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June 2008: Battleground for PC Graphics - Geforce GTX 200 v Radeon HD 4800

I'd definitely be willing to pay a bit more for a single-card solution if I wanted one of the most powerful setups out there.

Given their price and power consumption, the GTX 200 cards don't even exist to me. I don't even consider them competition, they are completely different products geared towards a completely different kind of buyer.
 
godhandiscen said:
Well, the 48xx is the first series to heavily support DirectX10.1, which with Assasins Creed (pre-patch) did wondersso thats a little bit relevant. However, In your case I would recommend to wait. Also, think about which games you are going to play before choosing your card. If you are thinking future games, then upgrade later, if you are thinking current games, then wait for benches in the current games you are interested. Also, remember the benches always are with the fastest processors, memory, etc, to avoid bottlenecks, so the performance could be a couple frames less.
Click to expand...
Well, I want good Crysis mostly and better performance in CoH, and I know for a fact that the only thing holding me back from that is my meh 8600 gt, so I guess I'll wait to see some comparisons b/w the 8800 and 4850 in those; but if there's even the slightest ATI edge (which I'm sure there'll be) I'll probably go 4850, being the sucker for rad shiny new stuff that I am.
 
Just saw the GTX 260/280 benchmarks at tomshardware.com. Wow, nVidia really dropped the ball. This is AMD's opportunity to pull off another Radeon 9700.
 
I am getting a new computer to play starcraft 2, when is a good time buy my desktop? I budgeted about $800 to spend on the tower itself.
 
Vic said:
Finally, 4850CF benchs

http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/showthread.php?t=500923
Click to expand...

That's pretty damn impressive performance, and pretty much confirms that they're above a GTX 280 as expected. Should mean Crysis is playable at 1920x1200 with very high settings if you remove the AA (as it kills performance so it should be comfortably above 30FPS without it) and perhaps tone down the AF. At such a resolution, AA isn't all that necessary, especially since Crysis uses shaders to decrease aliasing, so we finally have a setup that can play Crysis at 1080p on very high settings, and for $400 as well. Damn ATI nailed it.

If the 4870X2 has shared access to its VRAM as speculated (so you're not limited to 512MB of effective memory) then it is going to be one hell of a beast for sure.

Edit: Those benches are with a 3ghz Phenom, which would offer significantly worse performance than the 4ghz Core 2 Quad that the mainstream sites have used to benchmark the GTX 280, so they may have even MORE performance.
 
Vic said:
took those numbers from http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1177458&postcount=3744 not confirmed to be true
Click to expand...

Those seem to be right in line with predictions and other benchmarks, all show a 30-40% improvement as expected.

Oh and well done to the GAFers that managed to snag one for $200 already, I can see the demand for these being very high, so the RRP will likely be inflated for a few weeks after launch as it was with the 8800GT.
 
Vic said:
took those numbers from http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1177458&postcount=3744 not confirmed to be true
Click to expand...

Wow (if it's true, which pretty much seems to be the case), for $199 it's basically the new 8800GT. It's a serious price/performace beast!

Here's some quotes from the EETimes article.

The decision to use a two-chip strategy for the high end was made more than two years ago, based on an analysis of yields and scalability. It was not related to AMD's recent financial woes, said Rick Bergman, general manager of AMD's graphics division.

"I predict our competitor will go down the same path for its next GPU once they see this," Bergman said. "They have made their last monolithic GPU."
Click to expand...

AMD says its 4850 device at about 110 W and $199 will deliver about 75 percent of the performance of Nvidia's high-end GTX280 which costs $649 and dissipates 236W. Two of the AMD parts on a board will hit graphics benchmarks about 30 percent higher than the Nvidia device, the AMD spokesman added.
Click to expand...

Bergman said the AMD focus on a more mainstream design will enable it to roll out this fall a version for notebook computers that consumes less than 70W. "There's no way this new Nvidia core will be in notebooks this fall," Bergman said.

**(:D Right in time for when I am going to buy a new Puma notebook, then hopefully they will have the XGP 4870 quick after that and I can crossfire on it!)
Click to expand...
 
If those numbers are true, it looks like the 4850 is going into to be the my next card.

Nearly 2x the performance of a 3870 for $199! I'm so glad I waited.
 
The point about creating a powerful mobile chip with a quick turnaround is very poignant, notebooks are becoming more and more popular and being able to offer high end graphics on this platform is a major competitive advantage for ATI. It seems they've really got their strategy in order, and it honestly falls right in line with the sorts of developments I would have hoped for them to pursue. High efficiencey, low power drain, insane price:performance, mainstream cards at launch and good scalability are the right sorts of developments in my eyes.

