HD 4870 vs GTX 260: My Experience

[bridgman]

Yep, I think that should be OK. Just make sure the +12 is only split across a couple of rails, ie if it has 5 +12V outputs each capable of 8A then that wouldn't work so well.

[Fixxer_Linux]

For my experience of my HD4870 with fglrx 9.3, I can say that :
fglrx is a nightmare with Wine apps. To solve that particular topic, I bought a new hard drive (30 €) on which I'll put windows. It'll be reserved for running games from editors that don't even know the meanning of "linux". They probably think that linux is a sort of penguin threatened of extinction and therefore should be taken care by WWF (not the catchers but the ecologists ). Far cry 2 will be the first example.

fglrx gives tearing in videos, unless you select acceleration with opengl. This way, you don't get tearing.

fglrx makes run smooth ut2004, but, after all, it a 2004 game. It also makes runs smooth Quake Wars, which is more demanding game by the way. I mean that on a 1920*1200 resolution, not 1024*768. It's real demanding gaming conditions !

fglrx is annoying because I'm stucked @ 9.3 version : Gentoo stable is blocking fglrx 9.6 if xorg-server > 1.5.2-r7 is not installed. All those upcoming versions are marked as unstable (amd64). I also believe that 9.6 can't run with newer 2.6.29 and 2.6.30 kernels, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, the fglrx upgrades are not as fast as ATI is issuing the monthly releases but the fault is also half in the guys who are mainting the distro.

I really like more power management in fglrx control panel, but perhaps is there other ways to achieve that. Nvidia wasn't much more advanced on that particular topic (for old 2004 nvidia 6800 GT).

All in all, I'm rather happy with fglrx and ATI HD4870, but the goal is one day to run fully on open-source drivers. This day will come sooner or later but meanwhile, I really fglrx could be more optimized for linux (even if there is a huge work done by AMD for stabilizing and optimizing it).

[Jaguar07]

Sorry you were the victim twice of ATi.

I stopped buying ATi cards when they stopped making solutions for gamers the first time in 1996 or so. They actually had a press release that year that said something to the effect that they didn't need to make video cards for gamers anymore, they were quite pleased to have the market share advantage for business class onboard video solutions.

I've used Nvidia exclusively ever since.

[Melcar]

Sorry you were the victim twice of ATi.

I stopped buying ATi cards when they stopped making solutions for gamers the first time in 1996 or so. They actually had a press release that year that said something to the effect that they didn't need to make video cards for gamers anymore, they were quite pleased to have the market share advantage for business class onboard video solutions.

I've used Nvidia exclusively ever since.

Never heard that one. I think what you mean is their decision to not compete directly with nvidia in the high end market and instead focus on more affordable single solutions. That actually played out to their advantage since their cards ended up being so cheap compared to nvidia's that it was possible for people to pair up two cards and match the performance of nvidia's high end without going broke.

[Jaguar07]

Never heard that one. I think what you mean is their decision to not compete directly with nvidia in the high end market and instead focus on more affordable single solutions. That actually played out to their advantage since their cards ended up being so cheap compared to nvidia's that it was possible for people to pair up two cards and match the performance of nvidia's high end without going broke.

I'm referring to the time approximately between 1996 and May of 2000 when ATi concentrated on consumer video devices. May of 2000 is when ATi came back to the game with the first Radeon release. When 3DFX was acquired by Nvidia, it left a huge vacuum regarding a quality gaming video card that performed. It actually was a vacuum filled by Nvidia. It worked to Nvidia's advantage much more than ATi. ATi had been in the video card manufacturing business long before Nvidia borrowed CGI systems design and started to make video cards of their own. ATi was around in the early days. When ATi was acquired by AMD, that ended the lesson. ATi is now just another label owned by someone else just like 3DFX.

[monte84]

Using a MSI 4870 here, phenom 9850. have tried both 32bit version of debian and ubuntu. I used to get tearing, but that seem to no longer be much of an issue. HL2/CS:S work fine, hvaent played WoW but I could not get Warcraft 3 to play. CoD4 *works*, with major graphical issues. I also use two monitors, a 22inch widescreen and a 19inch widescreen. To note, for windows, do not try and use CCC to setup two monitors, set it up through windows display manager. Xinerama and BigDesktop both worked flawlessly after I disbaled RandR12 support.

[energyman]

gts 250 - isn't that a renamed 9600?

[deanjo]

gts 250 - isn't that a renamed 9600?

Nope, it's a 9800 GTX+.

[energyman]

Nope, it's a 9800 GTX+.

you mean, renamend 8800GTS...

[AdrenalineJunky]

you mean, renamend 8800GTS...

basically, there are slight differences, the 9800GTX+ has higher clock speed then the 8800, and uses a 55nm die. the GTS 250 has a larger framebuffer then the 9800GTX+