Last week saw the introduction of the Radeon HD 4800 series from AMD, and the reverberations from that release are still resounding across the wide web. Reviewing the Radeon HD 4850 surprised everybody out there. Everyone had heard it was going to be fast, and offer great value, but the extent of both these claims weren't really properly quantified until we ran through the benchmarks, and saw that it kept up even the fastest of video cards in our current testing arsenal. The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 is certainly going to be fast. Retailing for $299, this reference board design Radeon should be propelled to great speeds, thanks in large part to 512MB's of zipping fast GDDR5 memory. - NeoSeeker
A few weeks back NVIDIA announced their GeForce GTX 200 series consisting of the GeForce GTX 280 and the GeForce GTX 260. The GeForce GTX 280 is without doubt the fastest graphics card on the market, but will also rip the biggest hole in your wallet. The GeForce GTX 260 is a cut down version, which comes at a cheaper price point. Compared to its big brother, the GeForce GTX 260 features only 192 shaders, 28 raster operation units and 896MB of graphics memory. Also the clock speeds have been reduced a bit. Overall these changes result in a $200 cheaper card, which is about the price of a single Radeon HD 4850 graphics card, though delivering greater gaming pleasure. - techPowerUp
Like many of you, we spent money on the GeForce 9800 series thinking that our choice would be free of buyers remorse for at least a year. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that the GeForce 8800 series landed itself atop the competition and reigned supreme for well over a year. So it seemed logical that when NVIDIA launched their GeForce 9800 series, that things would somehow remain the same. So this is where we break some painful news to owners of premium top-end GeForce products, there's a new king named GeForce GTX 280 and it's not just a bigger, better, version of something we've already seen. The new GeForce GTX 280 presents a completely new core design. - Benchmark Reviews
Recently AMD introduced their latest graphics card, the Radeon HD 4870. It is based on the same RV770 GPU that is present on the Radeon HD 4850, too. The major difference is that the Radeon HD 4870 uses the new GDDR5 memory versus only GDDR3 memory. Certainly the biggest benefit of GDDR5 is that is offers twice the memory bandwidth than GDDR3 at the same clock. As a result the Radeon HD 4870 has almost double the memory bandwidth available, even though its memory clock is slightly lower than the Radeon HD 4850. Another difference is that the Radeon HD 4870 uses a dual slot cooling solution allowing AMD to increase the core clock by 125MHz to 750MHz. - techPowerUp
The mid-range market for discrete graphics cards received an unexpected jolt with the arrival of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card. Previously, NVIDIA low to mid-range GPU's, the GeForce 9600 GT and the GeForce 8800 GT took on the Radeon HD 3850 and the Radeon HD 3870 in this crucial sector, generally winning the benchmark battle but losing out on multimedia capabilities. The Radeon HD 4850's arrival, at $199, has put pressure back on NVIDIA to reduce pricing on its GeForce 9800 GTX, further squeezing the cards directly below it in the pecking order. Inno3D has tried to do just that with a special edition GeForce 9600 GT. Say hello to the install it yourself ZEROtherm Hurricane model. - Hexus
ATI have been gradually falling behind in the GPU race with NVIDIA seemingly in an unassailable position after the release of the G80. The GeForce 8800 GTX series really dominated the market, with the hilariously titled next gen GeForce 9 series again pulling ahead of ATI. It seems though, ATI's strategy was not to dominate NVIDIA from the top down, but rather to sneak some cards onto the market that did very well on price whilst delivering very good value performance. The Radeon HD 3850 was a great example of this and put the proverbial ATI cat amongst the not so happy, to be proverbial, NVIDIA shaped pidgeons. Now ATI have announced, that they are releasing their next generation. - Overclock3D
How many times do you get more than you bargained for? Sure, when you are taking a risk you can end up worse of then you started. But we are talking about the other end of the spectrum. When was the last time you went shopping for something only to realize it was on sale or it was a two for one day? It's times like these that you really feel like you got your money's worth. In the world of computing these feelings occur even less often. Not because of lack of deals or overpriced equipment but rather the pace of innovation. What is a good deal today will be next to nothing in a few months making the decision of when to buy a daunting one, and surely that won't change any time soon. - Bjorn3D
