The question i need answering though is whether i need to upgrade my QX6850 now?

Nah, *** it. The only difference is slightly higher clocks and a bit more cache. You won' t notice much difference in games, probably zero difference in high resolutions.

Wait for The next gen Intel CPUs Nehalem. They' ll be monsers and will pretty much kick AMD away from the high end CPU business. They' re coming soon enough anyways (Q4 2008).

The only downside to waiting is if your motherboard doesn' t have PCIE 2.0. The HD 4870s might not perform at their best if they' re on PCIE 1.0. Then again it might not make a difference at all. Even if it did, I' d still wait for Nehalem. You' ll end up needing to upgrade your mobo for these chips anyways (ram too).

ORIGINAL: Nitro

So with the GTX 280 being outperformed by the 9800GX2 at resolutions closer to what i' m playing at, the 4870 looks to be my next card. Probably 2 in Crossfire.

The question i need answering though is whether i need to upgrade my QX6850 now?

Nah. You' ve got a ~$1000 processor there. There' s no point in upgrading it unless you like spending money for a negligible performance increase. Generally, the last thing to become outdated in a PC is the CPU. By the time it is outdated, you' ll need a new MB/chipset anyway. Just overclock it if you really want to do something to it. You' ll be able to hit stupid speeds with a QX.

The only downside to waiting is if your motherboard doesn' t have PCIE 2.0. The HD 4870s might not perform at their best if they' re on PCIE 1.0. Then again it might not make a difference at all. Even if it did, I' d still wait for Nehalem. You' ll end up needing to upgrade your mobo for these chips anyways (ram too).

It' s just the same as the AGP 4x -> 8x scenario. No difference. 1 FPS difference in the worst case. Interfaces are generally way ahead of the game when they come out. We' re not coming close to saturating PCIE 1.0 bandwidth yet (unless you' re running some insane setup with 4 GPU' s). I' m not even sure AGP 8x bandwidth has been saturated yet. The main reason for the change was extra voltages.

He did overclock it. He wouldn' t even see a 5% difference compared to an overclocked QX9650.

Yeah. I still have no idea how AMD managed to fit everything on such a small die.

That' s what got me at first. I did some digging.

GTX 280 die for comparison.


The ROPs are big. They should be similar to the ones in the HD 4870, except ATI only has 16 instead of Nvidias 32. My point is that from 3870->4870 they' re not getting a sizable change in size that the ROPS would give. There' s also cache, TMUs and other goodies that take up die space which will likely stay the same more or less. It seems more possible to double the shaders now that I can see how little space they might take.

It would be interesting to have similar die pictures of the 9800GTX and HD3870.

Found a reputable review site that compares a $650 GTX 280 to $400 HD4850 Crossfire.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1470/10/page_10_benchmarks_high_quality_aa_and_af/index.aspx

I linked the only page worth looking at. Insanely high resolutions and AA+AF. The scores speak for themselves. These are with launch drivers too.

ORIGINAL: UnluckyOne

Just overclock it if you really want to do something to it. You' ll be able to hit stupid speeds with a QX.

I did, to 4.0GHz.

I know some people have taken it to like 5.6GHz, but i' m nowhere near experienced enough to be messing about like that.

I' ve read that the QX9650 can be taken 6+ which is insane, ...but i wouldn' t personally risk it.

I was asking because i wasn' t sure whether real world performance in games when running 2 4870' s in Crossfore would be bottlenecked by the CPU i have.

No, in any case you basically have the best, so even if your CPU is a bottleneck you can' t do anything about it.

Uh, ...introducing the 9800GTX+ ...

LINK

New 9800GTX+

Core clock: 738 MHz
Shader clock: 1836 MHz
512MB GDDR3 Memory @ ~1000 MHz

Old (LOL) 9800GTX

Core clock: 675 MHz
Shader clock: 1688 MHz
512MB GDDR3 Memory @ ~1100 MHz



Will they do a GX2+???

A HD 4870 should beat this card. Don' t forget there' s the HD 4870X2 being released in a few months. You could even pair a HD 4870 with a HD 4870X2.

ATI lifted the NDA on the HD 4850s. Reviews are rushing to the surface.

It' s just damage control from Nvidia. They were caught with their pants down and don' t have anything to counter with.

Yeah I' d be much more interested in a 55nm GTX280, that should arrive in in the fall approx. The GTX 280 is a great chip, it' s just too big for it' s own good, clocks are too low. I imaging that a 55nm overclocked GTX 280 would be badass. There are water editions of the GTX 280, here' s an example:

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
Core Clock: 680MHz (vs. 602MHz standard)
Shader Clock: 1458MHz (vs. 1296MHz standard)
Memory Clock: 2450MHz (vs. 2214MHz standard)
Memory Bandwidth: 156.8GB/sec.

The 55nm versions should at least see clocks like these at default with room for overclocking.

if you have a powerful card why upgrade to a slightly more powerfull card? those things arent cheap!

I guess its Human nature to want..

I' m not upgrading to a slightly better card. I' m upgrading to two slightly better cards . Actually a HD 4870 should be a decent upgrade over a 8800GTX. The HD 4850 is a bit better than the 8800GTX. The 4870 is a nice boost over the HD 4850. 20% higher clocks with room for overclocking, twice the memory bandwidth and size.

The 4870 should fit in between the GTX 260 and GTX 280 performance wise.

