Will the 4850x2 be better than...

[alex_oneill2006]

Hey hey

I was thinking of doing an upgrade, looking at the 9800 GX2 --> £185.
Thats a very cheap price.

Or should i just stick around for the 4850x2.

Would it have much better performance than the 9800 GX2... and what would the price tag be like ?

Regards,

Alex

 

[alvine]

I would go with 4850x2 since it has dx 10.1 so you be more future proof

 

[alex_oneill2006]

Yea, what do you reckon the price tag would be, and would it really be much better performance ?

 

[L1qu1d]

seeing as the 4870 X2 is 550+, I'd say your looking at around $400+ for a 4850 X2

This is all in CAD, I don't kno what prices they charge in your country

 

[doomturkey]

The 4850X2 should be faster than the 9800GX2 and the GTX280, so I would go for that.

 

[emp]

To answer your first question, yes the HD 4850 X2 should be faster than the 9800 GX2 and GTX 280.

Given the fact that HD 4850 are retailing at around $170-190 and HD 4870 for $260-280, I'd say that the HD 4850 will be less than $400, could be around $350-360 right where it would kill off completely the GTX 280.

 

[eklipz330]

4850x2 will sell for approx $450

i've read it on multiple sites

 

[L1qu1d]

yes so its P/P ratio is good, but there are many more options 2 4850 would cost less and perform better I personally think.

And yes 1 4850 X2 would be slightly faster than the GX2, but its P/P won't be near as good.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I just wonder why people think itll be 450$. Please give those links of other peoples opinions. If you can already get two 4850s for close to 300$, then why would they charge 50% more for something thats actually cheaper to make? Cant remember the 9800gtx prices vs the Gx2 prices, but Im pretty sure it wasnt 50% more when it came out over the single GTX if you bought 2 of them

 

[nottheking]

Well, from what I recall, in most cases the 9800GX2 is comparable to a single 4870, normally only pulling the lead in higher resolutions specifically with the AA disabled. (turn on AA and it seems to regularly lose to the 4870 outside of Crysis specifically at 1920x1200) As a general rule, the 4870 holds the lead with AA enabled, though it loses it to the 9800GX2 if you run without AA.

However, the 4850X2 would perform akin to a 4850 CrossFire setup... Which would be substantially more powerful than any card out there save for, of course, the 4870X2. So in other words, your actual performance in games would be, provided you were using AA (and who wouldn't be at such a resolution) edging on perhaps the 90-100% range above the 9800GX2. With AA disabled, it'd still be around perhaps a 40-50% advantage depending upon the game.

Now, considering that you can get a GeForce 9800GX2 for as low as $290US now, it could be an open debate as to how it'd stack up against the 4850X2 on a price-performance standpoint. With an estimated MSRP of $450US, that would make it a 55% increase in price for, with anti-aliasing disabled, only up to a 40-50% increase in performance... Not really quite worth it, especially since the improvement might be even less.

Make no mistake, the 4850X2 should hands-down beat the 9800GX2 across the board, no matter the game or settings, at least as far as I could tell... Then again, it's what you'd expect out of paying a substantial sum more. What remains to be seen is if it's worth it... If you're using AA, then the answer would certainly be yes, that it'd be superior on the price-performance ratio. However, for those that don't use AA at very high resolutions, the opposite would be the truth.

 

[L1qu1d]

I just wonder why people think itll be 450$. Please give those links of other peoples opinions. If you can already get two 4850s for close to 300$, then why would they charge 50% more for something thats actually cheaper to make? Cant remember the 9800gtx prices vs the Gx2 prices, but Im pretty sure it wasnt 50% more when it came out over the single GTX if you bought 2 of them

Well I for 1 estimated, since the 4870 X2 is more expensive than 2 4870 by like 100$ here. so I'll assume that thats how expensive the 4850 X2 will be.

250$ for 4870 here.

589.99 for a 4870 X2.

So i just completed the pattern.

and as for the GX2 vs the 4850 X2, from what i've seen in 4850 CF, it doesn't really put enough of a gap between them to justify the price, if the X2 brings 1 gig to the table, it might change at anything over 1920x1200.

But 512 meg cards have no problem doing AA even @ 1920x1200.

