Another price drop for Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260

that on release the 4870 sounded to good to be true. After a month or so unfortunately that now appears to be the case. CPC took the wise decision to hold back from comment until they've tested the cards for themselves and made an informed opinion. When the 260 and 280 GTX came out, based on cost it didn't seem a viable option to the midrange markets. Then with these price cuts the lower GTX 260 now appears to be a better buy for future proofing than the 4870. The 4870X2 sounds impressive but the last X2 by ATi wasn't entirely cheap and again wasn't very good. If you are looking to buy within the next month or so, I would recommend you wait as long as possible. However, if you absolutely have to buy today, I would go with the CPC recommendation and spend the extra £20 and get the GTX 260 over the 4870.

Comment by crazyceo at 11:23am 21st July 2008

Well I have read up on the HD4870 and the reviews are raving but I have also read some user reviews. Alot of people are saying that the cards drivers need work (no surprises there) and that they are getting stuttering in some games and this is non-crossfire operating, Crossfire apparently gives artifacting in some games. I am leaning towards the 1024Mb HD4870 at the moment but reading more and more of these issues is leading me to believe that they are the same issues I experienced last year with the HD3870. If this is so I will buy the GTX 260 as it is overall, a higher performing card due to more games being optimised for NVIDIA. I am giving it a month, so, it's all interesting.

Comment by C7ouD at 11:30pm 20th July 2008

The CPC labtest is out......and the Verdict....Buy the GTX260!!! Fantastic. Now that is a hardware review and recommendation I'll take. Thanks CPC for waiting for the smoke to clear and judging the cards on the "Demanding Games" as we want future proofing and not short term stop gaps. Don't start on the DX10.1 rubbish as it looks as if it will be bypassed anyway for DX11.

Comment by crazyceo at 2:31am 20th July 2008

... watching the fanboys comming out to post. Fact, it doesn't matter what company you go for, it's the product. I never stick to a single brand just because it's what I always use. I use it because it best does what I want it to do for the money at the time. For instance, I used ATI in my latest build because at the time Nvidia decided not to pull finger and produce decent 64bit drivers for it's hardware. And they still are pretty slow on delivering driver updates. Its my 2nd ATI card out of 5 builds over the last 11 years - Guess what the other 3 were. And using my 1st Intel CPU ever over AMD and Cyrix. I personally go for reliability over speed, because whats the point in having it vice versus? Perhaps your situation deems it that way, mines doesn't. Bottom line, stop the bickering, and get the product that suits you for your money and your situation. Not just because its ATI or Nvidia. Companies produce good and bad products. I.e, Nvidia and ATI both produce good and bad products. It's not good verus evil where one is always ontop. Do through research then part with your hard earned cash. Oh, and about Nvidia ripping folk off because of lack of compitition, every company does it! AMD did with it's FX series AMD64's untill the core duo came out. It's modern capitalistic ecomonics - when theres no competition, why lower prices? If you don't like it, do what I do, play the waiting game and when it looks like the coast is clear for new hardware releases, by the best you can with your money.

Comment by weirchri at 2:17pm 19th July 2008

My point was people here and in other posts quoting facts and figures as genuine when they were from links to forums with no authoritive tests evidenced. I was just waiting for the CPC verdict as they haven't done one yet. I have used both ATi and Nvidia over the years and I have to admit I've had a trouble free time using Nvidia. Again, I'm not saying it's the same for everyone but I've heard more complaints from ATi owners.

Comment by crazyceo at 11:19am 17th July 2008

I've never had any stability problems with my Nvidia cards, they have always been reliable, even if they were a bit slow at times, but thats my fault for not understanding what I was buying. The only two times I've had instability has been when I had an X1850 pro (which artifacted like crazy no matter what I did, including upgrading the cooler) and when I failed to install my new cooler on my 8800GT properly (you really must make sure the block sits ON the gpu, not caught on something... oops). I'm not saying this is representative of the general masses, but it is my experience.

