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AMD apparently ended the NDA on the HD4850 today a week earlier than planned. Sounds like the situation is a mess, with at least one site complaining that the installer for 64 bit Vista drivers doesn't work, but there are some benchmarks up already:
http://www.dailytech.com/6192008+Dai...ticle12141.htm
Looks from the reviews like the 4850 is competitive at it's price point, but hardly going to dethrone NVIDIA at the top of the market. Should be interesting to see what the higher end version can do, but I wouldn't expect a huge jump with only an increase in clock speeds.
There will probably be a pretty big speed up when the drivers improve. And the price point advantage could be pretty big ... in a few months a pair of HD4850s may cost around $300 and outrun a GTX 260. And that same comparison may hold true of the HD4870 vs GTX 280.
Another thing is, from the size of the chips, I'm guessing AMD can make a 4870X2 but Nvidia can't make a 280X2. If that's right, a 4870X2 probably *will* be the top card for this generation.
Tech Report (which I think is the best hardware site on the web) published its review relatively late in the day. Not only did the HD4850 beat the 8800GTX and 9800GTX in practically every game, but in some cases, it's faster than Nvidia's new GTX 260. At $199, this thing is amazing.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14967/1
AMD is holding back on the big brother of this card (the HD4870) because there isn't enough GDDR 5 memory available yet. That card is going to be a lot faster than this one. Pretty soon after that, AMD will probably put two of those chips on a single card. Like I said above, I don't see how Nvidia can do the same, given the size of their new chip. I think Nvidia is going to feel some real heat from AMD this year.
I've been thinking AMD was dead, but now I'm almost considering buying their stock. :)
I am personally waiting for the 4870x2, but in the mean time I guess I need to make some more upgrades to my system to take advantage of everything they have to offer. IE New MB that supports PCIe 2.0, and while I am at it upgrade to DDR3 ram. But the launch date for the 4870x2 is looking to be at the end of July beginning of August
And by the time we get to late summer, Nehalem will be within waiting distance. :) This is a hard year to build a PC -- there's so much good reason to wait.
AnandTech's review is up:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338
AnandTech's benchmark's confirm Tech Report's numbers from yesterday. This card is now king of the sweet spot. It beats everything in its price range, and in some games, it even beats Nvidia's new GTX 260 which is waaaay more expensive.
you can buy them now
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CH&srchInDesc=
Amazing launch, isn't it? Newegg was even offering rebates for a while today although they are gone now.
damn shame none of them offer the dualslot cooling...these would just blow the air right down onto the next card...but of all these, which brand would you suggest? i've only delt with AMD int the past when i bought an ATI AiO AGP card 4 years ago...never had any problems from it and it still runs fine today
damnit... bestbuy had them for $150 last week:( the sale is over.... was gonna go get one to replace my 8800gts