9800GX2 or GTX280?

9800GX2;)

You should read flaccus post in the other 280gtx (sorry its the 4850 thread) thread. It basically says that at very high resolutions the gtx pulls away from the gx2. I dont think any reviews have said that the gx2 is 'way' better. I'd also 'hope' that with drivers the new gtx will get better. 'hope'. Do you need to change right away if you can wait a little for new drivers it'd be worth it just to know for sure.

Man if they had just stuck some ddr5 on the gtx there'd be no question, oh well.

Post number ten here.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=56323132#post56323132

L31mr0d wrote: »

Going to be getting a new graphics card and wondering which would be the best buy. I'm not going to have this card installed on an SLI mobo so that's out of the window. It will also need to run games at 1980x1200.

I was set on the GTX280 until I read this review which says 9800GX2 is pretty much better at everything.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/gpu_displays/nvidia_gtx_280_performance_revealed_-_msi_n280gtx/1

Without SLI support is there any point getting the GTX280 over the GX2? Considering the GX2 is actually cheaper

Bare in mind flaccus posted this a while back....

Flaccus wrote: »

Having said all that benches are not everything, and I read with interest what this person had to say about the GTX 280's superior bandwidth and extra memory against a GX2 which he also owns :
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=17888181

Although lots of sites are showing the GTX 280 being beaten out by the GX2 this person found :

> Certain games now have quicker loading times, especially Unreal Engine 3 based games (like Mass Effect, about 50% faster loading)

> More complex games with high res textures have less random paulsing, from things caused by hard drive paging and so on (Oblivion, Mass Effect, Crysis and so on...)

Personally would go with 4780 or a cheap GTX260 (€320)

l31m, what's your current setup. I just went for the 4870 but i really need a new card as i have an x1950pro so i'm looking forward to seeing some kick ass improvements. If you've got 8800gtx or similar i'd really wait for the 4870x2.

Flaccus wrote: »

I think the 4870 is a good bet too. Maybe wait a little while for the 1gig one ?

I have spoken to people that have them and even at idle the fan is a bit whiney. The GTX 280 wins out in this regard and has some superb power management. Very quiet when idle. Both cards in my opinion are noisy when gaming though, but at least with the 4870 that can be quickly sorted with a HR-03-GT. But that may then limit your ability to go crossfire due to the sheer size of some of these aftermarket coolers.

Also another minus on the the GTX 280 is that it is suffering from downclock issues in some games, thanks to the new power saving modes they added..this is believed to be caused by the drivers. The card can clock down to 300mhz during periods in a game where there is not much going on, only for it to stutter when trying to clock back up. Only a few games have this issue. And Nvidia/EVGA are working on a fix.

gig version comming early in july , ones been spotted pre order on the 8th of july , you can wrap the hr-03 around one of the cards so crossfire isnt a problem.

I just bought 1 of each so will let you know next week

4870 and GTX.

Already have GX2's and anyone on EVGA forums who has had both the GX2 and a GTX has reported that the GTX feels much smoother in gaming despite benches showing the GX2 ahead in some areas In fact if you look at reviews like Anandtech they show 2x8800gt cards in sli (current setup) matching and even beating a GX2 and a GTX. But most of these sites use canned benches and don't talk about microstuttering in sli, how the framrate varies during the game, or what happens when a card with a ddr3 memory and 256bit bus/512meg ram reaches it's limit at 1920x1200 with lots of AA. HardOCP on the other hand use real world benches and demonstrate this perfectly. Their benches monitor in game frame rate fluctuations to get an idea of what is playable and what is not, and they have noticed that the GTX even outpeforms 2 x 9800gtx's in sli at high res with aa.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUxOCw1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

The GTX is leading the field therefore as the fastest single card. It also consumes less power then the 8800 GTX at idle (over 30 watts less), and lies in between the 8800GTX and GX2/3870X2 for power consumption under load. However there remains 2 issues. Some people have reported their 280's climbing to 105 degrees within seconds and the core clocks backing down to 300, or in some cases artifacting and even hanging. The minority though. The more common issue is the card can sometimes throttle down to 2d speeds in games (similar to what happened with ATI powerplay). But again it depends on the game and not everyone is seeing this issue. It's clearly tied to the new power management in this card whose drivers can dynamically change clock and voltage levels to mimimise power draw. (hence the low power usage at idle). But this is a known problem that Nvidia/ATI said they are working on, and already people have reported success with the latest whql driver.

Power consumption on GTX 280
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/726/20/

GTX Downclocking and/or Throttling
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=421769


Having said that, their is also a consensus that the new ATI card over using DDR5 and having more efficient texture compression can make up for having only 512meg ram/256 bit bus, and canned benches have shown it outperform the GTX 260 and come within 15% of the GTX 280. HardOCP have backed this up as well with regards to the 4870 offering higher playable framerates then the GTX 260. But still behind the GTX 280. Also the ATI is very loud under load, and it's like the fan does nothing until the gpu gets very very hot. It doesn't seem to have the intelligent power save modes like nividia has. Also, according to users on the forums at OCUK, the fan even at idle is irritating, requiring the need for an aftermarket cooler. Still a hell of a lot cheaper the the GTX 280 and if offering 85% of the performance could very well be the card to have.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUyNCw1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

So the question for me is which card do I keep, and which card do I return. That is why I bought both.

Days of ripping myself off are over..from today that is

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=61084



They all have good overclock potential so far. The evga preoverlocked once seem to do a bit better as are cherry picked cores.

Flaccus wrote: »

4870 and GTX.

Already have GX2's and anyone on EVGA forums who has had both the GX2 and a GTX has reported that the GTX feels much smoother in gaming despite benches showing the GX2 ahead in some areas In fact if you look at reviews like Anandtech they show 2x8800gt cards in sli (current setup) matching and even beating a GX2 and a GTX. But most of these sites use canned benches and don't talk about microstuttering in sli, how the framrate varies during the game, or what happens when a card with a ddr3 memory and 256bit bus/512meg ram reaches it's limit at 1920x1200 with lots of AA.

So the question for me is which card do I keep, and which card do I return. That is why I bought both.

From my own experience I found the GX2 to be a very disappointing card, reviews showed it/still show it be a much better card than the 8800gtx/ultra, but I found the opposite to be true.Only 2 games I play needed that power ( Crysis, Dirt ) and both played much smoother on my 8800gtx (Which I sold and then went on to trade GX2 for 2 x 8800gtx )


I like the look of the Gtx260/HD4870, but not much of a step up over single 8800gtx.

My 8800gtx can be overclocked well past Ultra frequencies, while HD4870 cant be overclocked without dying apparently, I may get Gtx 260 when they drop near 4870 price and overclock them to Gtx 280 frequencies.

Why did you sell your GTX 280 without testing it Flaccus, anyone that has used one says they are much better than the bad rep suggests?

Gtx260 for €267 should be your next purchase imo, Im going to get one when they drop nearer 200 and overclock the **** out of it.

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/3/articledetail.jsp?aid=22296&agid=554