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[Epsilon-delta]

:lol @ the first point on the slide. PC FTW

 

[Cheeto]

So available everywhere today?

 

[Outdoor Miner]

I guess so.

So does that mean the leaked schedule has bumped up as well, meaning the 4870 is coming sooner?

 

[Proelite]

4870, mine mine mine.

 

[Kintaro]

Hmm, well, I bought a 9600 GT with the intentions of stepping up to the next gen of cards soon (evga) but with ATi coming out so strong, I may have to hop on one of these or just live with the 9600. Sad that evga doesn't make ATi cards.

 

[Epsilon-delta]

4870, mine mine mine.

Same here or might wait till the beast that is 4870x2 to come out.

 

[Beer Monkey]

It's hard to believe that just a few days ago I was reading posts on other forums about how ATI had decided not to try to compete in the upcoming generation.

 

[derder]

gah! Now I need to wait until I get benchmarks for the 4870 AND the 9800GTX+!

Does anyone know the MSRP on the 4870?

 

[Hajaz]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-ati-radeon-hd-4850-review-force-3d--powercolor/

 

[Chiggs]

Wait a second, didn't the 9700 PRO launch in 2002?

 

[Epsilon-delta]

Wait a second, didn't the 9700 PRO launch in 2002?

Yes it did. Apparently AMD forgot the memo...it's not the first time to see a typo on an AMD slide.

 

[Bulla564]

Same here or might wait till the beast that is 4870x2 to come out.

It marks the day when I will build my post AMD 3500+/9800 Pro/1GB computer. I'm hoping the difference will be noticeable.

 

[phez]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-ati-radeon-hd-4850-review-force-3d--powercolor/

thanks, finally something from a site more reputable!

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Wow reading a lot of tech site forums, there's a lot of misinformation that seems to be spreading. It's mostly from one camp too.

Video card fanboyism is alive again and serious business apparently.

 

[bee]

4850 now available on ebay in the UK, £142.50 + £9.95 next day delivery, so they should be £130-150 when they officially launch next week

 

[Outdoor Miner]

4870 512MB went up on Buy.com for $299 early. Sold out now.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Hey, if anyone here still has an Amazon order from earlier in the week that hasn't shipped, contact BuyNow Inc through them and ask about it. They knocked $20 off my order because of the "delay".

 

[Tenacious-V]

gah! Now I need to wait until I get benchmarks for the 4870 AND the 9800GTX+!

Does anyone know the MSRP on the 4870?

I thought it was $329.99 but some places are selling it for $299.99!!

This slide also suggests it's $299.99

And this, basically seals the deal :lol.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4850/1.html

**Edit: Maybe it's the 1GB card that is $329.99, because I kept hearing that price being tossed around.

 

[godhandiscen]

4870 512MB went up on Buy.com for $299 early. Sold out now.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKK! I missed it! At $300 I would have totally got one to hold me until the 4870X2.

I thought it was $329.99 but some places are selling it for $299.99!!

This slide also suggests it's $299.99

And this, basically seals the deal :lol.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4850/1.html

**Edit: Maybe it's the 1GB card that is $329.99, because I kept hearing that price being tossed around.

4870X2 < $600 BELIEVE!

 

[Outdoor Miner]

So I'm at the Egg looking at 8 identical 4850's from different manufacturers. All things being equal, is there any provider that above the rest for ATI cards?

 

[Bananimus]

I'd probably trust Asus or Gigabyte (judging from their mobo quality). Power Color may be better now, but I recall them being shit years ago.

 

[brain_stew]

gah! Now I need to wait until I get benchmarks for the 4870 AND the 9800GTX+!

Does anyone know the MSRP on the 4870?

They're all reference designs, so its only the stickers, warranties and bundles that will vary, the cards are all essentially the same. So try and find a one with a free game perhaps?

 

[godhandiscen]

So I'm at the Egg looking at 8 identical 4850's from different manufacturers. All things being equal, is there any provider that above the rest for ATI cards?

Whenever I can, I go with Asus, but in the ATI forums they are big Saphire fans. ASUS is always a little bit more expensive too. I have never had problems with ASUS products, so I cannot tell about they quality of their technical support.

 

[Fragamemnon]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_radeon_hd_4850_geforce_9800_gtx+

4850 vs. 9800GTX+ benchmarks from a reputable source.

This battle is a neck-and-neck race. In games like Quake Wars, F.E.A.R., and Call of Duty 4, our testing gave the edge to the 4850. But in Lost Planet DX10 and BioShock DX10 the GeForce 9800 GTX+ ran faster than the 4850 (in Company of Heroes, the 4850 and 9800 GTX traded wins). Meanwhile Crysis, HL2 Episode Two, and Oblivion were too close to call. Depending on which games you play (and perhaps certain levels in the same game) the edge could go to AMD or NVIDIA in our preliminary testing.

I'm not really too interested in either card (looking at the prosumer 4870 vs. GTX 260 for my next upgrade, hate multi-GPU configurations), but it looks like nVidia's new low-end card is pushing a draw with the 4850.

