And it was felt that as an older architecture, our full gamut of benchmarks would have been a little over the top - the three we've included are more than enough to get an idea of performance in a variety of different game engines - would three pages of Crysis results really make it clearer that it's a few frames per second faster?
I have to say, as an owner of a 8800GT myself, and an overclocked golden sample at that, these really still remain as competent cards for most if not all games. At resolutions of 1680x1050 and below, its hard to justify spending twice as much for what amounts to merely more FPS.
For smaller monitors, this clearly has to be the Nvidia card of choice for anyone wanting to play modern games.
I have a question though... especially given that 9800GTs have all but replaced the 8800GT...
if you have an 8800GT, can you add a 9800GT and do SLI, or do you need another 8800GT, because as your article says, they are the same cards, just relabelled (the 65nm ones anyway)???
From Fallout3:
"[...] The engine unfortunately has a 60fps cap that weâve been unable to remove thus far, but even despite this, we believe the test is very relevant. [...]"
So how come HD4850 averages over 60fps? Did u manage remove the cap? Saw it in other reviews also.
And overclocking "like a BEAST" for the extra 3fps is useless, in my opinion. Won't notice the difference.
Otherwise, yeah, crap value for this card. For 10$ (here) extra, the Sapphire HD4850 512MB would be a better choice.
Once again some people will get ripped off by a pre-overclocked card. $160? Come on, a 9800 GTX+ can easily be found for that, and even a few GTX 260's have gone for around $160 on ebay. Good review though.
Originally Posted by eXpander From Fallout3:
"[...] The engine unfortunately has a 60fps cap that we've been unable to remove thus far, but even despite this, we believe the test is very relevant. [...]"
So how come HD4850 averages over 60fps? Did u manage remove the cap? Saw it in other reviews also.
Apparently you can force the cap off by setting iPresentInterval=0 in both Fallout.ini and FalloutPrefs.ini located in User\Documents\My Games\Fallout 3\.
Originally Posted by eXpander From Fallout3:
"[...] The engine unfortunately has a 60fps cap that weâve been unable to remove thus far, but even despite this, we believe the test is very relevant. [...]"
So how come HD4850 averages over 60fps? Did u manage remove the cap? Saw it in other reviews also.
It's an error that has been replicated across a number of articles - we're fixing it now with what it should say. Thanks.
And overclocking "like a BEAST" for the extra 3fps is useless, in my opinion. Won't notice the difference.
It really depends on the Game you choose to stress test with. If we'd chosen STALKER clear sky rather than Far Cry , the improvements would have been better, as that game is able to take full advantage of any increase in core, shader or memory clock.
As it stands, an extra 10% performance ontop of an already overclocked card isn't too shabby - that 3fps boost is ontop of a 35FPS average. Considering it's FPS for nothing, we'd say that's pretty good going.
750mhz core?!!! is this due to the power management additions? if not you've got one hell of a G92 chip there
the 8800GT has proved to be a sterling buy for those who got one last year. i see no reason to upgrade tbh, especially with the games coming out atm, theres just nothing to justify spending more really (unless you have a 30" monitor or a crysis addiction)
SI there anyway we could get DB noise ratings when you review kit? I don't know if this is possible for you guys, but would be very useful for me and my machine is not only a gaming rig.
i have a evga standard 8800GT which i have flashed the bios to the akimbo SSC version which i then overclocked for a 740mhz core, 1800mhz shader and 1020 mhz memory overclock on the stock heatsink and fan. 8800GT was deff a good buy last year when i picked it up.
I'm pretty sure the back to front cooling setup is because the card is single height, and the designers were worried about cases without an additional venting below. Such a situation would likely lead to a greater bottling of heat by the back of the case if dumping the hot air from the card off the back side, than dumping towards the front where it might more easily be pushed up and out of the graphics card's section of air.
But for those of us deliberately ducting their cases, pushing air from front to back, with a rear exhaust by the graphics card, this design would be less effective than a front to back based cooler.
".... benefits from both a third party cooling solution and a hefty factory overclock. With the core clock increased from 600MHz to 670MHz, the shader clock bumped up from 1,500MHz to 1,600MHz and the memory upped from 900MHz (1,800MHz effective) to 975MHz (1,950MHz effective)."
That's not even 10percent.. is that supposed to be a lot?
Originally Posted by vampalan ".... benefits from both a third party cooling solution and a hefty factory overclock. With the core clock increased from 600MHz to 670MHz, the shader clock bumped up from 1,500MHz to 1,600MHz and the memory upped from 900MHz (1,800MHz effective) to 975MHz (1,950MHz effective)."
That's not even 10percent.. is that supposed to be a lot?
correct, an overclock of 70Mhz to the core, which usually has the most direct impact on performance is in fact 11.6 percent, with the shader increased by 6.6 percent and the memory by 8.3 percent - that's pretty decent to be honest, and roughly inline with what you'll see from even the top end of overclocked cards,
Glad to have seen the 4830 in the line-up. Although I can't stand the lies frothing from the mouth of the red carders, I was impressed when the 4830 came out at a decent price, with decent performance, and I concluded ATI finally hit a sweet spot where their latest technology core wasn't getting smacked down by years old NVidia G80/G92 at the same price point.
The whines that Nvidia needs new technology are so misplaced, and then the complaint that they need some new cards in the mid segment is ridiculous... the sad truth is their OLD CORES keep up with the latest, greatest, neutered core of ati- the 4850, and in some cases, like the Asus 9800GT Ultimate ( an 8800GTS core /full 128 shaders/ overclocked) for $120, they even smack the 4870 down in a lot of the games.
So anyway, the 9800GT is a great card, even with just 112 shaders, and the next card to get bang for the buck in the lineup is the 4830 - which produces playable frames without a superfreak rezz monitor.
