gtx 260 or hd 4870?...

[YourGrandpa]

I'll always buy a BFG Nvidia product. Product support, lifetime warranty and awesome performance that is unmatched by any other manufacturer. Besides, Nvidia has always been one step ahead of ATI.

[shadd_]

ati seems more elegant due to its superior 2d display, colour reproduction, and video playback.

ati is not a canadian company anymore. so it's not unpatriotic to like them.

[tnf]

I'll always buy a BFG Nvidia product. Product support, lifetime warranty and awesome performance that is unmatched by any other manufacturer. Besides, Nvidia has always been one step ahead of ATI.

Not always.

And this question was about the 260 vs the 4870 - if the choice was the 280 then yea, go nVidia. But the 4870 is a faster card than the 260.

[Hannibal]

I'm a big fag for EVGA nvidia products...but I will be seriously considering ATI next time...nvidia driver work, especially for XP, has been dog shit souffle for the last year at least. Fuck doze guys.

(ATI driver support might not be any better but I will certainly research them mothaflippin' next time)

[Dave]

4870.. It seems to be slower, but a little more elegant and reliable than the new NVIDIA stuff. I haven't looked much beyond the initial reviews, though.

What kind of bullshit arguments are those, though.
It's slower. End of discussion where it concerns video cards. Cranking out the most fps is all I want from a card.
More reliable? It's not like nvidia is notorious for buggy cards, is it.
And where does elegance come into the picture?

lol bullshit... Microsoft's own automated bug report submissions prove NVIDIA is responsible for something like 29% of all bug checks.

I'd say the ATI is a little more reliable at the stage in the game as long as you don't reopen the Catalyst Control Center when it crashes. AMD may be going tits up, but ATI still has something to live for... NVIDIA on the other hand needs to work some things out internally to restore confidence after their last debacle, which if you haven't heard about by now means you're under a rock that doesn't have internet.

I chose this example for the catch headline:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/03 ... st_glitch/

The elegance in this case is the simple, effective, price-friendly way in which ATI trumped NVIDIA with their last release--a release that forced NVIDIA to drop the prices on their new cards by about $100 bucks within a couple of weeks if memory serves. Instead of trying to storm the market with the brute force method, they simply released a more mature version of their previous generations, and did it for less money. But don't take my word for it:

As for the new business, the Radeon HD 4870 is not only based on an efficient architecture (both in terms of performance per area and per watt), it is an excellent buy as well. Of course we have to put out the usual disclaimer of "it depends on the benchmark you care about," but in our testing we definitely saw this $300 part perform at the level of NVIDIA's $400 GT200 variant, the GTX 260. This fact clearly sets the 4870 in a performance class beyond its price.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=23

[Plan B]

OK...so now you say the 4870 is faster.
Great, in this comparison people should go with that then, instead of the gtx 260
I just choose the fastest card for the lowest price, because in my experience both ati and nvidia make quality cards.

I don't really find your arguments of ati's general superiority over nvidia convincing.
I can't find percentages on automated bug reports...29% caused by nvidia seems a bit high. But I'm sure nvidia has a greater percentage than ati, simply because it has a greater market share.
And I read something about that nvidia laptop snafu. Yeah, they fucked that up.
Hardly a reason to let that haunt them for the rest of eternity.

Look, I don't have shares in nvidia or something, and am not particularly interested in defending them.
I used both ati and nvidia, and don't like or dislike one more than the other.

[Captain]

The elegance in this case is the simple, effective, price-friendly way in which ATI trumped NVIDIA with their last release--a release that forced NVIDIA to drop the prices on their new cards by about $100 bucks within a couple of weeks if memory serves. Instead of trying to storm the market with the brute force method, they simply released a more mature version of their previous generations, and did it for less money.

Uh, that's the way ATI and Nvidia have competed with each other for the past 5 years:

-Nvidia releases brand new card with a huge price tag
-ATI releases their own version with a lower price to attract customers
-Nvidia lowers prices to stay competitive

How that makes ATI more "elegant" is beyond me, especially when all they're trying to do is increase sales and revenue, just like Nvidia or any other company out there.