Comment by NewParadigm at 10:21am 17th July 2008

why would you discard any tests not carried out by CPC? both Tom's Hardware and Guru 3D are well respected in terms of hardware reviews, as are several others. So long as the tests are carried out in a consistent and scientific manner, what does it matter who carried them out? Don't get me wrong, I like CPC, but you should never take just one source for your information if you want to have a well rounded understanding of anything.

Comment by NewParadigm at 10:21am 17th July 2008

Saying people have used Nvidia cards for years because of stability and reliability is a bit of a joke. Performance, yes.

Comment by NotFred at 10:16am 17th July 2008

Spot on! I don't actually think you can legitimately compare the 4780X2 against the GTX280 as we've seen with the 9800GX2, 2 cards sandwiched can potentially perform better. As we've heard rumours that Nvidia do not intend to release a GTX280X2 maybe they have something else on the way. I am still not convinved by the 48XX series and we still don't have direct comparisons or benchtests here on CPC, as they hadn't received it in time for their review. Some of you can all quote benchmarks and labtests from tom,dick and harry but until I see it here I'm not interested. We've had a few quoted but when checked they are just fanboy forum posts.

Comment by crazyceo at 10:16am 17th July 2008

Ask yourself the question, what card have you been running for the past 2 years because of stability, reliability and performance? NVIDIA. ATi have done SO bad that they were boughten out buy a company which was already in financial trouble - that is self explanatory in it's own right too how bad they were doing!! They have now released the 4 series and everyone has decided to p*ss on NVIDIA, typical. Exactly the same as AMD/ Intel, AMD provided good hardware for a number of years, Intel on the other hand were producing absolute rubbish, they finally decide to ditch the crap tech they had and released a product worthy of a company of their size and BAM, everybody are hating AMD. Yawn, yawn, YAWN. All this fanboy tosh is aloada crap and people need to start getting it out of their system and looking at plain facts. NVIDIA DID mess us around for the last couple of months regarding the 9 series (apart from the 9800GX2) but the 8800GTX, 8800GTS 640MB/320MB, 8800GT were ALL fantastic cards which were well priced and performed well which is more than what I can say for ATi's equivilent. Hell, you all read CPC, you know how much they have despised ATi for the past year or so for awful drivers, poor products and lack of competition, the facts are their to be seen. The situation has turned now and what we have is viable competition being the GTX260 and the 4870 and what will be the amazing 4870X2 vs the GTX280. Anybody who have been saying that NVIDIA have been supplying overpriced and underperforming GPU's are illinformed, idiotic fanboyistic rejects that need to do some reading up.

Comment by C7ouD at 11:57pm 16th July 2008

In these comments cant comment on anything marketing or business wise unless you have the qualifications to make a statement that is otherwise normative. ''YoYoTech also reported a few cases of disgruntled customers who paid the large premium to have a GeForce GTX 280 from day one.'' Those customers are the ones who pay the price for having it first and showing the world they have the 'bling.' If they were so blind to see that in the last year prices have been dropping rapdily on all computer hardware and components would be silly to assume these would stay at their orignal release price.

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 5:54pm 16th July 2008

My so called AMD rant was in response to the first 2 posts. The 4xxx series hasn't convince everybody of it's godliness, bringing peace on earth and ending world hunger. Not yet anyway. This price drop is fine if you are looking to upgrade to a SUPERIOR product. However, as I stated earlier for what I'm playing at the moment my 8800GTX works fine.

Comment by crazyceo at 3:16pm 16th July 2008

nVidia deserve this, They have been putting out overpriced cards for far too long. My preference has been nVidia however the way they have milked consumers has just pi@@ed me off. Well done Ati.

Comment by Atomic34 at 1:08pm 16th July 2008

Not a chance, my Ultra is still running rings around anything any game ask's of it, maybe around Christmas will be a better time to look for a new Card. I nearly fell for the hype myself and bought a new GTX280 Sc, but i went away and thought about it, and asked myself in a very dark room, do i really need to buy now, Doh, not a chance.

