Radeon 4800 & GeForce 200 Series Value Guide @ [H]

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Radeon 4800 & GeForce 200 Series Value Guide - We look at the 10 combined Radeon 4800 and GeForce 200 series configurations. Our evaluation scales from what you get when you spend $150 on a video card, to what gaming gains should be expected when you spend $1100 on 4870X2 CrossFireX . Real world gameplay and Apples-to-Apples as well.

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This guide has shown us many things, first and foremost is the fact that more expensive doesn’t always mean “a better gameplay experience.” Our gameplay testing and apples-to-apples testing have both proven that sometimes the cheaper video card is the one that actually lets you play at higher in-game settings thus improving the gameplay experience. In every price grouping, we found at least one video card that was less expensive than another, and allowed the same or better experience.
 
The long wait is over! Thanks for the article, even though you teasted us with this post for an hour! reading now.
 
No Problem, and as you will see we did not have the time to include Stalker or Warhead for this evaluation as they came out too late into the production of this evaluation. I do not think, after hearing from Mark on Stalkers performance (he is working on our gameplay perf eval) that including it would have changed our opinions or conclusions in anyway.
 
I think it is worth saying here that Crysis:Warhead performance does not look to differ much from the original Crysis. We were hoping for better scaling, but it does not yet seem to be the case. You are simply still going to need heavy duty hardware for Warhead. Post 41+ picks up in this thread about tweaks and such.
 
wow, so much in there. Lots of data. I wouldn't have minded seeing 3x SLI, but I can't complain they are pretty extreme solutions. (3x SLI is a waste. Pretty easy to draw from the data we supply here. -Kyle)

You have an error though, AoC - 780$+ shows the crysis graph, not the AoC graph. (The small graph is incorrect. Click and the large readable one is correct. This will be fixed though. - Kyle)

Good even keel evalutaion. I've been waiting to see this, because I've been thinking about picking up 2 of the "old" 260s as they fall in price because of the "new" 260s. Was hoping they would have done a little bit better. Oh well, if they drop sub 200 each I may well splurge anyways
 
A very nice and really interesting review! Thanks! Things have changed, some time ago AMD had the best prices for their cards, but after Nvidia's pricedrop I'm surprised they haven't followed yet.


Very impressed with the HD 4850 Crossfire performance.


EDIT: In my country the HD 4850/4870 are cheaper priced than their Nvidia counterparts, with the 4870X2 barely more expensive than a GTX 280. Interesting how prices can be different over the world.
 
Kyle said:
(3x SLI is a waste. Pretty easy to draw from the data we supply here. -Kyle)

Can't say I disagree with that statement. I was expecting the SLI 260s to have more of an edge over a 280 than they do. Looking now I think it is pretty clear that 3x 260s wouldn't compete with 2x 280s.
 
Great Article, guess I made a good decision with the dual 4850s in Crossfire. I do have one question though. The pictures of the ATI setup show you using both crossfire cables between the cards. I'm only using one crossfire cable between mine. Am I screwing myself out of performance, or does it even matter?
 
awesome read.

it's making me think twice about dumping my 8800s for a 260. i'm gonna have to go with a pass till the new year... i'll struggle through farcry2 like i did with crysis last year.

if i had a cfx compatible motherboard, the story might be different.
 
Dugg. I think everyone sorta knew that 4850 crossfire was kick'n...the proof was in the pudding.
 
Odd , Kyle. I have 4850 CF, and I have never experienced any of these bottlenecks, but as we mentioned in a previous thread, may be due to my maritally limited red of 1280X1024, I thought it would be worth mentioning to my fellow 19" lcd users...
 
Dugg.

I've been waiting for an article like this to be produced. It is a very informative tool I can use to show customers. They will be able to gauge the performance to expect with regards to their system configuration.

Thanks for the [H]ard work putting this article together. :)
 
I have always regarded [H] as my primary site when it comes to hardware. You guys have done it again with this review. All the info that I've been trying to compile in one place.

I've been hedging on going 4850s in CF because I just couldn't visualize from what I've read the actual comparision to the multitude of other configurations out there but that's all cleared up for me now.

Thanks again guys for going that next step and giving your readers something that in my opinion may be one of the greatest and I am sure most time intensive reviews you've ever done.
 
Very good article, I have a few friends in the market for new video cards so I'll point them to this.
 
Excellent article, guys. It really clears up a lot of questions that plague the Video Card forum. Thanks for all your hard work!
 
Seeing as you are recommending HD4850s in Crossfire, would it be safe to assume that the yet to be released HD4850X2 would also be recommended? (/me doesn't like two card setups)
 
Any chance you guys can get some benchmarking of Stalker Clear Sky with these setups? It, like Crysis, seem to be a killer of systems. (Game may be to bugged to do this)
 
mmmmm, nice article. I was set to get the new gtx260, but now the 4850CF seems a good competitor. I have a dell 30inch, but going past the 300$ is not worth it for me (as I dont game as much anymore).

where I live you can pretty much get 2 4850 for the price of one gtx260 heh

(anyone know how 4850CF performs in Witcher )
 
One big problem with this article and others of the same type. You've done a lot of work and a great job evaluating each of these options against each other! But, here comes my problem, since I don't run any of those games I have NO point of reference to judge these new cards against what I'm currently running.