Part of is wanting to donate my 8800GTX along with my origianl build to replace the family computer. My younger brothers are using integrated, it' s pathetic.

-------------------------------

Edit:

The HD 4850 and HD 4870 actually have 965 million transistors on a 55nm process.
-HD 3870 has 666 million 55nm process.
-8800 GTX has 681 million on a 90nm process.
-GTX 280 has 1400 million on 65nm process.

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

You could even pair a HD 4870 with a HD 4870X2.

Really? I didn' t know that.

I' m very interested in the HD 4870, but i want to know how 2 will perform in the real world versus the GTX 280.

Ok, so i know that the benchmarks and reviews aren' t all in yet, but what are we looking at in terms of performance over the full range from both makers!?

What' s going to be the top end card, the GTX 280??? Or at least the overclocked models by 3rd parties???

What' s going to be the best SLI/CrossFire solution???

Also, is there a single card that would offer increased performance over my BFG 8800 Ultra OC if i wanted an interim solution until the 4870X2 hits???

If you have a Crossfire capable board (either Intel or AMD) then I' d recommend going for it. For its price/performance, Crossfire seems to really be worth it this time around.

Example of it' s impressive scaling:



As you can see, it' s around 90% performance increase with a second card. As it stands now, two 4850' s go toe to toe with the GTX 280, while being $200 cheaper. The 4870 should perform a further 20-30% more.

If you don' t have a Crossfire capable board, just wait for the 4870X2. It' s apparantly not just crossfire on a board either. A better interconnect and perhaps unified memory will probably be a couple of features that increase performance even more than standard crossfire. I have little doubt that it' ll beat the GTX 280.

So far, SLI seems to be getting left in the dust when it comes to scalability.

Really? I didn' t know that.

I' m very interested in the HD 4870, but i want to know how 2 will perform in the real world versus the GTX 280.

Yeah and if you wanted to go nuts you could get three or four HD 4870s. I' m not sure but I think Crossfire X supports up to four graphic cards, and it scales well (much better than SLI). They have to be of the same gen but can be different product numbers.

With SLI if you put three 8800GTXs in SLI they hardly beat two 8800GTX which would only perform about 70% over a single GTX. With three HD 4870s you' d typically get between 200-300% performance boost. Four ATI GPUs scale less efficiently for some reason.

----------------------

The best single card will likely be the HD 4870X2. Hopefully they have them come in 1GB X2 and not just 512MB X2 variants. For now the GTX 280 should beat a HD 4870 in most benchmarks. However, it will be close enough that I' m not convinced two GTX 280s in SLI will destroy two HD 4870s Crossfire as Crossfire is more efficient. ATI will certainly hold a much better value at the very least.

There are tons of benchmarks for the HD 4850 and GTX 280. The HD 4870 should be about 25% better than the 4850 on average (more for the higher resolutions).

GTX 280:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-gtx-280,1953.aspx
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-review-test/
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/7972-evga-geforce-gtx-280-1gb-superclocked-review.aspx
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1464/
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/gpu_displays/nvidia_gtx_280_performance_revealed_-_msi_n280gtx/1
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Point_Of_View/GeForce_GTX_280
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1293
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/unveiled_nvidias_next_gen_gpu
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=579&pageid=2
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=577&type=expert


HD 4850:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/730/1/
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2320904,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4850/
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1470/radeon_hd_4850_in_crossfire_at_4ghz/index.aspx
http://guru3d.com/article/amd-ati-radeon-hd-4850-review-force-3d--powercolor/
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=579
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ATI-Radeon-4850,5705.aspx

The 4870 is looking really good at the moment. GDDR5 gives a nice performance increase. Faster than the GTX 260 and about 10-20% slower than the GTX 280. It may also be limited by only have 512MB of GDDR5 vs 1GB of GDDR3 in the GTX 280. Not bad for a card that' s about half the price.

Overall I' m far more impressed with what ATI has brought to the table than what Nvidia has this time around. I' ve worked out that over the past every purchase of mine goes Nvidia -> ATI -> Nvida -> ATI -> etc. So I guess it was due this time around.

Interesting architecture overview here. It shows all of the changes and reasons ATI can pack so much into 260mm^2.
http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/atirv770/architecture/

In a few games the HD 4870 actually beats the GTX 280.

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

I read a few reviews last night, Anandtech impresses again. I think the reviews are written by engineers. I always learn something by reading their stuff. They even have a few 4870 crossfire benches.

The Rage3d made a great one too.

I' m pretty sure I' ll be picking up two HD 4870s 1GB and I' ll overclock. They kill the GTX 280 for about the same money. The GTX 260 is useless at that price range. The HD 4870 beats it in most cases and is 100$ less.

Majik to answer your original question of the best graphic solution. If you want two cards two GTX 280s are usually stronger than two HD 4870s. Three GTX 280s are even better, although I wouldn' t get three if I were you. For people with limited budgets the HD 4870 rapes the GTX 280 in price/performance. ATI will steal the performance crown from Nvidia with the HD 4870X2 in a few months.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7904.aspx

It seems like Blizzard will use 10.1. Not only with future games like SC2, but they may patch current games as well. Great news for ATI.

Meanwhile Nvidia seems to be doing interesting stuff with CUDA. CUDA is starting to look like the beginning of the end of the CPU, Intel is scared. Pretty soon the only use a CPU will have is to feed the GPU.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=187&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=0