I don't think these slides have been posted yet but they illustrate the point quite well (especially the first one):

rv770_02.jpg


2r2c51k.jpg


14iomdf.jpg
 
From the same 4850CF link

Crysis: 1920 x 1200, DX10, All settings on Very High, 4xAA

4850 CF = ~23 fps
GTX280 = ~16 fps

Things are looking very good for the 4870x2 and 4870CF.
 
It's like they waited for Nvidia to reveal their stuff just so that they could release PR that took a jab at them :lol
 
Tenacious-V said:
From the same 4850CF link

Crysis: 1920 x 1200, DX10, All settings on Very High, 4xAA

4850 CF = ~23 fps
GTX280 = ~16 fps
Click to expand...


Jesus. Take the AA off and you've probably got a fully playable framerate with Crysis at the very top end.
 
Proelite said:
I am getting a new computer to play starcraft 2, when is a good time buy my desktop? I budgeted about $800 to spend on the tower itself.
Click to expand...

A month before it ships. Why buy now? I think that's exactly what I'm going to do. Whenever it ships in '09 (mostlikely), I think you'll be able to get a pretty sweet rig for $800
 
zoku88 said:
I prolly wouldn't use AA at all at that resolution...
Click to expand...

Crysis doesn't really suffer from bad aliasing anyway, at high settings the shader based edge AA takes care of most of it. So yeah, adding 4xAA is completely pointless at such a high resolution.
 
zoku88 said:
I prolly wouldn't use AA at all at that resolution...
Click to expand...

I don't know, aliasing bothers me just as much at 1920x1200 as it does at 1024x768, more so at 1920x1200 because it really feels out of place to me at resolutions that high.
 
Good on ATI, they've been lagging a bit for a while.

Just as I am ready to upgrade from my 9800 Pro AIW. Bastards killed the AIW line >:\
 
Moray said:
Just saw the GTX 260/280 benchmarks at tomshardware.com. Wow, nVidia really dropped the ball. This is AMD's opportunity to pull off another Radeon 9700.
Click to expand...

You ATI fanboys are out of your goddamned minds.

So now requiring 2 cards in CF to outdo one card is a good thing. :lol

Not only that, there's CUDA and PhysX to consider.
 
CUDA and PhysX are sort of pointless without the real software backing to make a difference, though.

There is a serious point to be made here though-if those 4850 CF numbers are really true and are verified elsewhere in reviews later on, we have a very high end graphics solution on the PC costing at just $400 MSRP. That's the lowest price I've seen such a configuration in quite some time, and would be something to celebrate.
 
PhysX will take a while, agreed, but CUDA's influence is going to be seen pretty quickly.

And I'm sorry, but its a real stretch for me to logically consider two cards, when I can get one for the same money, that comes with other benefits.
 
What I'm really interested in now are 4870 benchmarks. From the theoretical data on 4850 it seems like it could be quite bandwidth limited and 4870 should remedy that.
 
xemumanic said:
PhysX will take a while, agreed, but CUDA's influence is going to be seen pretty quickly.
Click to expand...
Why do you say that? There are other GPGPU languages....

That, and PhysX probably won't take off, since devs will probably lean towards Havok physics (which AMD and Intel are using.)

And you forget, 4850 in CF costs less than either of NV's cards, so..
 
zoku88 said:
Why do you say that? There are other GPGPU languages....
Click to expand...

Yeah, but only one that supported in every Nvidia GPU since the 8 series, and actually has a real push behind it. If any of them would ever succeed, it would be this one, and for that reason.

And a GTX260 is $399, so there's no price difference.
 
xemumanic said:
Yeah, but only one that supported in every Nvidia GPU since the 8 series, and actually has a real push behind it.
Click to expand...
People have been making GPGPU programs for ATI cards since the x1xxx series...

I forget they dropped the price. But the 260 seems to perform a lot less than 4850 CF anyway, so..
 
If OpenCL delivers (and at this point I believe it will) it will be quick to replace the proprietary GPU computing languages. Nearly everyone in the community yearns for a platform/hardware independent, open programming model.

zoku88 said:
People have been making GPGPU programs for ATI cards since the x1xxx series...
Click to expand...
This is not the complete truth. I have been doing GPGPU starting with Radeon 9700. And others started even earlier.
 
xemumanic said:
You ATI fanboys are out of your goddamned minds.

So now requiring 2 cards in CF to outdo one card is a good thing. :lol

Not only that, there's CUDA and PhysX to consider.
Click to expand...

I'd say Havok, not Physx, has the better chance to become the standard at this point.

Not to mention that NVidia doesn't want to provide me with 7.1 uncompressed audio.

As far as being an ATI fanboy goes, I've been using a passively cooled 7600GT for the last two years. I love it.
 