It would have been real nice to see some older (previous generation) cards in the apples to apples charts.

Other than that, you've done another well done article!
 
Shame on me, I was thinking ya'll were on some extended vacation this whole time. Instead you've been working your asses off, this must have been one tedioius but deliciously enjoyable test these last few weeks! Grats on the excellent job and Thx a bunch!
 
m13 i had a similiar complaint to kyle or steve a few months ago back... that many of us who can't afford over $150... were not being given benchmarks for new games...

however he has done a great job here showing different price budgets. soon these 150$ cards willl be 125$ and by xmas probably 100$...

so... what i would do:

research one of the ones in your budget... like 4850... then search like
4850 vs 9600gt or 4850 vs 8800gt you might find some benchmarks via google that will show a large breakdown of other setups.

this isn't the first review of this kind... i just find his article much more enjoyable and worthwhile to read.
 
Haven't we all pretty much known that 4850s were the best value from the new cards? Would have appreciated the inclusion of the 9800gtx+, 4850 vs. 9800gtx+ would be the real battle. From what I've read they are very close not only in performance but price.

But regardless as always a good read.
 
Seeing as you are recommending HD4850s in Crossfire, would it be safe to assume that the yet to be released HD4850X2 would also be recommended? (/me doesn't like two card setups)

not if it releases at the price they stated, 399. If it comes in at less then 300 sure. otherwise it going to land badly.

interesting. AMD needs to do some price cuts.
 
Great review. I think this one will come out as being the end-all-be-all of reviews for this generation of cards.

It's great to see you don't need to spend a fortune to get a great gaming experience. That said, I'm still not disappointed in my decision to get 2x 4870 X2 Crossfire. Sure, it's overkill and was costly; sure, you can roast pork chops behind my case now. However, for the resolution I use, 2560x1600, it is the winner in almost all cases. Moreover, I'll probably not need to upgrade for quite a while.
 
Great review. I think this one will come out as being the end-all-be-all of reviews for this generation of cards.

It's great to see you don't need to spend a fortune to get a great gaming experience. That said, I'm still not disappointed in my decision to get 2x 4870 X2 Crossfire. Sure, it's overkill and was costly; sure, you can roast pork chops behind my case now. However, for the resolution I use, 2560x1600, it is the winner in almost all cases. Moreover, I'll probably not need to upgrade for quite a while.

it would be except this review is price dependent. It could be out of date next week LOL. Still it will be easy enough for us to gauge where the new prices land things.

Also if Nvidia/AMD ever get the tri anything scaling well that may change things. For right now I am happy with my GTX280. If the 4870 drop in price I may pick up a par but right now I don't see it.
 
This is an awsome article.

I wish I had some of this data before upgrading from my 8800GTX to and GTX 280 because it was really difficult to figure out the actual performance of all these card combinations.

The only change I would have made in the article would be the title, because unless performance is the only criteria of value then "... Series Value Guide" could have been better titled "... Series Performance Guide". ;)
 
Nice bit of work, folks. The 4870 seems to be the odd peripheral out this time around, at least for its price range...which kind of sucks for those of us who just bought one...though, yeah, 4850/CF seems to be the thing to beat if you're down with multi-GPU setups. (Ah, if only I had a decent motherboard for that.)
 
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,


I have been looking for a 4850 CF review that put it up against almost everything else and you guys have delivered.
 
That's a great article, it really sums up the difference in todays high end cards...

How would an 8800GTX compare to that though? What about the GTX in SLI? I have that card now and it works very well on COD4 (not so well on Crysis), but I was thinking of upgrading...would it by smarter to get rid of the card and get a 280 or would just adding another 8800GTX suffice?
Thanks
 
it would be except this review is price dependent. It could be out of date next week LOL. Still it will be easy enough for us to gauge where the new prices land things.

Also if Nvidia/AMD ever get the tri anything scaling well that may change things. For right now I am happy with my GTX280. If the 4870 drop in price I may pick up a par but right now I don't see it.

True, but even if the overall prices change, I'd bet the relative price between each card stays about the same.
 
That's a great article, it really sums up the difference in todays high end cards...

How would an 8800GTX compare to that though? What about the GTX in SLI? I have that card now and it works very well on COD4 (not so well on Crysis), but I was thinking of upgrading...would it by smarter to get rid of the card and get a 280 or would just adding another 8800GTX suffice?
Thanks

There have ben lots of articles to see how the 8800gtx sli performs.

I sold my 8800GTX and bought a GTX 280. Very happy with the decision.
 
There have ben lots of articles to see how the 8800gtx sli performs.

I sold my 8800GTX and bought a GTX 280. Very happy with the decision.

I guess the question is...would the 8800GTX's in SLI be about the same performance as a GTX280?
 
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