Will the HD4830 and HD4850 be EOL soon??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Considering that with beta drivers the RV740 is only 10% behind a HD4850 do you think that the HD4850 will be discontinued??

I could see two different versions of RV740 GDDR5 coming out. The first would be with a slower core which will replace the HD4830 and then overclocked versions which will have similiar performance to the HD4850. I could see some sense in this approach as RV740 based graphics cards should be cheaper to make and hopefully have lower power consumption. The RV770 cores could then go exclusively for HD4870 production.The GDDR3 versions of the RV740 will fit in between the HD4670 and RV740 GDDR5. I could then see the HD4870 512mb in the £125 to £150 price range with RV790 fitting in between £170 and £220. What would be interesting would be an RV740X2 card though!!

This is where I see most of the ATI line-up in the next few months:

HD4650 - upto £50
HD4670 - upto £60
RV740 GDDR3 - between £70 to £85
RV740 GDDR5 - between £85 to £105
overclocked RV740 GDDR5 - between £100 to £125
HD4870 512mb - between £125 to £150
HD4870 1gb - between £150 to £170
RV790 - between £170 to £220

[Zak33]

you're REALLY selling this to yourself, you know that, don'tcha?

Can I sugest, for your own sanity, to walk away from the subject for a short time, and take stock

It's a video card, it'l be just over £100 and it'll be a bit quicker that something else that's £100

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

you're REALLY selling this to yourself, you know that, don'tcha?

Can I sugest, for your own sanity, to walk away from the subject for a short time, and take stock

It's a video card, it'l be just over £100 and it'll be a bit quicker that something else that's £100

Actually I am geting my HD3870 repaired. I will only be going down the RV740 route if it the HD3870 is totally borked. My other hope is that HD4830 and HD4850 secondhand prices will start to plummet(like Moose do).

I think that you have missed the point that the RV740 will probably consume less power than the HD4830 which is what I find exciting. The same goes for some of the newer Nvidia rebrands which seem to have lower power consumption(green editions). For a person who uses SFF PCs I think the lower power consumption and heat produced is definitely a welcome change. It also means that I can use quieter cooling too.

Lets hope the DX11 cards next year do not reverse this trend!!

[scaryjim]

AIT clearly can't consistently yield RV770 cores that will run @ 4870 speeds, otherwise they wouldn't sell 4850 and 4830s at all - they'd simply yield everything to 4870 and cut the price.

So, they will almost certainly continue selling 4850s and 4830s for as long as they keep stamping out those RV770 cores for 4870s - and my guess is that a number of fabs will keep stamping them out because they can't afford idle production capacity. After that it's going to come down to partners as to what cards they choose to produce and at what price points. My guess is we'll see prices all over the shop for several months after the new cores ship to retail, as ATIs partners work out what each card is capable of and where it fits best in the current line-up.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I suspect that the newer RV770 cores probably on average can clock higher than the older ones. The RV790 looks to be essentially an overclocked RV770 running at 850mhz to 950mhz. It would not be surprise me if RV770 cores which were good enough to use in an HD4870 were downgraded so that they could be used in both the HD4850 and HD4830. Also the cost of the HD4870 cooler,PCB and GDDR5 RAM a few months would have added significantly to the cost of the card. This is not the first time that higher end cores have been cannibalised by ATI or Nvidia to provide good value for money mid-range cards. ATI did this to the 9700 to make the 9500 and also to the X800 and X1800 series too. The same goes with the Nvidia 6800.

[dfour]

Its true I have a 4850 and it will happily sit all day clocked to 725 (the 4870 default speed) and with more juice 800+ is easily possible.

[shaithis]

AIT clearly can't consistently yield RV770 cores that will run @ 4870 speeds, otherwise they wouldn't sell 4850 and 4830s at all - they'd simply yield everything to 4870 and cut the price.

You obviously do not know the market too well

This is common practice in the industry, you cripple a product so that you can sell the un-crippled ones for more. It's probably more common for products to be "binned" (I.E top 5% yield become the top end parts, the next 10% become the next step down etc) but artificial crippling of products is still happening.

[scaryjim]

You obviously do not know the market too well

I certainly wouldn't call myself an expert

[transylvanic]

I reckon the 4830 is definitely toast. the 50 could remain for a little while longer and replace your "overclocked RV740" part in the £100-125 market segment.

Likeliest scenario:

It's a video card, it'l be just over £100 and it'll be a bit quicker that something else that's £100

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Anyway I managed to pick up an "as new" HD4830 for around £50 secondhand so it should do me fine for the time being. I figure that the RV740 GDDR5 would cost £80+ anyway. Also gaming on an x1900gt is not great either!!

Even though the idle power consumption of the card is not ideal it should be less than my overclocked HD3870 at load. At least I can now use AA with a much smaller performance hit!!

[PwnDirect]

The 4850/70 will EOL at the same time The rv740 may replace the 4830 though

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks like there will be cuts in the price of both the HD4870 and HD4850:

http://www.dailytech.com/Radeon+4870...ticle14433.htm

Basically in the US the HD4870 will $149 and the HD4850 will be $129!! I supposed in the UK this will mean that the HD4870 will be around £120 and the HD4850 will be around £100!!

[dfour]

the HD4850 will be around £100!!

Again

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems that when the HD4830 arrived the prices of the HD4850 started going up.

[kalniel]

It seems that when the pound collapsed the prices of the HD4850 started going up.

Fixed

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Fixed

Well this was before the pound started to become hugely devalued. The HD4830 cards were going for between £90 to £100 anyway when they first came out. Then funnily enough the el-cheapo HD4850 cards started disappearing around the same time.