the 9800gtx seems like a really good card 2 buy right now
its mad fast for 200 bucks and with evgas new overclocking program
you can get a bunch of extra performance out of it
Excuse me? For a start, the cheapest 9800GTX I could find is $269. For brief periods (AMD quicky removed them), online retailers have listed HD 4850s, and the price has been around $200. The HD 4850 is faster than the 9800GTX (it's even faster than the GTX 260 is a few benches), especially when AA is enabled, supports DX10.1, shader model 4.1 and has better HD/Blu-Ray playback and encoding capabilities, plus you don't need an nvidia motherboard, and there have been a few benches of HD 4850 CF vs the GTX 280, the HD 4850 wins by quite a margin. And remember HD 4850 x2 = $400, GTX 280 = $650.
And why is EVGA's OC utility so good? You get CCC with the HD 4850 but most overclocker's will just use Rivatuner of ATItool anyway.
It will be interesting to see what performance the higher clock speed and the 3800MHz GDDR5 brings on the 4870
Can't wait to see the HD 4870 X2 destroy the GTX 280...
The 4850 looks to be a good card for the price, however, as for performance, I do believe the GTX280 will be them all, but the problem will probably be the price the beast will cost. As for power consumptions, meh...I was kind of expecting a little lower watt consumption...but that's only me.
Errr, isn't the GTX 280 $650? I don't think you can compare it to a $200 card. AMD have said though that the HD 4870 will offer 1.3X the performance of the HD 4850, that means the 4870 will almost definitely be faster than the GTX 260, and will be almost as fast as the GTX 280, and it price is around $300!!! The X2 should destroy the GTX's.
Now we just need Qimonda to get their arses in gear and make GDDR5 fast enough!!
EDIT: AMD have failed to control the spread of these cards and have agreed to pull the launch to today. These are now available! HD 4870 is still scheduled for launch on the 25th June.
And another review:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4850/7.html
I don't think there's any denying it now, the HD 4850 is faster than both the 8800ULTRA and 9800GTX, and it even comes damn close to the GTX 280 on some occasionsm whilst being priced at $200.
Bring on the GDDR5!!