Another graphic card question... RAWR

[The Deco]

OK, I thought about it lately. On the start I wanted to take the ATI HD 4850, a few days ago I decided to go on the HD 4870, Now im thinking of taking the nVidia 9800GX2 since its not much of a price range between this and the HD 4870 and the performance(supposed to be) better.

Now I need a few answers:

1) Is it a smart move, worths the money and this card is some quality ****, (better than GTX280?) and especially for someone that don't want to change his system hardware every 1 - 2 years or replacing full PCs in a high rate

2) How come the GTX280 is more expensive???

3) I don't know how the Geforce 9 series is, so reviews about it please, is it a bad, ****ed, ****ty series? Or maybe good, excellent, maybe even "****ING AWESOME"?


And the HD 4870 x2 is way too expensive

 

[Quagmire]

HD4870 is your best option. Nvidia's 9800GX2 relies on multi-GPU scailing for a performance advantage, which is not always reflective of performance in 3D apps if they are not optimized at the game or driver level to take advantage of SLI/Crossfire GPU systems. With SLI/Crossfire, it is also possible that you'd run into micro-stuttering issues (IE: not so smooth frame rates with lots of jumpy behavior). I myself experienced such issues with 8800GTS 512 SLI earlier in the year though supposedly is is less common to encounter such issues with newer nvidia hardware (both motherboard wise and graphics card wise).

Nvidia are set to release a revamped GTX260 this month with a extra 24 stream processors (216 vs 192) and are also (at some pint of the month, not absolutely sure), letting off big bang 2, which allows for SLI to use multiple monitors, OpenGL 3.0 support and display port support and as quoted off nvidia slides some performance increases (to which degree remains yet to be seen, but if nvidia are prepping big bang 2 to be a priority for them and you know it is, then it might just pay off for them). Nvidia also are going to allow SLI on intel's X58 chipset for Bloomfield aka Nehalem, thus removing the need for a nvidia chipset (though nvidia are controlling licensing to manufacturers, so it is predictable or assumable that you may have to pay a premium for it in some cases)

Depending when you buy a new GFX card defiantly keep an eye on the market, as competition always means the consumer is passed on the benefits of lower priced hardware or better performance from either side of the fence (especially this month). If you are going to go get a HD4870, get a 1GB model.

 

[Epedemic_Optikz]

agreed with above poster, although if you're willing to spend a bit under the 4870 x2 price, you're best off going with 2x GTX260 in SLI, but wait for the revamped 260s.

If you're a budget guy though, 4850 or 4870 are both suitable for their price.