why are reviews soooooooooooooo diffrent!

I've read like 10 reviews and I still can't figure out the best card to buy, because the reviews are wayyyy to diffrent and I don't know which one is correct. I's also hard to find reviews that even have the cards I care about.

For example, HD4870 and GTX260, there are like no reviews with these two cards at the same time, and the framerates for GTX 260 from diffrent reviews can differ up to 40% (with about the same settings in a game), how am I supossed to know which is faster?

another example, 9800GTX and HD 4850, I found a review that suggests 4850 is faster but 9800GTX in another review (no none of these are 9800GTX+)

I'm starting to wonder if it's even nassisary to know exactly which is faster, cause I just saw another review where 4870 in Crossfire beeing faster than GTX 280 in every game except Crysis, and it's a lot faster in other games, a lot slower in Crysis.

I was planning to get a new rig this month, and I can't choose between HD4870 CF, HD 4850 CF, 9800GTX SLI, GTX 280, GTX 260. some of them are obviously faster than others, but cheaper, which means I can get a Logitech MaxAir mouse, which looks pretty cool (it's like a Wii Mote with laser mouse function).

I've read like 10 reviews and I still can't figure out the best card to buy, because the reviews are wayyyy to diffrent and I don't know which one is correct. I's also hard to find reviews that even have the cards I care about.

For example, HD4870 and GTX260, there are like no reviews with these two cards at the same time, and the framerates for GTX 260 from diffrent reviews can differ up to 40% (with about the same settings in a game), how am I supossed to know which is faster?

another example, 9800GTX and HD 4850, I found a review that suggests 4850 is faster but 9800GTX in another review (no none of these are 9800GTX+)

I'm starting to wonder if it's even nassisary to know exactly which is faster, cause I just saw another review where 4870 in Crossfire beeing faster than GTX 280 in every game except Crysis, and it's a lot faster in other games, a lot slower in Crysis.

I was planning to get a new rig this month, and I can't choose between HD4870 CF, HD 4850 CF, 9800GTX SLI, GTX 280, GTX 260. some of them are obviously faster than others, but cheaper, which means I can get a Logitech MaxAir mouse, which looks pretty cool (it's like a Wii Mote with laser mouse function).

teamkillexpert

I have never seen a accurate review to show the 9800GTX superior to the HD4850, nor the GTX260 showing 40% difference, on one benchmarks Iv'e seen x1900xt AND 8600GT beat the 8800GTX, this is due to either drivers or somthing wrong with the review.

Gamebenchmarks can very easy be manipulated by drivers, if you use the incorrect driver for a card it can run like cr*p.

And there are a few un-serious groups trying to bash either Nvidia or ATI (mostly the latter) , this sort of reviews I usally sort out by letting them play alone and I do not care about those.

If you read a review showing for an example. all Nvidia cards beating their competitive counterbart much more than from a diffrent review, you might want to leve that review out.

Get your reviews from a place you have faith in, I usally take my reviews from Toms-hardware/Anandtech/OCC or other known sites with good reputation, they usally show about the same result.

In fact most known sites show the same result in game/synthetic-benchmarks.

And for your question about the cards to choose from you really should get 4870 CF this settup should tako out all the other settups very easy.

But to save you the hazzle, get your reviews from known sites. Anandtech has a good review with all the cards you've mentioned.