HD4850 CF officially faster than GTX280, confirmed !

[wolf2009]

Read "How NVIDIA Stuffed the GTX 280" story.

No numbers but confirmation that HD4850 CF faster than GTX280

The thing is though, I’ve tested the HD 4850, and what’s interesting is that the card is going to be a mid-range solution. But in Crossfire? - Wow! - With the amount of people who have CF boards as well, thanks to the Intel CPU and chipset being the products of choice, this is going to be a great solution.


With that said though, it’s not ground breaking performance in the sense that it’s pushing out numbers we haven’t seen before. See, I’m probably not allowed to say this, but it helps me put my point across a bit better. The GTX 280 is slower than a pair of CrossFired 4850s for the most part; it’s also $250 AUD dearer. The price on the HD 4850 in AUD is around $250, so $500 for a pair while the GTX 280 is starting at $750

 

[ShadowFold]

How fast is ONE HD 4850 cause thats all I can afford

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

I can only afford I... So that means AMD loses... fail.

 

[farlex85]

Hopefully this will force nvidia to be reasonable w/ their prices. Not likely though.

 

[farlex85]

I can only afford I... So that means AMD loses... fail.

$400 worth of cards better than a $669 card? I'd hardly call that a fail.........

 

[wolf2009]

$400 worth of cards cheaper than a $669 card? I'd hardly call that a fail.........

true , even 3870x2 wasn't priced at this price when it first came out.

 

[oli_ramsay]

$400 worth of cards cheaper than a $669 card? I'd hardly call that a fail.........

Me neither, I call that "win"

If this is true, I might consider getting an x48/x38/p45 board and Xfiring 2 4870s.

Especially considering the cheapest GTX 280 over here is £430 http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?ZOT-GTX280). I expect the 4870s to be about £170 and the 4850s to be £140.

 

[erocker]

No single word posts please.

 

[DaMulta]

We will just have to wait and see how much they are. It does say it takes 2 cards to beat a 280 and they didn't say by how much.

So SLi 280GTX FTW for now


It will be just like last round IMO, a little slower, and a little cheaper for AMD.

 

[farlex85]

They are supposed to come in a $199. Trifire ftw and still half the price of sli gtx 280. Spider w/ 4 4850 should beat 3 gtx 280 at a third of the price. It gets worse and worse if this is true.

 

[DanishDevil]

Bravo for ATi. Two $200-250 cards beat out a $700+ one. There's supposed to be a big performance difference between the 4850 and the 4870 unlike the 3800s, so I can only begin to imagine how a 4870x2 is going to perform.

 

[Fitseries3]

We will just have to wait and see how much they are. It does say it takes 2 cards to beat a 280 and they didn't say by how much.

So SLi 280GTX FTW for now


It will be just like last round IMO, a little slower, and a little cheaper for AMD.

but that's 2 LOW END ati cards. immagine 2x4870x2s. just a sinlge x2 should dominate sli'ed gtx 280's. just my speculation though.

 

[HTC]

They are supposed to come in a $199. Trifire ftw and still half the price of sli gtx 280. Spider w/ 4 4850 should beat 3 gtx 280 at a third of the price. It gets worse and worse if this is true.

There's a dude that will bench that in Portugal, in the coming days: that's what he said, anyway!

If i see his results, i'll post them here.

 

[newtekie1]

People need to understand how competition works. ATi has failed to provide nVidia with any reasonable high-end competition. Which means that nVidia's prices have become insane. No competition means you can basically charge anything you want, and people are going to pay it because that is the only option.

The GTX 280 is overpriced, especially when you compare it to the performance of the HD4850s and HD4870s in Crossfire. However, those cards aren't out yet, so nVidia has no reason to lower the price of the GTX280. Once those cards are out on the market, nVidia will have no choice but to lower the price of the GTX 280.

All the fanboys want is for the company that competes against their favorite company to go under. You have the Intel fanboys wanting AMD to go out of business, you have the AMD fanboys wanting Intel to go out of business, you have the nVidia fanboys wanting ATi to go out of business, and you have the ATi fanboys wanting nVidia to go out of business. Well, they're all stupid. If any of them goes out, this is what will happen, but on a much larger scale. Every product will go up in price, we will be buying Celerons for $200 and HD4250s for $400.

I personally hope ATi's solutions give nVidia come competition, nVidia needs it. They are starting to get a little insane with their pricing.

On a different note, I'll be skipping this round of GPUs. I'll do exactly what I've done the last two generations. Wait for a die shrink.

 

[ShadowFold]

Man I want to see these results so bad.. I want to see the single card ones even worse.. Why the hell are there NDA's? Doesnt AMD want to let everyone see the brutal pwnage they are gonna whip out? And I dont want to see nvidia go out.. I like to watch them think they are on top then get stomped I do prefer ATi but I wouldnt call myself a fanboy..

 

[DanishDevil]

I don't want anyone to go out of business. I just want ATi and Intel to keep stomping all over AMD and nVidia's cubes.

