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Originally Posted by shadow2get

WRT the graphics card, I have finally decided on these 2 options: NVIDIA GTX 260 Core 216 or ATI Radeon 4870 1GB. Dunno if both are available in Bangalore. But, I am willing to wait till it arrives.

I have read some reviews on Techreport, AnandTech, ExtremeTech & others. This is what they say:
* it is not clear on which to choose as both are equally good
* both cards are good, but NVIDIA is a better option

for GTX 260 : It is Fast, good power efficiency, low noise. But Poor performance with AA modes above 4x.
for ATI 4870: Excellent AA performance, especially 8xAA. Poor idle power utilization, reference cooler could be better.

Check reviews here:
The Radeon HD 4870 1GB: The Card to Get
GeForce GTX 260 reloaded vs. the Radeon HD 4870 1GB
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 and ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Review

I have also read many more Heated-Discussions between the two cards. The final conclusion I got from all that was to buy the card wrt "which game supports which card better".

i m not able to understand even after reading the anadtech review u can have doubts about HD4870 1Gb vs gtx260 core 216....

well the most important point in that review is ....they find it difficult to choose cos both are similarly priced in US market for about $289 ....still HD4870 1GB was cheaper $10~$20....clearly there are some games in which gtx260 does perform marginally better but its definitely not worth cos HD4870 offers more value for money and much better performance in higher resolution with eye candies on.

now coming to indian market..... here is the situation HD4870 (512 Mb) is available for 16.5k while plain gtx260 is still 19.5k costing 3k more ..which isn't worth at all ..infact HD4870(512 MB) is generally considered better than plain gtx260

again HD4870 (pre-overclocked) models are available for 18k ..that will perform much better than gtx260 ...so even if gtx260 core 216 comes to India u can imagine its cost ...will be around 23-24k seeing current price trends,while so far there is no news of gtx260 core 216 ....someone has already bought a plait HD4870 1GB sonic (means pre-overclocked model ) for about 20k in banglore..when prices are soring sky high

which will beat gtx260 core 216 anyday ...on much cheaper price ....usually 3-4k cheaper ..this is the story of India ..and since u are buying in india ..HD4870 1GB wins all the way ...

had it been same price for same ..i would have said choose according to the games u like and things like that ...

Also, the Nehalem/X58 launch dates of Nov 18th are haunting me to go for that.

well wiser choice will be to spend it nehalem cos once nehalem comes it will be with newer socket,DDR3 RAM ..and lowest nehalem will cost about the price of highest quad core ....since u are spending so much now ...assuming nehalem launches in nov ..u will have a very strong system in about 3-4 months in same price..

well it may not be availbable by the end of this year ..but IMO investing this kind of serious money will be more worth in nehalem rather than things u have now ...

Even then, I am still in a confusion as to which one to go between the two. If I go for NVIDIA, i can't SLI. Will have to buy a newer m/b. If I go for ATI, I can crossfire but the P45 chipset will be a bottleneck. So Help me to decide between these 2 GRAPHICS cards. And you can point out if I said something wrong anywhere.

P45 chipset will have obvious bottleneck since crossfire works in 8x/8x mode ...to get full potential of 16x/16x ..u need to go for a x48 mobo