Comment by pitbull466 at 12:12pm 16th July 2008

Not a chance, my Ultra is still running rings around anything any game ask's of it, maybe around Christmas will be a better time to look for a new Card. I nearly fell for the hype myself and bought a new GTX280 Sc, but i went away and thought about it, and asked myself in a very dark room, do i really need to buy now, Doh, not a chance.

Comment by pitbull466 at 12:12pm 16th July 2008

As for HDMI it doesn't really make any difference to me... I can easily connect the pc sound to my tv/surround/whatever, without it. If I get a 4870 though it will be a plus point (assuming I can connect my X-Fi to the 4870 without losing surround sound, which I doubt somehow).

Comment by NewParadigm at 11:58am 16th July 2008

I have no idea really. Of course it rings a bell, I said it, and only a few posts down too... no prizes for shocking me with my own words I'm afraid. I do like the use of etc as you seem to have listed the only two features I can find that it has over the 280/260 cards. I'm still not convinced by Nvidia's stance on not implementing dx10.1, they were quick enough to jump on the SM3 bandwagon so why hold out on this, especially as, according to them, they support most of the features anyway. What worries me about the 4870 (I wouldn't consider a 4850 as it doesn't offer enough of an upgrade for me) is its comparitively low amount of RAM. One of the two things we can garuantee in the future is that 1 games will become more geared towards dx10, and 2. people will more and more want to game at higher resolutions, I think we will likely see 1920x1080 become a standard res. Either the 280/260 architecture, or its additional ram seems to put it ahead in dx10 at high resolutions. So really I'm still undecided, which is probably good as it means I will wait for a while until I can be sure, and no doubt get a better deal on whichever card I buy.

Comment by NewParadigm at 11:58am 16th July 2008

What is it with this site and the incessant fanboy tagging honestly, I would expect it from a bunch of teenagers arguing over which is better Xbox360 or PS3 but not here.

Comment by tiff_lee at 11:36am 16th July 2008

"I think the 280/260's architecture is more future proof"... seriously the card has less features than the 48x0 series (such as DX10.1 audio through HDMI ect) and if you do a bit of looking into it, the future versions of the 4xx0 series can hande OVER!! 1000Mhz core speed, So theres the proof!.

Comment by NikoBellic at 11:34am 16th July 2008

I'll happily buy whatever card is best for the money I have... I actually believe the 280/260 architecture is better... I'm more interested in smooth frame rates than high frame rates (within reason obviously). As for DX10.1, by the time any games seriously require this as standard the next generation g.cards or more likely the one after will be out. I was seriously considering a 4870, I still am, but I'm waiting to see how this price drop is reflected in uk shops.

Comment by NewParadigm at 10:49am 16th July 2008

lol if you haven't noticed the fact that the 260/280 are not dx10.1 compliant, so much for futureproof. the fact of the matter is that ati's (low-medium range gfx cards are making Nvidia sweat. Ati has yet to show its top of the range card ..i'm sure they are just waiting for the right time to crush nvidia

Comment by WTF_NL at 10:42am 16th July 2008

If you look down the page you could just laugh at how many fanboys there are, I remeber back in march we were rowing over whos the fanboy (I admit I'm a fanboy) but now you can see that they are fanboys too!, and I've learn't recently that being a fanboy can be really dissapointing when you realise whats going on in the real world!! (ha ha haaa, just cant help lauging at these!)

Comment by NikoBellic at 10:13am 16th July 2008

Hillarious really... has a graphics card ever dropped this much in price this quickly before? From TG Daily: "some vendors consider the launch of the GTX 260/280 series as “the worst product launch in the history of Nvidia” and Nvidia may be selling “less than 3000 GTX 260/280 cards per month” in the North American etail market." Lol....

