New budget champion - 4830 Crossfire

[jay_l_a]

Almost on par with the GTX280, for about half the price....

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16300&page=1

Interesting, I've never much rated multicard solutions, unless money is no object, and you double up on the fastest card available. But a couple of 4830's, give them a month or two you'll be able to get a pair for under 200 bucks...

 

[swifty_morgan]

Would be nice to see more than "friendly" games listed. And ones not so cpu friendly. But yes, not too bad.

 

[jay_l_a]

True, I'd like to see what it did in Crysis, and a few other notoriously GPU demanding games.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Ummm, did you even bother to look? Whats the first game benched?

 

[jay_l_a]

The first game benched is Company of Heroes. Your point?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

All those games arent ATI friendly

 

[boredatcanon]

If i didn't already have a 4850 I'd go this route as it's cheaper with much better performance.

 

[malveaux]

Heh,

So... 4830's in Crossfire (two cards, cheapest on NewEgg right now $119 each, or $99 with rebate, puts it at $240 for that setup for the cards, or $200 with rebates assuming you get two rebates, I gather, you'd get one due to limitations, so more like $220 right now). I would hope that any modern 48** series in Crossfire at HIGH resolution with AA enabled would actually perform on par with a single powerful 260 at the same settings.

@OP, read those charts, it's not on par with a single 280. It's on par with a single 260. And a single 260 costs $230 with rebates at NewEgg right now. The same cost as both those 4830's in crossfire.

This is by no means warrant to say "budget card on par with..." anything. You're spending over $200 for these "budget" cards and for that, you might as well have gotten a single 260 which you can SLI later when prices come down even more and totally blast away this `budget' build while spending about the same and not being stuck with TWO cards that are budget; instead, get ONE card that is not budget that will be even more powerful later with a 2nd added, instead of a `total upgrade' which would be required in the 4830's case when the time came.

Notice they didn't show benchmarks of XF/SLI HD4850 ($130 at NewEgg.... why on earth would you buy a 4830 when the 4850 is only $30 more after rebate). They didn't show some 9800gt's in SLI either ($99 each at TigerDirect; cheaper, and I bet they do very well compared to those 4830's).

... Stop trying to sell 4830's. There's better cards in the price range. And with how prices are, no reason to get 4830 when the 4850 is so close to it in cost per card, and the 9800gt so close per card in cost. If you want to get two cheap cards and XF/SLI them, don't, get a really good single card, like the 260, which is the same cost as those crossfired budget cards together, which won't be gimped when it's time to upgrade as you can add another 260 later as prices come down when you need the performance boon.

Buying two 4830's when a single 260 costs the same, and both have equal performance, is retarded.

Very best,

 

[jay_l_a]

All those games arent ATI friendly

Maybe I'm missing your point here.

You say the games used for benchmarking are not ATI friendly.

The benchmarks still show the 4830's in crossfire pulling their weight quite admirably.

Soo, the games aren't ATI friendly, yet the 4830's neary hit the GTX280 performance levels.... I'm lost...

 

[jay_l_a]

Heh,

So... 4830's in Crossfire (two cards, cheapest on NewEgg right now $119 each, or $99 with rebate, puts it at $240 for that setup for the cards, or $200 with rebates assuming you get two rebates, I gather, you'd get one due to limitations, so more like $220 right now). I would hope that any modern 48** series in Crossfire at HIGH resolution with AA enabled would actually perform on par with a single powerful 260 at the same settings.

@OP, read those charts, it's not on par with a single 280. It's on par with a single 260. And a single 260 costs $230 with rebates at NewEgg right now. The same cost as both those 4830's in crossfire.

This is by no means warrant to say "budget card on par with..." anything. You're spending over $200 for these "budget" cards and for that, you might as well have gotten a single 260 which you can SLI later when prices come down even more and totally blast away this `budget' build while spending about the same and not being stuck with TWO cards that are budget; instead, get ONE card that is not budget that will be even more powerful later with a 2nd added, instead of a `total upgrade' which would be required in the 4830's case when the time came.

Notice they didn't show benchmarks of XF/SLI HD4850 ($130 at NewEgg.... why on earth would you buy a 4830 when the 4850 is only $30 more after rebate). They didn't show some 9800gt's in SLI either ($99 each at TigerDirect; cheaper, and I bet they do very well compared to those 4830's).

... Stop trying to sell 4830's. There's better cards in the price range. And with how prices are, no reason to get 4830 when the 4850 is so close to it in cost per card, and the 9800gt so close per card in cost. If you want to get two cheap cards and XF/SLI them, don't, get a really good single card, like the 260, which is the same cost as those crossfired budget cards together, which won't be gimped when it's time to upgrade as you can add another 260 later as prices come down when you need the performance boon.

Buying two 4830's when a single 260 costs the same, and both have equal performance, is retarded.

Very best,

Most motherboards (i7 excluded) are either SLI or Crossfire capable. This dictates the choice for some.

