Video Card Question

[omalak]

Here is my issue..

Back in August i sent in my Palit HD4870 ATi card in for RMA, it had severe issues. card was accepted by Palit a week later

Since then i have not received my replacement card, about 30-40 emails later someone from Palit is finally addressing my problem.


They are having trouble sourcing a 4870 based card for me due to the fact that they have no inventory left.

So they have offered to give me an NVIDIA GTS 250 1GB card
My original card was the ATI 4870 512mb card

How does the GTS 250 tack up against the 4870?

I am hessitant on acepting the nvidia because:

1. I have anothr 4870 with which i wanted to run a crossfire setup
2. I am an ATI fanboy

I can wait god knows how long to get a 4870, or what i could do is accept the Nvidia GTS 250 sell it off and use the money to buy a used 4870..

Opinions?

[Jest3r]

Kinda weird that they'd be offering a Nvidia card when you purchased an ATI one... I'm running the ATI 4870 and loving it.

Unless it was a 260 GTX I wouldn't take it.

The gpu equivalent to the 4870 is the 260, so unless they fork THAT over I wouldn't bite.

[Fish]

Agreed. The 250 is a sub-par card compared to the 4870. You really should be getting a GTX275 or, if necessary, the 260.

I was considering the 4870 earlier this year myself, and from what I remember, the GTX275 has the same performance in most cases.

[omalak]

yeah I love my 4870

I still have one running , that's why i am hoping they can send me back a 4870. I want to crossfire them...

I never was a fan of Nvidia

I replied back asking them to send me an ATi model i had a Sonic Dual edition from Palit which meant it was overclocked by stock. But i told them i would settle for a stock speed 4870 as well.. I just want my damn crossfire!:bang

[SilentJay]

^^^ Is that going to work though? Same chipset, different core speeds?

[omalak]

^^^ Is that going to work though? Same chipset, different core speeds?

yeah it will work.. what happens though is that when in crossfire mode, the faster clock will downclock itself to match the speed of the other card.

Theres not much diff though, the sonic edition which i RMA'd had a 25mhz o/c on the core and 50 or 100mhz on the mem

[Jest3r]

What are your total specs? Sounds like a sexy rig.

[Fuman]

tomshardware.com to compare performance. There are other sites, but toms is the one I use. Go to charts page.

[sadd16]

RMA services should offer a board that is of equivalent performance or an upgrade. Tell them you don't want an nvidia board and see if they can upgrade you to the next ATI product. Possibly the 4870 X2. I wouldn't have gone with Palit if I was going to buy ATI products though. I would have gone with the other guys like Sapphire, Visiontek, Powercolor.

[omalak]

Went with Palit, becasue it waas the cheapest when the 4870 came out. I got a good deal on NCIX. it was one of the few non-OEM based vid card designs. it was factory o/c'd and it had displayport and had a massive cooler

anyhow, i emailed them stating i want a 4870 equiv from ATi, not nvidia. lets see what happens..

My System is fairly old, but when i make my systems i invest is a good mobo to ensure future upgradability. So far so good, system is over 2 years old and still competes pretty well.


My setup is as follow

Asus P5W DH Deluxe 975x chipset
Intel E6400 2.2 ghz chip (thinking about upgrading this)
Tuniq Tower cooler
Corsair 750watt PSU
Patriot 2x2gb 1066 DDR2 sticks
640gb WD Black 7200rpm HD 32mb
500gb Seagate 7200rpm HD 32mb
Leadtek Winfast TV Tuner
Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
ATi 4870 512mb GDDR5
ATi 4870 512mb (dead in RMA)
Antec 1200 Case
19 inch samsung lcd
Logitech Z5500 5.1 Speakers
Logitech G51 Gaming Keyboard
Razer copperhead mouse



Running both Windows 7 and Moc OSX

did i miss anything? lol..

so really its not the newest, but it still competes :) i'm happy with it

[sadd16]

your cpu/mobo will definitely be holding back this video card's potential. why don't u see if Palit will take both 4870s back for a single 4870 x2?

[Jest3r]

Went with Palit, becasue it waas the cheapest when the 4870 came out. I got a good deal on NCIX. it was one of the few non-OEM based vid card designs. it was factory o/c'd and it had displayport and had a massive cooler

anyhow, i emailed them stating i want a 4870 equiv from ATi, not nvidia. lets see what happens..

