Conclusion

Had their launch gone off unopposed, AMD would have made a huge splash with the introduction of the Radeon HD 4850. Priced at $199 this card would have been a GeForce 8800 GT killer. Our testing reveals that the board runs up to 22% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT. But unfortunately for AMD, it appears that the Radeon HD 4850 won’t be going up against the GeForce 8800 GT. Instead, as a result of NVIDIA’s latest price cuts, the 4850 will be going head-to-head with the much mightier GeForce 9800 GTX.

This battle is a neck-and-neck race. In games like Quake Wars, F.E.A.R., and Call of Duty 4, our testing gave the edge to the 4850. But in Lost Planet DX10 and BioShock DX10 the GeForce 9800 GTX ran faster than the 4850 (in Company of Heroes, the 4850 and 9800 GTX traded wins). Meanwhile Crysis, HL2 Episode Two, and Oblivion were too close to call. Depending on which games you play (and perhaps certain levels in the same game) the edge could go to AMD or NVIDIA in our preliminary testing.

Clearly the moral of this story if you’re AMD is to keep your plans quiet. If AMD had done a better job of keeping the details on RV770 under wraps, NVIDIA wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spoil their big launch. NVIDIA’s lesson learned is to not underestimate AMD. We along with everyone else in the online media were extremely disappointed by the original 9800 GTX launch: the card offered little over the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, much less an 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra. The GeForce 9800 GTX+ is what the original 9800 GTX should have been in our opinion. The 9800 GTX runs about 8 or 9% faster than the 9800 GTX, which still isn’t always enough to overtake the 8800 Ultra, but it’s definitely an improvement. The disappointing part about the 9800 GTX+ is that these cards won’t hit shelves until sometime in July.

The Radeon 4850 will hit retail as soon as June 25th, giving it a few weeks head start over the GTX+. And we don’t know when NVIDIA’s new pricing will take effect. A quick glance at Newegg right now reveals that 9800 GTX boards are still selling for well over $199.

We’ll have more benchmarks with the 4850 and GTX+ next week, as well as AMD’s higher-performing Radeon HD 4870. If a Radeon HD 4850 can outrun a GeForce 9800 GTX in some cases, imagine what a 4870 can do!