 

[brain_stew]

The MSI card at Newegg has a $25 mail in rebate, so that's the one to go for. The fact that rebates are being offered already is very good news, should mean the prices on these cards will continue to fall in the next few weeks/months.

 

[godhandiscen]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_radeon_hd_4850_geforce_9800_gtx+

4850 vs. 9800GTX+ benchmarks from a reputable source.



I'm not really too interested in either card (looking at the prosumer 4870 vs. GTX 260 for my next upgrade, hate multi-GPU configurations), but it looks like nVidia's new low-end card is pushing a draw with the 4850.

They used 8.6 Beta drivers, which were not fully optimized at least from my experience with the 3870X2. The beat drivers were released about 3 weeks ago, I installed them around 2 weeks ago and the performance in Crysis wasnt the same as what I get now with the 8.6 release. The performance increase in Unreal was already there though. I cannot tell about Lost Planet or other games since I dont have them, but the release notes for Cat8.6 talk about a performance increase in Lost Planet, and I dont know if this happened pre-beta or post beta.



Also:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix 2.0GHz DDR3

Another weird thing, they tested an ATI card on a SLI motherboard.


And

Is very very far from what other sites have been reporting.


I expect the 9800GTX to be faster than the 4850, but I dont know how they reached those figures with Crysis. Just a few pages ago, you can see that resolution is playable with the 4850.

 

[artist]

I'm not really too interested in either card (looking at the prosumer 4870 vs. GTX 260 for my next upgrade, hate multi-GPU configurations), but it looks like nVidia's new low-end card is pushing a draw with the 4850.

Pushing draw? :lol Have you seen other reviews lately? 4850 is very close to the GTX260 in some benches, not really sure whats up with Firingsquad's numbers.

If (pretty big one at that) the cards performance is similar, the GTX+ is also more expensive and is launching next month.

9800GTX+ is a desperate move from Nvidia. Would you spend money into a new architecture or let a corp milk an old architecture?

 

[aeolist]

So I guess I'll be recommending the ATi cards for people looking into midrange cards. That's going to be weird.

 

[xemumanic]

OK, so you guys know already.
..................uh, WTF?

I can't even wrap my brain around this.
Whats with all these improvements every 3 months?

Edit: Also, that reminds me, isn't there going to be a 55nm die shrink of the GT200 called the GT200b? Dunno why I didn't remember that yesterday but, I'm totally lost now.

 

[aeolist]

OK, so you guys know already.
..................uh, WTF?

I can't even wrap my brain around this.
Whats with all these improvements every 3 months?

The last round of cards shouldn't have gotten any notice from people who already had 8800 series cards, which came out a year ago. Both companies just refreshed their current architecture last time, this is a whole new ball game.

 

[theultimo]

OK, so you guys know already.
..................uh, WTF?

I can't even wrap my brain around this.
Whats with all these improvements every 3 months?

Well, I look forward to new tech, however, i'm still running a 2900xt and a 8600m in my laptop. No sense to jump at each new upgrade. However, these look worthwhile because of actually playable dx 10 stuff.

 

[Vic]

OK, so you guys know already.
..................uh, WTF?

I can't even wrap my brain around this.
Whats with all these improvements every 3 months?

Edit: Also, that reminds me, isn't there going to be a 55nm die shrink of the GT200 called the GT200b? Dunno why I didn't remember that yesterday but, I'm totally lost now.

I thought the GT200 was 55nm

-checked on Wikipedia, it's 65nm

 

[derder]

I'm going to let the dust settle and go pick one of these up next week. The HDMI and 7.1 uncompressed audio on the ATI is looking tasty... but I'll wait until everyone reviews everything first.

 

[aeolist]

I thought the GT200 was 55nm

Still 65nm. One reason why it's so damn big.

 

[Vic]

Still 65nm. One reason why it's so damn big.

Yes, I just read that on Wikip. Oh why Nvidia, why?

 

[derder]

They used 8.6 Beta drivers, which were not fully optimized at least from my experience with the 3870X2. The beat drivers were released about 3 weeks ago, I installed them around 2 weeks ago and the performance in Crysis wasnt the same as what I get now with the 8.6 release. The performance increase in Unreal was already there though. I cannot tell about Lost Planet or other games since I dont have them, but the release notes for Cat8.6 talk about a performance increase in Lost Planet, and I dont know if this happened pre-beta or post beta.



Also:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix 2.0GHz DDR3

Another weird thing, they tested an ATI card on a SLI motherboard.

You forgot to mention that they explicitly stated that they were going to redo the tests with the proper nvidia drivers/U]. My guess is that they've been sitting on this embargo'd review for a while.

 

[~Kinggi~]

I just want the info on 4870x2. I need to finally upgrade from my 3500+, 6800gt dinosaur.

 

[aeolist]

Yes, I just read that on Wikip. Oh why Nvidia, why?

It's getting harder and more expensive with each die shrink. Everyone's having trouble going smaller.

That said I think they could have done it, but they would have had to spend a lot more or delay. They wanted to keep their advantage over ATi so a delay was out of the question, and nVidia's so profit-oriented that they're not willing to just pour money into stuff like this. They'll probably hit 55nm before the year is out (and they may hurry their asses up if they start losing market share, which very well may happen now).