Durante said:
If OpenCL delivers (an at this point I believe it will) it will be quick to replace the proprietary GPU computing languages. Nearly everyone in the community yearns for a platform/hardware independent, open programming model.
Click to expand...
Now that NV prolly won't dominate this gen, I agree with you. They were using their dominance to convince people to go with CUDA.

This is incorrect. I have been doing GPGPU starting with Radeon 9700.
Click to expand...
Sorry about that.
 
zoku88 said:
I forget they dropped the price. But the 260 seems to perform a lot less than 4850 CF anyway, so..
Click to expand...

Dropped the price? It wasn't dropped.....all of those other prices we saw were just rumors. Think about it this way, if the rumors were true back then, then the GTX 280 jumped up in price, because I saw $549 and $599 a number of places, if not in this very thread. I was pretty shocked to see the 280 was $649.

And as for this perform a lot less, you're kidding me right?
 
zoku88 said:
Now that NV prolly won't dominate this gen, I agree with you. They were using their dominance to convince people to go with CUDA.
Click to expand...
Not just dominance, that's underselling their effort. They did a great job pushing GPGPU in both marketing and academia, that's undeniable.

But now it seems like ATI/AMD, with a much cheaper chip with supreme DP FP performance will be able to reap some of the rewards as well. It's not like CUDA is such an amazingly intuitive or well abstracted model that people will not want to switch.
 
xemumanic said:
Dropped the price? It wasn't dropped.....all of those other prices we saw were just rumors. Think about it this way, if the rumors were true back then, then the GTX 280 jumped up in price, because I saw $549 and $599 a number of places, if not in this very thread. I was pretty shocked to see the 280 was $649.

And as for this perform a lot less, you're kidding me right?
Click to expand...
You do see the 4850 CF being compared to the 280, right?
 
i need a summer job while i try to find my career job now. my x800xt isnt up to boot any more and at 200-230 with inflation and rarity is well worth it. any get the 4850 benchmark on DMC4 yet from the demo i wanna know what it is.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
I'd say Havok, not Physx, has the better chance to become the standard at this point.

Not to mention that NVidia doesn't want to provide me with 7.1 uncompressed audio.

As far as being an ATI fanboy goes, I've been using a passively cooled 7600GT for the last two years. I love it.
Click to expand...

I'd disagree with Havok, but this is a mere matter of opinion for which there is little for either of us to back up with facts. Also, I'm not calling you, nor anyone else here a fanboy but Moray.

Secondly, as I've said, saying running 2 cards in CF that end up costing the same price (not really, considering tax/shipping, but that moot) is better than one card that has 2 features (PhysX and CUDA) that have the eyes that have the eyes and ears of the industry is just plain illogical to me.

That being said, there is much to be happy about. ATI has been lackluster for some time now, years by my count. However, just because they are suddenly competitive doesn't take anything away from Nvidia, who is still the market and performance leader. Anyone who buys either brand of these newer cards are going to be very happy, but lets keep things in the realm of reality, shall we?
 
Thought I'd add my input. (I currently own 8800GTX)

Judging by what's floating around at XtremeSystems, preliminary results show 4850CF performs at GTX280 level in CoD4. Maybe they will finish their benchmark today (cookercj, reliable.)

At $400, that is great. I don't really care if it's two cards, or one. I care about performancem and price. One thing to note though, CF doesn't always scale well, and it's dependent on drivers.

I'd like to see what the 4870, 4870CF, and 4870X2 can do for us. Maybe this fall I'll have a replacement for my 8800. At worst I'll wait for Nehalem and it's board, then score an ATI card(s).

Why Nehalem? The Valve factor! Great CPU scaling. :)
 
xemumanic said:
I'd disagree with Havok, but this is a mere matter of opinion for which there is little for either of us to back up with facts. Also, I'm not calling you, nor anyone else here a fanboy but Moray.

Secondly, as I've said, saying running 2 cards in CF that end up costing the same price (not really, considering tax/shipping, but that moot) is better than one card that has 2 features (PhysX and CUDA) that have the eyes that have the eyes and ears of the industry is just plain illogical to me.
Click to expand...
You do know that Intel + AMD has a much bigger hold on the graphics industry than Nvidia only right? That and PhysX has been ignored almost completely since its introduction years ago...

The reason people are so for 4850 CF is because it has comparable performance to the $600 card (the 280.) That's why it's logical.

And most people don't care about CUDA...
 
Did anyone who managed to place an order with Amazon get a shipping notification yet? My order hasn't been cancelled yet, but my card hasn't been charged yet either. :(

Sad panda.
 
zoku88 said:
You do know that Intel + AMD has a much bigger hold on the graphics industry than Nvidia only right? That and PhysX has been ignored almost completely since its introduction years ago...

