Anyone on the fence with a similar decision you won't regret it. I have been running 4850CF since the day they were released last summer and fought through about 4 months of really, REALLY bad driver support from ati before the cards were performing well and I had no issues with drivers any more.
I was real close to replacing them last December due to driver issues until 8.12HF came out and fixed most of the issues so I decided to keep them. Well microcenter has the BFG OC gtx 285 on sale this month for $289 so I decided to pick one up at that price. All I can say is wow! ALL games are much smoother now and the frame rate is either the same as before or better but somehow the games are much smoother. I can also play with 4x AA and much higher resolutions at smoother frame rates than before. I can play cod5 at 3840x1024 on my th2g with all settings maxed and 2x AA at 45+ fps and on the 4850CF cards I could forget about that. FSX gained almost 40% better frame rates because ati cards are lousy in the MS sims.
I think I had just gotten used to the ati cards and thought they were good but in fact they really weren't. I am by no means a phanboi of any camp because I have had SERIOUS driver issues with both sides in the past 10 years of gaming that they have both been relevant but the gtx 285 is hands down a better solution for me than the 4850CF cards ever were. Thought I would share my experience for anyone else in the same boat.
And I forgot to add: my cpu runs 4C cooler now
I was real close to replacing them last December due to driver issues until 8.12HF came out and fixed most of the issues so I decided to keep them. Well microcenter has the BFG OC gtx 285 on sale this month for $289 so I decided to pick one up at that price. All I can say is wow! ALL games are much smoother now and the frame rate is either the same as before or better but somehow the games are much smoother. I can also play with 4x AA and much higher resolutions at smoother frame rates than before. I can play cod5 at 3840x1024 on my th2g with all settings maxed and 2x AA at 45+ fps and on the 4850CF cards I could forget about that. FSX gained almost 40% better frame rates because ati cards are lousy in the MS sims.
I think I had just gotten used to the ati cards and thought they were good but in fact they really weren't. I am by no means a phanboi of any camp because I have had SERIOUS driver issues with both sides in the past 10 years of gaming that they have both been relevant but the gtx 285 is hands down a better solution for me than the 4850CF cards ever were. Thought I would share my experience for anyone else in the same boat.
And I forgot to add: my cpu runs 4C cooler now
Last edited: