I haven't read all the comments so i don't know if someone's said this already but...

You can't judge a card by it's spec's!!!

We've seen that before and we'll see it again! Yes, they do give an idea but that's not it, theres more to it (drivers, architecture, fab process etc.) So I know it's fun to gab over the "pre spec's" but let's just wait until TR test the thing.

Edit: (sorry for the harsh words... looong day)

great news , at least we know for sure the specifications.
The 4850 has all the changes to be my next card,I wander how a GDDR5 really makes the difference (?!). anyway the G200 will big bigger, more expensive, hotter , and faster .
I'm sorry if nvidia doesn't launch 10.1 in gt200 , because all this of 10.1 cards are worthless , next year will have dx11 so ...
(nvidia controls the game industry, see Assassins creed case )
but nvidia new cards will PhysX ,so let's hope AMD will have the same physics engine .(and not havok )
p.s was edited ,10x number #19

I wonder how many more times we are going to hear about these cards and what they 'might' do before actually seeing benchmarks. I mean a few posts about specs is cool but it's starting to get old now. Must........see.......marks........

It's pretty obvious there's been a sea change in what is regarded as a kickass card over the last year or so.
In 2006 people were happily forking over $500,$600 or even more to get what was called a top notch card.
Here we are in 2008 and the general consensus is that $350 or less is the way to go.
Bravo to those that have supported this change,the thought of paying over $500 for a video card now is actually distasteful.
More cards in the vein of the 9600 GT and 8800GT are what's needed.
I hope ATI's new 4800 range can deliver the goods and match the bang for buck of both those great cards.

Image quality is damn good already for the games we have now...I'm more interested in how this new UVD2 chip works and whether it will be able to clean up some of the online videos we see and how it effects high resolution playback.
A sub $250 price tag for a full featured card with similar or better performance to the 9800GTX will be great for the market.
No doubt however some people will have it live or die on exactly how many frames per second it generates regardless of the other onboard hardware and its benefits.

I hope ATI does well. I am tired of Nvidia and their BS. The UT2 engine stuttering problems are STILL around and the 8800 was released in 2006. It's really pathetic.

My pants just got shorter.

The power consumption is most interesting to me. nVidia has been telling board makers to expect TDP's of 240+ watts. Those things are going to be absolute space heaters. If the 4870 tops at 157w, it will be a victory, even if the performance is less.

Anyone else notice the 4870 will have a 256-bit bus? Kind of ruins the allure of the 1GB of memory for me. I guess we'll see if it can take advantage of it or not, or if this report is a bit incorrect.

This is all very interesting. With Nvidia upping the SP count and keeping their stratospheric shader clocks, I'd imagine NV will have the edge in raw shader power this generation. With 512bit memory and a new doubled ROP count, it'll have a serious brute force advantage as well.

On the other hand, the ATI card won't require it's own tower case or 20K RPM fans to cool, and it'll be a fair sight cheaper.

I guess that for me it all boils down to ATI opening the specs on the RV770 the same way that they have for everything else. If it's cheaper, more reasonable cooling, and open specs, I think I'm in.

Isn't this a bit too optimistic?

The lower part will outperform the 9800GTX? Seriously? When was that last ATI managed that?

If those numbers are correct i might have to reconsider my nvidia sympathy.

Sounds good, I may have to swap my 3870 CF setup for two of those 4870's. Can't wait to see what the actual performance is once they are released.

Sounds good. Now to wait for the actual benchmarks...

i wish performance numbers would include gpubench results for scientific computing folks: http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/gpubench/