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

Pimpbaa said:
Really lame that nvidia isn't supporting DX10.1. It is the performance jump DX10 needed, but they have like godhandiscen said, fucking with the evolution of PC gaming. People will blindly buy nvidia cards too, because of fanboy'ism. Just like how idiots bought any of the Geforce FX series. Not like ATI isn't guilty of this too with their whole late to the shader model 3.0 party a while back. ATI fanboys bought shader model 2.0 when shader model 3.0 clearly had potential and was starting to get used. But in that case, ATI wasn't the market leader so it wasn't as big of a deal.
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It's funny, I was at my local pc shop today buying a Blue Orb, and I couldn't believe the shit I was hearing.

"ATI's Driver team sucks."

"I will never buy an ATI card because of their drivers."

Uh, last I checked, ATI's drivers have been pretty damn good ever since the release of the 9700 Pro in 2002. Some of these people are still living in the Rage Fury Maxx days. :lol
 
phez said:
wow, i can't believe you typed that out. welcome to the INTERNETS! fanboyism exists in all industries anyways. Ford or Honda? Heckler or Steyr? Sony or Microsoft? :D
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The thing that makes videocards such a weird case is that most of the people passionate enough to be fanboys upgrade every cycle. Yet they will still argue passionately for, and spend their money exclusively on, cards that are inferior in every way imaginable. Last year it was the 2900. This year ATI seems to have done their homework and have caught up. We'll have to see how the 4870 stacks up, but it looks like we finally have a two horse race here again.

The thing that makes me so dumbfounded is that alot of NVIDIA fans seem more than a little upset by it. It really makes no sense because the competition will only drive down prices on NVIDIA cards so they can buy them cheaper.

Atleast you can try and rationalize the sony versus microsoft thing by convincing ones self that your exclusives are better than "the other guys'" exlusives. You can't even do that in PC games.
 
aznpxdd said:
Not really, stock ATi drivers has always been pretty meh.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's not the case...at one point in 90's, they were actually the saddest, most pathetic fucking thing ever known to man. :D Seriously, you had to experience it to appreciate it. When a couple of guys from a forum could get the Rage Fury Maxx to work flawlessly with some drivers they threw together over the course of day, whereas the manufacturer couldn't...well, you get the idea.

I personally think the turnaround has been amazing.
 
WHOAguitarninja said:
The thing that makes videocards such a weird case is that most of the people passionate enough to be fanboys upgrade every cycle. Yet they will still argue passionately for, and spend their money exclusively on, cards that are inferior in every way imaginable. Last year it was the 2900. This year ATI seems to have done their homework and have caught up. We'll have to see how the 4870 stacks up, but it looks like we finally have a two horse race here again.

The thing that makes me so dumbfounded is that alot of NVIDIA fans seem more than a little upset by it. It really makes no sense because the competition will only drive down prices on NVIDIA cards so they can buy them cheaper.

Atleast you can try and rationalize the sony versus microsoft thing by convincing ones self that your exclusives are better than "the other guys'" exlusives. You can't even do that in PC games.
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I've only ever had GeForce cards in my PC, but if the reviews are anything to go by, it looks like my next upgrade will be an ATI card. I'm hanging out for the 4870 or the X2, but if the 4850 is anything to go by, then Nvidia may well be beat on price/performance for this round.
 
Bernbaum said:
I've only ever had GeForce cards in my PC, but if the reviews are anything to go by, it looks like my next upgrade will be an ATI card. I'm hanging out for the 4870 or the X2, but if the 4850 is anything to go by, then Nvidia may well be beat on price/performance for this round.
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Yeah, I really can't wait to see how the 4870 stacks up to the GTX 260. If it's within 5%, Nvidia's got to drop the price immediately.
 
Chiggs said:
It's funny, I was at my local pc shop today buying a Blue Orb, and I couldn't believe the shit I was hearing.

"ATI's Driver team sucks."

"I will never buy an ATI card because of their drivers."

Uh, last I checked, ATI's drivers have been pretty damn good ever since the release of the 9700 Pro in 2002. Some of these people are still living in the Rage Fury Maxx days. :lol
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've owned 2 ati cards (9800 pro and 3870) and a hell of a lot of nvidia cards. I wouldn't rate one over the other when it comes to driver quality.
 
