Graphic Cards VR Zone Review 4850/4870/260/280 After Price Drops!

I

i_max2k2

Adept
These reviews after the price drop paint a better picture of every card now that 4870 and 260 fall in the same price bracket, 260 comes out on top overall considering the entire package.

The GeForce GTX 260 896MB has shown that it is no pushover against the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. Considering both cards in full factory form without any user modifications (manual fan speed adjustments, etc.), the NVIDIA card gains the upper hand with its considerably lower operating temperatures and lower power consumption. It should be noted that all the manufacturers are using the NVIDIA reference board or the ATI reference board, and differences would actually come down to what's included in the package. Furthermore, with price adjustments done by NVIDIA last week, the GeForce GTX 260 and Radeon HD 4870 now have the same suggested retail price of US$299.

Based on the cards we have in our labs today for the GeForce GTX 260 and the Radeon HD 4870 from XFX and Force3D and Sapphire, we would be giving the VR-Zone Best Buy award to the XFX GeForce GTX 260 896MB after very careful consideration.
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VR-Zone : Technology Beats - Graphics Slugfest: ATI Radeon HD 4850 CF, HD 4870, HD 4870 CF vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, GTX 280

VR-Zone : Technology Beats - Graphics Slugfest: ATI Radeon HD 4850 CF, HD 4870, HD 4870 CF vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, GTX 280
 
Some more vr-zone quote

The performance by a Radeon HD 4850 CrossFire setup easily gives it the VR-Zone Best Value award. For just shy of US$400, you're getting performance that's slightly faster than NVIDIA's flagship in most instances
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Needless to say, the VR-Zone Performance Award goes to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire setup which we put together both the Force3D and the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB cards. You get the best performance definitely, but with it comes a big jump in power consumption. You may want to consider adjusting fan speeds manually on the CrossFire setup to keep temperatures down within your casing as well.
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GTX 260 Sworn winner on low temperature & power Consumption.. Heck, i don't care with those two, i know its driver issue on power mangement & temperature.. This review could have been delayed to 3 or 4 days as Catalyst 8.7 was about to out.. Heck
 
one more thing....somehow I do not like the games and the resolutions on which they have been tested....For eg. Crysis with AA and AF wud have favoured ATI's card but they didnt test that, WIC results look wrong to me, everywhere else 4870 has a huge lead over 260. UT3 with AA and AF have favoured GTX's as has been shown in many other reviews.....So something looks fishy....I wud trust other reviews floating around than this one....Heres a review by toms hardware which tests these card more extensively....

Radeon HD 4870: Better Than GTX 260! : Introduction - Tom's Hardware
 
sangram said:
4 games and the result? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a

cherry picked

WINNER!!!
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Well said..:rofl:

@ thebanik
I agree what u said.. Seems NV passed some cash to VR that too inside Cap/Hat..:rofl:
 
Its still 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. IF the CF scaling issues + temp + idle power issues ARE fixed with driver updates we have a clear winner.

I love the 48xx performance numbers, but somehow the power draw , temps , noise levels issues bug me. If nVidia had a card with bad power management and a noisy fan we (underdog supporters :))would be howling in glee and cribbing about how sucky it was.. :tongue:
 
The Value and Performance awards still go to AMD.

Its never the case that nVidia does not have a great card on their hands this time around, but its just that the cards are priced too high. Give me the GTX260 for $250 and GTX280 for $400 and I would agree they are as good value for money as the AMD cards.

The major problem is the price and inspite of the cuts, the prices are still not good enough to compete with the AMD on value for money. The current prices are just good enough to keep the nVidia fans from deflecting to AMD still the time they can come up with their 55nm parts.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
The Value and Performance awards still go to AMD.

Its never the case that nVidia does not have a great card on their hands this time around, but its just that the cards are priced too high. Give me the GTX260 for $250 and GTX280 for $400 and I would agree they are as good value for money as the AMD cards.

The major problem is the price and inspite of the cuts, the prices are still not good enough to compete with the AMD on value for money. The current prices are just good enough to keep the nVidia fans from deflecting.
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Notice that for Value and Performance awards they have chosen 4850CF and 4870CF.....its no question that 4870 is a better performer than a GTX260, but here they have potrayed it as equal to GTX260 alongwith having issues with power and temp. issues.....so any prospective buyer who reads just this review wud be lured towards NV.
 
thebanik said:
one more thing....somehow I do not like the games and the resolutions on which they have been tested....For eg. Crysis with AA and AF wud have favoured ATI's card but they didnt test that, WIC results look wrong to me, everywhere else 4870 has a huge lead over 260. UT3 with AA and AF have favoured GTX's as has been shown in many other reviews.....So something looks fishy....I wud trust other reviews floating around than this one....Heres a review by toms hardware which tests these card more extensively....

