• Hardware

  • Radeon HD 4870 (2GB version) or the Geforce GTX 260?

260 will kick 250 GTS anytime. And real comparisons will be better suited for future games.
If you've got the budget and your PC can handle it, get the best card!
Alright. So I checked with my manufacturer and it said that it supports the VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5. In this case, it should also support the Sapphire Radeon HD4870 2GB DDR5 Vapor-X, right? I checked both cards, and they both needed 500 watts. So I checked again with my PC model and I found out that it has an 80 Plus Broze power supply thingy. That means that it's more than 300 watts. But even though, if the website said that it could run the VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5, there's nothing to stop it from running the Sapphire Radeon HD4870 2GB DDR5 Vapor-X. That is what I need to know for certain.

And an update on the power supply, Shuttle PCs come with a standard power supply. No upgrade. -.-
The 300W WILL NOT RUN the 4870 nor the 260. You will fry your components if you try. The Bronze rating is for power quality. No matter how good the power is, if there is not enough power, you will ruin your components. Never go cheap on a power supply. It is the backbone of your computer.

Start looking into buying a power supply and installing it yourself.
^^ What he said.

Low power can actually fry up your entire system (including your screen). This is very serious.
Alright. Thanks for the help. Bas it looks like I cannot get a new power supply. From what the guy said, their power supply is specific to Shuttle PCs. So there goes my PC gaming.... as I can't afford a new PC AND components for it right now.

I guess I'll stick to the PS3...
I don't think the guy is accurate. You should be able to get upgrade your power no matter what the PC is. If the case is the problem, change it as well. You can get a descent one at 30-40 bucks.
He told me that Shuttle has a standard power supply. I dunno. I'm going to research a bit and I'll get back to you. But even if I just increase my power supply, what about the size of the PC? My Shuttle is a box. It's not the standard tower.
Shit! I just found a 500 Watt power supply that is compatible with my PC! I was reading online and it said the 300 Watt power supply that I had was underrated and that it could hold power-hungry cards, but now I found a 500 Watt which is better! It's the Shuttle PC63.... Now I just have to find it in Lebanon.
2 months later
in Lebanon and most of the world look for BIGGER numbers and they say: ohhh bigger numbers shiny.... But things dont go this way in GPUs the series is more important like 200 or HD 4000 or the chipset but the VRAM whether GDDR3 or else it is used for primarily frame buffer and textures so the higher the resolution the more memory you'll need.
20 days later
From where are you going to get the ATI card? and what is it's price?
23 days later
GN90 wrote
sin wroteWatch out however from the marketing campaigns, especially in Lebanon, that give high importance to video memory. Excessive VGA memory does not improve gaming performance. You may gain a couple of FPSes on very high resolutions (which is not a need in your case since your screen is not huge).

I recommend you get the 1 GB version. You'll be paying extra for the 2 GB without using a single byte of them in any game.

Hope this helped.
So True !! i ask my freinds what VGA you have to see if a game would work on their system and they tell me : "it is so powerful 1GB" :P
and with vista your ram are shared with the Vram
Tako_400 wroteThe resolution is the standard screen resolution, 1366 x 768. I might play shooters. But most of all I'll be playing strategy games and RPGs. And I've got 300W of power.
your resolution is basic , I have a weaker VGA and i play with greater res, but you need to upgrade your 300W Power Supply for sure.
the ATI HD4890 1GB uses 222W when idle and 317 with Crysis DX10 enabled . The GTX275 has lower power consumption when idle (187W) but greater power when fully used with Crysis (364W) (numbers taken form Bit-tech.net)

Testing both cards with Crysis on max, DirectX10, 16XAF, 4XAA, 1680*1050 these are the results: GTX275 36.9FPS average (22 Lowest) ATI Radeon HD4890 1GB 31FPS (17 Lowest) So performance very close !!!

Idk witch Version of the GTX275/HD4980 you will get but those where the basic versions of both cards, any other version will have a slightly better performance
I wouldn't call a 5-6 FPS difference as close. It can be the difference between playable and unplayable. in this case however they'r both unplayable,during combat that is. GTX275 is clearly better