I've only ever bought nVidia but that's mostly been because of timing. I bought a GF3 when they had no real competition, a GF4 Ti 4200 when they were the best value on the market, a 7600GT for similar reasons, and a 8800GT earlier this year. I probably won't upgrade again till some time in late '09 or '10, and at that point nVidia will probably have the best option for me. Just seems to work out that way.
 
ATI drivers tend to be pretty damn good. At least for the last few years.

I've been using nVidia cards exclusively ever since the GF2MX; I've got a 8800GT at the moment, but I probably will switch to a 4850/4870 because the GTX is looking like the new FX. The GTXs cost too much, output too much heat and are pathetic bang/buck-wise. I could get a 4850 for $220AU and it's about 75% as fast and 1/3 of the cost of the GTX280s big, fat, overpriced ass.
 
^
Should do alright. You might not have enough power to do any overclocking.

My friend is running a 9800GX2, an OCed E8400 and 2 HDDs off a stock Shuttle PSU. Can't overclock the GPU, but he's not unhappy about it.
 
Mr. Pointy said:
ATI drivers tend to be pretty damn good. At least for the last few years.

I've been using nVidia cards exclusively ever since the GF2MX; I've got a 8800GT at the moment, but I probably will switch to a 4850/4870 because the GTX is looking like the new FX. The GTXs cost too much, output too much heat and are pathetic bang/buck-wise. I could get a 4850 for $220AU and it's about 75% as fast and 1/3 of the cost of the GTX280s big, fat, overpriced ass.
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$220 is pretty damn good. Where have you seen it at this price? The only one I can track down is $299 AU. I'm amazed this card is hitting shelves at this price, I got my first 8800GT for $350 and the second one for $250, so this is an exceptional deal.
 
iamblades said:
Thats the 4870x2.

The 4870 is the $300 card, to compete with the $400 GTX 260.
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Anandtech's benches are showing that the 4850 is more than a match for the GTX 260.

17119.png


17114.png


17113.png
 
Shitty drivers aren't exclusive to anyone.

When I built my cheapass PC last summer and put a Geforce 8600gts in it, the drivers fucking sucked. There were 3 updates in a row where Nvidia couldn't figure out how install a driver in Vista without the user having to manually uninstall the previous driver. It was a huge PITA and the first time I tried to do it I got caught in some kind of time displacement feedback loop.

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

Ok.

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

Umm..ok I just did that but I'll try it again.

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

...

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

/takes baseball bat to the computer
 
bill0527 said:
Shitty drivers aren't exclusive to anyone.

When I built my cheapass PC last summer and put a Geforce 8600gts in it, the drivers fucking sucked. There were 3 updates in a row where Nvidia couldn't figure out how install a driver in Vista without the user having to manually uninstall the previous driver. It was a huge PITA and the first time I tried to do it I got caught in some kind of time displacement feedback loop.

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

Ok.

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

Umm..ok I just did that but I'll try it again.

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

...

"Please uninstall the previous driver".

/takes baseball bat to the computer
Click to expand...
No matter whose drivers you're dealing with you should always always always uninstall the old version and run a driver cleaner program just to be safe. It takes five minutes and prevents a lot of headaches.
 
aeolist said:
No matter whose drivers you're dealing with you should always always always uninstall the old version and run a driver cleaner program just to be safe. It takes five minutes and prevents a lot of headaches.
Click to expand...

I hear this constantly, but in over 12 year of installing my own video cards, I've never done it. Especially since, I think it was Windows XP that started the driver rollback feature. If I ever had a problem with a new driver, I could just click on 1 button and roll it back to the previous version.
 
SapientWolf said:
Anandtech's benches are showing that the 4850 is more than a match for the GTX 260.

17119.png


17114.png


17113.png
Click to expand...

Yeah, that makes AMD's position even more impressive, not only is the much cheaper card at the same level outperforming Nvidia, but so is the even cheaper card from the lower leve, at least at some things.l.

I seem to switch GPU manufacturers every 2 gens, so it looks like I'll be going back to ATi this round.

I've gone TNT2 > radeon 7500(i think, was in the 7000 range somewhere) > radeon 9800 pro > 7800GT > 8800 GT
 
aeolist said:
No matter whose drivers you're dealing with you should always always always uninstall the old version and run a driver cleaner program just to be safe. It takes five minutes and prevents a lot of headaches.
Click to expand...
wats a good free driver cleaner just in case i need one
 
Driver cleaner pro.

