Poor NVidia

http://en.expreview.com/2008/06/24/first-review-hd-4870-and-hd-4850/

at $299, this makes the GTX 260 pretty much moot.

[Edited on June 24, 2008 at 10:45 AM. Reason : .]

6/24/2008 10:44:23 AM

is it just me, or is that review horribly written, grammatically?

6/24/2008 11:37:39 AM

^ holy shit yes, let me use, some more, commas.

i thought the radeon HD series was more for HTPC type stuff, and that review stuck to games. i haven't really payed attention to hardware in a long time but what's the deal here?

6/24/2008 11:45:17 AM

it's translated from a Chinese review IIRC.

6/24/2008 11:45:45 AM

ah, in that case it's damn near perfect. i bought some DVD's from a dude with a fold out table in an alley in Beijing (a specific example is Family Guy season ?) that had some terrible translations. also one movie (Banditas) had such an awesome description on the back that I just had to buy it. I'm pretty certain the description was just a user-submitted review from some movie site because part of it said "this movie sucks but if you've got nothing better to do watch it.... salma hayek is not even mexican anymore she moved to the US".

anyway, plz to answer my question?

6/24/2008 11:54:57 AM

the R700 core from ATI is pretty fucking amazing, better than a lot of people expected. It's causing price drops from NVidia like no other (the 9800GTX dropped to $199 to compete with the HD4850), and Nvidia is releasing a 9800GTX+ next month at $230 that will be slightly faster than the 4850. I am impressed that this HD4870 is keeping up with and passing the GTX 260 (which should launch sometime this week IIRC and should debut at around $399 if not price gauged), but this is only one review and we'll have to wait and see. ATI is really putting the pressure on Nvidia now though with their competitive pricing. My only gripe with the new ATI cards is they run EXTREMELY hot, but I haven't seen any review bench them with %100 fan speed yet, they idle at like 30% speed and max at about maybe 80ish at default.

summary:
ATI HD4870 - $299
Nvidia GTX 260 - $399 (supposedly, may be more)

extremely similar performance

[Edited on June 24, 2008 at 12:09 PM. Reason : .]

6/24/2008 12:00:38 PM

just an FYI, it's AMD, not ATI. There is no such thing as ATI anymore

6/24/2008 3:33:04 PM

w/e, the packing of vendors still reads ATi Radeon. And FYI, 8800s can be softmodded to quadros.

[Edited on June 24, 2008 at 4:10 PM. Reason : .]

6/24/2008 4:04:20 PM

let me guess. still can't run crysis AA at a decent res

6/24/2008 4:57:41 PM

^^FYI it only works on D3D applications, and it only works for some applications. OpenGL will crash on softmodded nVidia cards, unless you are running an old openGL version, which will be lower performance and IQ than just running the newest version with a non-modded card.

Dude, you are so completely damn wrong on this. Go read up about the openGL API checks that nVidia uses to specifically stop this. There is *no* universal, reliable, updateable softmod for anything after the 6800 series cards. And it's obvious to me you've never tried doing this in a production environment, because you wouldn't be talking about it if you had, it's a giant pain in the ass and way more trouble than it's worth.

6/24/2008 8:18:58 PM

yea I know about the D3D functionality, I never said they would be fully functional, I just never assumed that's what you meant Back on topic, still a no go on high res AA and Crysis :/

edit: just wondering, did the older cards actually provide full (D3D and OpenGL) functionality through these soft mods?

edit2: Official reviews of this card are supposedly launching everywhere tomorrow so keep your eyes peeled.

[Edited on June 24, 2008 at 9:57 PM. Reason : .]

6/24/2008 9:55:00 PM

up to the 6800gt AGP cards the only difference was a bios entry. so yes, and it was pretty easy to flash back and forth.

up through the 7950's you could still hardware mod them by flipping a couple of resistors. I don't know if that trick is still applicable on the 8800's. The other problem is that Quadro's are binned consumer cards. So there's no guarantee that the extra logic will actually work on a consumer card if it's unlocked.

