ATi 4xxx Series Review

[bigsnyder]

Either the search isn't working correctly or no one has mentioned it yet, what about the 4400 and 4600 series? When will these hit the market?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
this isn't a near-panic response by nvidia. I guarantee you that they knew about 4850 performance WELL before the nda was lifted. Even before they knew for sure what performance would be, they certainly had a few plans in place:

1. 8800gt >/= 4850 = business as usual, maybe even a decent spike in g92 prices
2. 8800gts = 4850 = no g92 price spike, but no major reaction as g92b is coming soon
3. 9800gtx ~ 4850 = uh oh, let's drop 9800gtx prices with mir's but don't worry, g92b is on the way!
4. 9800gtx < 4850 = paper launch 9800gtx+ and send off emails at 1:35am to anand and his tech site peers.


now, they probably didn't EXPECT 4850 to be > 9800gtx, but they clearly had a plan in place just in case that unlikely eventuality came to pass. This is a cutthroat business and often the difference between abject failure (every other video card company to ever exist except ati and nvidia) and living to fight another day is to have a plan of action in place and implement it ASAP. AMD marketing could learn a lot from nvidia's reaction (3870 launch, anyone?)


btw, did anybody notice that there is a phenom 9600 combo deal on the sapphire 4850 right now? $314.98 for the pair...that's $115 for a quad!! I know it's a phenom with the tlb bug, but unless you're running virtualization servers you can get away without the patch and get yourself a great system for a very low price!

I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: qliveur
Well apparently Nvidia went with the worst-case scenario in bryan's lineup. One might say that Nvidia itself is admitting that 4850 > 9800GTX.

clearly they felt that way or they wouldn't have paper launched a card that might or might not actually be available for retail sale this summer. I don't blame them for coming out with the 9800gtx+ as others do, however, because g92(b) is going to be so much less expensive to make and I have a sneaky suspicion that gtx 260 is going to be < $300 on or about july 8.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
this isn't a near-panic response by nvidia. I guarantee you that they knew about 4850 performance WELL before the nda was lifted. Even before they knew for sure what performance would be, they certainly had a few plans in place:

1. 8800gt >/= 4850 = business as usual, maybe even a decent spike in g92 prices
2. 8800gts = 4850 = no g92 price spike, but no major reaction as g92b is coming soon
3. 9800gtx ~ 4850 = uh oh, let's drop 9800gtx prices with mir's but don't worry, g92b is on the way!
4. 9800gtx < 4850 = paper launch 9800gtx+ and send off emails at 1:35am to anand and his tech site peers.


now, they probably didn't EXPECT 4850 to be > 9800gtx, but they clearly had a plan in place just in case that unlikely eventuality came to pass. This is a cutthroat business and often the difference between abject failure (every other video card company to ever exist except ati and nvidia) and living to fight another day is to have a plan of action in place and implement it ASAP. AMD marketing could learn a lot from nvidia's reaction (3870 launch, anyone?)


btw, did anybody notice that there is a phenom 9600 combo deal on the sapphire 4850 right now? $314.98 for the pair...that's $115 for a quad!! I know it's a phenom with the tlb bug, but unless you're running virtualization servers you can get away without the patch and get yourself a great system for a very low price!

I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

the 4850 is good enough for anybody in the sub $200 market that it will pwn the 4870 in a price/performance comparison. However, for those of us with 24" + monitors or people like bfg who crank up the AA to numbers higher than my 2 year old can count to (22 is her limit right now) the 4870 and gtx 260 are going to be the "good enough" high end solutions. the gtx 280 and 4870x2 are, in my opinion, going to become largely irrelevant to almost everybody if they don't come down quite a bit in price. This isn't like 8800gtx vs 8800gts/hd2900xt; gtx 280 can't outperform a $300 crossfire solution ($149 for the visiontek 4850 today at best buy) in many cases and is certainly not worth $349 MORE than that. This isn't like 8800gt sli, either, b/c most users most of the time don't buy sli mobos unless they're already planning this and their market penetration is very low. However, there are a LOT of xfire mobos out there just sitting on our desks b/c intel chipsets have been the only viable solution for most of us for the past 18 mos.

