Windows 7 - nvidia geforce 9800 gtx+ vs. ati radeon hd 4670

i have both of these graphics cards and I am wondering which one is better. the nvidia has 512mb while the ati has 1 gb. i have put them both in the computer and I can't really tell the difference. The windows experience index rates the nvidia as a 6.3 and the ati as a 6.7, but the nvidia performed much better in the 3dMark Vantage program. Any clues?

WEI is a poor example of the differences in the card. You're comparing what at the time of their respective releases a high end card to a mid-range card. This review is as good as any,

techPowerUp :: Powercolor PCS HD 4670 512 MB Review :: Page 6 / 30

and shows how both cards perform. So to answer your question, yes the 9800 GTX+ is a better card than the 4670.

Cool thanks, although my hd radeon 4670 has 1Gb of memory not 512 Mb. Does that make a big difference? Also, since my motherboard is for intel and it is made by evga and the 9800 gtx+ is also made by evga, I have had the 9800 gtx+ installed because of the chipset. Does having a more similar chipset make a difference?

Not enough that you would notice, card isn't really fast enough to take advantage of it. For that card 512 MB was more than enough, 1 GB was more marketing than anything. Not quite as bad as some Nvidia cards (9400 and 9500 series that are slower than the 4670) that came with 1 GB.

All things being equal, no.

Thanks!

[QUOTE=stormy13;709937]I think some of the more recent AMD chipsets seem to work with the GC a little better. A friend has the same Sapphire 4670 as I do, but with an SB700 chipset. I have the SB750/790GX chipset, and I seem to get better frame rates than he does. The difference isn't dramatic, and I still don't get the performance of the 9800, which is a really good card for its time, but I'm a little confused as to why mine does better than his. Same CPU, clock speed, RAM size, etc., but mine's a little quicker. Are there any comparisons of the same card on different chipsets anywhere? It might be an interesting read.

Mellon Head it is more to do with the 790GX northbridge than whichever NB is on his (probably 770 or 780), than what southbridge it has. Good explanation of the differences here,

AMD 700 chipset series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also you didn't mention what CPU he has.

Oops. My bad. He has a Phenom II 920, like mine, and a 780G Asus motherboard. Looking at the link (thanks, btw) you provided, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference in the northbridges. We're both using single cards in the x16 slot.

It isn't like we got all scientific and used benchmarking software or anything. We were just checking our frame rates with Doom 3, b/c it's the only game we had in common, and mine were about 4 to 5 frames higher than his on average.

It might just be differences in the electronics. It might be interesting to run an actual benchmark a few times on each and compare.