The typical step is:
Uninstall old drivers
Reboot in safe mode
Run driver cleaner
Install new drivers
Reboot
 
aznpxdd said:
Driver cleaner pro.

The typical step is:
Uninstall old drivers
Reboot in safe mode
Run driver cleaner
Install new drivers
Reboot
Click to expand...

You should uninstall the driver in safe mode. It's much faster if it's not already loaded.
 
Vic said:
1zq6c2b.jpg
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OK, I was looking through the thread and saw this... now, I've got a really dumb question, but help me out GAF. Does anyone know where I can find a nice clean picture of the character on the cover... first time I saw a GPU cover design that I thought was actually really awesome...
 
krzyspc said:
Big difference is that you need Vista as well which adds more to this sticky situation.
Click to expand...
_leech_ said:
Exactly. DX10 adoption (let's not even get into 10.1) is going so slowly because its use is limited to a currently unpopular OS.
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Sure, the additional requirement of Vista makes the change from DX9 to DX10 different from DX8 to DX9, but nonetheless, you're in the same situation - developers not making games that fully take advantage of the new API until years after the hardware comes out.

By the time games come out that truly take advantage of DX10, most people will have Vista anyway. Vista may be "unpopular" in the cool-kid-crowd, but for people who actually use it, most quite like it.

XP-->Vista adoption, if anything, has gone far smoother for gaming than 98/ME-->2000/XP did, that's for sure.
 
dLMN8R said:
Sure, the additional requirement of Vista makes the change from DX9 to DX10 different from DX8 to DX9, but nonetheless, you're in the same situation - developers not making games that fully take advantage of the new API until years after the hardware comes out.

By the time games come out that truly take advantage of DX10, most people will have Vista anyway. Vista may be "unpopular" in the cool-kid-crowd, but for people who actually use it, most quite like it.

XP-->Vista adoption, if anything, has gone far smoother for gaming than 98/ME-->2000/XP did, that's for sure.
Click to expand...

I dunno... I wouldn't call those kids cool. :lol

Seriously though, the issues over Vista are overblown. Much of people's opinion is based on informational conformity (kind of like New Coke).
 
Seems like the 4850 offer the best value this round. If i were to upgrade I would probably get that one.
But I am still quite happy with the performance my 8800GTS 640 offer and I don't think I'll upgrade until next spring/summer round of cards.
 
SRG01 said:
I dunno... I wouldn't call those kids cool. :lol

Seriously though, the issues over Vista are overblown. Much of people's opinion is based on informational conformity (kind of like New Coke).
Click to expand...

What you guys are failing to understand, is that the reason us XP users are unwilling to uprade to Vista is because there some apps that we still use that simply DO NOT WORK IN VISTA! It has nothing to do with whether we like it or not. It's all about compatibility and support for apps that we need to use that don't work.

And believe me, there are plenty of them that I use, some that I honestly can't see getting Vista support for a long time. So I'm still forced to use XP, which I am happy with.

It's going to be AGES before people universally adopt Vista in my opinion, due to the situation I described above.
 
It seems like the 9800GX2 is still the fastest card available. Does anyone have any idea how AMD's 4870X2 will compete with it? Any theories?
 
isamu said:
What you guys are failing to understand, is that the reason us XP users are unwilling to uprade to Vista is because there some apps that we still use that simply DO NOT WORK IN VISTA! It has nothing to do with whether we like it or not. It's all about compatibility and support for apps that we need to use that don't work.

And believe me, there are plenty of them that I use, some that I honestly can't see getting Vista support for a long time. So I'm still forced to use XP, which I am happy with.

It's going to be AGES before people universally adopt Vista in my opinion, due to the situation I described above.
Click to expand...
I understand that some people are still in situations such as this, but I believe you're sorely mistaken if you think that's the case for the anything but a small minority of people. May I ask what application you're using is that still has compatibility problems now, a year and a half after the OS came out?
 
Bought an 8800GT from EVGA recently, when the 9800+ comes out, I'll be stepping up for $10. Sounds good to me.
 
