i have the above card in my pc at the moment but was thinkin of upgrading to the 4850.
any thoughts?
The 4850 is much faster.
i went exactly this path and am still amazed by the power 4850 brings![]()
Do you need to upgrade? If not, just hold back until you do need to. HD48x0 is better, but hold on until you need to upgrade or you can get an above-market 2nd hand buyer for your HD3870. Who knows what the NVIDIA response will be (hopefully a lot better than the bloated attempt that is the GTX2x0), or the ATI 40nm part will be like.
I'd never upgrade between single generations unless something stopped working, and even then only if I could only get a refund.
The idle power comsumption of the HD4850 is also too high IMHO!! I have heard that the next generation of ATI graphics cards will offer better power consumption too!
What? It's less than every rival card out there. :\
It's more than the HD38x0s, but then it's 1/3 faster too. It's consumes less at idle than the 9800GTX, 9800GTX+, GTX260 and GTX280, and it's lower under load than them all too. It's all relative.
The 40nm parts ought to offer lower consumption, but then that's a natural progression of using smaller processes.
Idle power comsumption is over 30w higher than an HD3870(over a third higher).Peak power consumption is fine though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...50_PCS/24.html
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...hd4850/13.html
Anyway ATI said they were looking to maximise performance per watt in their next generation. My HD3870 is fine for my needs currently IMHO. Only its rubbish performance with AA is its main drawback but since it was essentially a die shrunk HD2900XT with some improvements it was to be expected. As I have a SFF system idle power consumption and hence temperatures are one of the factors I need to think about when buying a graphics card.
Not necessarily as shown by Intel with their later Pentium 4 processors! I suspect that the improved(hopefully) power comsumption will also come down to further improvements in the architecture!
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 21-08-2008 at 12:37 PM.
I've got a 4850 and can definitely recommend it, but if you don't have a pressing need to upgrade you may as well wait for further price drops or even for something better to come round the corner.
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