whats the best gfx card for around the £200 mark , i am looking on spending this on tuesday . max res i play at is 1680x1050 , the 3 i have been looking at is the 4870 - gtx260 or the 3870x2 . i need at least 2 years warrenty but more the better , i would like it to last me a while . how much does the extra ram help the gtx260  ?

Im running a Sapphire 4870 because all the reviews showed it was an even pick between the 260 and 4870 depending on the games you play.  However the 4870 was cheaper.  Thanks to TekHeads for having them in-stock at the time

Ill agree with beaker. The 4870 is a monster, and has got even more going for it if you have a crossfire mobo

one of the lads I work with was sceptical about them, then his 512Mb 8800GT blew.

i ended up with the sapphire 4870 and what a monster it is , @ 1680x1050 on high in crysis i get an average of 39-42 fps . in bioshock with 16x af and 8x aa (forced aa) @ 1680x1050 i never get below 65fps , makes the 3870 look slow (this is what the 3870 should have been)

which is why I love my 4850

got 1000fps in WoW the other day. On maximum settings.

Quote from: chaotic_uki ended up with the sapphire 4870 and what a monster it is , @ 1680x1050 on high in crysis i get an average of 39-42 fps . in bioshock with 16x af and 8x aa (forced aa) @ 1680x1050 i never get below 65fps , makes the 3870 look slow (this is what the 3870 should have been)

Good arent they?  Much better than expected.

Quote from: Beaker

Quote from: chaotic_uki ended up with the sapphire 4870 and what a monster it is , @ 1680x1050 on high in crysis i get an average of 39-42 fps . in bioshock with 16x af and 8x aa (forced aa) @ 1680x1050 i never get below 65fps , makes the 3870 look slow (this is what the 3870 should have been)

Good arent they?  Much better than expected.

you can say that again  

...Im planning a upgrade/rebuild (cherry-pick) of my systems, and would love to get close to those FPS you guys are quoting!

I would really like to know what the spec is for the systems youre running with the 4870?

M/Board ?
CPU ?
RAM ?
HDD ?

Quote from: dogbert...Im planning a upgrade/rebuild (cherry-pick) of my systems, and would love to get close to those FPS you guys are quoting!

I would really like to know what the spec is for the systems youre running with the 4870?

M/Board ?
CPU ?
RAM ?
HDD ?

Mine is about 18 Months old, so a little less powerful than some.
M-Board :: ECS   A770M-A (replacement for Asus board that had dead sound)
CPU :: AMD 6000+
RAM :: 4Gb of cheapy (6000+ only runs at 750Mhz on the FSB, so expensive RAM is actually a waste I found when I tried it.  No better timings for much more money)
HDD :: 2x120Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA in Striped RAID. + 250Gb SATA for storage
GFX :: Sapphire ATi HD4870, plugged into the PCI 2.0 slot (does make a slight difference ive found)

Quote from: chaotic_uki ended up with the sapphire 4870 and what a monster it is , @ 1680x1050 on high in crysis i get an average of 39-42 fps . in bioshock with 16x af and 8x aa (forced aa) @ 1680x1050 i never get below 65fps , makes the 3870 look slow (this is what the 3870 should have been)

Some nice FPS you're getting in Crysis

Can you do me a favour and run a VGA benchmark or 2?
http://www.hocbench.com/crysis.php

I normally run it at 1920x1200 at medium to high settings, but here are the results I got at the same res as you used @ 1680x1050:


Quality: Very High (with tweaks), 1680x1050

QuoteThe benchmark started at 11/08/2008 13:53:08
System Information
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
System memory: 4.0 GB
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
CPU speed: 4000 MHz
Sound system: SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio [8C00]
VGA Information
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Memory: 768.0 MB
Driver version: 6.14.0011.7516 (English)
VGA benchmark information
Demo: Crytek Built-in
Quality: Very High (with tweaks)
Renderer mode: DirectX 9
Antialising mode: Off
Filtering mode: None
MultiGPU support: Disabled
Boost renderer: Disabled
Use Custom Config File: No
Random .exe: Disabled
Resolution: 1680 × 1050 (Custom)
Result(1):   Minimum= 12 FPS     Average= 16 FPS     Max= 20 FPS

Quality: High, 1680x1050

QuoteThe benchmark started at 11/08/2008 13:56:01
System Information
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
System memory: 4.0 GB
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
CPU speed: 4020 MHz
Sound system: SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio [8C00]
VGA Information
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Memory: 768.0 MB
Driver version: 6.14.0011.7516 (English)
VGA benchmark information
Demo: Crytek Built-in
Quality: High
Renderer mode: DirectX 9
Antialising mode: Off
Filtering mode: None
MultiGPU support: Disabled
Boost renderer: Disabled
Use Custom Config File: No
Random .exe: Disabled
Resolution: 1680 × 1050 (Custom)
Result(1):   Minimum= 24 FPS     Average= 30 FPS     Max= 38 FPS

I'm quite shocked how low my FPS is tbh  , it always feels more when I'm playing the game, so I'm wondering if it's the benchmark giving a low score rather than reflecting real game performance? maybe time to bite the bullet and get a another 8800 for some SLI action, I was going to wait till Far Cry 2 comes out

how loud are the 48xxs though ?

Quote from: evilslyhow loud are the 48xxs though ?

noisy, but less so than the 260 my mate has in his case (utter nVidia fanboy, bought it on release day).  Its on a par with the overclocked x1950XTX I was using for a while.

Quote from: Beakernoisy, but less so than the 260 my mate has in his case (utter nVidia fanboy, bought it on release day).  Its on a par with the overclocked x1950XTX I was using for a while.

Has anyone replaced the stock cooler for a quieter solution, if so what was it?  

Quote from: dogbertHas anyone replaced the stock cooler for a quieter solution, if so what was it?  

not yet.  Im waiting a couple of months myself to do that.  I dont want a lash-up job, I want to wait until someone brings out the dedicated 4000 series coolers.  Mine sits at at 45-50*C on idle, and climbs to 70*C under load.  Rather warm, but it isnt too hot.