 

[HTC]

People need to understand how competition works. ATi has failed to provide nVidia with any reasonable high-end competition. Which means that nVidia's prices have become insane. No competition means you can basically charge anything you want, and people are going to pay it because that is the only option.

The GTX 280 is overpriced, especially when you compare it to the performance of the HD4850s and HD4870s in Crossfire. However, those cards aren't out yet, so nVidia has no reason to lower the price of the GTX280. Once those cards are out on the market, nVidia will have no choice but to lower the price of the GTX 280.

All the fanboys want is for the company that competes against their favorite company to go under. You have the Intel fanboys wanting AMD to go out of business, you have the AMD fanboys wanting Intel to go out of business, you have the nVidia fanboys wanting ATi to go out of business, and you have the ATi fanboys wanting nVidia to go out of business. Well, they're all stupid. If any of them goes out, this is what will happen, but on a much larger scale. Every product will go up in price, we will be buying Celerons for $200 and HD4250s for $400.

I personally hope ATi's solutions give nVidia come competition, nVidia needs it. They are starting to get a little insane with their pricing.

On a different note, I'll be skipping this round of GPUs. I'll do exactly what I've done the last two generations. Wait for a die shrink.

Wrong, dude: WE need it.

 

[erocker]

I just wish AMD would work on a better tirfire bridge connector, that utilizes all of the connections. Really, all we need is an extra long ribbon style connector like this that can reach from the top card to the bottom card, then use two shorter bridges on the remaining connectors. That and three PCI-E x16 lanes.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I never understood the competition rationale as a means to blame ATI for Nv shortcomings. Ultimately the decision on what products are made available to consumers fails on Nv not ATI's level of competitive nature in the high end. Is it not true that Nv could have still produces the exact same 260/280 GTX had ATI been competitive? IMO, very likely as there is no real indicator to suggest otherwise. Other then the fact that it's plausible.

Lets look at it like this:
Was it Nv's fault that ATI didn't compete with the GTX and Ultra with the 2900? Nv was still a good competitor back then yet ATI simply didn't step up. If you can't see yourself blaming Nv for ATI's shortcomings I simply find no reason why anyone should blame ATI for Nv's shortcomings.

 

[Fitseries3]

All the fanboys want is for the company that competes against their favorite company to go under. You have the Intel fanboys wanting AMD to go out of business, you have the AMD fanboys wanting Intel to go out of business, you have the nVidia fanboys wanting ATi to go out of business, and you have the ATi fanboys wanting nVidia to go out of business. Well, they're all stupid.

yes and no...

fanboyism is stupid as hell

BUT

ATI = AMD now..... so why the hell would any intel guy want amd to go out of business?

performance is performance and if you can get 2 low priced cards that outperform a single higher priced card why the hell wouldn't you?

im not a fanboy at all. i switched to ATI because it was better at the time. this is recently too. my first ati card EVER was my beloved 3870x2. it has gotten me better scores then my 3 8800gtx's did in tri-sli. that is a feat in it's own.

we know from the past that nvidia does not drop their prices much at all the same as ati. but.. ati comes out with new cards at decent prices... thats something that nvidia doesn't seem to like to do.

 

[Urbklr]

This news, just startled my new videocard plan. 95% sure I'm goina be benching an oc'ed HD4870 by this time next week

If 2 will beat out a GTX280, wouldn't that mean 1 will be as fast or faster than a G92?....Meaning the 4870 will be a beastttt, for a reasonable price

 

[erocker]

GTX 280 is a very expensive card to make. The 512bit bus is expensive, the pcb, and the reported horrible yields on GT200 chips. It's all kind of like what happened with R600, though ATi had some better yields on thier chips. Nvidia is just trying to stay profitable with these new cards. If Nvidia follows the path ATi took with R600, by shrinking it down, and lowering manufacture costs, they will be in good shape. Companies can't release a perfect product everytime.

 

[Megasty]

The obvious started already. I like the talk of CFing 4870s or 4850s but that's what the 70x2 & 50x2 are for. If those are like the predecessors then they will be faster than the CFs. However, they won't be around for around which is NV's only saving grace. Even if the 280's PP is crap right now its still the fastest ATM. But that's hardly any redemption for the crazy price.

 

[imperialreign]

nice to know, though, ath 2 4850s can best 1 GTX280 . . . but I'd like to know by how much as well . . .

I mean, if it's only 3-5% faster, that's not too impressive . . . still cheaper to CF compared to one 280 - but that would be the only point; a cheaper alternative, if your mobo can support it.

But, if they're running 15%+ faster, than I'd say that's decent, IMO, and might steal some of nVidia's thunder at this point.


But, if the two cards are besting a 280 by a wide margin (like 30% or more - highly unlikely, though), then I'd say hold off and see what the 4870s will be capable of.

 

[DanishDevil]

Either way, this means that a 4850x2 is going to be on par with a GTX280, and that's not ATi's top of the line card. Once everything is released, I think the best single card will be the 4870x2, especially if they can throw out some great drivers with it. Then again, GTX280's drivers may improve vastly.

The bottom line: Only time will tell, but this is going to be a great competition between ATi and nVidia.