HD 4870 vs GTX 260

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by abtomat74

Last year many people were exclaiming how they don't care about AA anymore at resolutions above 16x12 or 19x12...now some of you guys are yearning for EIGHT xAA at those incredibly high reses? Why?

The point those people made last year was you didn't "need" ANY, now they "need" 8? LOL.

doesn't matter what res, you always will need AA

[lognoronon]

Well I plan on staying at this res for a good long while (1680 1050). Most people I know do not have higher so the complaining about the card not performing as good at really high resolutions is a moot point for most folks. Most folks do not have a freaking 30 inch monitor but so many folks seem to think everyone has one. I think the most common resolution is actually 1280 1024 still. With that in mind I took the better deal and got a 4870 instead of a GTX 260 (this was before the major price cuts started coming around).

[Badboy_12345]

Originally Posted by abtomat74

Of course you need AA, but isn't 4x enough nowadays especially at insane reses?

2x is enough for 1920x1200. Thats what I always use.
4x if you are stare at the monitor and dont play the game

But more than 4x at that res is just not needed.

[ASUSEN7900GTX]

this is one of my Crysis benches with the HD4870

2008-07-05 20:25:20 - XP
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX9 1680x1050, AA=16xQ, Vsync=Disabled, 32 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: High
================================================== ==========
==
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 62.74s, Average FPS: 31.88
Min FPS: 21.56 at frame 159, Max FPS: 38.50 at frame 967
Average Tri/Sec: -32220538, Tri/Frame: -1010831
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.91
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 55.92s, Average FPS: 35.76
Min FPS: 21.56 at frame 159, Max FPS: 42.60 at frame 90
Average Tri/Sec: -35730276, Tri/Frame: -999036
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.92
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 55.32s, Average FPS: 36.15
Min FPS: 21.56 at frame 159, Max FPS: 43.07 at frame 83
Average Tri/Sec: -36160596, Tri/Frame: -1000183
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.92
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
================================================== ==========
==

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

2008-07-05 20:25:20 - XP

Run #1- DX9 1680x1050 AA=16xQ, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 3595,5


now mine is clocked at stock with OC who knows


this was a benchmark in vatage yesterday vista isn´t tweakd or anything don´t know if tweaking vista makes any difference

[LordJuanlo]

Originally Posted by Blacklash

Don't worry ATi fans will be along to explain to you why we don't need any AA in Bioshock since their cards can't currently do it in that title.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but AFAIK you can force AA in Bioshock (DX9 only) with both ATI and nVidia cards (not sure if you must rename executable in ATI cards)

[radeonred]

Originally Posted by Rollo

What kind of point is that? If the GTX260 performed the same as the GTX280, there wouldn't be a lot of reason for the GTX280 to exist.

The interesting thing about the HD4870 is everyone regards it as a bit better than the GTX260, but that's not necessarily the case for the high res gamer.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=14
GTX260 edges HD4870 at 25X16 COD4.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=17
GTX260 edges HD4870 at The Witcher 25X16.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=19
GTX260 beats the HD4870 at every res on Oblivion, including 25X16.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990/10
GTX260 edges HD4870 at ET:QW at 25X16.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990/10
GTX260 edges HD4870 at 25X16 HL2:EP2.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page8.asp
GTX260 wins the two playable resolutions of Lost Planet.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page9.asp
GTX260 beats HD4870 at every resolution at COH.

Nice way to hand pick the those benchies Rollo, I could easily do the same.

Originally Posted by Rollo

So the HD4870 superiority is largely a myth.

ROTFLMAO, Its anything but a myth, trust me I own one.

Originally Posted by Rollo

sure it wins more than it loses at lower resolutions, but both cards are more than playable at those so it's sort of a hollow victory.

So just because both cards are still playable that means that the obvious lead that the 4870 usually carries over the GTX 260 suddenly doesnt exist or doesnt count?

Originally Posted by Rollo

Don't even want to go into the "4870 often equals the GTX280" stuff- because the HD4870 is clearly the inferior card.

No one is claiming the 4870 to be better than the GTX 280 but if you would like I can show you more than one bench of the 4870 either being equal to the GTX 280 or surpassing it. How many charts can you show me of a stock GTX 260 doing the same?

Yeah I thought so.

