PC Specs -
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.01GHz
8gb DDR Ram
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, latest drivers installed today.
22" Acer P233w, 1680x1050

As shown above, I have a Radeon HD 4870 X2, which I understand is a crossfire card. I'm conemplating a switch to Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1792 as I have often found that GeForces offer less hassle overall compared to ATI cards.


Currently I'm playing World Of Tanks, Dawn Of War 2 and Dragon Age 2/Mass Effect 2. It looks amazing on the Radeon but I'm having a lot of issues with my new game, Witcher 2, and I know that ATI are working on a hotfix but I'm used to having issues with my radeon cards.

Basically I'm asking, should I stick with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 or switch to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1792MB?

Being an nVidia user, I would usually say go for it, but I read the following pros and cons on the GTX295 1795mb dual GPU card and thought you might like to consider them, especially the cons

Pros:
- Very good performance
- Single card solution for power users
- Great idle power consumption
- Lifetime warranty

Cons:
- Performance largely dependent on SLI profiles in a game
- Horribly loud
- Power hungry

Also, have you tried the ATI fixes on thewitcher dot com website (I'm not able to post links yet) under the Community section?

Loud during games or just loud in general?

Also, power hungry? More so than the ATI because I would of thought the crossfire card would of eaten more power than the single card.

Also, what do you mean performance largely dependant on SLI profiles? (Noob question, but I actually don't know so I'd like clarification)

Edit - As for the ATI fixes for witcher (Turning off AA and windowing) I'm stuck at 10-18 FPS on low settings, not good enough for the spec of my PC tbh

The 295 is also a dual GPU card that requires an SLI profile to work properly. ATI has always had an edge over NVidia when it comes to power requirements and the 295 is especially hungry under load. As far as I am aware the cooler is always of a noticable volume due to the amount of heat the dual GPU's are putting out.

My advice would be to save your money for a newer card. The GTX580 or 6970 would give you a much bigger performance boost than the 295 would.

I work for CEX (I know) and I'm just looking through their stock as my discount + 120 vouchers would make it easier to get a new GFX card.

Upon looking for the GTX580 and 6970, my supervisor recommended the Nvidia GeForce Fermi GTX 480 1.5GB DX11 as a possibly replacement.

So I want to ask your opinion on the GTX 480?

The pros and cons were taken from a website. I'll pm you the link

I'm presuming you meant the dual GPU card from eVGA. Since it has two GPU's instead of one (pretending to be two cards) it runs hotter and therefore has higher fan noise (due to their aggressive fan profile). I'm guessing the fans are loud most of the time, whether in game or not

Power hungry due to the above point [dual GPU's]

If you're running SLI, profiles are needed to use both cards (or both GPU's), otherwise only one will be used, or the performance won't match what you have. For instance, I run two GTX460's in my computer. The nVidia profiles in the nVidia control centre caters to this, and if it doesn't, then the program called nvidia inspector does (external program someone made for games that don't have SLI profiles, or fixes ones that do)

Wow, that is low for what you have. I'm sorry, but I can't help but I will have a look at Google for you :)

I would certainly recommend the 480 over the 295 simply because it's a powerful single GPU card. If you really want you can always add a second in SLI if your PSU and Mobo can support it. The 580 is newer but I think the 480 is still a very powerful card, the 580 is just less thirsty on power and has better DX11 support.

So the GTX 480 > Radeon HD 4870 X2? I mean DX11 support is a plus but just having a working GFX card that actually performs beter than my Geforce 9800 GT would be a massive improvement.

Shane-O - Yeh, I am kind of getting tired of the dual-card stuff now, nothing but hassle. The SLI Profiles sounds like it'd be alright, but if I get a game that has no support, I'll be where I am now with Witcher 2. Seriously, everything on low, windowed mode (Tried loads of different res) and I'm barely pushing 17 at cutscenes and 10-18 in action.

I have a 480. It runs just about everything on max settings, but for even a trivial task it fires up what sounds like a wind turbine. I now have to turn the volume up a lot higher for games, to compensate for this. I've been told the 460 is quieter.

Okay, something for you to try, Dantek

1. Do a search in Google for radeonpro and download/install it

2. Run the program and force the Witcher 2 to use the Dirt 2 profile and see how that goes. You'll probably have to either create a profile or add the Witcher 2 executable to the Dirt 2 profile

It far outperforms both the 4870x2 and the 9800GT. The 480 should be able to run almost everything at max settings with the exception of Metro 2033 I think.
I highly recommend that. As an ATI user it's invaluable.

Tried that with no help. Tried renaming the EXE, tried Radeon Pro, tried all the settings changes that have been recommended, tried turning off AA and all the others on the Witcher main site. Just hardly any, if any, increase. Loading times improve slightly though.

In my experience dual GPU's are nothing but hassle and if a game doesn't have a proper SLI/Crossifre profile you end up using a relatively poor card. The last good GPU really was the 7950x2 and that was a lifetime ago in hardware. Always buy the best single GPU card you can afford.

I meant to ask, my RAM, the DDR2, I'm currently debating whether or not that is one of the key problems.

I'm not sure if it's right, but when I did a mem test, it said it was running at 377mhz. I'm not sure if that is right or not, all I'm unsure about is if the 480 GTX will actually fix the problem of game performance or is it a case of replacing the MOBO and Ram.