Summer 2008 Graphics Performance Roundup

Great article guys, really impressive. Now if only your games editor worked as hard as you two do...

(J/K!)

Great article guys, I've been ignoring hardware for a while now, there's just too much stuff coming out, unless you're really into it, it's difficult to keep up so I just gave up.

Very useful article ;););)

Originally Posted by mrb_no1
Oh Rich mate i am sorry, i feel really guilty for pm'ing you the other day saying where is the article on the ati 4k series, you should have just me that the review looks at 3 other new cards too and to piss off, i wouldnt have minded.

LOL don't worry - it's a nice kick up the backside to know people want an article we're in the process of doing :D

Wow.

ehmmm, did I hear right, the 4870 card is supposed to be midrange?

Well that's gonna up the ante :D

For those interested in Euro pricing: not much difference. Looked for normal (non factory-overclocked) cards from known online German retailers
(there's allways some guy thats cheaper but that i don't feel comfortable sending my money)

4870 & 9800GTX+ 220 Euro about 175 Pounds
GTX280 425 Euro about 340 Pounds
9800GTX 200 Euro about 160 Pounds
4850 140 Euro about 110 Pounds

Xir

If graphics cards had emotions, my 8800GT would be feeling a bit sad now.

Good to see some cards from ATI worth buying. While Nvidia floods the market, ATI is making nice cards with excellent prices, which can only be a good thing for gaming on the PC.

Nice article, confirms that there is some nice competition out there in the mid range price bracket, and hopefully prices will come down at the high end once R700 makes an appearance.

Look forward to seeing the crossfire/sli comparisons soon!

Great review, have been looking forward to this for a long time!

Thanks guys

Been waiting for this since my gfx card died a week or so ago, you made my mind up anyway, ATI Radeon HD 4850 it is, thanks :D

hmm its great to see AMD/ATI with some great cards looks like we have the new 9800 on our hands, and its nice to see this.

Shame i have a NF790i board and cant crossfire 2x4870's.
I am tempted to sell my 8800GT for £80 (got a buyer) and put 2x9800GTX+'s in there as they overclock very well.
An overclocked 9800GTX+ outperform the 4850 and its very close to the GTX260 in testing So 2 of these Overclocked in SLI seems like a good move
Overclocking results here http://www.legitreviews.com/article/732/1/

Its also nice to see that gamers no longer have to pay mega, mega money to get great performing cards :D

Also one thing to point out is Nvidia Cards offer Physx and i'm sure this will come into its own in the near furture with alot of games on the UT3 engine, it offers increased real life physics in game but without any loss to the FPS, or without toasting your CPU

EDIT:
Review of 4870,4850 single and cross-fire compared to Nvidia 9800GTX, GTX280 and 9800GX2 single and SLI
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=13972&page=16
Its very close

Great review guys! Got my 4850 on order :-D

Thank you SO much, Bit-tech...

Just as I was unsure whether to go with an 8800GT or spend a little extra for the 4850 in my new PC, you guys come up with this...

4850 it is... I really can't wait now.

You do all your benchmarking on 64-bit Vista now, right?

Looks like the idea to sell my 8800GTX is a good thing.

Hated ATI after driver issues 4 years ago, but I'm no fanboy and looking forward to trying the 4870 in crossfire.

Thanks again BT for such an entertaining and informative read, you guys ROCK!

wont nvidia just bang 2* 280 chips on the same board? same as ati are gonna do with the 4870? Charge whatever they want and still be performance king?

in the end of the day if you pay £1500 for a moniter what is £300 for a graphics card that truly is pocket change.

The realists will never need to go above £130

Jesus the post-processing on that Grid menu makes me feel sea sick .. glad I didn't buy that now :)

£1500 for a monitor *cough, splutter* ?! Crikey.

I think I'll hold onto my oc'd 9800GTX for the mo, until maybe the 280 comes down to a reasonable price (say £170ish).

Great article, Good to see that 3870 I picked up for $120 (USD) didn't completly die on the testing, (Not going to bother trying crysis on it). Eventually I'll pickup a high end card (or 2, 4870 Crossfire probably) for a better gaming rig but as I currently can only game about 1 day a week, Id say I got decent bang for the buck.

Originally Posted by kenco_uk
£1500 for a monitor *cough, splutter* ?! Crikey.

I think I'll hold onto my oc'd 9800GTX for the mo, until maybe the 280 comes down to a reasonable price (say £170ish).

don't count on it - the gtx280 die is bloody enormous, so chip yields are low and thus the price is high. If Nvidia were to agressivly slash prices,they'd be losing money very quickly.

i might have to save up that extra £80 to get the 4870 :) im really impressed with the porformance of the card. thanks for the review, it's the best review / comparison on the net :)

Originally Posted by Baz
don't count on it - the gtx280 die is bloody enormous, so chip yields are low and thus the price is high. If Nvidia were to agressivly slash prices,they'd be losing money very quickly.

it's like 8800GTX, shortly after 8800GTX drops below £200. all e-tailers began to dry up on them.

any chance of giving insite whether the 512MB is enough for the highest level of AA possible on these ATI video card? im thinking 1GB may be better buy if 1900x1200 is already seeing games being limited by 512MB

gtx 280 will always be the super high end product. same as ultra is still

any chance of showing ultra in sli performance dif. Still own my pair of them, Would like to see performance dif between them and 280 .

Originally Posted by wuyanxu

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baz
don't count on it - the gtx280 die is bloody enormous, so chip yields are low and thus the price is high. If Nvidia were to agressivly slash prices,they'd be losing money very quickly.

it's like 8800GTX, shortly after 8800GTX drops below £200. all e-tailers began to dry up on them.

any chance of giving insite whether the 512MB is enough for the highest level of AA possible on these ATI video card? im thinking 1GB may be better buy if 1900x1200 is already seeing games being limited by 512MB

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that 1GB is useless without a 512-bit memory interface, and a decent bandwidth.. otherwise it'll be bottlenecked and you'll see no real benefits, not even at 1920x1200.

Originally Posted by rollo
gtx 280 will always be the super high end product. same as ultra is still

any chance of showing ultra in sli performance dif. Still own my pair of them, Would like to see performance dif between them and 280 .

We will be doing an SLI and CrossFire article soon.

Originally Posted by Timmy_the_tortoise
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that 1GB is useless without a 512-bit memory interface, and a decent bandwidth.. otherwise it'll be bottlenecked and you'll see no real benefits, not even at 1920x1200.

that's for GDDR3 cards such as 8800GT and 4850.

there's a Powercolor GDDR5 1GB 4870 on OCuk. GDDR5 offers a lot more bandwidth at same clock speed compared to GDDR3

awesome article. thanks for the round up, this really helps me out with the new system i plan...hope to buy.

Originally Posted by wuyanxu

Quote:

Originally Posted by Timmy_the_tortoise
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that 1GB is useless without a 512-bit memory interface, and a decent bandwidth.. otherwise it'll be bottlenecked and you'll see no real benefits, not even at 1920x1200.

that's for GDDR3 cards such as 8800GT and 4850.

there's a Powercolor GDDR5 1GB 4870 on OCuk. GDDR5 offers a lot more bandwidth at same clock speed compared to GDDR3

Ahh.. Okay.. Thanks.