FearMeansControl

Yeah, I'd be furious as well, with the prices that are coming out now on them..

I have a feeling Nvidia's going to be facing a pretty pissed off customer base in a few months when all is said and done.

Does anyone else think this has been one of the more atrocious release periods in recent history?

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Gaz32

Roger that, luckily i got the BFG and have the tradeup option on both cards.
As nice as the new ATI cards are looking the only sensible thing for me to do is trade my 2 9800s for the 280s.

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dejanh

Well, here is my problem with this. I can tell your for a fact (I'm running it right now) that installing the GTX2xx optimized drivers for any of the 8xxx and 9xxx cards gives about 10% - 15% boost in performance. Since they are using 177.39 drivers which are effectively the official GTX2xx-type drivers packaged for 8/9xxx series, I can say pretty comfortably that is where they are getting the performance increase from. Having said that, I again have some issues with this review...

(1) When they are testing the OC on the HD4850 they use Catalyst to OC it, and they do not even get past 690MHz there resulting in a 65MHz boost. On the other hand, they OC the GTX+ with EVGA proprietary tool to 102MHz more than the base core speed resulting in a 840MHz core. Therefore, the comparisons are not exactly fair.
(2) They are testing NVIDIA's optimized driver against the first release of Catalyst driver for the 4850, which again does not really hold up.
(3) Last strange thing I saw is that GPUZ seems to identify their GTX+ as a regular GTX, at 65nm process. I'll assume GPUZ is wrong, or else this whole review is garbage.

In all, even if this review is true I'd say that you should expect the HD4850 to be able to pull ahead when, (a) the drivers mature a bit, (b) when manufacturers do some aftermarket cooling on these cards, (c) when the aftermarket OC tools start to support the HD4850 so you can comparatively OC the two (this I bet will be the biggest difference maker), and (d) when the price of the HD4850 drops by another $20-$30.

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Gaz32

@ dejanh

I got a about 5% increase with my 9800s

Have you tried the Nvidia physX 8.06.12 drivers with it they worked fine for me
http://nekrosoft.net/NVIDIA_physX_8_06_12_driver.exe

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Somenoob

I was thinking the same thing.



Notice the position of the 4850 and 3870x2 in the first two benchmarks. In the third its in the bottom of the barrel...

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gamervivek

completely agree,9800gtx has been out quite for sometime and the drivers are quite mature and after getting familiar with the catalyst update nuances i can only see 4850's performance getting a big boost next few months.
as for gpuz,its probably not updated for the 9800gtx+.

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Ati Tray Tools vs CCC

Peroxide

What else are they supposed to do?

Write seperate OC programs for AMD and nVidia to make things fair? Then not allow overclocking since if one OCs more, it'd be unfair to the one with no headroom. Last, when has GPU-Z had accurate information about a brand new card?

NCspecV81

when was the 4850 going up against the 9800gtx+ anyways? Looking at other more reputable reviews has the 4850 edging out the 9800gtx quite soundly. I wouldn't expect just an overvolted and overclocked card to make 10fps drop for its competitor though. I call shenanigans!

mtbiker033

man I'm liking the 9800GTX+ and hope I can step up to them from my 8800GT's, I have about 33 days left I paid $189 ea. for them so if the pricing is at $229 that should be $40 ea for step up plus shipping. If I didn't have an nvidia chipset, I would be really tempted by the 4850 though, looks like a sweet card and damn it's about time we had a price war on our hands!! GOOD JOB ATI/AMD!!! we all win this fight!

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darksideleader

I'm seeing a very fast price drop for the 4850 nethertheless.

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