AMD Partners Debate Radeon HD 4870 Price

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roorunner

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with the way the economy is going worldwide, this is a good idea to generate (i.e. separate us from our hard earned cash)money besides offering competition. Hopefully the cards will go down even more.
 

raider37

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If AMD wants to provide more value to its customers, they should do that! The 4870 is one hell of a card, and people who actually bother buying the GTX260 for more money are wasting it. The best option would be to pick up a 4870 now and then crossfire it as soon as money is available. Crossfire scales way better than SLI anyway. Go AMD! Nvidia, step up ure game and stop re-branding old inventory to make money.

I'm also quite shocked at how useless Nvidia Physx is, just seeing the amount (or lack thereof), of effects in Mirror's edge with Physx enabled, leads me to believe that having one platform for graphics and physics processing (while excellent) doesnt make sense with today's hardware. Games are becoming more graphically intensive, the GPU doesnt need anymore tasks to handle than it already has. A couple of graphics cloth pieces here, a few flags there and thats it?? I bet havock physics could do that without causing performance problems, like Physx does.
 

etrnl_frost

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Despite the written differences posted above in the clock speeds, processors, etc. the 4870 really does seem more of a match to the 260. While the 4870's core clock seems to perform better, in real world texture and pixel output, the GTX 260 (55nm) is significantly better. As long as you're not burdening the nVidia card with PhysX at the same time, I would say that it would be better than the 4870.

That being said, seeing that the 4850 competed with the venerable 8800 GTX, what's the problem with ATI's lineup matching so?
 

scrumhalf

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[citation][nom]raider37[/nom]...Crossfire scales way better than SLI anyway....[/citation]
Where'd you come up with that? In the majority of benchmarks, 2xGTX260s in SLI top 2 4870's (1GB) in CF as seen here. It varies game to game, resolution, options, etc., and 4870 in CF does top the GTX260 SLI in a few, but certainly does not outright win, nor can you deem it to 'scale better'. You can prefer which ever company you choose, but keep opinions out of objective statements, or back them up with hard data.

As far as PhysX, it's a tossup, it has the ability to do some pretty impressive things, and so does Havok. My personal opinion is that a Physics standard API should be agreed upon and incorporated into DirectX (which has been rumored before). This will level the playing field there, and ensure widespread adoption by developers.

In regard to CUDA vs. Stream, I don't know of many Stream apps. Video encoding benefits from Badaboom were the biggest draw to CUDA for me. Until Stream has competition there, it's just not as useful.
 

NuclearShadow

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I can understand why they are hesitant to price cuts and the very thought of losing any amount of profits if frightening in these times. However a price cut to the 4870 could increase the sales and make up for the loss of profits. Also if this could take some sales away from Nvidia then even better for them. I'm sure I'm not alone when it comes to buying what gives me the best bang for the buck.
 

hellwig

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[citation][nom]68vistacruiser[/nom]So ATI's partners are into price fixing?[/citation]
Sounds like it to me. I know MSRP is a tool used by manufacturers to keep resale prices up, but rarely does a distributer charge even more (exceptions being convenience stores, airports, etc... where you have no other options).
 

gm0n3y

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Pricing the 4850 and 4870 within $20 seems like a mistake to me. The 4850 price is fine, but the 4870 should be closer to $169. Regardless, I loathe MIRs so I don't consider this a real price drop anyways. I'm still waiting for my MIR cheque from my 4850 purchase last November.
 

ravenware

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[citation][nom]etrnl_frost[/nom]While the 4870's core clock seems to perform better, in real world texture and pixel output, the GTX 260 (55nm) is significantly better. As long as you're not burdening the nVidia card with PhysX at the same time, I would say that it would be better than the 4870.That being said, seeing that the 4850 competed with the venerable 8800 GTX, what's the problem with ATI's lineup matching so?[/citation]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870,1964-19.html

 

etrnl_frost

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[citation][nom]ravenware[/nom]http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 64-19.html[/citation]
The difference doesn't appear significant (hard to say since I'm at work and not going to do a math crack down - and I'm too lazy too), but it's not far off my mark. My point is that the 4870 is perfectly in line with competing with the GTX260. And according to system benchmarks, the GTX 260 (55nm) outputs about 25% faster pixel fill rate and 33% faster texture fill rate to the 4870, given stock speeds...
[citation]http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=604&card2=564[/citiation]... yes, the Radeon trumps the GeForce in core clock competency and memory bandwidth, but even a pretend overclock in the GTX260 can mitigate the bandwidth. The sheer power of the core on the 4870 is why I mentioned Physics. Higher end processing would be in the Radeon's favor, but for sheer pixel/texture output, it's the GTX's game.

Of course, it all comes to a wash anyway. Personally, i.e. in my opinion, I seriously believe the GTX 260 (55nm) will do better with continued driver support. Like I said: What's the problem with ATI's lineup matching so?

But now I'm curious to see a review of the GTX 260 performance vs the 4870 given current drivers.
 

scrumhalf

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[citation][nom]ravenware[/nom]http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 64-19.html[/citation]
That article is almost a year old, and does not take into account recent driver improvements (for both cards), not to mention it's comparing the 512 MB 4870 to the 65nm GTX 260 192 Core. Want to compare these apples to tire irons?
 

Maxor127

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I'd probably get a 4870 if I had something to do with my old 8800 GTS. But since my GTS still runs fine and I can play most games on completely high settings, and I'd probably need a new higher resolution monitor to justify having a 4870, I'm going to pass until I decide to rebuild a new computer.
 

ravenware

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scarpa

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AMD/ATI are simply destroying Nvidia with these prices, HD4870 is much better than the gtx260, it should cost a lot more than that.

Anyone buying a card from Nvidia now must be very uninformed about the performance of those cards.
 

falchard

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AMD cannot compete at equal prices to nVidia because nVidia has a bigger base. Pricing their products similiar to their actual competition would just mean less sales.
 
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*sigh* I've been waiting a week for the price to drop. I've got a pile of stuff I'm picking up from newegg, but if they aren't going to drop this price, it's time to reconsider other cards and look for lower prices.
 

bounty

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4830 512 90$ - 15 MIR = 75$
4850 512 135$ - 15 MIR = 120$
GTS250 512 = 130$
4870 512 170$ - 15 MIR = 155$
GXT260 896 180$ - 20 MIR = 160$

Judging by the first benchmark I pulled up you could argue any of the prices 10$ in either direction depending on the games you play. I don't see a fundamental problem though. Prices based on Mail in Rebates does suck and I hate them. Also I generally stick to certain brands, but the cheapest cards listed pretty much match the price points.

(p.s. Mail in rebates should not be legal the way they are. They should be structured in a way for vendors to do it, then the list price would be the actual F@(8ing price.)
 

scrumhalf

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[citation][nom]scarpa[/nom]AMD/ATI are simply destroying Nvidia with these prices, HD4870 is much better than the gtx260, it should cost a lot more than that.Anyone buying a card from Nvidia now must be very uninformed about the performance of those cards.[/citation]

Where's the proof? Look at benchmarks, the cards trade blows across the board. Crysis? GTX 260 wins. Left4Dead? 4870 wins. Which games at which resolution are you playing at? The GTX 260 Core 216 and Radeon 4870 1GB are both great cards, at the same price point, with similar performance, which is the best thing that could possibly happen for us, the consumers. Why is that so hard for everyone to grasp? Please, please, please be objective in your statements; opinions are fine to state, but not when they are stated as facts.
 
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