The GeForce 9600 GT is the darling of the gaming world with its lower power consumption, stellar performance, and ease on the wallet. What happens when the world's leading enthusiast motherboard supplier rolls up its sleeves and gets a little dirty with NVIDIA's price to performance leader? You get the ASUS GeForce 9600 GT TOP, an overclocked and beyond the limit of ordinary video card. One glance at the huge heatsink on this card and you know that ASUS is serious about its performance. While it does look like something that would be found on the CPU, this beast keeps the G94 core of the GeForce 9600 GT nice and cool, and able to run faster than reference. - Legit Reviews
The day has finally come when ATI is ready to introduce the full power of its RV770 chip. As we have said many times before, the RV770 is a DirectX 10.1 chip developed in 55nm with 965 million transistors and most importantly, with support for GDDR5 memory. It's also important to mention that RV770 has 800 stream processors, 40 texture units and 16 render back ends. This new verdion which high clock speeds and better memory will need to lead ATI into the next battle with NVIDIA and turn the tables in favor of the red team. On that aspect AMD is playing the price to performance game quite well by launching cheaper graphics cards with great game play. - FudZilla
About a week ago, if you listened very closely you could probably make out one big collective groan coming from all of the hardware reviewers across North America. The video card many of us have been eager to share with you was supposed to be a dirty word until today. But, alas, the non disclosure agreement, which all of us reviewers have signed, turned out to be a non-event. As it turns out some of AMD's partners, eager to cash in on the Radeon HD 4850 jumped the gun and started selling the card in Hong Kong, and then shortly thereafter, certain parts of Europe. About a week later with the official launch date finally reached, the Radeon HD 4800's made their way to the rest of us. - NeoSeeker
In the last few months the mid-range and high-end graphics card market has once again become a battleground between the two heavyweights, AMD and NVIDIA. There was a time where ATI slipped a bit with the release of their R600 and it seemed like NVIDIA was going to run away with the graphics card market once and for all with the GeForce 8800 series. Luckily for all of us things began to brighten considerably for the boys in red when they introduced their RV670 core with the Radeon HD 3800 series and eventually the Radeon HD 3870 X2. These cards were greeted with enthusiasm but in the end the RV670 core was nothing more than a die shrink of the infamous R600. - Hardware Canucks
Not much good has happened for either party since AMD purchased ATI. New chips from both sides of the fence have been late, run hot, and underperformed compared to the competition. Meanwhile, the combined company has posted staggering financial losses, causing many folks to wonder whether AMD could continue to hold up its end of the bargain as junior partner in the PC market's twin duopolies, for CPU's and graphics chips. AMD certainly has its fair share of well wishers, as underdogs often do. And yes, a great many of them have been waiting with anticipation for their Radeon HD 4800 series. The buzz has been building for weeks now, but today again we see some light. - TechReport
Given the level of excitement the Radeon HD 4850 left, not only with us, but also gamers and enthusiasts all over the world, the Radeon HD 4870 quickly became extremely anticipated by people. Will it beat the GeForce GTX 260? How much faster than the Radeon HD 4850 is it? Can it out-perform the GeForce GTX 280? How does CrossFire scale? These are all questions that we want answered, and today we intend to have answers for all of them. On paper the Radeon HD 4870 looks to be the right card for a lot of people. And on the internet, looking at early prices it also seems to be the right one. Ultimately though, where it's going to come down to is performance. - Tweaktown
