The ATI 48xx series is about to be released and I thought I might draw some attention to a writeup on Anandtech.

This is a review of the ATI Radeon HD4850, which is their value card...

The series will include a 4870x2, 4870 and then the 4850... so this is some way down the list as far as performance goes. Its US price will be $199...

Anand's Review

I can't wait to see what the 4870 is like.

They have already been released.

Nvidia has decided to cut prices on their current 9800GTX models to $199US too, also releasing a new die shrinked version that is oc'd - 9800GTX+. Rumours also have it nVidia has also head back some of the performance of their new series via drivers, but in all honestly it looks like they missed the boat this time round.

With the physx drivers and what not, the scene has become quite interesting to follow. Especially with the release of the 4870's coming quickly.

They haven't been released yet.

Because some companies broke the release date... ATI have changed the NDA date, however they're still not released. The release date is the 24th (American time)

with atis driver history I think i'll pass until the next best nvidia card comes along

It should be noted ATI are getting props for better Linux support at the moment. While that's not a big deal for everyone it's worth mentioning as hopefully it means improved driver support across the board.

That's really awesome news. I've been looking at making a HTPC, and the best bang-for-buck parts I've found (with regards to HTPCs) have been AMD/ATI hardware. This had me worried though, because I wanted to run it on Linux, and ATI have never had great Linux support. Thanks for the heads up, Trog.

So this applies to all of their current cards? Or just these new ones?

It should be noted ATI are getting props for better Linux support at the moment.

As good as this is, after years of ignoring and totally sucking for linux support and drivers it's a bit ... late.

last edited by eXemplar at 15:43:12 24/Jun/08

I thought you were talking about Vishy Anand cracking the 4850 ELO rating in chess. :(

No, we werent.

Doesnt come close to Creative's terrible driver support.

Also, 800 stream processors! I remember when my 7800 had 16 and it ownd...

the Nvidia 9800GX2 owns it anyway...

and for nearly 3x the price it would bloody want to hope so.

i dont really understand nvidiots banging on about ati drivers being poor. when they clearly arent, especially cause if something goes wrong with them they fix it with a patch almost straight away or with the next release which you can be assured will be next month. not like nvidia that spend months developing a new driver to cheat at some benchmark or another and give no real world performance gains.

the 4850 @ $220 is unmistakably the best bang for buck card, even with nvidia's price drop.

Until we find out what the 4870 is like... its not going to be that much more expensive...

I bought my 8800GTS for $400 when there was no better card available on the market and was surprised that I no longer had to fork out $800 for a top of the line card. To know that I can upgrade to nvidias new card for $800 or beat it by simply spending $300 and SLI'ing with my existing card makes it hard to get excited about these new over priced cards.

I think Oblivion was the only game that really beat the 8800GT SLI'ed on the new 280 and that game sucks anyway.

Also something I'm not clear on, can you SLI ATi cards or do you need a crossfire specific motherboard?

I was just reading Tom's Hardware's big write up on the GTX280/260 last night... largely unimpressive IMO. But then, when games start fully utilising PhysX, we might see a bigger improvement.

What is ATI doing to compensate for the built in physics component in nVidia's products? With a CPU manufacturer now owning a graphics card company, I thought they'd produce some sort of amazing chipset that would perfectly utilise the processor and video card etc.

i dont really understand nvidiots banging on about ati drivers being poor.

i've used both on linux and the ati drivers were a complete load of balls, especially when it came to multi-monitor support. this was a few months back as well, so not ages ago.

only real dramas i've had with nvidia linux drivers has been the lack of support for zen/xen kernels which for some distros use. seems like the only people not running intel + nvidia at the moment are amd/ati fanboys.

I used to be an AMD fanboy up until recently, and I'm still a bit of an nVidia fan at the moment. AMD processors were amazing bang for buck, and nforce chipsets used to rock hard. I also like nVidia's driver stability, Linux support and branching out in the graphics card field (like CUDA, PhysX and Folding@home). AMD chips are such a poor choice at the moment (unless you're going for pure, cheapest possible setup).

I usually make my decision based on chipset features and how much bang for buck a chipset gives. What's the point to having a ultra speedy CPU, 4gb of RAM and an $800 video card if a poorly designed motherboard or chipset causes constant crashes or bottlenecks?

The nForce 6 chipsets seem pretty cool to me, and I hear nVidia is working pretty hard on the next chipset for Intel. I'll probably go Intel/nVidia next upgrade (in a month or two).

nVidia chipsets are shocking at the moment...

What is ATI doing to compensate for the built in physics component in nVidia's products? With a CPU manufacturer now owning a graphics card company, I thought they'd produce some sort of amazing chipset that would perfectly utilise the processor and video card etc.

