Radeon HD 4850 (David) against 9800 GTX + (Goliath)
It’s hard not to notice the obvious physical differences between the two cards that will be vying for a place in current midrange/high-end gaming PCs, in a world where you usually need a magnifying glass to tell them apart.
The Radeon HD 4850 plays it modest, looking a lot like the HD 3850: single-slot design, a single six-pin PCI Express connector, small size (23.3 cm – 9.2") and 6-cm radial fan. And while the heat sink covers the majority of the PCB, the card is not surrounded by a wide housing that makes it impossible to tell it from other models.
The GeForce 9800 GTX +, on the other hand, is impossible to tell from the 9800 GTX physically, unless you remove the housing and heat sink to see which GPU is installed. It’s a double-slot card with two additional six-pin connectors and a thick 7-cm fan, on a board that still measures 26.7 cm (10.5"). But at least most of the heat generated by the card is vented directly outside the case, which is not true of the HD 4850.
As for outputs, both cards have two DVI dual-link connectors and a TV output. The Asus Radeon HD 4850 ships with an active DVI -> HDMI adaptor, a DVI -> VGA adaptor, the internal flexible Crossfire bridge, a Molex -> six-pin PCI Express adaptor and the HDTV connectivity. The GeForce 9800 GTX’ output connectors can also carry sound, but without an audio controller they have to be connected to the internal S/PDIF header via a cable, which has to be limited to a stereo signal (non-compressed).
The Asus model we tested turned out to be overclocked, with a GPU frequency of 680 MHz (8.8% more than the reference clock frequency) and a memory frequency of 1050 MHz (+5%). But since the overclocking is mild and the card won’t really be sold at a higher price than the others, we’ve used it in our tests as is.
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!!