HD 4870 vs GTX 260

[AthlonXP1800]

I got BFG GTX 260 card installed 3 hours ago and was very speechless how silent the card fan is. I checked GPU-Z and Rivatuner, shocked to see the idle temp at 52c with the fan running 728RPM, it dead quiet as a dead mice and too silent than both 4870 and 8800GTX ran at around 1600RPM at idle. Ran Crysis benchmark much better than 4870 then checked the temp and the fan RPM, it was 82c and 1150RPM at full load, still too silent.

Here are Crysis Island benchmarks at 1280x1024 VeryHigh 4xAA:

1280x1024 4xAA VeryHigh 8800GTX

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TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 121.24s, Average FPS: 16.50
Min FPS: 7.65 at frame 140, Max FPS: 20.37 at frame 1760
Average Tri/Sec: -10500208, Tri/Frame: -636531
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.44
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 114.66s, Average FPS: 17.44
Min FPS: 7.65 at frame 140, Max FPS: 20.37 at frame 1760
Average Tri/Sec: -10880018, Tri/Frame: -623752
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.47
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 114.39s, Average FPS: 17.48
Min FPS: 7.65 at frame 140, Max FPS: 20.37 at frame 1760
Average Tri/Sec: -10880223, Tri/Frame: -622268
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.47
!TimeDemo Run 3 Finished.
Play Time: 114.39s, Average FPS: 17.48
Min FPS: 7.65 at frame 140, Max FPS: 20.37 at frame 1760
Average Tri/Sec: -10914692, Tri/Frame: -624272
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.47
TimeDemo Play Ended, (4 Runs Performed)
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1280x1024 4xAA VeryHigh 4870

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TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 198.06s, Average FPS: 10.10
Min FPS: 0.00 at frame 137, Max FPS: 21.57 at frame 75
Average Tri/Sec: -6367465, Tri/Frame: -630564
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.45
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 148.91s, Average FPS: 13.43
Min FPS: 0.00 at frame 137, Max FPS: 21.57 at frame 75
Average Tri/Sec: -8313996, Tri/Frame: -619013
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.48
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 229.21s, Average FPS: 8.73
Min FPS: 0.00 at frame 137, Max FPS: 21.57 at frame 75
Average Tri/Sec: -5386000, Tri/Frame: -617250
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.49
!TimeDemo Run 3 Finished.
Play Time: 159.51s, Average FPS: 12.54
Min FPS: 0.00 at frame 137, Max FPS: 21.57 at frame 75
Average Tri/Sec: -7738421, Tri/Frame: -617162
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.49
TimeDemo Play Ended, (4 Runs Performed)
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1280x1024 4xAA VeryHigh GTX 260

================================================== ============
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 105.51s, Average FPS: 18.95
Min FPS: 11.57 at frame 1949, Max FPS: 26.71 at frame 978
Average Tri/Sec: -12060033, Tri/Frame: -636253
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.44
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 96.61s, Average FPS: 20.70
Min FPS: 11.57 at frame 1949, Max FPS: 27.49 at frame 979
Average Tri/Sec: -12922397, Tri/Frame: -624206
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.47
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 97.64s, Average FPS: 20.48
Min FPS: 11.25 at frame 1945, Max FPS: 27.49 at frame 979
Average Tri/Sec: -12737819, Tri/Frame: -621880
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.47
!TimeDemo Run 3 Finished.
Play Time: 96.65s, Average FPS: 20.69
Min FPS: 10.21 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 27.61 at frame 976
Average Tri/Sec: -12893363, Tri/Frame: -623070
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.47
TimeDemo Play Ended, (4 Runs Performed)
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I am very impressed with the card, well worth the money at £217 from Overclockers UK and will put 8800GTX on ebay next week.

I just measured the PC power consumption at idle and load, here the details:

Geforce 8800GTX: 148W idle, 250W load
Sapphire 4870: 158W idle, 261W load
GTX 260: 101W idle, 250W load

Wow damn impressed with the 101W idle, incredible very low idle power, very cooling temp and too silent for 1.4 billion transistors.

[Ambrose]

Doesn't really look like that much of an improvement. Plus, if you overclock the GTX to 630/1050 you can get within 2 fps of the average of a 260.

I just ran mine and got an overall average FPS of 18.72 w/ same settings.

[CaptNKILL]

Originally Posted by hell_of_doom227

i'm not touchy...but it's good to give crap to people sometimes.

*ahem*

[mojoman0]

then compare it to an overclocked 260.

[Medion]

Originally Posted by AthlonXP1800

snip

I call shens on those benchmarks. The 4870 is NOT slower than the 8800GTX. Also, every test I've seen shows the 4870's power draw as less than the GTX260. Either you're doing something wrong, or you fabricated that test.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally Posted by Medion

I call shens on those benchmarks. The 4870 is NOT slower than the 8800GTX. Also, every test I've seen shows the 4870's power draw as less than the GTX260. Either you're doing something wrong, or you fabricated that test.

No I had Sapphire 4870 from Overclockers UK last week, ran it for 3 days, it experienced very bad fps in games and got horrible average 4fps in Crysis at 1280x1024 8xAA. It either bad card or bad driver, I RMAed it for refund and got BFG GTX 260, it ran much better than 4870.

I dont think 4870 drew less power than GTX 260 at idle and load, below are from Anandtech review with idle and load power showed GTX 260 drew less power than 4870.

[Medion]

Thank you for correcting me on the power consumption. As for the actual benchmarks though, did you run driver cleaner/sweeper at all when transitioning to the Radeon?

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally Posted by Medion

Thank you for correcting me on the power consumption. As for the actual benchmarks though, did you run driver cleaner/sweeper at all when transitioning to the Radeon?

Yeah I used DH Driver Cleaner Professional Edition downloaded from Guru3D and uninstalled all Nvidia drivers then restarted PC and ran Driver Cleaner to removed every trace of Nvidia drivers then shutdown PC. After installed 4870 card I installed latest nForce driver then restarted and installed Catalyst 8.6 hotfix driver and noticed bad fps in games, I decided to have a clean install Vista Ultimate on a spare 250GB hard drive but it still had the same problem then I tried Catalyst 8.6 without hotfix and Catalyst 8.7 beta drivers. Either didnt helped fixed bad games fps so I RMAed the card.

I repeated the same thing with Driver Cleaner to removed ATI driver before installed back 8800GTX and Nvidia driver before installed GTX 260 so either 8800GTX and GTX 260 showed no problem with games fps.

[Heinz68]

Originally Posted by hell_of_doom227

That's very interesting, and i think Nvidia will make sure to release GX2 so people are able to have SLI setup on the X58 chipset. Intel move is really gay. Afterall Nvidia might let people run SLI on Intel Chipset. It's not matter of hardware problem but to unlock software. I wish Nvidia can make CPU somehow. I bet that CPU would smoke Nehalem big time.

Sure just like that. NVIDIA has magic hat.

[GeniusPr0]

it's another case of what the user plans on doing

[hell_of_doom227]

Originally Posted by Heinz68

Sure just like that. NVIDIA has magic hat.

Nehalem compared to GTX280 GPU as far as complexity is joke...

[Koko56]