Gts 250 vs ati 4870 (New Gaming Build)

[Mysts]

Ive heard good reviews on the 4870, And its in the price range of below 200 dollars.
Buh, ive also seen one or two reviews for the GTS 250 which seems to go toe to toe.

My question is, what card is the best out of these two or better than these that i can get below 170 dollars?

I had the ASUS dark knight 4870 picked out already. But it deactived on newegg.

Here is the build so far
|COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119196

ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131366

AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor Model HDX945WFGIBOX - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103696

OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (The Official ... - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227337 x2

OCZ Fatal1ty OCZ550FTY 550W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341022

and im not sure if i should up the Power supply wattage? should i post that question elsewhere?

[ryuk999]

The GTS 250 seems to be about $20-$40 cheaper than the 4870. But the GTS 250, to me, seems to have faster memory (is it 1100mghz memory because it's really 2200mghz effective?) than the 4870 900mghz, although the 4870 does have GDDR5 and the GTS 250 only has GDDR3 ^^. Overall I'd go with the GTS 250 because you can save a few bucks for something relatively close in overal performance.

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by ryuk999 The GTS 250 seems to be about $20-$40 cheaper than the 4870. But the GTS 250, to me, seems to have faster memory (is it 1100mghz memory because it's really 2200mghz effective?) than the 4870 900mghz, although the 4870 does have GDDR5 and the GTS 250 only has GDDR3 ^^. Overall I'd go with the GTS 250 because you can save a few bucks for something relatively close in overal performance.

The GTS250 is a good amount slower than the HD4870; the HD4850 is comparable to the GTS250. The HD4870 has faster memory (900MHz quad pumped = 3600MHz) whereas teh GTS250 has 1100MHz dual pumped (2200MHz). The HD4870 also has better features such as DX10.1, shader model 4.1 (GTS250 has DX10.0 and shader model 4.0), and better video decoding with UVD2.

In terms of price, they are about the same, good quality brand of GTS250 (512MB) is about $125 or higher which is the same as the 512MB version of the HD4870. The 1GB version of the HD4870 costs about $150 but is more futureproof and has better performance at higher resolution.

Here are a few reviews comparing the GTS250 with the HD4870 (and other cards; you can google more reviews and the results will be similar):
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16504/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-250,2172.html
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ew/default.asp


Regarding the power supply, 550W with a good brand like OCZ is enough and will provide some headroom.

[Mysts]

Thank you very much..thank you alot.

I went with the sapphire 4870 at 160 dollars. I like the way it looks, plus sapphire never given me an issue. I think i have the 4650 in an old hp right now.

Also, i updated the powersupply to an Antec 650w