Well no dual cards means you're not constrained by chipset support of SLI vs.
Crossfire. Not going dual I think is a mistake, and not getting an X2 model a bigger
mistake given how demanding new games like Crysis are. This also leaves an option to
go with a second X2 down the road.
Personally for gaming I'd be getting a 4870X2 over anything from NV, like I've
already did buying the 3870X2 a few months back. The VisionTek model I have I can not
hear since it's internally cooled, caveat is you need a well ventilated case. Since I
have 24cm side fan on a roomy TT Armor case I have no noise nor cooling issues.
ATI fan issues are still around AFAIK, not everyone has 'em and seem to be related to
non-certified designs that copied a flawed BBA model. Since Visiontek has no issue I
switched to them from Sapphire.
Brian Weeden wrote:
I'm upgrading the video card in my gaming rig and have the choice narrowed
down to two in my price range, the Nvidia GTX 260 or ATI HD 4870. Both seem
to score fairly identical in most benchmarks so I guess the decision might
come down to extras. For me, noise and cooling are a big issue. My PC case
is right next to my desk in my office and I can't stand loud fans. What's
the experience from the group with either of these cards and fan noise vs
temp?
I am leaning towards the 260 because I have heard better things about their
drivers as opposed to ATI's. My last 3 cards have all been ATIs and while
they have served me very well in terms of hardware I've always had some sort
of issue with the driver. For example, x1950 I currently am using doesn't
seem to be able to control the fan speed properly using the ATI Tool so I
have to manually set it high for gaming and low otherwise.
I don't plan on going dual cards if that makes a difference between the two.
----
Brian