When a new graphics card comes out, we tend to do an article and then have a look around and see what some others thought of the card. However, we've been so busy lately with the new release of the Radeon HD 4800 series from AMD and the GeForce GTX 280 from NVIDIA that we haven't had a chance to check out any other GeForce GTX 200 series articles. What we have mostly seen, though, is that the majority of GeForce GTX 260 articles floating around the internet are just the standard NVIDIA model, which is a bit boring. Today we will be looking at the XFX offering, and not just some stock clocked XFX offering, but a full tilt XXX version which has some clocks to get excited about. - TweakTown
If the GeForce GTX 280 AMP! edition from Zotac wasn't enough MHz for you, we might have the card for you today. XFX is back once again, carrying with it some pretty mean speeds on the new GeForce GTX 280 XXX edition. The GeForce GTX 280, while being a very good card in the sense that it performs similar to the dual GPU version in form of the GeForce 9800 GX2 card for the same price, it hasn't wowed people as much as we had hoped due to the card again not feeling like a true next generation offering in the performance department. With that said, the new GeForce GTX 280 does carry with it some cool technology that we haven't seen before, and certainly does have its benefits in certain fields. - TweakTown
With AMD's recent Radeon HD 4850 launch, NVIDIA suddenly lost their good position in the price to performance segment of the graphics card market. To counter this the suggested retail price of the GeForce 9800 GTX has dropped from $269 to $199. And Leadtek as one of NVIDIA's major board partners will be following that pricing model in the near future. Also a new video card has been announced called the GeForce 9800 GTX+, offering higher clock speeds on a slightly die-shrinked GPU. Yeah, a quick turn around from NVIDIA to head to head with ATI and keep their market share on the $200 segment. The Leadtek version follows the reference design as such outlined by NVIDIA. - techPowerUp!
The guys down at IBuyPower Australia can't get rid of us these days. We are surprised they haven't started asking me to pay rent. The other day the ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution board arrived, and this thing just absolutely won us over as far as looks and features went. However, the feature that we really care about today is the fact it has four PCI Express expansion slots. So, with four Radeon HD 4850's in hand and hopefully a driver that was going to work, it was time to take four of these single slot bad boys to town. Of course you have to take in mind that to power these you will also need a very strong processor of you just won't be able to feed this monster. - TweakTown
We already told you bits and pieces about Sapphire's Radeon HD 4850 card with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, and since we worked extra hard we managed to get a few scores for you. The video card is, as we said, clocked at 625MHz core and 1986MHz on the 256-bit strong GDDR3 memory and it naturally has 512MB of this precious integrated circuitry. The GPU behind the card is something that we knew as RV770 and it surprisingly has a massive 956 million transistors. This is more than forty percent more than 666 mililion, the odd number that ATI had with RV670 their previous chip. A major increase which is linked really to the increase of shader processors and the improved processing logics. - FudZilla
We started a term when the GeForce 9800 GTX was first released known as yet another NVIDIA launch. Basically it's a derogatory term poking fun at a company that produces a lot of different brands and products, and some with very little separating them from a technical perspective. Yesterday news started leaking about a new GPU from NVIDIA called the GeForce 9800 GTX+, essentially an overclocked G92 part built on a new 55nm process technology that will sell at a lower price than current GeForce 9800 GTX cards on the market. Interested yet? Compared to the current GeForce 9800 GTX that runs at 675/2200MHz clocks, the new GeForce 9800 GTX+ is a considerable bump in speed. - PC Perspective
Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 series. Both cards are built around the new RV770 graphics processor. The GPU comes with a largely increased number of shaders on the previous generation. Another new feature is support for GDDR5 memory which will be included in the Radeon HD 4870 only. The Radeon HD 4870 has lower memory clocks because it uses the newer GDDR5 memory which offers twice the bandwidth clock to clock when compared to GDDR3 memory. AMD is determined to claim price to performance leadership in the $199 to $299 segment. The upcoming R700 card called Radeon HD 4870 X2 will appear later this year as performance edition. - techPowerUp!
