Graphics 4870X2 vs 280 GTX AMP! Ed.

Here is a quicke, I need a new high end card, help me choose one!

ZOTAC 280 GTX AMP! Ed, 700 mhz core,
or
Sapphire 4870x2

Pricing (best I could find)

ZOTAC 280 GTX AMP! Ed - 305

Sapphire 4870x2- 319

Cheers!

 

4870x2 for sure

 

I guess 4870X2 is the fastest on the absolute scale, but personally I just don't like the solutions with multiple GPUs glued together. Does that matter at all? Maybe, maybe not, that's just me. Not like I would ever pay that much for graphic card anyway.

 

If you're going to be running insanely high resolutions, and have the monitor to back it up (resolution wise) the HD 4870 X2 will be a much better long-term investment. However, as bit-tech's bench's have shown, the 280GTX is able to match the X2 under certain conditions (at lower resolutions). If you simply want to know "which is better" the X2 is a better piece of technology, plus ATI is Canadian so I'm a bit pro-ATI Read over Bit-Tech's in-depth bench and make your own calls.

 

It depends what size screen you use... If its a 19" or less, a standard 4870 will be fine.

OcUK have GTX 280's for £244, which is a good price... However, the 4870 X2's price should fall in the coming weeks... Then again, there is supposed to be a GTX380/GTX280 GX2 coming soon.

 

reply

cheers for your suggestions. im kinda swinging towards the 280 gtx at the mo, as i think physx could have promise and Nvidia seem to have a stranglehold on the GPGPU market. any more suggestions?

 

Sorry, no. It's owned by AMD, and they are not Canadian.

 

ATI Technologies Inc. *merged* with AMD, and ATI continues to be headquartered in Markham, Ontario, Canada and *continues* to regularly hire/employee new staff at their Ottawa and Toronto offices. Being merged with another company doesn't make you something else. Nissan is a Japanese automaker, and yet Renault a French company has controlling states... does that make Nissan, French? No it doesn't.

Excerpt for those too lazy to find it themselves:
"ATI's rose to prominence on its cofounder and longtime CEO Kwok Yuan Ho. He was born in China in 1950, the son of a teacher, and grew up in a family where money was tight. Nevertheless, he was able to attend the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, where in 1974 he received a degree in electrical engineering. For the next decade he worked in Hong Kong for electronics companies, including National Semiconductor Corp., Philips Electronics, and Control Data Systems. Ho was involved in a wide range of areas--engineering, quality assurance, manufacturing, purchasing, and general management--providing him with a thorough knowledge of the industry. In October 1983, while on vacation, he paid a visit to Canada and fell in love with Toronto as well as his future wife. A year later he applied for immigrant status, but despite his experience in the technology sector he had a difficult time finding work. As a result, he joined forces with two other recent Hong Kong immigrants, Lee Lau and Benny Lau. They pooled their resources, raised CAD 300,000 in a bank loan, and in August 1985 launched their own company (ATI) to produce graphics cards, and the graphics chips that powered them, for personal computers."

Last time I checked, Toronto was *IN FACT* in Canada. Please learn to research first, before you make blatantly wrong statements in the future.

 

ATI is not in the Canadian stock market anymore
Look for yourself: http://www.tsx.com/

 

The most un-cheesecake post I've read today, sad

 

I fail to see how a company not being listed on the TSX, has anything to do with the fact that IT IS STILL located in Canada. A quick check on AMD's website and their corporate investments page clearly states: "ATI common shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY). ".

 

I got a 4870x2! w00t! Cheers for the advice and speculation over ATI's stock status! XD

 

Congrats! Are you going to watercool it, or modify the reference card in any way?

 

what? why not gtx280 at £250? why did you go for 4870x2?

gtx280 is always much more powerful whereas you have to deal with driver issues with 4870x2. it'd only be more powerful than gtx280 if ATI is feeling nice and gives you a optimised driver for your game

 

Well, the particular 280 I wanted, the Zotac AMP! Edition, (which is substantially overclocked BTW), is apparently impossible to get hold of, so they offered me a different card. I choose the 4870x2, but it was £380 on the CCL site, but I found a better price at Misco.co.uk at £320, only 15 quid more than the 280 gtx AMP! I told CCL this over the phone and they knocked of the £60 difference, so this was too good an offer to refuse.

In response to Jasio, H20 cooling is a luxury I cant afford at the moment, but it is on my to-do list, along with a pair of powerline networking plugs and a 24 inch monitor, (I'm stuck with a borrowed 17" at the moment).

Oh, and a Killer NIC. XD

 

why does the expensive pre-overclocked version so important to you?

 

it's a luxury he can afford

 

*looks at cash pile next to me* Oh yeah.

 

hehe:

 

You can overclock it yourself, don't pay extra for it