ati 4850 review

great

pretty comprehensive review
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=191096

Sqaull20

If its €170 then not so good, I have seen 8800gt's and HD3870 for 110 euro on some sites ( they will get cheaper ).

That review puts its a slight bit faster than a 512mb 8800gts, which is €150 on same sites..

takumi

is there a date set for the 4870s ?

great

takumi wrote: »

is there a date set for the 4870s ?

they are suposed to come out on the same day. the 25th of june

Sqaull20

2 x HD4850 are faster than GTX 280, going by this user review

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

Cant wait to get HD4870

CrazyOtter

I'm just hoping the faster 4870 will come out soon, but with a rear exhaust setup.

WEST

The review\preview on Anandtech and The Tech report put the 4850 in a very good light. It can only get better as the drivers improve.
The Bioshock benchmark had the 4850 beating the GTX 260, if this is the case with all Unreal 3 engine games ATI have a hit on their hands.

In responce Nvidia, are going to release the 9800 GTX+. Seems its a great time to buy a graphics card!

IronWolf

Anyone heard how hot these cards run? One of the main things preventing me from buying the GeForce 9 series was the high temperature they apparently run at. If these new ATI cards have a better cooling system then they've made my mind up for me

WEST

The ATI 4850 can run very hot, however the card that was reviewed only had a single slot cooling solution. I would wait until manufactures bring out better heatsinks.

Plus the 4870 will be released soon (cant remember the exact date). To be honest I would wait till the 4870 and Geforece 9800 gtx+ are released. By that stage we should have double slot cooling solutions for the 4850 and you will have bigger choice of cards to buy.

Flaccus

4870 is expected 25th but only a paper launch. Not really available till after 6th July. The X2 I hear now is not going to appear till after the Summer.

According to Anand the 4850 runs idle in the mid 70's. Have not read enough reviews commenting on how loud it runs. I'm guessin the 4870 will be cooler and quieter though over dual card cooler. God knows, how fast they will be in Xfire mode.

For those with SLI boards that have a single 8800GT or better, it seems sliing them is the way to go. For high res gaming at 1920x1200 and above, 2 gt's in sli comes in the top 3 in Bioshock,Crysis,The Witcher,Crysis, Assassins Creed, and COD4, and the 4850's in Crossfire only beat it in 2 of those games at that res. This suggests to me 2xG92's in SLI > 2x4850's in SLI > GTX 280 > GTX 260 / 4850. I'd imagine 2 GTX 280's in SLI would still be the reigning champ though, until the 4870 comes out and someone Xfires them.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=14

Having said all that benches are not everything, and I read with interest what this person had to say about the GTX 280's superior bandwidth and extra memory against a GX2 which he also owns :
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17888181

Although lots of sites are showing the GTX 280 being beaten out by the GX2 this person found :

> Certain games now have quicker loading times, especially Unreal Engine 3 based games (like Mass Effect, about 50% faster loading)

> More complex games with high res textures have less random paulsing, from things caused by hard drive paging and so on (Oblivion, Mass Effect, Crysis and so on...)

If Nvidia sort the bios so it's no longer a leafblower (at least that's what Toms Hardware says) and prices drop I would definitely consider a GTX 280. But really want to wait and see what happens with the 4870 and X2 first. Plus we kind of need new games to try these new cards out on.

CrazyOtter

Flaccus is right, the 280 is the best card out there.

Still, for a lot of people the 4850 will be a great upgrade for 150 Euro.

If the 4870 performs even better for another extra 60-70 Euro, sounds like another good deal.

papu

HOLEY CROSSFIRE BATMAN! thats awesome performance against a card almost 2X the price
4850's seem to be going at about 150 euros with 280GTX's ricking 530 euros!!