40 replies to this topic

[Shirou]

Update

HD4870X2 officially released

review:



review

Shows mixed results. GPU scaling really comes to bear at the very high resolutions, and it does generally pwn the GTX280 by 40-50%, but no more than that.

It's the fastest card around atm, and the biggest, hottest, most expensive and most power hungry one at that.

[Waris]

I'd like to see nVidia's answer to that. And then ATi's solution to nVidia's. And then and then and then and then and then

[Eddy01741]

Well, ATi is certainly back in the game. IMO the GTX series from nvidia are a tad overpriced compared to the ATI HD 48xx series.

[Dutchygamer]

You know the price of that card here in Holland Aftershock?

[Shirou]

Around 400 euro.

Cheapest already spotted for only € 380,50

just look here for a good up to date list of the cheapest prices of hardware in the Netherlands.

[Eddy01741]

THat's about the same price (380 euros= a bit more than 567 USD) in america, the problem is even the large scale retailers (read, newegg) are all sold out of them. Great bang for the buck in the high performance category compared to the GTX 280.

That said, I just got me a Asus HD3850 512mb for 60 dollars after the MIR ($69.38 if you count shipping), so I'm pretty happy with that over my 256mb X800XL, i'm expecting to run RA3 on max setting on high res lol.

Seriously though, it came with COH:OF, so minus 20 dollars (30 dollars still at some stores) the graphics card itself woulda cost 30-40 dollars w/o shipping and the game lol. Also, it was mainstream-high end in last gen, so it's a steal.

[Shirou]

Don't you mean HD3650

A new HD 3850 for only 60 dollars is so unbelievable I want to know where you got that. Out here it's around 67 euro for the cheapest one, that's about 90 dollars if I take into account possible atlantic shipping costs...

And with COH:OF in the package, it's really an amazing steal! If true then ATi is probably pushing those HD3xxx cards out of production. Not a bad choice considering the RV730, or say, a RV670 (HD38xx series) with the boosted additions from the new series, is coming, so the old cards would run obsolete very quickly.

Edited by Aftershock, 13 August 2008 - 08:39.

[Eddy01741]

Um, linky, yes it is unbelievable, hence I jumped on it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814121219

Well, i just got it this afternoon, its fucking huge (had to rearrange my hard drive cage to accomodate), and has a huge fan (two slot cooler), I'm still doing stuff with the drivers though (driver cleaner pro for the old ones, etc.), I'm excited to play COH:OF as well, its still one of the most popular RTS's to date, it's the most popular competitive play game right now according to gamereplays.org (not so many competitive FPS's left, the age of CS is over).

I'm looking forward to overclocking it with ATi Tool though.

[The Wandering Jew]

I stumbled across in this thread due to the mentions of ATi and nVidia. Too bad I cannot decide what to choose for my PC. ATi and nVidia are almost identical.

[Eddy01741]

Depends on how much your willing to spend. If your gonna spend around 150 dollars, get the ATi HD4850, about 250, get the HD4870. Above three hundred it gets to be tougher, the 4870 x2 is right up there in price (550+ dollars) and the GTX280 isn't much cheaper either.

If you want a cheap graphics card (around the 100 dollar range) your probably looking at a 8800GT or a 9600GT.

[◄LilRazor►]

ATI Seems kinda Of Complicated and Ill Stick To Nvidia For The Momment

[Eddy01741]

I don't see how different brands are complicated? You just put the card in, install the drivers, done. It is your choice if you want to update monthly to ATi's drivers, while nvidia doesn't have the that option (they very rarely release new drivers).

[The Wandering Jew]

Okay. But I have an infamous addiction of playing a game (that made me hooked) for 16 hours straight (I did a 24-hour Diablo 2 marathon which, it was my first experience playing RPGs. So far, I made 14 hours on playing Kane's Wrath [always ZOCOM side]).

So the question, would these cards take such an abuse? Or can ATi beat nVidia or vise-versa? Or these cards can offer performance but shall reflect in my electricity bills later on?

[CommanderJB]

ATi were rather happy to see that error report analyses of all the ones sent to Microsoft revealed that over 25% of Windows Vista crashes were caused by nVidia cards. And their new HD4870X2 is an absolute beast - in a perfect entirely AMD/ATi-tailored setup, this is how far it whoops the GTX 280's backside according to ATi:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/u...rt_02_large.jpg
(Huge image alert.)
The GPU race is just getting insane. Each companyis making entire lines of their own, never mind besting the competitor, obsolete virtually every month. How can they keep this up? How can it be economical to produce a card when they'll just make a better one which fits the exact same bracket two months later and have to retool the production line? It boggles the mind.

[Eddy01741]

Yeah, I thought that the 9800GX2/GT was gonna be nVidia's flagship, then they go ahead and release the GTX260/280 right after it, that confused me.

[Shirou]

CommanderJB, on 15 Aug 2008, 13:00, said:

ATi were rather happy to see that error report analyses of all the ones sent to Microsoft revealed that over 25% of Windows Vista crashes were caused by nVidia cards. And their new HD4870X2 is an absolute beast - in a perfect entirely AMD/ATi-tailored setup, this is how far it whoops the GTX 280's backside according to ATi:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/u...rt_02_large.jpg
(Huge image alert.)
The GPU race is just getting insane. Each companyis making entire lines of their own, never mind besting the competitor, obsolete virtually every month. How can they keep this up? How can it be economical to produce a card when they'll just make a better one which fits the exact same bracket two months later and have to retool the production line? It boggles the mind.

Really, there isn't much hassle in retooling the production line.

Most production is being done at TSMC chip fabric company. They can adapt their wafer technology to nearly any chip you want. The only thing is the process technology (how big the transistors are in nanometers). But TSMC, being a company which produces chips mainly for others, is making these investments themselves. After all, they have to keep the deals and be able to produce chips for other companies. That problem also isn't with the developers.

The first real 'planned perceived obsolence' trick was made by nVidia with their own 8800GT. It made the 8800GTS, the previous ones with 640 and 320 MB of memory, really obsolete. It even put a strain on the 8800GTX sales, which was much more expensive, much hotter (90 nm) and only offered about 20% more performance.

ATi did the same with their 2900 Line, but hey, was that a problem? Those cards couldn't compete anyway.

Obsoletion of the own lines are nowhere near as much of a problem as competitors offering better results. nVidia's market share rapidly decreases because ATi has better stuff, and with that also the market value. That is a real problem. Compared to that, it is no big deal to have increasing developing costs, and thus products which make your own cards obsolete. As long as you are on the best of the sales, it will stay positive for the company.

Concluding, it's more important to keep marketshare than to keep your own lines intact.