Comment by NotFred at 10:14am 16th July 2008

the 4870 appears in tests to perform similarly to the 260 (see guru 3d or toms hardware), yet was a bit cheaper, hopefully this redresses the balance as I think the 280/260's architecture is more future proof (it seems to perform best in brand spanking new games, and shows more consistent frame rates throughout a game test, not necessarily with stupidly high avg's but with much better min frame rates)

Comment by NewParadigm at 9:42am 16th July 2008

Nvidea have been milking us over the past 18 months because of ATi's laughable attempts at graphics cards. Now they've pulled their finger out their a** and released some incredibly good cards. The 4870 is the first card I've seen that's made me feel like it's time to ditch my 18 month old 8800gts

Comment by cyberspice1 at 9:42am 16th July 2008

"the GTX 260 would have cost even less than it currently does for it to be worth buying"

I think you have a *to* missing.

Comment by cjagusz at 9:43am 16th July 2008

Underpowered GPU's? Then what the feck has ATi's been? That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard.

Comment by C7ouD at 1:20am 16th July 2008

Great to hear all is not well at Nvidia, they have been milking us for years with their underpowered and overpriced cards. Well done Ati..keep up the pressure, Lets hope Intel give Nvidia a bloody nose too..

Comment by blazinglory at 11:15pm 15th July 2008

1 all the people who paid full whack for the 260/280...COMPLAIN to nVidia ...alot...like, really alot and you may get some money back (this may involve legal advice). 2 it's obvious that companies like nvidia are milking as much as they can from their products BUT I'e thought of a way we (consumers can fight back...When an exciting new product is released, dont' buy it..none of you, that way they'll think "oh my goodness, the consumers aren't onvinced, let's lower the price so it's more attractive to them and BINGO, everyone gets a fair deal.

Comment by EdArch at 10:27pm 15th July 2008

it'll only make a difference if you're using nVidia's Gelato software on your pc. otherwise the gfx card doesn' make a shred of diffrence in rendering times as mental ray/v-ray etc use the cpu to render. Your gfx card only makes a difference while you're making/navigating your scenes in the 3D environment. Oh and crazy_ceo, this article is about GRAPHICS CARDS...you want the CPU articles to let your Q6600 rants loose, because, last time I checked, the 4xxx are doing very well against nVidia cards, hence this price drop that Leather is reporting about, and yes it IS great for consumers - yes I do feel sorry for those who've shelled out before this price drop...similar thing happened with the iPhone last year and Steve Jobs ended up handing out money-off vouchers, and lots of em!

Comment by EdArch at 10:20pm 15th July 2008

GTX 260 time for me I think.

Comment by C7ouD at 10:05pm 15th July 2008

Makes sense to sit tight for a while longer methinks.

Comment by _fac51_ at 7:59pm 15th July 2008

Just goes to show market domination can lead to complacency. It happened to Intel before then AMD now the mighty Nvidia.

Comment by tiff_lee at 7:03pm 15th July 2008

More price drops! Faster cards! Less heat! Glad Nvidia are getting that kick in the arse from ATi now, they really needed it.

Comment by DudQuitter at 6:58pm 15th July 2008

AMD couldn't find their a$$ with both hands at the moment. Overpriced and underperforming with the Q6600 still hammering everything they've released, stock speeds and overclocked. As for this price drop, I'm with Nickuk1987. I don't need to change my 8800GTX as it's still playing everything I throw at it.

Comment by crazyceo at 6:32pm 15th July 2008

I would only be interested in this Graphics card if it made my 3D max rendering work any faster than my 8800GTX

Comment by Nickuk1987 at 6:18pm 15th July 2008

thank god for competition, @TIFF_LEE I totally agree with you, and if AMD do put something big on the market before nahalem comes out, then I think we'll be in for a very big surprise!!!! :)

Comment by NikoBellic at 6:12pm 15th July 2008

Just shows how good a little competition is for consumers, had Ati not released their 4xxx series (good or not) nvidia would of milked both their market position and the consumers for months. Now lets all hope Amd can pull a rabbit out of the hat and put Intel in a similar situation....

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