[radeonred]

Originally Posted by abtomat74

Last year many people were exclaiming how they don't care about AA anymore at resolutions above 16x12 or 19x12...now some of you guys are yearning for EIGHT xAA at those incredibly high reses? Why?

The point those people made last year was you didn't "need" ANY, now they "need" 8? LOL.

Well I certainly was not one of those as I love some high AA, btw I owned both an 8800GTX and then a 9800GTX during the reign of the 2900XT.

[radeonred]

Originally Posted by Blacklash

Don't worry ATi fans will be along to explain to you why we don't need any AA in Bioshock since their cards can't currently do it in that title.

Blacklash you seem to be cool sometimes but statements like these make you look like a real ass bro.

[ASUSEN7900GTX]

damn i thogut the Q9450 didn´t need to be Oc´d well i´ll look into it see if i dare to tamper with it

well i am to try Lost planet in DX10 soon i´ll post some results

[ScBlacksunshine]

Originally Posted by radeonred

The only thing lacking in the HD 4870 atm are good official drivers for the card. Its really hit and miss right now depending on the game, some games fly while others like mass effect are slower than my overclocked 9800GTX and then there are a couple of games with graphical glitches (ME and Penumbra) due to improper drivers.

Since Mass Effect is my favorite game I have put my 9800GTX back in for the time being so I can play the game with 2XAA and still get great frame rates. I did notice a few guys talking about some new beta drivers for the G92 series that supposedly boosted FPS and of course I was skeptical of this so I had to try them. I have to say that nvidia can put some damn fine drivers together because this card is running even better than the last time that I used it with the 175.16.

I did some rough benching between the two cards with the HD4870 at 880core 4400mem and the 9800GTX at 840core 2100shader and 2500mem.

Here is what I found-all games maxed at 1680X1050 with Vsync+tripple buffering.


Oblivion-HD 4870 4XAA+supersampling always at 60fps even in dense foilage.-Awesome!
Oblivion-9800GTX 4XAA-No transparency AA 47-52fps in the dense foilage-pretty damn good but transparency AA kills it.

Mass Effect-HD 4870 No AA-for the most part the game is around an average of 15fps slower than the 9800GTX, the first level before the citadel would often run in the 45 fps range compared to the 9800GTX with 2XAA running mostly at 60fps. Plus the visual quality on the HD 4870 is washed out by comparison. (Now keep in mind that the HD 4870 is running on drivers intended for the 3870 card.)


Bioshock-9800GTX pinned at 60fps through the first level with the exeption of 2 places which dip to 52fps for a very short period. I noticed this game is a lot faster now on the 9800GTX with these new drivers.

Bioshock-HD 4870 pinned at 60fps with only one dip to 58fps in the first level.


Stalker-9800GTX 52 FPS when you first exit the underground in the first of the game and then crawls up to 60fps- only dips down to 52fps when looking at the guys around the camp fire in the first village. Again, drivers really really helped this game.

Stalker-HD 4870 60fps when you exit the underground and never seems to dip under it.


The Witcher 9800GTX-(the game will only detect 2XAA and will not work when AA is forced in driver) This one really suprised me. The 9800GTX was running this game at 52-54fps in the first part of the New Quest mission compared to being in the low 40's with dips to 25fps on the older drivers. This time the lowest dip was only 35fps. I have to say I am really impressed.

The Witcher HD 4870-Its really to close to call, both cards seem to get identical results as the HD 4870 had the same low dip at 35fps and ran at 52-54fps for the most part.

The HD 4870 did have a great lead over the 9800GTX in the Witcher prior to these new drivers that I tested. I am pretty sure though that once the HD 4870 gets official drivers it will once again come out on top in this game though.



Thats just a short review and as you can see I own both cards so I am anything but biased and a fanboy. The HD 4870 really has a ton of potential, its just up to ATI to bring it out with good optimized drivers and I hope they can do the job.

Have you tried Catalyst 8.7 beta, supposely improve Mass effect and UT3 engine quite a bit..

[ASUSEN7900GTX]

ok i see

well i´ll dust off some dvd´s with OBlivion stuff and kick in QTP III and stuff and then we see if it looks as good as it did years ago

thing is when i had my 8800ultra i could not seem to get AA in the game no matter what i tried, now this hasn´t been a issue with ATI earlier?

[Shocky]

Always easy to stop the fanboys, replys from the same person over and over like it's there own personnal mission to "correct" everyone to their way of thinking.