Question of the week: what will be your next graphics card?

[TooNice]

There is one thing nVidia did better than AMD this round, and that's the idle power consumption. At first I was going to say AMD didn't do very well here, but compared to older nVidia card, they are not 'awful' (at least the 4850; the 4870 burn trees almost at the same rate as two 8800GT). Instead, the GTX 2x0 series seems to be exceptionally efficient on idle (the 260 matching a 8800GT, and the 280 matching a 4850).

Out of curiosity, can someone work out how much 45W (that's the difference between the 4870 and 4850 on idle going by Anandtech's measurements) @ 24/24, 365/365 costs at current price? [Note that I am not implying that the 4870 is a poorer buy compared to the 2x0 series, this is just an observation. That said, I would like to take this into account when selecting between the 4850 and 4870, especially given how energy isn't cheap or getting cheaper at the moment]

[Blitzen]

Although those nVidia partners are very good( no one can deny that specially with the upgrade EVGA offers and the 10year warranty from BFG) but there are good ATI partners as well... HIS and Gigabyte are my first choice ATI manufacturers. Top quality components and good support after purchase as well.



My experience has been worse with nVidia than with ATI specially with driver support. Its all dependant on how you use the card and also how you view good support.

ATI drivers might not always perform the best but you can almost swear that they will at least work and not cause your computer to have random crashes. Too many nVidia drivers have caused my PC to crash over the last 5 months, the nVidia card I owned 3 years prior was the same and the nVidia cards my friends owned over the last 2 years gave them the same problems with drivers and game support(having to always change drivers to play a specific game and then changing back because every other game crashes with those drivers).

Enthusiasts might not like ATI drivers for lack of performance improvements but at least they work and don't break your PC when you up grade.

I have never had a driver issue.
Many of these issues are caused by other underlying problems and not actually the driver itself.

The fact remains aswell.....The companies that produce ATI cards are of poorer quality than the ones that produce nVidia.

BTW......EVGA step-up is a PITA for Uk customers and really isnt worth the hassle (i did it last year). Still.......i would rather have a EVGA than a HIS or Sapphire every day of the week.

[Methanoid]

Blimey you are difficult to please. ATi offer the same if not better performance than nvidia for £60 less and you're still not happy

Both of these cards are a bargain in my eyes. I think an HD4650 would fit nicely into into the £70 bracket,a little more could be justified by awesome performance though, we will just have to wait and see

You noticed how hard I am to please?

Well consider.. a 4650 will be close to 3850 performance... so why should I not expect price to be same or less? You can pick up 3850s for £70 now... so it follows...

Thats the thing with tech toys.. why get excited about same performance and same price (talking 4650 here) .. something has to be different or "better"

[Blackmage]

4870, just hits the correct spot!

[JamesD]

I already bought the GTX280 a week after its release... and I have no regrets at all. There's just something about nVidia that I prefer, I tend to see them as being better built and more stable as a whole - I know its probably psychological, but I'm happy, and that's all that matters right? I wasn't bothered too much about the price, I had 'x' amount to spend on a new rig, so I spent it I'm now currently playing Crysis at 1900x1200 on High, and it's oh so good...

[TooNice]

@Methanoid: And I thought I was picky lol. I actually think that £125 is fair for the 4850.

Not that I would complain if it was even cheaper, but what's the cheapest 3870 you can find? I've not looked too hard, but £90 seems about right. Assuming £90, that's 39% cheaper than the 3870.

Going by this review, the 4850 is between 32.5% to 57% faster depending on whether you play with AA enabled or not. If we go by the average, we get 45%, which makes the 4850 better value (more fps for the &#163. Granted, if you never/rarely enable AA, then the 3870 will be better value. Personally, I tend to play with AA, so I would put more weight to the AA enabled benchmarks. So for me the 3870 will have to drop to at least £80 before I consider it better value for my use. And that's ignoring the premium you normally have to pay per increase. I'd actually say that using the 3870 as benchmark, the 4850 is underpriced at £125. Or, using the 4850 as a benchmark, most 3870 that I've seen are overpriced. I can't comment on the 4650/3850 though.

[Parm]

I do hardly any gaming on the PC, but I do like to dabble with Media Centre. My current tuner, a BlackGold jobby, has given me no shortage of problems.