6/25/2008 1:19:37 AM

i have an old 7950gx2 sitting around i need to get rid of.

6/25/2008 8:32:00 AM

hahaha, who just has one of those sitting around? and the reviews:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=192421

don't remember if you have to register for XS, so:

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1301
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ATI%5FRadeon%5FHD%5F4850%5Fand%5F4870%5FRV770%5FHas%5FArrived/
http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=584&Itemid=31
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=13972
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=581
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/8162-palit-radeon-hd4870-512mb-graphics-card-review.html
http://www.expreview.com/topic/2008-06-24/1214282167d9273.html
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/ati-4800-series-review.ars
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2321634,00.asp
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1481/sapphire_radeon_hd_4870_in_crossfire/index.html
http://www.chw.net/Revisiones/Tarjetas-de-Video/AMD-ATi-Radeon-HD-4870-200806252037.html
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 9:01 AM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 8:59:23 AM

my friend just picked up a HD4850 for 160$ off of newegg.



um. first ati still can't make a card that'll beat nvidias cards

and second you can buy an 8800gt 512 for 130$ (after rebate) from newegg. So x2 8800gt for 260$ beat ati's single HD4870 for 300$.

Quote :

"at $299, this makes the GTX 260 pretty much moot."

not at all. some people want a fast card. If they want the fastest they don't buy amd/ati. Price isn't everything. And as i just stated nvidia is still cheaper if you go the 8800gt sli route.

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 9:16 AM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 9:09:38 AM

try looking at something other than crysis at 0 AA. I'd easily take the 4870.

edit: unless the sli'd 8800gt's are ridiculous at high AA at high resolutions, I'd rather go with a single card solution. Performance scaling with SLI is worthless to me as well since many games aren't a twofold improvement, but if the 8800's consistently beat this out in everything then I can see where you're coming from

edit2: just noticed how ridiculous the 8800gt sli'd are in CoD4 (what I usually play now) at high res/AA, so never mind me.

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 9:31 AM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 9:22:39 AM

^yeah games have gotten MUCH better at scaling. COD4 pretty much does twice the performance. Crysis a little less than twice. Now a days sli is the way to go. Tri-sli doesn't have the scaling yet.


8800gt sli wins.


8800gt sli wins.



4870 wins by a little bit.

Quote :

"but if the 8800's consistently beat this out in everything then I can see where you're coming from"

From most of the benchmarks that you linked to, 2 8800gt's in sli are more powerful than a single 300$ 4870 card. So if i want the best performance for the price i'd get 2 8800gt's for 260$ rather

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 9:35 AM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 9:29:38 AM

yea I actually started looking at benches when I posted my comment and felt retarded afterwards I couldn't go that route if I wanted to though with my current PSU, it's certified SLI up to 7950 GTs at like 580w 40A

edit: I'm thinking about upgrading GPU sometime this summer and was wondering would it be worth it if I already have a G80 320MB, I currently play at 1680*1050 but my framerate goes to weaksauce when I turn on/up AA.

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 9:39 AM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 9:36:11 AM

Quote :

"it's certified SLI up to 7950 GTs at like 580w "

580w is plenty for sli. Check it out:
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

Quote :

"framerate goes to weaksauce when I turn on/up AA."

Yeah 320 isn't great for higher resolutions.

6/25/2008 9:41:07 AM

would 8800GT's be bottlenecked by a Conroe running at 3.2?

edit: 2 8800GT's

[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 10:09 AM. Reason : sli]

6/25/2008 10:09:08 AM

^not at all.

I need to sell/trade/do something with my old 8800gtx. It's overclocked to ultra speeds and it's a fast card but i'd rather have 2 8800gt's.

6/25/2008 10:48:13 AM

NEO you should be folding with the OC'ed 8800gtx and not selling it.

6/25/2008 2:39:33 PM

Yeah but i can get more power with 2 8800gt's. Anyone want to buy my 8800gtx for cheap?

^yeah i need to start folding again. Once i build my htpc i'll start folding on both pcs.

6/25/2008 2:40:52 PM