Raw-power and Fill Rate Tests, Continued
Let’s continue the Pixel Shader 2.0 tests:
The AMD architecture wins out – the 800 processing units are in evidence and despite their higher frequency, the GT200’s 240 units couldn’t keep up. Now let’s see the results with a newer version, using modern shaders.
Again it’s not even close: the RV770’s 800 ALUs left the GeForce in the dust. On the other hand, as soon as the test puts the accent more on texture instructions...
...the RV770 and its 40 texture units can’t compete with the G92’s 64 and the GT200’s 80. There’s no surprise as far as raw fill rate goes – the number of ROPs haven’t changed, still being limited to 16:
All the GPUs logged scores that were very close to their theoretical values (10800 Mpixels/s for the 9800 GTX, 19264 for the 280 GTX and 24800 for the 3870x2). But we should mention the surprising results our 4850 attained, which even surpassed (if slightly) its theoretical value (10000 Mpixels/s). That was probably the result of the slight overclocking on the Asus model we tested (we’ll come back to that later).
Bottom line as i see it, this is a Smashing card!
Prices on the UK market put a HD4850 at £120 (ebuyer.com) where as the GTX260 is £300! considering the overal performance difference between the two, i'd get 2 HD4850's in Crossfire mode and still be cheaper than a GTX260.
Once again AMD/ATI have produced a card that isnt amazing on performance, but bang for your buck its probably the best card on the market at those prices
The very fact that, yet again, we have a whole page dedicated to noise is a sure sign that these manufacturers still don't have all of the priorities covered. How many years ago was it that THG posted that funny video showing an Nvidia card as a leaf blower & barbecue? - and still we have to put up with substandard cooling solutions. I haven't bought a graphics card for years now without getting an aftermarket heatsink to go with it - thank god for companies like Zalman & Thermalright who are sparing our ears!!
I have seen on the reg that the 4870 more than doubles the performance of a 3870. If this is true and they hit a ~$300 price tag than AMD/ATI are back baby.
Apparently they use 160W at load but beat the 3870 on performance/W by a long way.
Can't wait to see it. Even though I know that this site rakes in more from intel/nvidia.
http://www.pcper.com/images/review [...] 48-bar.jpg
Dual 4870s can take on a 280 no sweat and push for serious performance, and they're supposedly near similar price. By itself the 4870 takes on the $100USD more; 260. I smell price drops.
Thanks to Tom’s Hardware for including the FSX test in these results. It’s interesting to see how differently the cards line up with FSX. No other game produces similar results or shows up the new technology in a different light. To any serious simmer it is the AA/AF performance on big screens that is crucial and this shows the biggest differences and biggest insights. Also it was good to see that my card (an overclocked 8800 GTX) is still top of the pile!
lets just hope that this brings in enough profits to help the CPU market, because if you look at the info on the intel nahalem, it looks as though they have alot more potential, but they dont want to release that potential just yet, where as, if AMD release a competitor then we might just see the nahalems full potential!!