Mefisutoferesu said:
OK, I was looking through the thread and saw this... now, I've got a really dumb question, but help me out GAF. Does anyone know where I can find a nice clean picture of the character on the cover... first time I saw a GPU cover design that I thought was actually really awesome...
Click to expand...
My card:
345302.jpg

She is in all Asus cards. I would prefer an image of Ruby though.

Kevin said:
It seems like the 9800GX2 is still the fastest card available. Does anyone have any idea how AMD's 4870X2 will compete with it? Any theories?
Click to expand...
4870X2 will kill it, but @ $600. :(
 
nubbe said:
Seems like the 4850 offer the best value this round. If i were to upgrade I would probably get that one.
But I am still quite happy with the performance my 8800GTS 640 offer and I don't think I'll upgrade until next spring/summer round of cards.
Click to expand...

If I owned anything at all in the 8800gt/gts/gx line I would not bother upgrading to a 4850. Its a little bit better, but not $150-$200 better. Wait for the 4870 or 4870x2.
 
bill0527 said:
If I owned anything at all in the 8800gt/gts/gx line I would not bother upgrading to a 4850. Its a little bit better, but not $150-$200 better. Wait for the 4870 or 4870x2.
Click to expand...

Well if you sell your old card the upgrade will cost you only ~$50. Plus he has a G82 8800GTS, not the G92 version which is much better. Its more than a worthy upgrade if you don't want to spash out on the 4870.
 
Waikis said:
Do all the HD4850s come with a dual-slot design?
I want to CF them , but I need the PCI slot for my soundcard...
Click to expand...
At the moment, the most of them are using a single slot cooler.
 
dLMN8R said:
Also, another thing about Vista's adoption rate - it's actually faster than XP's was.

So the talk about it being unlikely that Vista/DX10 will be adopted as quickly as XP was when it came out is really just bunk.
Click to expand...
I think that's more of a demonstration of MS's hold on the retail PC market. I don't think boxed copies of Vista are flying off the shelves. With a few notable exceptions, you can't buy a new PC with XP even if you wanted to.

Why is this relevant? PC gamers tend to build their own PCs.
 
Some guy in the forums over at Guru3D got a 4850 as cool as a cucumber with an Accelero+fan:

Hi guys,
dont know if you would be interested but i have AC Accelero S2 rev2, and it fits perfectly, except power regulators, where i used another 6 small ram heatsinks, because original metal plate from package wasnt suitable.
with this s2 equipped with 120mm fan, 4850 idles at 39 (there is little room in my case, without all pci cards, it idles at 35 ), and loads at 45-50.

Of course thats with gpu at 700mhz, ram 1150
Click to expand...
 
dLMN8R said:
Also, another thing about Vista's adoption rate - it's actually faster than XP's was.

So the talk about it being unlikely that Vista/DX10 will be adopted as quickly as XP was when it came out is really just bunk.
Click to expand...

Was the adoption rate of XP really worse than ~17% with gamers over a year and a half after release like it stands now with Vista?

I upgraded almost day 1 with XP. I was dying to get 2K's stability with 98's compatibility.

On topic, these new benchmarks are insane, I can't wait to upgrade my box, rather build a new one... good riddens AGP!
 
Man i'm really on the verge of buying a new Pc.

My current Pc is a 2.8 p4, Fx5950, 2Gb of ram. And i'm planning on making this:

SEAGATE BARRACUDA 500GB SATA2 7200.11 32MB CACHE
NOCTUA NH-U12P C/ VORTEX FAN
COOLERMASTER COSMOS-S TOWER
CORE 2 QUAD Q9450 2.66GHZ FSB1333 12MB CACHE 45NM
CORSAIR HX1000 1000W MODULAR SLI
NEC 7200S DVD±RW 20x DL PRETO SATA
ASUS P5Q DELUXE CHIPSET P45 SOCKET 775
POWERCOLOR HD4850 512MB GDDR3 PCIe x2 (Crossfire)
G SKILL DDR2 PC2 8500 4GB PK SERIES DUAL CHANNEL

But i'm getting cold feet.
 
Hajaz said:
get an x38 or X48 mobo for crossfire
Click to expand...

Or save that hundred bucks, then when you want to upgrade sell your old card and buy an X2. Will probably come out about the same. Plus an X2 will use less power than two cards.
 
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