ATI Launches Radeon HD 4850 Early, nVIDIA Responds

Post by **Yoon** » June 20th, 2008, 12:48 pm

ATI has officially launched the Radeon HD4850 early yesterday. Initially, ATI was planning on launching it on the 25th later this month, along with the higher-end Radeon HD4870, but apparently several vendors ignored the NDA and started to sell the HD4850 early.

List of reviews can be found below:

AMD Zone
AnandTech
FiringSquad
Guru3D
Legion Hardware
PC Ekspert
PC Perspective
TechReport
TweakTown

From Anandtech. The $199 HD4850 outperforms the $499 GeForce GTX 260 in BioShock!

From FiringSquad. HD4850 manages to beat the GeForce 9800 GTX in Call of Duty 4. GeForce 9800 GTX+ is only marginally faster.

For a card that is $199 USD, it certainly offers incredible performance, as it can play at max settings on standard resolutions on most games (except Crysis). Although the HD 4850 was meant to replace the HD3850 and compete against the 8800 GT and 9600 GT, it has proven to be not only faster than those two cards, but also beating the previous high-ends 8800 GTX and GTS 512 and matching the GeForce 9800 GTX in performance. What's even more surprising is that the HD4850 was able to beat or match the GTX 260 in some games when anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering (AF) is enabled.

Also, because two HD4850 cards are cheaper than one GeForce GTX 280 and outperform it on many cases, several people are considering on going the HD4850 CF route than a single GeForce GTX 280.

With this surprise launch, nVIDIA has launched an aggressive price war against ATI. It dropped the price on existing GeForce 9800 GTX to $199 and has launched the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which is essentially a higher clocked 9800 GTX with a 55nm die. There are also rumors that the newly launched GeForce GTX 260 will drop in price from $499 to $399 USD when the HD4870 launches next week.

PROS:
- Very affordable, at $199.
- Matches the GeForce 9800 GTX in performance.
- Faster than the GeForce 8800 GT, GTS 512, GTX and Radeon HD 3870.
- AA and AF have been improved and fixed over the previous HD3xxx series.
- Can match or beat the more expensive GeForce GTX 260 in some games when AA & AF is enabled.
- Uses a single PCI-E 6-pin connector.
- Consumes less idle power than the GeForce 9800 GTX.
- Can Crossfire (CF) two HD 4850 cards, which exceed the performance of a GeForce GTX 280 in several games, for cheaper than a single GTX 280.

CONS:
- Very hot card; emits a lot of heat.
- 2 x HD 4850 in CF consumes more power than a GeForce GTX 280.

Up next week is ATI's other HD48xx card, the HD4870. God, do I love competition. ;D

EDIT: DailyTech is reporting that the HD4850 can be purchased as low as $170 USD now.

Jaegar · Post by **Jaegar** » June 20th, 2008, 12:57 pm

wow O.o I never knew the world of PC hardware had this much drama and competition XD lol

Post by **Yoon** » June 20th, 2008, 1:05 pm

[color=#CC3333]Jaegar[/color] wrote:wow O.o I never knew the world of PC hardware had this much drama and competition XD lol

Oh yeah, especially the graphic cards, which is one reason why I have a large interest in this industry. ;D

The drama and competition was even worse in 2003, when ATI had faster performing cards out than nVIDIA. nVIDIA attempted to boost it's benchmark scores by artifically lowering graphic details when starting certain games (i.e. 3DMark03, Far Cry), but were caught and chewed out by the hardware community.

More details and drama in this wiki article, under 'Disappointment'. ;D