I'd go for AMD's All-In-Wonder HD if it ever came to the UK: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14040

[staffsMike]

You noticed how hard I am to please?

Well consider.. a 4650 will be close to 3850 performance... so why should I not expect price to be same or less? You can pick up 3850s for £70 now... so it follows...

Thats the thing with tech toys.. why get excited about same performance and same price (talking 4650 here) .. something has to be different or "better"

But what if, AMD just go and do something really crazy, like release it at £50 taking the place of the current HD3650?

Then you will be on board?

ATi have been back in my favours since their prices became in line with the US prices, and these new releases have simply strengthened that If everything becomes equal again (next new cards, not this time) for Blitzens reasons above Nvidia would probably get my money.

[Bluecube]

Obviously it's going to appear like I'm the lamb in amongst the wolves here but why upgrade at all? I'm still quite happily tootling along with my Nvidia 7100 and have no plans to upgrade because nothing I use my PC for requires the power of even the cheapest card available. The PC isn't exactly busting to the gills with decent games that require a powerful graphics card anyway.

'scuse me while I duck back down below the parapet

[kalniel]

Obviously it's going to appear like I'm the lamb in amongst the wolves here but why upgrade at all?

What, ever??

[lost eden]

Definately nvidia for me, for the sole reason that their linux drivers have always been & continue to be better tan ATI's.

[Tidus]

I voted for the 4870 in Crossfire, I'm not really a fan of dual GPU's but the benchmarks looked really impressive. I won't be building my PC for at least a few more months though so I will be interested in seeing the price / performance of the 4870x2 when it's released. But if I get impatient, then buying a 4870 card and adding another 1 when I notice a drop in performance is also an option.

Some people said they weren't too fond of ATI card makers, I have a HIS card and I like it, it runs cool and hasn't given me any problems. I do prefer Nvidia's control panel to ATI's though because of the memory used, but when I have 8GB's of RAM I won't really care about that.

Shame about the heat these new cards give off, but the performance / price is good so I'll be waiting to see a 4870 X2 review.

[Noxvayl]

I voted for the 4870 in Crossfire, I'm not really a fan of dual GPU's but the benchmarks looked really impressive. I won't be building my PC for at least a few more months though so I will be interested in seeing the price / performance of the 4870x2 when it's released. But if I get impatient, then buying a 4870 card and adding another 1 when I notice a drop in performance is also an option.

Some people said they weren't too fond of ATI card makers, I have a HIS card and I like it, it runs cool and hasn't given me any problems. I do prefer Nvidia's control panel to ATI's though because of the memory used, but when I have 8GB's of RAM I won't really care about that.

Shame about the heat these new cards give off, but the performance / price is good so I'll be waiting to see a 4870 X2 review.

You should wait for the HIS IceQ3 turbo's. Those coolers are really good and quite too Otherwise I like to purchase after market coolers like the AC Accelero S1 rev2. Don't like the noise the standard coolers make.

Gainward are my favourite nVidia manufacturer because of there cool heatsinks... Leadtek were good with those at one stage but seem to have stopped so I don't really look at them any more.

[Methanoid]

But what if, AMD just go and do something really crazy, like release it at £50 taking the place of the current HD3650?

Then you will be on board?

Hell yes!!

One thing that makes me prefer ATI to Nvidia is that they have miles lower idle power consumption...

Most current NVidia cards draw at least 25W at idle... ATI are much lower due to PowerPlayTM

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.a...c=7&t=9354&p=0

I have two 3850s in my machines.. I'll probably go for 4650's for a slight performance bump or 4850s if the price drops...

I'd buy the new AIW but its based on 3650 which IMHO is mad

[TooNice]

One thing that makes me prefer ATI to Nvidia is that they have miles lower idle power consumption...

Most review actually shows that the 4000-series doing less well than the latest nVidia...

[Noxvayl]

Most review actually shows that the 4000-series doing less well than the latest nVidia...

Yeah that's right at idle the nVidia card is slightly lower(and its only by a few W so nothing to go crazy about tbh) than the ATI cards at the moment but at load the ATI cards are far better.

If you play games a lot then the ATI card uses less power but if it sits idle they are pretty much the same.