Either way thats my 2cents

We'll have to wait and see, i'm pissed I haven't seen any benchmarks of the 4870 X2 directly compared to the GX2, atleast from a site I trust

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Problem is, theres a premium for top dog, as eveyone knows, making the 4870x2 get that premium. You cant really justify the 4850x2 as that, tho there may be a slight premium, running it to 400$. Now do the figuring, and its competitive again. I keep seeing people saying theyve heard that its 450$, Id just like a link or two. Im thinking even with the coming of the long awaited 55nm refresh of the G series, itll still be the 2nd best card

 

[emp]

I really don't think it'll be $450, first it doesn't follow the same AMD philosophy that has been preached since release "Priced for Gamers", especially when you can pretty much kill the GTX 280, severely castrate the GTX 260, albeit they'd have to drop the HD 4870 from $270 to $250 to keep it competitive (which shouldn't worry them all that much).

The HD 4870 right now is $260-280 (2x = $520 - 560) and the HD 4870 X2 is $550, so it's around the same price point for an HD 4870 CF setup and an X2. What makes people think it'll be any different for the HD 4850 X2 is beyond me.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Ive seen this posted several times, not just in this thread.. On one I called FUD, and still never got any links. Who knows?

 

[emp]

It just doesn't feel right, not something like the current AMD would do. Right now they are trying hard to restore their position as the "Gamer's choice" brand, something that nvidia took effortlessly from them in the past 2 years. They are basically indirectly painting nvidia cards as inefficient, overpriced, and technologically behind (Statement that I concur with, and sadly holds partially true for their Phenoms).

Right now making money is #2, their priority feels more like the reestablishing of their brand, which they have done well enough so far, and with the upcoming HD 4670 I can see they are taking steps to lock that position, so why overprice a card that can basically make AMD the undisputed best choice for the $150-550 price segment... doesn't make sense.

I mean it when I say it, this card if priced right can make nvidia shed tears of blood.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

It could actually be priced as low as 300$ and would not only kill any nVidia card made, but best bang for buck, and be the second fastest out, at a price nVidia cant touch, not even a 250$ G280 at 55nm would look good against that price

 

[emp]

Yeah they could easily do that... But they wouldn't want to undercut their very own 4870 by too much, that's why I see a $350-$360 tag the most reasonable.

Thing is nvidia is bleeding money with their GTX 260 and 280s, pricing this thing at $350 while force nvidia to drop from their $400-430 tag to at the very minimum $340-350 and the 260 would have to drop, and exactly how much more can the GTX 260 drop in price before it's forcefully EOL'd due to tremendous losses? I may seem overly enthusiastic about this, and I know competition is good and I don't want Ati to completely kill nvidia, but that doesn't mean I don't want them to torture them and make them bleed.

Nvidia deserves what they're getting... the whole GF9 series, that joke known as 9800 GX2, and GTX 200 release price tag. They think they had a monopoly and could take advantage of the costumer. On the other hand, AMD has done a lot of crap in the past, but they are doing the right thing this time around (They could have priced the 4850 at $320 and 4870 at $470), and they got 110% support from Emp!

They gotta pour some of the same pixie dust they used on making the HD 4000 on the phenoms, see if some of the greatness rubs off on them...

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Hope they didnt use it all up. Yea, at 300, its way too optimistic, but even so, still doable, whereas we both know nVidia couldnt compete with that price. A 280$ G280 would look nice tho.... heheh

 

[emp]

Ati is in such a good spot right now, not only they are supposedly having incredible yields, but also the cost per GPU seems to be really low. Kinda the opposite with nvidia. That's why I'm sticking to my conclusion, the HD 4850 X2 will be priced at $350 (+/- $20)

 

[V3NOM]

i think the DX10.1 support is basically useless. Purely because nvidia does not have support for the standard, developers will not produce games using 10.1 that would lower their sales quite considerably therefore..... just no.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Thing is, after we see a few games out, and thatll be before nVidia comes out with DX10.1, opinions will change, regardless of whether nVidia thinks its important or not, cause, every time says someone says that, itll be thrown in their face, and their response will be "but those arent great games, then another will come out, and another.... yes it matters

 

[nottheking]

Well I for 1 estimated, since the 4870 X2 is more expensive than 2 4870 by like 100$ here. so I'll assume that thats how expensive the 4850 X2 will be.