[tnf]

I don't know, the 4870 has less ram than the 260, but beats it. It does more with less and for less. Although elegant isn't a real quantifiable description, that seems to be somewhat elegant to me.

[Dr_Watson]

I don't know, the 4870 has less ram than the 260, but beats it. It does more with less and for less. Although elegant isn't a real quantifiable description, that seems to be somewhat elegant to me.

that sounds about right; unless it goes to dinner parties or something.

[tnf]

MIne has a little bowtie on it.

[Dr_Watson]

that's classy

[eepberries]

The only problem with the Radeon 48 series is that they run very, very hot and really for no good reason. ATI decided they wanted their cards to be quiet so by default the card's fan will run very slow. On average, 48 series cards run at about 80C idle (absolutely ridiculous). There is a way to force the card's fan to ran at an appropriate speed to lower the temperature to much more sane levels (google 4850/4870 fan fix), but this relies on the ATI Catalyst Control Center so if you run Linux, you're pretty much out of luck.

I have a 4850 myself and aside from that the card runs fine. I have the fan's speed set to 50% and it runs at about 55C idle. It just really annoys me that ATI thought 80C was an acceptable temperature for a card to run at when idle.

[Dr_Watson]

80°F = ~27°C
wtf... that's positively chilly for a GPU.

[eepberries]

80°F = ~27°C
wtf... that's positively chilly for a GPU.

Oops, I'm a dumbass. I meant celsius.

[tnf]

The only problem with the Radeon 48 series is that they run very, very hot and really for no good reason. ATI decided they wanted their cards to be quiet so by default the card's fan will run very slow. On average, 48 series cards run at about 80C idle (absolutely ridiculous). There is a way to force the card's fan to ran at an appropriate speed to lower the temperature to much more sane levels (google 4850/4870 fan fix), but this relies on the ATI Catalyst Control Center so if you run Linux, you're pretty much out of luck.

I have a 4850 myself and aside from that the card runs fine. I have the fan's speed set to 50% and it runs at about 55C idle. It just really annoys me that ATI thought 80C was an acceptable temperature for a card to run at when idle.

I don't use the catalyst control center to run my fan.

But they did set the fan speed too low by default. I run mine at 35-40% all the time and the noise isn't bad at all and it doesn't get ridiculously hot during full loads. Haven't looked at a Linux workaround for that though.

[Dave]

Elegant in the computer industry generally refers to the solution that gives you the most output for the least amount of complexity.

[Dave]

OK...so now you say the 4870 is faster.

No, everyone else is say that. I said I didn't know.

I don't really find your arguments of ati's general superiority over nvidia convincing.
I can't find percentages on automated bug reports...29% caused by nvidia seems a bit high. But I'm sure nvidia has a greater percentage than ati, simply because it has a greater market share.
And I read something about that nvidia laptop snafu. Yeah, they fucked that up.
Hardly a reason to let that haunt them for the rest of eternity.

Quick Google search for "nvidia 29% of crashes" reveals http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... ivers.html
Ars makes the argument about market share, which is the real bullshit considering Intel amounts to only 8.8 of crashes. I'm pretty sure Intel's install base is much wider than NVIDIAs

[Captain]

Elegant in the computer industry generally refers to the solution that gives you the most output for the least amount of complexity.

I don't see how Nvidia cards are more complex than ATI.

[eepberries]

I don't use the catalyst control center to run my fan.

But they did set the fan speed too low by default. I run mine at 35-40% all the time and the noise isn't bad at all and it doesn't get ridiculously hot during full loads. Haven't looked at a Linux workaround for that though.

Supposedly there is a workaround for linux using ATI's linux drivers, but as with most things Linux related it's complicated and people like me who don't use Linux 24/7 would be lucky to get it working (I couldn't).

There's also supposed to be a way to do it permanently by changing the card's firmware, but that's obviously on the risky side and I didn't think it was worth it.