I would love to see ATI get back on top and get some sales, AMD / ATI sorely need it.

Sadly I'm not interested - I am happy with my 8800GT / 360 and PS3 :( but if and when I come back to PC gaming in 12 months (Again!) I'd like to be able to pick up a nice card thanks to competition.

Hope this is true.

So a bit off topic, but i have been looking into making a final upgrade into my aging AGP system. I am in college and don't have the money to build a full blown PCI-e system, which is the only reason i am looking into upgrading instead of just building a new rig (otherwise i would have already built a new system over a month ago prolly).

Currently i am using a 256MB X800XL video card, and it's been a good card, except it doesnt support SM 3.0 and directX 10 (SM 3.0 being the biggest pain since many new games just flat require it). I was looking around to see if there were any decent AGP upgrades when i stumbled upon AGP Radeon 3850's on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102730

Other system specs
P4C 3.2GHz
3GB DDR400
Abit IC7-G Motherboard (thats a 875P north bridge for those who can't remember that far back)
X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card

My power supply is a 620 Watt OCZ PowerStream unit. Basically the bigger version of this one that TR reviewed a while back. I would assume this should be more than enough to run a 3850, but i could be wrong.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/7429/5

I am aware that my CPU will be my main bottleneck in my system and i am willing to live with that. Was kinda just looking for some other opinions or maybe some things that i may not have thought about that someone else already has. Or maybe even someone who has an old AGP system that tried one of these cards. Basically just general advice / opinions.

I hope is true because a need a next gen card in that price aria , 30% over the old OC 8800 gt named 9800 GT is very good , the g200 will be to expensive for me ($499)

the sweet spot is selling cards , so if the 4850 delivers at that price spot it will like the new 8800 GT .

That's strange, I don't see pluscard anywhere.

Say the GT gets 100fps. The Pro must get 125fps. The XT must get 162fps. The 9800GTX must get 130fps. That doesn't make sense because the 9800GTX isn't 1.3X the 8800GT. Its more like 1.15X.

Oh well, I'm sure the 9800GTX will be beat by at least 10%.

VR-Zone says that the Radeon HD 4870 will be 30% faster than the Radeon HD 4850

Is the latter card in that quote meant to be something other than 4850? Because it seems odd to give preview performance estimates against a card that has unknown performance at this time.

The specs on the 4870 made it seem way more badass than these numbers suggest. I guess my plans to jump back on the red train have been temporarily derailed. At least until I see some reviews from both camps.

Hope so.

From past such leaked numbers, this may just be in 3DMark. Remember that 2900XT had really good 3DMark numbers, but failed at most real world tests.

Damn love/hate relationship with my 30" 3007wfp 2560x1600 LCD! Oh 4870x2, please hurry to rescue me!

I've been really patient holding off all upgrades since my X1950Pro... I'm really hoping AMD/ATI comes out with a strong offering. :)

If this is compatible to 780G boards then it rocks very well. Hopefully it supports Hybrid boost and Hybrid Power Saving.

For those asking:
DirectX 10.1 is not on the road map yet of Nvidia because they feel it wasn't necessary.

It's always cool to hear about what might be coming from a vendor. Really though it's all about the actual bench. Let's just see what happens! :) I'm sure we'll be more than satisfied when we see the results. But then again, they could be horrible, which I doubt.

Matches pretty well with previous rumours: 25% faster than a 9800GTX is just a little bit faster than a HD3870X2 judging from recent TR tests, at a slightly lower price and presumably less power usage. The HD4850 will slot in around the level of the 8800GTS 512, which is reasonable given the price.

If Crossfire scales as well as it does with the HD3870, then the rumoured HD4870X2 will be up with the 9800GTX 3-way SLI. However, judging from the pricing rumours for the GTX280, I think the supremacy will be short-lived for AMD.

Sounds about right with their specs.

Does the GTX 280 support DX 10.1?

Sounds great! If it all holds true, as long as they keep the HDMI w/Audio as a viable output i dont see why my next card won't be AMD/ATI.

Unless nvidia adds that to their repitoire.

How much juice will these bad boys eat? I think that'll be their big advantage over Nvidia's graphics/space heater combo.

Hope this true.. Cause that should put HD 4800 in parallel to GTX280

25% over a 9800GTX would be a good bump, but it's not great compared to previous generational jumps. The prices look nice though.

I'll believe it once TR reviews the card. Not before.

Sound alright but I really hoped for better from AMD. Nvidia's product might severely blow this out of the water though.