AMD Fusion

and nforce chipsets used to rock hard

???

are you on drugs Crizane?

No he may not be. Think about the nforce 2 Soundstorm system. That was the bees knees for a while for gaming.

Aye, nForce 2 was awesome.

i dont really understand nvidiots banging on about ati drivers being poor.

nvidiots? Wow, and I thought people who used the dollar sign in M$ were annoying...

My anecdotal evidence:

We use ATI r200 series chips with the old tungsten graphics radeon driver in two of our products and we haven't had one crash in the field in almost two years. ATI's linux support is getting better every day. There are still a few issues with the more advanced features for r500+ chips but due to the open specs policy at AMD I can see a bright future for ATI drivers under linux. I hope at one point to be able to choose an ATI chip over an Intel chip in an embedded device and not have to spend any time at all modifying drivers.

It is worth noting at the moment that the new 4850 runs very hot. That mutes any embedded interest in the series. I hope they fix that. I understand a lot of it is because of the s***ty one slot cooler.

Hey loz..
how bout "ATIbros" ?

First 4870 Review up and it is amazing
Should be $399-$439 here

And now Anandtech have theirs up.

aha Anandtech is getting raped

last edited by Lynx at 14:55:19 25/Jun/08

I hate these points in the GPU race, where not only does performance vary from game to game between card manufacturers, but even within the lineups of the manufacturers as well. Can't we just have a nice linear and clear-cut performance range!?

That said, it's good to see ATi finally begin competitive again, competition is always a good thing, but even more so when it's the kind of competition that encourages nVidia to spend a bit more of its huge booty on R&D.

The fact the 4870 idles at 79 deg and under load is 97 deg is pretty fail straight up.

the fact that it beats a GTX260 in basically everything is pretty fail for nVIDIA.

$300US vs $400US.

HRMM.

ATI will be releasing a 1GB version of the 4870, with a dual slot cooling solution. The above 512mb version only has a single slot cooler.

While 97c is a lot, video cards can go higher and if temperatures rise too high, the fan will speed up and the GPU will slow down to prevent damage. It's hard to wreak a GFX card unless you have very poor air flow. Still they need improve temperatures.

I'll probably be buying nVidia because of the temperature issue. I want my computer to remain silent and cool with minimal fans or airflow (P180 case).

nvidia aren't exactly cool either... They're still 65nm remember.

I'll probably be buying nVidia because of the temperature issue. I want my computer to remain silent and cool with minimal fans or airflow

Depending on prices you maybe better suited getting a 4870 with an after market cooler. That way you'll end up paying almost as much as the GTX260 with same performance.
On the other side of the argument you miss out on PhysX.
CUDA is cool but intel, ATi, Nvidia and others are working on OpenCL, which is the same as Nvidia's CUDA but supported by both the 48*0 and the GTX2*0

edit: also OpenCL will be supported by intel's upcoming graphics cards (Larabee) and is damm near identical to CUDA. Which means any program written in CUDA is easily converted to OpenCL.

last edited by Lynx at 14:42:34 26/Jun/08

CUDA is cool... but I think you'll find it will be more useful in the next gen cards.

Have a look at this review at FiringSquad. It starts to put things into perspective.

THANKS FOR THE INFO JARED

Cheapest Price Guide ($AU)
HD4850 - $215
HD4870 - $399* (Inflated early pricing)
GTX260 - $459
GTX280 - $779

last edited by mongie at 14:47:55 26/Jun/08

i think u mean 4850 and 4870 not 38**

the 4870 price will be down inline in 1 week when stock starts to arrive, its just preorder crap pricing. they did it with teh 4850 as well, but it settled quickly.
ps a 4850 ($215) + AC accelero s1 rev2 ($33) = awesome performance, silent and temps at idle (35) load (45). cant get better then that, way cheaper then gtx260.

nvidia aren't exactly cool either... They're still 65nm remember.

The 9800GTX+ will be their first 55nm.

Check out the comparisons

4870 vs GTX260
4850 vs 9800GTX <- !not the + version!
Nvidia need to lower their prices, if they wish to compete. I think I'll be switching sides for the first time since the Geforce 6800

|| I mean they need to lower the price of the GTX260
vv

last edited by Lynx at 17:00:48 26/Jun/08

4850 vs 9800GTX

They have already announced a price drop for this model down to $199US, with the + version coming in at $229US.

The GTX series is overpriced, but it remains to be seen if they will drop them anytime soon.

Hrm crossfire is actually seeming like a worthwhile venture now, would wait for some more mature drivers first though to see what they can really do.