The reason people are so for 4850 CF is because it has comparable performance to the $600 card (the 280.) That's why it's logical.

And most people don't care about CUDA...
Click to expand...


Now you're just being petty. Intel alone out numbers Nvidia and ATI put together, so the hell what? Integrated graphics aren't the section of the market we're discussing here. Nor does ATI's hold in other segments.

Also, PhysX now doesn't require a dedicated card. CUDA's marketing push is just starting out, and the actual applications and scenarios being shown off for CUDA are making headlines, and causing people to rethink what they're doing with these processors.

Put simply, GTX260 > 4850 CF, with far more potential.
 
Shinz Kicker said:
i need a summer job while i try to find my career job now. my x800xt isnt up to boot any more and at 200-230 with inflation and rarity is well worth it. any get the 4850 benchmark on DMC4 yet from the demo i wanna know what it is.
Click to expand...

Basically guaranteed to be above 60fps all the time unless you go insane on the resolution and IQ (and I'm talking 2560x1600 insane here). With my 8800GT it doesn't drop below 60FPS at 1360x768 4xMSAA/8xAF, tack on an extra 30-40% performance and you should be able to manage that IQ at 1080p without breaking sweat. Its a beautifully coded engine, the most efficient I've witnessed in a long time, Capcom deserve major credit for their PC support.


xemumanic said:
Now you're just being petty. Intel alone out numbers Nvidia and ATI put together, so the hell what? Integrated graphics aren't the section of the market we're discussing here. Nor does ATI's hold in other segments.
Click to expand...

Ehm, you have heard about Larrabee right? Intel are getting VERY serious with graphics and they will have a lot of pull in this matter. Havok is already far and away the most widely used physics API around and with AMD's and Intel's backing its here to stay.

I still don't understand the trumpeting of the GTX 260, its literally not in the same performance league. We know crossfire 4850s are looking to be noticeably faster than a GTX 280, which is noticeably faster than a GTX 260, how that comes out to the same performance is beyond me. On the features side, 7.1 uncompressed audio is of a lot more value to me than CUDA, especially considering ATI aren't exactly a slouch in the GPGPU arena, a teraflop card for $200 is sure to put a spanner in the works of CUDA's adoption.
 
xemumanic said:
I'd disagree with Havok, but this is a mere matter of opinion for which there is little for either of us to back up with facts. Also, I'm not calling you, nor anyone else here a fanboy but Moray.

Secondly, as I've said, saying running 2 cards in CF that end up costing the same price (not really, considering tax/shipping, but that moot) is better than one card that has 2 features (PhysX and CUDA) that have the eyes that have the eyes and ears of the industry is just plain illogical to me.
Click to expand...

Yikes dude, you're completely wrong.

2x4850 in CF is $400
1xGTX 280 is $650

How is that at all the same price?

And seeing results like this.
Crysis: 1920 x 1200, DX10, All settings on Very High, 4xAA

4850 CF = ~23 fps
GTX280 = ~16 fps
Click to expand...
For $150 dollars LESS, it's what is getting everyone excited. It's bang for buck and for substantially less money, you're blowing away the top nVidia card.

Seeing as you wanna keep pushing PhysX and CUDA as well. How about Havok being used by AMD/ATi/Intel for both GPU and CPU or the GTX200 series not having DX10.1. Havok will probably become the standard over PhysX because it's already got more game support, is more widely established, and has both Intel and AMD utilizing it already for the CPUs. ATi using it in GPUs will only widen the gap.
 
xemumanic said:
Now you're just being petty. Intel alone out numbers Nvidia and ATI put together, so the hell what? Integrated graphics aren't the section of the market we're discussing here. Nor does ATI's hold in other segments.

Also, PhysX now doesn't require a dedicated card. CUDA's marketing push is just starting out, and the actual applications and scenarios being shown off for CUDA are making headlines, and causing people to rethink what they're doing with these processors.

Put simply, GTX260 > 4850 CF, with far more potential.
Click to expand...
If you're a developer, would you program for option A that uses PhysX which has a smaller market or option B that uses Havok which has a bigger market? Exactly.

No, not exactly. People were thinking about what GPUs could be used for long before CUDA made headlines. You're sensationalizing it. If nothing else, FAH brought more attn to GPUs as processors than anything else, since they demonstrated in the real world what could become of it.

And, of course, to consumers, if option A that costs $400 has better performance than option B that costs $400, which one do you think they'll go for?
 
xemumanic said:
Holy crap, did you even look? I said the _260_
Click to expand...

There isn't even competition between 260 and CF4850s. CF4850s overtake the 280 by a good margin for the same price as a 260.
 
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