K so both of these cards stock are about the same price on newegg. I've been doing tons of research for about a week now and still cant decide which one of these babies to choose from. I find so many benchmarks where they compare the 4870 to the gtx 260/280 and since the 9800gx2 seems to be an older card, I cant find much comparing 4870 to the 9800gx2 ....

I'm hoping that the small amount of benchmarks I did find aren't just talking about the XFX version of the 9800 gx2 Which then wouldn't matter and I'd stick with the radeon 4870. (the 9800gx2 dominates games like mass effect it seems, and strangely is ahead of top cards in other places as well)

So question is, which one of these cards is better? I'm planing on playing lots of fps which is my main reason to upgrade. (Crysis, UT3, half life 2 episode 2, quake 4, some mass effect and will be interested in Fear 2 and Half Life 3 whenever they end up coming out as well.)

Here's my 2 chosen cards .....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814133231


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814103064 (These cards welcome to criticism )

Also if anybody knows where I could get the 8 pin adapter for the power supply that connects the 9800gx2 to the PSU because the Power supple I've chosen only has 2 6 pin connections. THanks

9800gx2 pretty much blows away a single 4870 in terms of performance.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=13
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=14
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=16
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=17
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=18
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=19

Don't worry, that card comes with 8-pin adaptors in the package. See picture.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Show [...] -%20Retail
As long as your psu has the wattage to power it, it'll run.

All stock 9800gx2 performs the same, regardless of brand.

Keep in mind that 9800gx2 is labeled "9/11 one day sale," prices will increase if you don't order today.

Price will only go up $10, nothing to sneeze at for those that aren't made of money, but still cheaper than the 4870 by that amount + shipping on the 4870.

Its still almost 20 cheaper(30 if you get it today).

Also something they neglect to mention in the specs for the GX2

* Don't ask, PNY doesn't say what it means

They're erring on the side of caution (which is the right thing to do). This way they don't get complaints from noobs with small psus.

Actual system power consumptions is quite a bit lower.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=22

Total system power consumption under load for 9800gx2 is still higher than 4870 though, 289.2 compared to 278.6 watts.

Oh right, i realize its actually lower...my PSU should struggle with my setup if i went by recommended Wattage and Amperage, mine's 34A combined on 2 rails.

I just threw it in there since Newegg doesn't list it.

edited, I misspelled Amperage...had it ampage at first.

lol wow, those have to be the most biased benchmarks I've ever seen. They only show the ones where the 9800gx2 wins .... (high res matches with no AA, AF filters) Isn't AA and AF a good thing?

Crysis, Assassin's Creed, and Bioshock use no AA, but do include AF that comes with preset settings. All other use both AA and AF, on high resolutions.

Read carefully. 9800gx2 outperforms 4870 with or without AA, with or without AF, and at the wide range of resolutions tested, only in different amounts. The gap is far too large for it to make enough difference to upset overall performance.

if you've got an nvidia motherboard go with the 9800gx2, but if you think DX10.1 is going to be prominent in games and you've got any other motherboard go with the 4780

That's not quite right. Quad sli/cf scales horribly, so you won't get enough of a performance increase with 2nd 9800gx2 to justify twice the cost. No need for sli motherboard, it won't be useful anyway.

Only Assassin's Creed use 10.1 right now, nothing else. It's been out for a while now, and still not widely adopted. Studios of future blockbuster titles like Crysis Warhead and Starcraft 2 have specifically stated that they will not support dx10.1. From the looks of things, dx10.1 will likely be skipped over to dx11.

Dagger, this guy that reviewed the card on this page:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814133231

says that he had to purchase the converter separately

"Cons: Does NOT come with PCIE 6-pin to 8-pin converter. BFG and XFX include this with their products; I was forced to purchase seperatly."


I also cannot identify it in the package contents

VCG98GX2XPB-OC
Driver Disk
User's Manual
Power Cable
DVI to VGA/D-sub Adapter
S/PDIF Cable

go to http://www.slizone.com/page/home.html and see if your PSU needs the adapter.

As for quad, you get atleast 30% scaling in every game I'd say its worth it, since it makes Crysis playable at a higher resolution.


40(single) vs 70(quad) for me.

Lol, strange that they show it in picture of package contents. False advertising.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Show [...] -%20Retail

The adapter is pretty cheap though, doesn't really make much of an impact on bottom line, just annoying to buy separately.
http://www.google.com/products?q=8 [...] en&show=dd

Well, 9800gx2 quad sli still outperforms 4870 dual sli, but that's really only because the existing gap between single 9800gx2 and 4870 is so huge already that it can't be overshoot despite the handicap. The amount of increase is small for twice the cost.