Radeon HD 4870: Better Than GTX 260! : Introduction - Tom's Hardware
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Crysis - Tom's Hardware : Radeon HD 4870: Better Than GTX 260!

Crysis with AA/AF 120% faster than 4870 <3 it

crysis2500x16004xaavq6.jpg


http://www.techenclave.com/870253-post28.html

Also look at the rest of the results, also where do u see huge leads? The number in the post above are from tom's hardware, the test ur referring to. Also I dont see vr-zone as biased anyway. There numbers are on a overclocked procy and hence higher, these tests in fact look better than where people keep procy's on stock clocks and bottleneck the cards.

And I dont see 260 inferior to 4870 even after the fan fixes and power consumption, vr-zone have not included games which are console ports, which is indeed a neat practice.
 
Whatever anyone says, its the 4850 that remains the best buy. And this is coming from a user who purchased 4870. Its still better VFM than any freakin card out there and thats hard cold fact.

Only gamers buy these cards. Rest all stick to IGP or some silly cards like 3450/8400. And gamers upgrade for better FPS and eye candy. And they know how to change settings from GFX control panel. And if they know all this, they should also know how to fix the fan issue using the ATI profile.

Cat 8.7 official also seems to have fixed the fan speed not increasing in 3d mode issue. They perform on par with 8.6hotfix ( though 8.7 beta is considerably faster than both the 8.6hf and 8.7 official ).

I havent gone through that review, but have they mentioned that in there? I am guessing they didnt. What a timing for the review, the day ATI comes out with the drivers that fix the fan speed, they bring out the review with old drivers and not even 8.7beta which actually performs noticeably better than either of these drivers.

Was to be expected though :p
 
sudarshan2884 said:
HD 4850 is still a best buy .............size of stock cooler on 4850 is very small ......an aftermarket cooler or bigger stock cooler will do a justice fir it.
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Unless you are heavily overclocking or want a quiet card, a third party cooler is not reqd for HD4850. At 60% fan speed and the core clock rised to 680MHz, my Asus HD4850 idles at 50 deg and load temps dont go beyond 64 deg. The noise of the GPU fan is not audible to me over the Panaflo 120mm Ultra High speed fans I have on my proccy.
 
not everyone uses ultra high speed panalo and may find the noise a bit annoying
infact, the 3870 at 50% is something i would never live with
 
_pappu_ said:
not everyone uses ultra high speed panalo and may find the noise a bit annoying

infact, the 3870 at 50% is something i would never live with
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Thats depends. Many people who prefer air cooling for their overclocked rigs usually have a few high speed fans and dont mind the noise.

Silent PC users either go for Water cooling before long or have pretty normal rigs that dont require high speed fans. I have seen air-cooling enthusiasts stuff their cabinets with Delta fans that make a ton more noise than these Panafo's.

For the casual non-enthusiast gamer the HD4850 stock HSF will still serve well at 40% fan speed without creating too much noise. If anyone wants more cooling, raise the fan speed to 60~70% and you have all the cooling you want a bit of overclocking.

Heck, I used to run my 1900XT at 80~85% fan speeds in summer to keep it at 65 deg idle even without overclocking. HD4850 is far better in that aspect.
 
I'm not talking about the 4850 here anyway it is no doubt a great card (with fan fixes), there might have been a driver fiasco with the gx2 I'm sure, I was talking about the 260 and that graph does show that card's power.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
Unless you are heavily overclocking or want a quiet card, a third party cooler is not reqd for HD4850. At 60% fan speed and the core clock rised to 680MHz, my Asus HD4850 idles at 50 deg and load temps dont go beyond 64 deg. The noise of the GPU fan is not audible to me over the Panaflo 120mm Ultra High speed fans I have on my proccy.
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i was saying for aftermarket cooler coz......in many reviews i learned that 4850 IDLES at 80C & will not be any problem even at 100C
 
Supra, update, another 4850 in for test. This time someone else doing the test. Open rig - 75 degrees idle, with 'hotfix' fan mod done (50% fan speed). Something needs to be done, these cores will toast out, scary heat.

btw test room on a/c 24/5.
 
Vandal said:
Supra, update, another 4850 in for test. This time someone else doing the test. Open rig - 75 degrees idle, with 'hotfix' fan mod done (50% fan speed). Something needs to be done, these cores will toast out, scary heat.

btw test room on a/c 24/5.
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Reapply MX2 tot he core.
Even I have one here with me at the moment. 40% fan speed, idling @ 53C.

The thermal past on the 4870 was spot on, nicely applied, thin layer and not messy goop.

4850 was different story. messed up goop all over.
 
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