 

[zod96]

I'll download some demo's and run fraps and see what I get. I installed the HOTFIX and that pretty much did nothing for my crysis and 3dmark06 scores...

 

[psihog]

Is 1GB version planned for later or will it be part of initial 4870 release next couple weeks?

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

 

[qliveur]

^^^That's certainly the impression I got.

Man, I really hope that DAAMIT can fix the inconsistent CF support problem because 4850 CF would be a real bargain if they could. It scales incredibly well when it works. It was pretty much a joke a couple of years ago.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

Ok, I suppose when they couldn't even wait until the start of business the next day you might be right.

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: qliveur
Well apparently Nvidia went with the worst-case scenario in bryan's lineup. One might say that Nvidia itself is admitting that 4850 > 9800GTX.

clearly they felt that way or they wouldn't have paper launched a card that might or might not actually be available for retail sale this summer. I don't blame them for coming out with the 9800gtx+ as others do, however, because g92(b) is going to be so much less expensive to make and I have a sneaky suspicion that gtx 260 is going to be < $300 on or about july 8.

I don't think anyone is blaming them, I'm just suprised they waited this long for a shrink. I would have thought they'd want cheaper manufacturing costs sooner then later. Also, with the price trend that the 4850 is setting, Nvidia will almost have to lower the price of the 9800GTX+ if they want to sell it. I don't think anyone here will complain about that.

 

[qliveur]

The first real competition in a year in a half? No complaints here.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

I have never seen someone actually react well under panic.
This has them scared, but they have a contingency which they put into place:
slash prices and paper lunch competing product, and release beta physX drivers (I got physX right now on my 8800GTS 512...)

But it defintely put the pressure on them (which is good.. I mean, 300$ to 200$ insta drop in price of the 9800GTX is just delicious!)

 

[HOOfan 1]

It looks like the 4870 will be a paper launch as well if the NDA is lifter June 25th and availability isn't until July 8th.

Who cares if they are paper launches..as long as they are eventually available.

 

[zod96]

Just ran COD4 and fraps here are the results. This was at 1680x1050 4xAA HQ and 16xAF HQ

Avg: 114.729 - Min: 43 - Max: 247

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: HOOfan 1
It looks like the 4870 will be a paper launch as well if the NDA is lifter June 25th and availability isn't until July 8th.

Who cares if they are paper launches..as long as they are eventually available.

honestly I prefer paper lunches... otherwise the cards that are already at stores are sitting for weeks waiting until a sufficient amount are in stock before they start selling them...

With a paper lunch you can get lucky and nab those precious few first items (especially if you closely follow it) weeks in advance.

Hard lunches are often semi-soft lunches simply because they could not predict the exact amounts people will buy...

And this lets price gouging die out in advance.

 

[HOOfan 1]

Originally posted by: taltamir


honestly I prefer paper lunches... .

like to brown bag it do you?



sorry couldn't resist

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: zod96
I'll download some demo's and run fraps and see what I get. I installed the HOTFIX and that pretty much did nothing for my crysis and 3dmark06 scores...

Crysis doesn't even run well on SLI GTX280's it is a unoptimized pos- I wouldn't hold out for better results there, as for 3Dmark see sig .

Is 1GB version planned for later or will it be part of initial 4870 release next couple weeks?

Asus have a 1GB 4850 waiting in the wings but it will likely be GDDR3, the 4870 will bring GDDR5 1GB cards.

Man, I really hope that DAAMIT can fix the inconsistent CF support problem because 4850 CF would be a real bargain if they could. It scales incredibly well when it works. It was pretty much a joke a couple of years ago.

I have been using CF since the start of the year and i have never come across a game that I couldn't max out ( besides Crypos @ 1920x1200 /w medium/High DX9 45+fps DX10 33+) it does scale in the majority of games and each driver revision improves upon that. For instance 3 and 4GPUs now scale correctly in certain OpenGL apps as of Cat 8.6.

It looks like the 4870 will be a paper launch as well if the NDA is lifter June 25th and availability isn't until July 8th.

Who cares if they are paper launches..as long as they are eventually available.

