ATI 4xxx series...

[runtohell121]

Final Words

There's an unexpected amount of concluding we can do already based on these early results.

For starters, the Radeon HD 4850 looks to be the best buy at $199, even better than NVIDIA's price-dropped GeForce 9800 GTX. What's also unbelievable is that compared to the 4850, our beloved GeForce 8800 GT seems downright slow in a number of benchmarks - and the 8800 GT is only 8 months old. It's also very refreshing to see this sort of competitive pressure at such a reasonable price point, while it's fun to write about 1.4 billion transistor GPUs it's a dream come true to be able to write about this type of performance at under $200.

Take two 4850s, put them together and now you've got something even faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 in most cases. It shouldn't be too surprising since 8800 GT SLI and 9800 GX2 both outperform the GTX 280 as well.

Our CrossFire investigation illustrated a very good point: AMD's multi-GPU solutions still don't behave as well as their single-GPU products, there are still cases where performance doesn't improve at all and that's where these large monolithic GPU designs hold their value. Hopefully with continued effort in the multi-GPU space AMD can get us to a point where there is no perceivable difference between single and multi-GPU solutions. Until then, NVIDIA's strategy will continue to have a great deal of merit - although the GTX 280 isn't the best example of that, at least from a gamer's perspective. On the CUDA side however...

We'll have much more information on the Radeon HD 4850 and its faster brother next week when we can completely unveil AMD's RV770, until then sit tight and be content with the knowledge that the days of the 8800 GT vs. 3870 weren't a fluke, the new mainstream wars are upon us thanks to AMD's Radeon HD 4850.

From AnandTech

dam... the 4850 is cheaper than most nvidia now.. and owns it badly? xD $150 at BB atm if you can find it... other places like newegg has HD4850 for around $180..

[Gow616]

No link to AnandTech's benchmarks and review?

It would bolster the look of the card to potentially interested individuals.

[runtohell121]

i think this is the link to some benchmarks..
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338

[Marshillboy]

Wow...ATI is finally getting a piece of that marketshare pie. The 4850 is shooping the 8800gt's whoop.

[Gow616]

As I stated in the shoutbox, the AMD HD 4850 has replaced my recommended card of nVidia 8800GT.

[Devhux]

nVidia is supposed to be dropping the price of the 9800GTX to $199 as well as introducing a 55-nm part called the 9800GTX+ for $229.

If they have a 55nm part coming out already, it almost makes me wonder why they didn't use that manufacturing process for the GTX 260/280; seeing as those chips are very power-hungry (and massive).

[runtohell121]

Originally Posted by Devhux

nVidia is supposed to be dropping the price of the 9800GTX to $199 as well as introducing a 55-nm part called the 9800GTX+ for $229.

If they have a 55nm part coming out already, it almost makes me wonder why they didn't use that manufacturing process for the GTX 260/280; seeing as those chips are very power-hungry (and massive).

yes, the new price range of a 9800GTX is about $150-$200 but still gets kind of out beaten by the HD4850 in some Benchmarks. The 9800GTX+ would probably have to face againist the HD48xx series since 4850 is mainly their lowest level right now from ATI.