The battle between AMD and NVIDIA for the hearts, minds, and the disposable income of PC enthusiasts is starting to get scrappy. First, AMD scheduled their press event to distract folks from NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 200 series launch, which NVIDIA subsequently pulled forward. Perhaps in retaliation, the green team then divulged plans to unleash a faster version of its GeForce 9800 GTX. This GeForce 9800 GTX+ will sell for only $229, dropping the vanilla GeForce 9800 to $199 conveniently stepping on the price point of AMD's next-gen Radeon HD 4850 graphics card. And let it be outmaneuvered, and because cards are actually available for sale already, AMD has decided to lift the curtains. - TechReport
Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 versions. Both cards are built around the new RV770 graphics processor. The GPU comes with a largely increased number of shaders, meaning 800 versus 320 on their previous generation. Another new feature is support for GDDR5 memory which will be included in the Radeon HD 4870 only, though not on the lower Radeon HD 4850. AMD's rendering pipeline has also evolved greatly with vast improvements to anti-aliasing performance and texturing. Another new feature is the inclusion of the new unified video decoder version which supports dual high definition streams decoding, which should accelerate the video streaming. - techPowerUp!
We've never started like that before, but we're legitimately excited about this article and having the ability to write about it. Like a lot of people out there had hoped that the Radeon HD 4850 was going to be a great card for AMD, though competition is good and the last thing we want is for AMD to wither away and NVIDIA to become supreme ruler. We actually checked out the Radeon HD 4850 before we finished writing about the GeForce GTX 280, which turned out to be good news for AMD but bad news for NVIDIA. It completely changed my opinion on the GeForce GTX 280 before we had even finished. The thing is, the GeForce GTX 280 is a good card in the sense of what it's capable of. - TweakTown
Sparkle's Calibre 9600 GT is a graphics card with one really efficient and stylish dual-fly cooling system. Sparkle overclocked the card and it still runs silently, but it's the cooling system that truly separates this card from the rest of the GeForce 9600 GT pack. So far, we've had a chance to see a couple of nice GeForce 9600 GT custom cooling solutions, although the reference cooler is also efficient. Still, with this cooler, the Calibre 9600 GT card looks much better and stronger than reference GeForce 9600 GT graphics cards. Their cooler is dual slot and it packs two fans. Although massive, it's not too heavy since it's mostly aluminum. It does look futuristic and it most certainly is. - FudZilla
The Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 version is a limited edition water cooled video card from Sapphire. In this article we will take an in-depth look on this card and compare its performance to the performance of its main competitors today like the GeForce 9800 GX2 and the GeForce 9800 GTX and also to the standard Radeon HD 3870 version. Since this is in fact a Radeon HD 3870, although in double vision it should be able to delivered some decent gaming performance and experience. This means you get two of the same in a single package, and as such the game play could become twice the fun. Of course that is the theory, in practise it doesn't end up as such. - Hardware Secrets
We have has just released a new version of NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) software. NiBiTor is the original and definitive BIOS tweaker that supports the latest NVIDIA graphics cards, and which is updated on a regular basis. NiBiTor allows graphics card enthusiasts, or the hardcore overclockers to have full control over some advanced features and functionality found on firmware of supporting cards. Doing so users gain some extra performance, enable certain hidden features, tweak memory latencies, provide extensive information, adapt bootup settings, change fan speed options and/or get extra stability on the NVIDIA based graphics accelerators.
EVGA 9600GT (SC) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
We have has just released a new version of NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) software. NiBiTor is the original and definitive BIOS tweaker that supports the latest NVIDIA graphics cards, and which is updated on a regular basis. NiBiTor allows graphics card enthusiasts, or the hardcore overclockers to have full control over some advanced features and functionality found on firmware of supporting cards. Doing so users gain some extra performance, enable certain hidden features, tweak memory latencies, provide extensive information, adapt bootup settings, change fan speed options and/or get extra stability on the NVIDIA based graphics accelerators.
