After seeing the reviews of the 4870, I am a little skeptical about buying the gtx 260. The only reason I am considering the 260 is that I can step up my 9600 from evga for $230 towards a 260. Is this the way to go, or should I just get the 4870?

260 for $230 is a darn good deal. 4870 does have better performance, but it is somewhat minor (6% on average). But 4870 consumes more power (thus your room will be hotter) and operates at higher temperatures, (meaning possible reliability problem and probably less overclock-able). In your situation I would go with 260 because performance per watt and per dollar (with $230 price) is better. But read reviews and decide for yourself.

EDIT: One more thing, the drivers support right now is a bit better with 260, because it is slightly older card, and due to former dominance of NVIDIA in the market, more games are optimized for it. But these factors may change in future.

Its hotter because the fan speed isn't yet set in the initial drivers. I say go for the 260, its just $30 more than the 4850 and performs better

You would spend $300 on a 4870, so if you are getting $230 towards another evga card why not get a 280 . They are down to $450 so it would only cost you $220

Remember to factor in shipping costs (both ways) for the step-up. I still think it would come out around 250, so that would be a good deal. The only thing is you might be able to sell you 9600 on your own, maybe around $100-120, then put that money towards a new card, and then it doesn't seem like such a hot deal in comparison.

4870

Yes it's a good deal but MxM exagerate some numbers.

first the power, in this revierw http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354&p=8, the 4870 consumes 16.1W more than than the GTX260. In %, it's 5.78% for the 6% more performance.

Also, "your room will be hotter". Ask if a bulb of 16W can warm a entire room...

For the temps, a bios update / driver update will correct the problem.

Less overclockable? I don't think so, the RV770 core have shown room for overclock. And this card is more future proof because it's DirectX 10.1.

260 because of step up, but if you can sell 9600 and get a 4870 for he same price around, 4870.

4870

its smaller (size of the card), a bit faster, probably has more scope for performance improvements through better drivers in the future (it has 2.5 times the shaders and tmus of the 3800 series and a load more bandwidth, but only about 1.8 -2.0 times the performance at this present time), great hdmi features and its dx10.1 - that might seem like a hill of beans right now but if assassins creed is any sign of the dx10.1 times to come:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2 [...] roundup/13

Take a look at the 2560x1600 results. Going from 0xAA to 4xAA, the 4870 loses less than 5fps average and the minimum doesnt move an inch from 25fps at both settings. It beats out the gtx280 let alone 260 with AA, and all from just 512mb and 16 rops. You take a gamble on dx10.1 support being widespread in the future, but if it does you know that your card will squash the gtx260 and maybe the 280 even in TWIMTBP titles with a huge 'team green' streak running right through them.

The numbers from the rest of the review look pretty sweet anyway. This very review swayed me after seeing lots of other benchmarks saying the same good things and I went out and got my 4870 shortly after I read it. Its a warm card but so is any other high performance item, and its actually quiet quite too.

...then again if you go for an evga 260 then you've got the step-up program, which is probably the deal breaker

Id' favour the HD4870, but the step-up program makes the GTX260 the better price/performer.

Take the GTX260, you will get a bit better perfomance.. And 2 in sli is faster than 2 4780 cf

All the benchmarks I've seen show 4870's in CF walking all over the GTX 280 in SLI at 1920x1200, so I don't see how a pair of 260's in SLI could beat them.

Sorry 6angel.. Your wrong on both counts.. 1 GTX260 wont outperform a 4870, and 2 in SLi won't outperform 2 4870's.. (certains games yes, overall, no)

That being said.. I would suggest using your step-up program and grabbing the GTX260

Ok, second option is I have 2 9600 that I can step up. which means I could get 2 GTX 260's for around 300 shipped, I would rather not do this though because I am trying to get away from SLI. Any other suggestions?

That would be an awesome option, and I think that is what I would go for. You may be trying to get away from SLI, but in games where it scales, it would be amazing, and even where it doesn't, the worst case performance is that of a single GTX 260, which is hardly disappointing. For that price, I'd go for it.

Are you sure you can do step-up on multiple cards? I think there might be something against that in EVGA's policy. If not, then nevermind.

I have to ask, how long before your step-up expires? If you've got a few weeks left, it might not hurt to wait and see what happens.

Show me?

Show me the proof, I have shown loads of examples of the gtx 260 sli beating/ being even with HD4870 CF in an other thread.I am sick of people talking **** without proof here.

Show me 10 games with gtx 260 sli and hd4870 and add up minimum, average and max frame rate and show me who wins.

Its extremely close.

So Dos, if it's extremely close then how is itheral talking $h1zzle any more than 6angel.

Put your objective hat on there for a second before going all mental Fanboi on us.

Deleting those first 3 lines of your reply and I think you're left with a better post. The last sentence being the more acurrate of them all.

And if you wanna do a battle of the benchmarks I can show you either side of the equation, but the most telling being the HD4870CF beating the GTX280 in SLi in many games. The reason there are few GTX260 SLi benchies is for that reason, most people are trying to show that difference.

From what I've seen HD4870 outperforms the GTX260 in more games that vice versa, but they're close enough that it is app specific. However there's still not enough tests out there, and rarely are they on cloce enough platforms (as if the mobo has no impact after all those intel MoBo tests showed wild fluctuations).

Considering what you're reacting to and that itheral is still suggesting the GTX260 despite his view on their respective performance to me says this doesn't fit whatever issue is irking you in other threads. I think you need to back that truck up a bit.

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Sigh.. My comment was not meant to sound like I thought the 4870's PWN all..

I was merely correcting 6angel, in that 1 4870 wont "beat" a GTX260 and 2 in CF wont "beat" 2 GTX in SLi.

From all the info I've seen, they are about dead even, with the 4870's coming out ~slightly~ ahead.. a little over HALF the time.

Which is why I suggested the OP use the step and and get a GTX260.