250$ for 4870 here.

589.99 for a 4870 X2.

So i just completed the pattern.

I dunno where you're seeing $250 4870s, especially in Canada... The least I spot 'em for in the USA is $260US]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129113]$260US on NewEgg[/url], and that's an anomalous price; the next ones are in the $275-280US range. Meanwhile, the 4870X2s are invariably priced $550US or $560US...

If you count out the anomalous price for the 4870, then the 4870X2 is about equal to the price of two of the 4870s. Of course, one must also remember that the 4870X2 is new, and hence holds to its MSRP of $550US, while the 4870 has been cut from its MSRP of $300US, meaning that the X2 was actually CHEAPER.

But 512 meg cards have no problem doing AA even @ 1920x1200.

I would beg to differ; Crysis shows a clear example of this; while the 4800s handle AA far, far better than even the GTX 200 series cards, at 1920x1200 its demand for framebuffer size is just too great, causing the performance of the 4870 to plummet less than that of the GTX 260, in spite of running faster with it disabled, which runs contrary to how the 4870 normally is, which is supposed to be superior in performance with AA enabled compared to some cards it loses to with it disabled. Given how it manages to be superior to the 260 with AA enabled at 1680x1050, though equal to it with it disabled... But with AA even manages to almost hit the GTX 280, it shows pretty strong evidence that at 1920x1200 with x4 AA, there's definite use for more than 512MB of RAM.

It could actually be priced as low as 300$ and would not only kill any nVidia card made, but best bang for buck, and be the second fastest out, at a price nVidia cant touch, not even a 250$ G280 at 55nm would look good against that price

If it's the best bang for the buck, why would AMD do it? They'd be cutting into certain profits that they'd get by simply pricing it higher. I mean, SURE, the end-user would like a really cheap, stupidly powerful card, but that's not how the graphics companies work. Remember that the originally hinted MSRPs for the 4850 and 4870 were respectively $170US and $250US or so, yet they decided to jack them up a bit when AMD realized just how potent they were, and hence could squeeze more profit out of them while STILL delivering a killer price/performance ratio.

 

[xrodney]

i think the DX10.1 support is basically useless. Purely because nvidia does not have support for the standard, developers will not produce games using 10.1 that would lower their sales quite considerably therefore..... just no.

But there are still quite few games supporting 10.1 comming out.

 

[V3NOM]

Thing is, after we see a few games out, and thatll be before nVidia comes out with DX10.1, opinions will change, regardless of whether nVidia thinks its important or not, cause, every time says someone says that, itll be thrown in their face, and their response will be "but those arent great games, then another will come out, and another.... yes it matters

No games developer in their right mind would limit their market to a specific graphic type... that's just not smart business! the people with nvidia cards would not buy it, and their sales would be down.

Sure, maybe they could have a patch included in the box with the game to drop it to DX10, like they did with assassin's creed (unfortunately AFTER the game was released, you had to dl it lol), but no one's going to have a game exclusively DX10.1 at this point in time. by the time the next generation comes around, we'll have DX11 most likely, and all of this will just fade into history, not mattering at all.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Having DX10.1 doesnt limit it to exclusively DX10.1 cards, as witnessed when AC came out, and both ATI and nVidia played the game, after the "patch", performance went DOWN 20% or more on the DX10.1 compliant cards. Hmmm . Now, making the claim that nVidia card owners wont buy a game they like because its DX10.1 is crazy. If it plays on their cards, why not? Maybe theyll see a performance hit by not HAVING DX10.1, but if it plays, it wont matter. Not sure what youre thinking there. You WILL see a few DX10.1 games out, like I said. Maybe not bid titles, maybe not alot, but like I did say, as each one comes out, this will begin to matter, as it will become a topic, and one that nVidia doesnt want to happen, but when another game appears, itll only grow. With nVidias current position in the mind of enthusiasts, they really dont need this type of exposure to their cavalier attitude again, but I can assure you, itll happen, and ONLY the die hard nVidia fanboys wont see it and understand it