I'm not advocating the use of these cards, I simply found it interesting that a pair of budget cards (a hundred buck card would be considered budget to many people) in crossfire configuration could attain performance almost (note the use of this word in my original post) on par with Nvidia’s fasting offering.

As I also stated in my original post, I’m not really a fan of SLI/Crossfire. I have generally favoured a single faster card over 2 slower ones, but I’m glad you have such a high opinion of others who may feel differently from us.

 

[rangers]

Heh,

So... 4830's in Crossfire (two cards, cheapest on NewEgg right now $119 each, or $99 with rebate, puts it at $240 for that setup for the cards, or $200 with rebates assuming you get two rebates, I gather, you'd get one due to limitations, so more like $220 right now). I would hope that any modern 48** series in Crossfire at HIGH resolution with AA enabled would actually perform on par with a single powerful 260 at the same settings.

@OP, read those charts, it's not on par with a single 280. It's on par with a single 260. And a single 260 costs $230 with rebates at NewEgg right now. The same cost as both those 4830's in crossfire.

This is by no means warrant to say "budget card on par with..." anything. You're spending over $200 for these "budget" cards and for that, you might as well have gotten a single 260 which you can SLI later when prices come down even more and totally blast away this `budget' build while spending about the same and not being stuck with TWO cards that are budget; instead, get ONE card that is not budget that will be even more powerful later with a 2nd added, instead of a `total upgrade' which would be required in the 4830's case when the time came.

Notice they didn't show benchmarks of XF/SLI HD4850 ($130 at NewEgg.... why on earth would you buy a 4830 when the 4850 is only $30 more after rebate). They didn't show some 9800gt's in SLI either ($99 each at TigerDirect; cheaper, and I bet they do very well compared to those 4830's).

... Stop trying to sell 4830's. There's better cards in the price range. And with how prices are, no reason to get 4830 when the 4850 is so close to it in cost per card, and the 9800gt so close per card in cost. If you want to get two cheap cards and XF/SLI them, don't, get a really good single card, like the 260, which is the same cost as those crossfired budget cards together, which won't be gimped when it's time to upgrade as you can add another 260 later as prices come down when you need the performance boon.

Buying two 4830's when a single 260 costs the same, and both have equal performance, is retarded.

Very best,

there's only one problem to your theory, you'll be stuck with a crappy nvidia motherboard
im still saving up for the 4870 1gig or waiting till the price drops, which ever comes first

 

[malveaux]

Heya,

Again, it's not a $100 video card that they're showing.

It's two $100 videocards, in Crossfire, and costs $200~240.

$200 is not budget, that's main stream.

Very best,

 

[jay_l_a]

Agreed, it's a pair of cards, as I stated.

 

[pauldh]

Almost on par with the GTX280, for about half the price....

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16300&page=1

Interesting, I've never much rated multicard solutions, unless money is no object, and you double up on the fastest card available. But a couple of 4830's, give them a month or two you'll be able to get a pair for under 200 bucks...

This is really the same thing the 8800GT( and now equal 9800GT) have already been doing since the GTX280 release. Compare SLI 8800GT to the GTX280 in this review: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13

 

[malveaux]

Heya,

Pauldh pointed out exactly my point. 8800gt's and 9800gt's are so cheap now, getting two and SLI'ing them is cheaper than a 260/280 and outperforms them. The same exact thing the 4830's are for. However, the 4830's don't outperform a 280, while the 8800/9800gt's do. Cost? Same. That's the difference between gimpy cards and 2~3 year old flagship cards. If you're gonna get the HD48-- series, you might as well go no lower than the HD4850 for the money. The HD4830 is for bundled computers where the user has no choice and probably won't care. If you're buying these things your self and doing it for gaming, you're not going to get an HD4830. So I wish they would stop trying to showcase it like it's in the same market as the mainstream videocards are.

-- On a side note, I just wanted to say, most of my commentary is actually aimed at the lurkers who don't post who may run off screaming "OMG 4830's PWN" when they simply do not. That article showing their benchmarks should be looked upon with scrutiny because it's showing two 4830's vs. a bunch of single card sollutions, and considering that, I'd say, the 4830 is not worth your money as a gamer.

Very best,

 

[dagger]

This is really the same thing the 8800GT( and now equal 9800GT) have already been doing since the GTX280 release. Compare SLI 8800GT to the GTX280 in this review: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13

And single 4830 performs the same as single 8800gt/9800gt. It all fits.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4830/26.html

 

[jeffredo]

You could extrapolate this whole thing out with an SLI or CF solution vs. a much more expensive card (two 9800 GT's vs. HD 4870 1GB, two GTX 260s vs. HD 4870 X2, etc...). The thing is, not everyone has either an CF or SLI mobo, that cost would have to be factored in if you don't. That won't occur with a single card. And there are still plenty of examples where the game is either poorly optimized or not at all for a dual card set up. In those cases you get either the same or worse performance than you would with just one card of the dual card set up. Its an interesting exercise, but doesn't really prove anything. I'd much rather have a single core, single card GPU. Makes life a lot easier.