ATI Radeon HD4850

[Ch3tan]

Although having read around a bit, no point with the 4850 for that res. It is not going to perform as well as the 4870. Which ain't to bad for £200 for a 1gig edition Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Any thoughts on the 280gtx anyone?

 

[Helme]

The GTX280 is pretty bad imo, 2x HD4850 are cheaper and will outperform it, 1xHD4870 is about 10% worse but also at almost half the price, besides the best nVidia card is still 9800GX2.

Overall the new nVidia cards are really bad, the GTX260 is really the only 'decent' priceworthy choice if you are a nVidia fan and just can't stand the thought of an ATi card, but still it's beaten by the HD4870 and they are both in the same pricerange.

I would personally hold off til the end of september and see how the HD4850x2 performs, if it's anything like the HD4870x2 which seems to be like HD4870 in Crossfire +15% it will be a kickass card.

Oh and edit, you don't really need the 1GB version, ATi cards seems to handle itself with grace on high resolutions with 'just' 512MB memory while the nVidia cards struggles with 1GB. It probably has something to do with how they are designed, or DDR5 is just THAT good, I'm not really sure.

 

[inactionman]

ATI has much better texture compression than Nvidia, which means they need less memory.

The GTX280 is rather poor, it's expensive (although less so now) gets very hot and eats power. Nvidia are really hurting in the performance sector at the moment.

 

[Ch3tan]

I run everything in 1920*1200 though, so it really needs to be a beast. The mid-range cards struggle with higher res.

 

[Kryten]

I still raise a vote for a 4870 there Ch3ts.

1. The GTX280 is more along the lines of a microwave than a graphics card. It's quick, no two ways about it, but then you're suffering dire drivers, silly heat issues and frankly one look at the size and you'd be wanting to use it as a cricket bat.

2. The 4870 is a strong, sturdy card, if 1 isn't up to the high res, then it's easy to add another, and you don't have to suffer SLI/nVidia motherboards for that novelty. And if not, what about the 4870 X2? Bit expensive but slashes on the 280.

 

[Ch3tan]

I don't think it's that overpriced (the 4870x2). The 1950xtx cost me nearly £300 at the time. My only concern is that it will melt my PC. oh and that I will give you a chance to talk about PSU's.

 

[inactionman]

I have a 4870 and run at 1920x1200. I have no problems with any games apart from Crysis, I get a nice smooth framerate. Of course this will change as new games come out.

As has been said, the other option is a 4870x2 or the soon to be released 4850x2. You'll need to upgrade your PSU for them though.

 

[KevinUK]

I've just been looking at the hd4870, £170 ish. the 4870x2 is £370 ish. Is it just 1 physical card equivalent to 2 x hd4870 or is it more of a version 2?

I can't see pricing info for hd4850x2 yet.

And will it be worth getting an hd4870 or an hd4850x2.

Aaaaaaaah!

 

[inactionman]

It's 2x 4870's on a single card. They also have a special new bus to communicate over, so it will be better than 2x 4870's in crossfire.

Best way to see 4850x2 performance will be to look at 4850 crossfire performance, it will be a bit better than that.

I went for a 4870 for now, I can always add another in crossfire in the future.

 

[Aada]

Is there a big difference between the 3870x2 and the 4850?

I am thinking about getting one as they are 110 quid from PC world.

Was thinking about attempting putting the card in myself.

All i need to do is take the 3870 out including the 2 cables that are attached to it and put them back in the 4850?

 

[Helme]

SweClockers.com - Artikel: Höstens grafikkort


Bilder per sekund = FPS
Nästa = next.

Seems like the 3870x2 comes out slightly ontop, tho it uses way way more power. And regarding installation, yes all you really need to do is remove the old drivers(3d guru's Driver Sweeper should do it) remove the cables, take out the card and put the new back in and install drivers.

 

[Aada]

SweClockers.com - Artikel: Höstens grafikkort


Bilder per sekund = FPS
Nästa = next.

Seems like the 3870x2 comes out slightly ontop, tho it uses way way more power. And regarding installation, yes all you really need to do is remove the old drivers(3d guru's Driver Sweeper should do it) remove the cables, take out the card and put the new back in and install drivers.

Hm doesn't seem much point in upgrading does it?

I my main days of gaming are sunday/monday/tuesday the rest is a couple of hours a night so power isn't an issue besides the fact i have a 1000watt psu.

Maybe best to wait till the 4870x2 comes down in price a bit?

 

[TdC]

damn almost makes me want to trade in my 8800GTS o0

 

[Helme]

damn almost makes me want to trade in my 8800GTS o0

If it's the 320/640mb version, then it's definitely worth it, if it's the 512mb version - not so much.

 

[TdC]

it's the 512, the g92 core

 

[Helme]

I just got my Sapphire HD4850(with their custom fan) and I must say it's probably the single best hardware upgrade I have ever spent my money on, I've been able to play all my games with silly good FPS(70+) at 1440x900 with everything turned on, and the best thing is I can't even hear the damn card which at first had me worried about overheating, but it turns out this fan is actually running the card at 55/75" idle/load which in itself is insane considering the Sapphire fan didn't cost anything extra compared to the reference design version.

All in all, I'm extremly happy with it, and I did like the 2GB USB memory stick they sent with the card aswell as 3dmarks 06 and like 4 DVI converters

 

[Furr]

ATI > Nvidia

Fact

 

[soze]

I just got one of these for a machine i was building my favorite thing the audio over hdmi really nice feature.

 

[Ch3tan]

How does that work anyone? Is it picture and audio over HDMI? And does it have its own onboard sound or feed sound from the other sound devices within the PC?

 

[soze]

The graphic card must have its own sound chip as a second sound device was installed.

 

[Kryten]

It's just a passthrough, there's a small internal connector that hooks up to your sound card and feeds it through the DVI>HDMI adapter.