My System is fairly old, but when i make my systems i invest is a good mobo to ensure future upgradability. So far so good, system is over 2 years old and still competes pretty well.


My setup is as follow

Asus P5W DH Deluxe 975x chipset
Intel E6400 2.2 ghz chip (thinking about upgrading this)
Tuniq Tower cooler
Corsair 750watt PSU
Patriot 2x2gb 1066 DDR2 sticks
640gb WD Black 7200rpm HD 32mb
500gb Seagate 7200rpm HD 32mb
Leadtek Winfast TV Tuner
Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
ATi 4870 512mb GDDR5
ATi 4870 512mb (dead in RMA)
Antec 1200 Case
19 inch samsung lcd
Logitech Z5500 5.1 Speakers
Logitech G51 Gaming Keyboard
Razer copperhead mouse



Running both Windows 7 and Moc OSX

did i miss anything? lol..

so really its not the newest, but it still competes :) i'm happy with it


That's a reaaaally nice setup. Razer makes quality gamer gear as well, I'm picking up a new keyboard and mouse soon, time to upgrade the oldies.

[omalak]

your cpu/mobo will definitely be holding back this video card's potential. why don't u see if Palit will take both 4870s back for a single 4870 x2?

The other 4870 is non palit lol

Mobo/cpu might hold me back, but my monitor cant go any higher than 1440x900. So at that res i shouldnt reallt be bottle necked., only if i go higher i think.. Which i cant anyways without upgrading my lcd

[sadd16]

The other 4870 is non palit lol

Mobo/cpu might hold me back, but my monitor cant go any higher than 1440x900. So at that res i shouldnt reallt be bottle necked., only if i go higher i think.. Which i cant anyways without upgrading my lcd

Ahh the other isn't palit. Well good luck with the RMA. They don't even have any of the 5000 series products to upgrade you to. Wonder what's taking them so long. Or if they are even going to come out with those new 5800 series.

[omalak]

In hindsight, i would not buy from Palit..

for RMA, they have no phone numbers on their website

It seems the only office in the US is the NA RMA office.. i submitted an RMA email about 6 times, i got no response. I contact Palit support (which is in China) and they got in touch with Palit NA, who then infomred me they did not get my emails..

It was ridiculous.

4 months later still no card, not a single email from Palit apologizing for the delay, or what is going on.. I have the email trails, i sent atleast 20-30 emails.

Finally now i get a response from Palit saying they are sorry and will offer another card.


When i posted this thread, i replied to Palit the same day saying i would like an ATI replacement... I have yet to get a response

I have asked in atleast 10 emails for a contact name and phone number.. nobody has given me that information.

Horrible company, i would never buy from them again.

I always liked buying ATI card made by ATI ( they use to fab them in Markham in the good old days)

In fact once i had to RMA my old Rage128 aiw, I called ATI over the phone, within a week i got a call saying my card was ready, it could be shipped out or i could pick it up.

I went to pick it up at their HQ, a tech actaully came out to the lobby and spent some time talkin to me and passed me a new card.

Palit... Never again..

by the looks of it seems like they dont have much product variety now anyways.

[sadd16]

Yeah I wouldn't buy from Palit. I'd only get from a reputable 3rd party vendor or ATI themselves if they still made cards. Too bad they stopped after AMD took over.

Wow 4 months, that's ridiculous. Maybe it would be a good idea to take the nvidia card and sell it

[Jest3r]

by the looks of it seems like they dont have much product variety now anyways.

Yeah after this its obvious why haha.

[whiteomega]

Palit is a fairly well-known brand in Europe, just not North America. The reason they're likely having trouble with 4870 inventory is that most of the remaining chips have sold already and no more are being made by Taiwan Semiconductor. TSMC is having a hard enough time keeping the 40 nm process (radeon 5000 series) clean, and are likely not focused on 4870 production at all. Unfortunately, this leaves out in the cold; and if you want to run a crossfire setup, you'll have to settle for an overclocked 4850 or a standard 4870 if you can get either one from Palit. A lot of online stores still have stock of the 4870 - if you can't get a card from Palit, maybe you can settle for a cheque equal to the value of the card when you purchased it, though I doubt you'll get that concession from them.

As others have said, the Nvidia they are offering you doesn't compete with the 4870 - about all the extra 512MB framebuffer will buy you in games is better anti-aliasing at high resolutions. Clock-for-clock the GTS250 is ever so slightly worse, and I doubt you'll notice the anti-aliasing improvements.