorporated a 45nm process and cost 1200 dollars.
yea, the 4870X2 will (supposedly) be competitive with the GTX 280 and not have to worry about any of the SLI/crossfire support issues because games will recognize it as one card instead of current solutions like the 9800GX2 which is just SLI'd cards using a single PCI-e connector.
that *should* be enough. what are the rest of your specs?
the 4870 requires 2 of the 6 pin PCI-e connectors. it comes with 1 adapter so you can take two 4 pin molex and convert that to a single PCI-e power.
1 GB memory, DDR2, bandwith 400 MHZ
Um, looks like I'm ordering this card. But I got a question, do I have to use drivers from Zotac? Or can I use any drivers for a 9800 GTX?
Give us the model of your power supply. The most important thing are the amps on the 12v rail. IF they do not meet the 4870s requirements it either will not work or your PSU will die in a short amount of time. Which could take everything else with it.
You get your drivers from Nvidias website. I would suggest you buy from an American company (if you are in NA) that has a lifetime warranty.
Like this XFX one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3747036&CatId=3670
XFX has a lifetime warranty that covers overclocking and it is transferable.
Ok, Im ordering this one tonight!! :winky:
thats the last time im gonna say it