 

[Pachael]

Anandtech's put up their review (but some details of the card are under NDA, so there's less card/technical talk and more benchmarks and Crossfire action)

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338

For starters, the Radeon HD 4850 looks to be the best buy at $199, even better than NVIDIA's price-dropped GeForce 9800 GTX. What's also unbelievable is that compared to the 4850, our beloved GeForce 8800 GT seems downright slow in a number of benchmarks - and the 8800 GT is only 8 months old. It's also very refreshing to see this sort of competitive pressure at such a reasonable price point, while it's fun to write about 1.4 billion transistor GPUs it's a dream come true to be able to write about this type of performance at under $200.

Take two 4850s, put them together and now you've got something even faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 in most cases. It shouldn't be too surprising since 8800 GT SLI and 9800 GX2 both outperform the GTX 280 as well.

They also mention that Crossfire still needs a bit of work, and in this case the 4850 is recommended over the 9800GTX. Unless you're closely following CUDA, which is more well developed than GPGPU (for now).

The GTXes are still the most powerful cards around, but this price matching business has put ATI ahead on price/performance (for now). Fun times ahead, since there can only be further price cuts and responses by both companies with each other. With Larabee coming along too, the two companies (more Nvidia) are starting to take potshots at Intel as well.

So we all win.

 

[Vic]

The 4850 is check, the 4870 might be mate... (if the GDDR5 is TRULY MAGICAL AS RUMORED!!)

 

[Vic]

It's getting harder and more expensive with each die shrink. Everyone's having trouble going smaller.

That said I think they could have done it, but they would have had to spend a lot more or delay. They wanted to keep their advantage over ATi so a delay was out of the question, and nVidia's so profit-oriented that they're not willing to just pour money into stuff like this. They'll probably hit 55nm before the year is out (and they may hurry their asses up if they start losing market share, which very well may happen now).

They better do so since ATi is planning to release a new GPU every 6 months

 

[Tathanen]

Okay, I'm an idiot. You guys are going to have to help me out here.

Crossfire? x2? Etc?

How much of this is running two separate cards, as in I have to go out and buy two boxes, and how much just means two chips on a card or something?

I'm thinking of getting a new machine in a couple months; would it be reasonable to buy a 4850 and add a SECOND one at some indeterminate point in the future if I needed a boost? Is that what crossfire is? Is that what all this scalability yammering is all about?

:[

 

[aeolist]

Okay, I'm an idiot. You guys are going to have to help me out here.

Crossfire? x2? Etc?

How much of this is running two separate cards, as in I have to go out and buy two boxes, and how much just means two chips on a card or something?

I'm thinking of getting a new machine in a couple months; would it be reasonable to buy a 4850 and add a SECOND one at some indeterminate point in the future if I needed a boost? Is that what crossfire is? Is that what all this scalability yammering is all about?

:[

x2 cards have 2 GPUs on one board. Crossfire uses two cards in parallel.

 

[brain_stew]

The 4850 is check, the 4870 might be mate... (if the GDDR5 is TRULY MAGICAL AS RUMORED!!)

Well at the same clockspeeds it gives twice the bandwidth of GDDR3, and it uses less voltage to boot. Considering the 4850 has less bandwidth than even the 3870 (which it destroys) then there's every chance the 80% extra bandwidth could offer some nice performance particularly at high resolutions. Only problem may be ATI getting enough of the stuff with it being such new tech.

With the extra voltage, extra power connector and better cooling then the overclocking could be pretty interesting. Its already got a 20% clock boost over the 4850 so add some nice overclocking and twice the bandwidth and it could be a VERY tasty proposition at $300. My 8800GT won't overclock for s**t so if the 4870 delivers then I wouldn't mind offloading, seems I got unlucky with the chip I got.

 

[brain_stew]

Double post

 

[MaritalWheat]

So I'm at the Egg looking at 8 identical 4850's from different manufacturers. All things being equal, is there any provider that above the rest for ATI cards?

Holy shit!!! Only $170 with some mail-in rebates. Fuck it, I'm gonna buy like 10 4850's I'm so happy.

 

[theultimo]

Holy shit!!! Only $170 with some mail-in rebates. Fuck it, I'm gonna buy like 10 4850's I'm so happy.

Considering what I paid for my 2900xt a year or so ago, I'm AMAZED that this level of performance is THIS CHEAP. Can't Wait

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Holy shit!!! Only $170 with some mail-in rebates. Fuck it, I'm gonna buy like 10 4850's I'm so happy.

TV Advertisement: Yes, now you can hear holophonor virtuoso Philip Fry play 900 of his classic themes in your own home on this two-record set. That's over 30 minutes of music for only $14.99.
Dr. Zoidberg: Only $14.99 for a two-record set. Two records! Oh, Zoidberg, at last you're becoming a crafty consumer! Hello? I'll take eight!

 

[Convergys]

Wow. The physx drivers have been "released" on the interwebs

 

[bathala]

well the review from guru3d worries me about the temp.
i guess I have to buy a vga cooling