HD4870(512)vs.HD4870(1gig)vs.GTX280 vs. GTX260(216) ?

[Lord Bunky]

Originally Posted by sunderland

some nice clocks there lord Bunky m8,is the card nice and quiet m8 as i love my 4870 but am getting a bit bored so might try one of these out,is it stable at those speeds m8,cheers for any help,p.s were did you get yours from

Yeah, m8, its very quiet. I tried setting the card to 100% on the fan, it made some noise then, but on 50% theres not much sound at all. Its very stable too. One site, overclockersclub, i think it was called, got it up to 740 core.

***EDIT***
Only got to 702 on the core due to the Nvidia software not letting go past it.

[Lord Bunky]

Originally Posted by Ph0en1x

So I guess you are a keen supported of the black also (just ordered mine)

Can I ask a few questions:
What did you use to overclock the card?
Do you have any special cooling?
Current PSU (for just 1 card)

Just standard Nvidia tool. I reckon Riva will be better.
Nope just stock cooler
700w Tagan.

Yeah i must admit, im well happy with my card.

[Lord Bunky]

Originally Posted by sunderland

were was that at scan as they are out of stock,anyone know anywere who has stock in

The 12th (friday).

I got the dreaded email this morning. Bit peeved off, as the delivery date was today.

[sunderland]

bet you were gutted m8,so they are due in on the 12th then,i see there are selling the evga for a few quid more but its clocked higher apart from the shader clock but im sure it could go upto the xfx speed
and why is it always a friday so you have to pay sat delivery money to get it as they know you want it

[Ph0en1x]

I couldn't recommend this store myself as I have never shopped with them, but they seem to be doing the black for £220 (don't know how much delivery is). may be worth checking them out if they are legit.

Advance Technologies | 1GB XFX GTX 280 Graphics Cards

[sunderland]

i was looking at that shop but like you say i dont know what they are like so will just wait

[Onilink]

I too was looking at that site thinking of getting the XFX 260 Black but was not sure about the site. I checked out Scan then and found a really good deal, 896-P3-1268-ER - 896MB EVGA GTX 260 SSC, PCI-E 2.0, 2304MHz GDDR3, GPU670MHz, 216 Cores, 2xDL DVI-I/ HDTV + FarCry2 - Scan.co.uk same card with same OC levels and a free Farcry 2 copy.

And to the OP, I'm going with Nvidia because of PhysX, check this Mirror's Edge using it.

Make sure you watch in HD

[sunderland]

thats the card i was going to get in its place but its 200 less in the shader department and dont know if it would clock to that speed of the xfx,so might just hold on

[Lord Bunky]

Totally gutted, Sunderland. Ive never tried SLI before. Oh well.

The EVGA cards are nice. I had (still have) the 8800 GTX ACS3 KO from them. £452 that was. My, how times are changing.

You wont notice much difference between 666 core and 670 core. Just overclock the bugger ya self, anyway.

[Houghsx]

Interesting article about 55nm GT206 GPU:

UPDATE: 55nm GT206 GPU powers both GTX290 and Quadro FX 5800 « Theo’s Bright Side Of IT

The 55nm GPU consumes roughly 50% less power than it was the case with 65nm one, and this difference is more than massive. When I did quick power checks, the GTX280 at 650/1500/2200 would eat around 266W, while the default clocked GTX280 (600/1300/2200) was specc’ed at 238W.

Well, the 55nm GPU will eat around 170W at 650/1500/2200, meaning that GTX290 just got 100W of power to play with. If you’re into overclocking, you can now start dreaming about clocking those 240 shaders to 1.7-1.8 GHz range (perhaps even 2.0 if water-cooling setup is powerful enough), and achieve massive performance gains, all happening while you’re consuming less power than a stock clocked GTX280.


If thats true I will wait until these new chips are out before jumping in

[sunderland]

yes but you will find that they come in higher priced than the ones now and IMO they wont be much better than what they are using now,but that is just me

[Houghsx]

Originally Posted by sunderland

yes but you will find that they come in higher priced than the ones now and IMO they wont be much better than what they are using now,but that is just me

You don't think they will release at the same price, maybe dropping the 65nm cards a little?, just thinking of the ATI cards and their price point as the 260 is in comp with the 4870. Also, 55nm is cheaper to manufacture?

Edit: Just seen this, interesting

"Unfortunately, the shrink is a mess and not working out well at all, so neither of those features panned out. Where does that leave us? With a shrunken GT200 that doesn't really perform any better or worse than the current part, but gives NVIDIA a little better breathing room. That is the current best case."

So they may just clock the stock speed higher and charge more?
The Black edition is very tempting as I only have a 4850, which is a very good card for the price. However, most games are optimised for Nvidia and with the new driver release is very impressive.

[sunderland]

i dont even think it wil drop the 65nm cards as if you look now the 190 cores are still as expensive if not more than the 216 ones on the gtx260,well thats whats making me go back to nvidia the games that are getting optimized for them,because the 4870 plays all games at full no probs apart from crysis but no card plays that at the max,plus i hate the CCC panel

[Houghsx]

Originally Posted by sunderland

i dont even think it wil drop the 65nm cards as if you look now the 190 cores are still as expensive if not more than the 216 ones on the gtx260,well thats whats making me go back to nvidia the games that are getting optimized for them,because the 4870 plays all games at full no probs apart from crysis but no card plays that at the max,plus i hate the CCC panel

Been looking around and to be honest it looks like Nvidia have made a real mess of the 55nm shrink, so it looks like the current cards are better which means no need to wait.

Nvidia 55nm parts update- The Inquirer

[Ph0en1x]

The 4850X2 also seems like a pretty good card, although it's a little more expensive that the Black. I think performance for money it is a bit better than the black but is apparently noisy and uses a lot of power (210W when idle).

Overclockers had one for about 260 I think.