I'd still buy the 9800GT before the red card, before the 4850 - even the 4870 because of CCC, driver issues, power consumption, Cuda, PhysX, configurable per game drivers, and low idle power - ALL OF WHICH go in NVidia's favor.
Glad there's a whole lotta raging red fans, though, I think it helps to drive down NVidia's prices, so people like me and my customers and friends wind up at advantage.
Better pray for ATI - it's sucked another near billion from AMD in losses.
At the beginning of 2012 you can buy a GeForce 8800GT or 9800GT from ebay for as little as £25 with delivery, I bought an 8800GT with large copper heatsink and fan at the end of november 2010 for £35 and a BFG 9800GT OC for £30 mid 2011. Both prices include delivery.
You will be hard pressed to get a an HD4850 though for less than £55 with delivery now. As you can see from the benchmarks they aren't worth twice the money. £55 is GTX260 money, I got a 216 version for £50 in October 2011 for again including delivery which will destroy any of the cards on this test. I gained 47% on my 3DMark Vantage score going from the stock 8800GT to the GTX260 on one of my systems.
I just clocked my 9800GT to the speeds of the XFX OC card on this review and it passed the Furmark stress test and did 3DMark03 ok with a 4.5% increase in score.
Comments 1 to 23 of 23
Reply3 surely?
And it was felt that as an older architecture, our full gamut of benchmarks would have been a little over the top - the three we've included are more than enough to get an idea of performance in a variety of different game engines - would three pages of Crysis results really make it clearer that it's a few frames per second faster?
For smaller monitors, this clearly has to be the Nvidia card of choice for anyone wanting to play modern games.
I have a question though... especially given that 9800GTs have all but replaced the 8800GT...
if you have an 8800GT, can you add a 9800GT and do SLI, or do you need another 8800GT, because as your article says, they are the same cards, just relabelled (the 65nm ones anyway)???
"[...] The engine unfortunately has a 60fps cap that weâve been unable to remove thus far, but even despite this, we believe the test is very relevant. [...]"
So how come HD4850 averages over 60fps? Did u manage remove the cap? Saw it in other reviews also.
And overclocking "like a BEAST" for the extra 3fps is useless, in my opinion. Won't notice the difference.
Otherwise, yeah, crap value for this card. For 10$ (here) extra, the Sapphire HD4850 512MB would be a better choice.
Apparently you can force the cap off by setting iPresentInterval=0 in both Fallout.ini and FalloutPrefs.ini located in User\Documents\My Games\Fallout 3\.
It really depends on the Game you choose to stress test with. If we'd chosen STALKER clear sky rather than Far Cry , the improvements would have been better, as that game is able to take full advantage of any increase in core, shader or memory clock.
As it stands, an extra 10% performance ontop of an already overclocked card isn't too shabby - that 3fps boost is ontop of a 35FPS average. Considering it's FPS for nothing, we'd say that's pretty good going.
fixed now
the 8800GT has proved to be a sterling buy for those who got one last year. i see no reason to upgrade tbh, especially with the games coming out atm, theres just nothing to justify spending more really (unless you have a 30" monitor or a crysis addiction)
They only test 3 games have played the most. So I can't find the table of crysis testing.
But for those of us deliberately ducting their cases, pushing air from front to back, with a rear exhaust by the graphics card, this design would be less effective than a front to back based cooler.
That's not even 10percent.. is that supposed to be a lot?
correct, an overclock of 70Mhz to the core, which usually has the most direct impact on performance is in fact 11.6 percent, with the shader increased by 6.6 percent and the memory by 8.3 percent - that's pretty decent to be honest, and roughly inline with what you'll see from even the top end of overclocked cards,
CPUs are much more overclock-able, but seeing as it only has it's 1-4 cores and maybe a HT, they can overclock alot more..
Just curious BT staff, but were you bored? This card came out quite a while ago, and XFX still insists on these ridiculous prices
I'll second the request for F@H ppd evaluation, that would certainly be nice on a card at this price point (compare to 9800GTX obviously).
Finally, I gotta ask - how would a pair of these in SLI compare to a single 4870 (512MB/1GB) & GTX 260/280/285?
The whines that Nvidia needs new technology are so misplaced, and then the complaint that they need some new cards in the mid segment is ridiculous... the sad truth is their OLD CORES keep up with the latest, greatest, neutered core of ati- the 4850, and in some cases, like the Asus 9800GT Ultimate ( an 8800GTS core /full 128 shaders/ overclocked) for $120, they even smack the 4870 down in a lot of the games.
So anyway, the 9800GT is a great card, even with just 112 shaders, and the next card to get bang for the buck in the lineup is the 4830 - which produces playable frames without a superfreak rezz monitor.
I'd still buy the 9800GT before the red card, before the 4850 - even the 4870 because of CCC, driver issues, power consumption, Cuda, PhysX, configurable per game drivers, and low idle power - ALL OF WHICH go in NVidia's favor.
Glad there's a whole lotta raging red fans, though, I think it helps to drive down NVidia's prices, so people like me and my customers and friends wind up at advantage.
Better pray for ATI - it's sucked another near billion from AMD in losses.
You will be hard pressed to get a an HD4850 though for less than £55 with delivery now. As you can see from the benchmarks they aren't worth twice the money. £55 is GTX260 money, I got a 216 version for £50 in October 2011 for again including delivery which will destroy any of the cards on this test. I gained 47% on my 3DMark Vantage score going from the stock 8800GT to the GTX260 on one of my systems.
I just clocked my 9800GT to the speeds of the XFX OC card on this review and it passed the Furmark stress test and did 3DMark03 ok with a 4.5% increase in score.
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