We already knew that AMD-ATI had succeeded to frighten nVidia with its new graphics cards, Radeon HD4850 and HD4870 (the latter are able to do as well as the nVidia GTX260, for less money). But the nVidia GTX280 graphics cards were left without real competition… up to the arrival of Radeon HD4870×2.

Two RV770 GPUs (identical to the one on the AMD Radeon HD4870 card and able to bring the raw power of a GTX280 card), this is the solution found by AMD-ATI. They did it before, they intend to win again.

The announcement arrives with two information bits important for potential purchasers and for nVidia: The price will be identical to the nVidia competition ($499) and the card will be sold starting 2nd August 2008.

nVidia reply? Maybe a “super GTX280″ that is still undescribed.

You loved seeing the arrival of AMD’s Radeon HD4870? Here comes her stronger sister in graphics cards: Radeon HD4870.

The first one was available for a measly 150€, what makes it a nice little entry point for the powerful 3D graphics cards (understand: “for video games“). The Radeon HD4870 has been spotted in France at 250€, with the first available boxes showing the Sapphire brand and logo. Your usual reseller should already have them.

After some searching, it seems possible to announce the very probable prices of the upcoming cards from nVidia and AMD-ATI:

• GeForce GTX 260: $449 (or maybe $399) in the US, 399€ (maybe 349€) in Europe
• GeForce GTX 280: $649 in the US, 599€ in Europe (street price at 575€)
• Radeon HD 4850: $249 in the US
• Radeon HD 4870: $349 in the US

It is worth noticing also that the performance of the nVidia GeForce cards starts to be evaluated by some web sites. It seems that -for the first time- it will be possible to buy a card able to run Crysis in its highest settings (there was none up to now). The nVidia GeFroce GTX280 should be capable of 30+ fps in High quality settings, 1920×1200 resolution (no AA). Of course, this shows that two GT 280 will be able to run Crysis to Maximum settings, on an enormous screen configuration of 2560×1600 with FSAA4x. That should make a blindingly fast and nice configuration, but power dissipation (heat! burning heat!) will still be enourmous.

At a lower performance level, people want to compare the HD4870 with the GTX 260. But we do not seem to have figures for the best AMD Radeon parts. Only for the Radeon HD 4850. The board should be roughly equivalent to a GeFroce 9600 GTX.

Last minute correction (via The Inquirer): There is a Turkish web site outting details and the Radeon 4870 will shoot the existing nVidia 9800GTX out of its water (performance improvements between 38% and 48%), while the Radeon 4850 is aiming at the 8800GT (performance improvements between 36% and 48%).

All in all, this is going to really create the anticipated earth-quake. All fans of the Green Goblin (nVidia) will find reasons to rejoice about the stratospheric performance point reached by the GT280. The fans of AMD-ATI (and some stock market investors) will remind us that performance is not all; The AMD products are perfectly aimed to grab the central market of most users (around and over $200) in the coming months.

Sources: The Inquirer, Hardware-Infos, OC Workbench, Presence PC, Donanim Haber.

So, the newest graphics line from AMD ATI will be known collectively as Radeon HD 4800 and will contain more precisely two major cards: Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870. It is even clear that the first one will be sold around 200$ (so notably under 200€) and the second around 300$.

AMD announced, in the recent presentation at Computex, that there will be quite a number of improvements in these cards to support nearly cinematographic quality in games, named Cinema 2.0. This was a surprise and it means that AMD is going to hit as hard as possible on nVidia.

The other muddy issue is the exact date of the launch. It was initially expected in May 2008. But it has been delayed (obviously) apparently for technical problems had to be solved in the last minute. AMD will not be able to hit the streets before nVidia can launch the GTX200 line (on June 17th), but it should arrive only a few days later. Some people say June 23rd (just enough time for the news people to move from one place to another), and it is now possible that both cards will arrive at the same time (initially the high-end Radeon HD 4870 was expected only for September).

I waited a little while before reacting and writing, but these recent last weeks we have witnessed an interesting move in the little world of graphics cards. While ATI (now AMD) has recently been relegated to the troublingly systematic position of follower or challenger in the competition for the pockets of PC graphics cards buyers, they finally reacted through two noticeable actions:

• On the one hand, in the lower-end of the range, AMD/ATI launched a new nice price solution under $100: The new HD 3400 and HD 3600 are there to grab the awards for the lowest prices and simultaneous 3D graphics (DirectX 10.1, but don’t expect them to be enough for a crusher like Crysis) and HD video capacity (1920×1080p Full-HD resolution). The HD3400-based boards could even go under $65!
• On the other hand, at the star-end of the range which was recently left to nVidia, here is a solution obviously attractive even if not elegant: HD 3870 x2. When you’re short on performance, you can always double it by grouping 2 GPU on 1 card and crash prices down to kick the hell out of your competitors. It’s not 100% perfect (some games will not be optimized for two graphics cores) but this is a (realtively) easy technical solution to setup. ATI did it and robbed the limie light from nVidia (at least for now).

Ok! This is not enough to forget the raw performance of the nVidia boards. But it is interesting to see how AMD/ATI fights with all available tricks to be able to come back a little later with some still-undisclosed new graphics cards.

This is more or less what has to be concluded from reading the articles currently published about the compatibility (more supposed than real) between the new AMD 4-core processor and the existing AM2-socket motherboards. But it seems that AMD will have to be a little more patient.

This is not a very good omen for the financial come-back of Intel’s main competitor that is still depending a lot of this year’s launch of 3- and 4-core processors.

Source: Tom’s hardware.