True, I am happy to wait till the 8th...at least then we only have to wait till the 25th to find out what makes it tick in the AT launch article.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

I thought the 4850 was supposed to be released next week. I'm betting they had a fit of panic over the GTX+. :Q

That's enough out of you, laddy. You're taking a vacation for a week and it's on the house, you clearly need it.

-ViRGE

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

I thought the 4850 was supposed to be released next week. I'm betting they had a fit of panic over the GTX+. :Q

EDIT: Post edited because it's just feeding the Troll.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

I thought the 4850 was supposed to be released next week. I'm betting they had a fit of panic over the GTX+. :Q

LOL. The 4850 was released early because retailers started selling the thing already and results were popping up all over the place so reviews got the opportunity to provide some substantial benchmarks. The GTX+ was introduced ( although we could hardly say introduced...one benchmark on one site conveniently at the 11hr and no availability) after the 4850, they can't panic about something that didn't exist at the time.

Stop... feeding... the green man... he is obviously an nvidia fanboy or nvidia employee; feel free to give me a few days off but hes starting to piss me off because in every one of his posts about 9800 GTX+/4850 he just trashes the 4850 because it runs a little hot. When the 8800GT ran no different at launch as well.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
...
I agree, Nvidia probably didn't 'panic' so to speak, but I think they were counting on #4 in your examples above as having the least likely chance of being reality. Remember all of the 480 shader rumors? I bet that 480 was the number Nvidia was counting on, at least initially. I don't think they were counting on it being 480 in addition to the original 320. I think the 4850 launch is a great example of why we want AMD (or any of the other companies that produce GPU's/CPU's) around. The 9800 has dropped in price like a stone, yet another solid option is coming in the $230 range from Nvidia that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. I'm really looking forward to the 4870, I just hope that the 4850 isn't so spectacular that the 4870 will be somewhat of a let down.

Midnight paper launch?
That's panic no doubt.

I thought the 4850 was supposed to be released next week. I'm betting they had a fit of panic over the GTX+. :Q

LOL. The 4850 was released early because retailers started selling the thing already and results were popping up all over the place so reviews got the opportunity to provide some substantial benchmarks. The GTX+ was introduced ( although we could hardly say introduced...one benchmark on one site conveniently at the 11hr and no availability) after the 4850, they can't panic about something that didn't exist at the time.

Stop... feeding... the green man... he is obviously an nvidia fanboy or nvidia employee; feel free to give me a few days off but hes starting to piss me off because in every one of his posts about 9800 GTX+/4850 he just trashes the 4850 because it runs a little hot. When the 8800GT ran no different at launch as well.

There's lot of them running around these days ever since AMD took it to them with RV770. I think Nvidia has way too much money to create trolls on forums.

 

[bryanW1995]

no, wreckage needs the time off for thread crapping. this is freakin' ridiculous. wreckage, it's ok to favor one team over the other, but don't come into an ati thread and trash ati, stick to nvidia threads and espouse the benefits of their cards. it's not hard to find positive things to say about either company right now.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: bigsnyder
Either the search isn't working correctly or no one has mentioned it yet, what about the 4400 and 4600 series? When will these hit the market?

Rumor is that they will launch along side the 4870X2 in August. I'll see if I can find the link for you. There was a picture of the HD4650 along with the 4870X2 about 2-3 weeks ago on Nordic Hardware I believe.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Considering the price of the 4850, specially the 149$ best buy deal, Im curious how AMD will price the low end parts... How do they even make a profit out of it? Are the cards that cheap to make? Its funny that the price of a retail 4850 is the price Nvidia spends making each GTX 280

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas


LOL. The 4850 was released early because retailers started selling the thing already and results were popping up all over the place so reviews got the opportunity to provide some substantial benchmarks. The GTX+ was introduced ( although we could hardly say introduced...one benchmark on one site conveniently at the 11hr and no availability) after the 4850, they can't panic about something that didn't exist at the time.

OK. So it's panic if NVIDIA releases a card early, but it's heroic if ATI does it?

Got it. :thumbsup:

 

[taltamir]

the GTX 280 only costs 150$ per die to make?
It is the biggest die EVER!