Just Purchased 4850 - Not a huge improvement? A bit suprised

[generaltao]

My System
E6600 @ 3.0GHZ
P5W-DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
500w Antec Truepower
I game on a 24" monitor

I've been running a slightly overclocked x1900xt for the last 2.5 years.
I just picked up the 4850 at bestbuy for $150

The problem is, in some games there seems to be almost no improvement. or nothing that really affects gameplay.

I mostly play TF2 and WoW. I also picked up the devil may cry demo.

In wow, the only difference is really that i can turn the ground clutter a little higher.

So, my question is, should i keep it? Should i return it and wait for a larger improvement?
I was thinking along the lines of a 4870 with the 1gb of GDDR5.

Your thoughts are appreciated but please keep fanboyism and other such nonsense out of the post.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Skunkwourk]

Well it should at least allow you to increase your resolution and turn on AA if you hadn't previously done so.

 

[AzN]

WOW or TF2 isn't really that GPU intensive anyway. If you do play newer games you would get huge performance gains.

 

[ajaidevsingh]

I went from 2900Pro to 3870X2 to 2900Pro again after my 3870X2 died... The difference when i took a single 4850 from 2900Pro was huge with AA and resolution??

I am on 4850x2 and its great better than anything i ever gamed on!!!

 

[tachikoma]

Originally posted by: generaltao

My System
E6600 @ 3.0GHZ
P5W-DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
500w Antec Truepower
I game on a 24" monitor

I've been running a slightly overclocked x1900xt for the last 2.5 years.
I just picked up the 4850 at bestbuy for $150

The problem is, in some games there seems to be almost no improvement. or nothing that really affects gameplay.

I mostly play TF2 and WoW. I also picked up the devil may cry demo.

In wow, the only difference is really that i can turn the ground clutter a little higher.

So, my question is, should i keep it? Should i return it and wait for a larger improvement?
I was thinking along the lines of a 4870 with the 1gb of GDDR5.

Your thoughts are appreciated but please keep fanboyism and other such nonsense out of the post.

Thanks in advance.

First off you aren't playing any high end games.
You should definitely see a good improvement in the Devil May Cry demo, but certainly not in any source based game(s) or World of Warcraft.

Both of those engines are designed to be completely scalable, meaning they aren't going to be that great for high end PC's. Source is better, obviously, but it still isn't as great as UE3 imo.

I was able to play World of Warcraft with everything on high and in 1280x800 (native) reasolution on my 14" laptop with an 8400M GS 128MB. What does that tell you?

Try testing it on newer games that run some higher-end engines, such as UE3 games (Gears of War, UT3, Turok, etc). Another good one to test it on is Assassin's Creed.

 

[child of wonder]

You know, I went from an 8800GT to a 4850 and haven't had a chance to game yet, but my 3dMark06 score did drop quite a bit. Went from 13k to 11k. Even my CPU score was down 700 points.

I installed the latest hotfix but does it require one to install 8.6 first and then the hotfix?

 

[generaltao]

Thanks for the input guys. I'll try and get a few newer games to play on it and see how things go. Maybe i'll grab a second one . It seems like 2 of these for 300 total would be a better deal than a $300 4870 anyways.

 

[Tullphan]

I'm awaiting mine.
I hope it'll be an improvement from my XFX 7900GT.
I just did a reinstall of XP, but haven't downloaded the nVidia drivers yet. When I install the 4850, will I need to uninstall the XP video drivers?

 

[TestedAcorn]

I'm sure it'll be better once they get really good drivers for it.

 

[generaltao]

While i can still get it at this price, do you think it would be worth getting a second one? It's a few hours until the bestbuys around me close and they all have stock.

 

[tachikoma]

Originally posted by: child of wonder
You know, I went from an 8800GT to a 4850 and haven't had a chance to game yet, but my 3dMark06 score did drop quite a bit. Went from 13k to 11k. Even my CPU score was down 700 points.

I installed the latest hotfix but does it require one to install 8.6 first and then the hotfix?

Don't use 3DMark06. It's out-dated.

Use 3DMark Vantage.

I would've thought this was a no brainer.

Similar things happened when the old GeForce 4's were coming out around the 3Dmark03 and 01 era.

 

[zod96]

Can't use vantage if your on XP and alot of people including myself wouldn't touch vista with a 10ft pole

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: generaltao
Thanks for the input guys. I'll try and get a few newer games to play on it and see how things go. Maybe i'll grab a second one . It seems like 2 of these for 300 total would be a better deal than a $300 4870 anyways.

don't waste your money on a 2nd 4850 when you don't even really need the first one! that's what everyone is telling you. is it a huge upgrade over an x1900xt? yes. is it worth $150? sure. do you need it to play a 4 yr old game with crappy graphics? no. just keep the one 4850 and get a 2nd one if you run into some situations down the road where you feel that you need an upgrade.

 

[BFG10K]

The problem is, in some games there seems to be almost no improvement. or nothing that really affects gameplay.

I'm guessing you run 1680x1050 with no AA or AF?

 

[nyker96]

got a 8800GT 256mb thinking of jumping to 4850 soon after the prices settle down a bit more and DDR5 version debuts. I think from what people are saying, only AA AF or extreme resolution will benefit. Anyways I only run 256mb so I'm sure 4850 will be a boost if nothing else from its DDR5s which is on the XT version coming up. It should be much better for Crysis as right now I can only do medium setting at 12x10.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: generaltao

My System
E6600 @ 3.0GHZ
P5W-DH Deluxe
4GB DDR2 800
500w Antec Truepower
I game on a 24" monitor

I've been running a slightly overclocked x1900xt for the last 2.5 years.
I just picked up the 4850 at bestbuy for $150

The problem is, in some games there seems to be almost no improvement. or nothing that really affects gameplay.

I mostly play TF2 and WoW. I also picked up the devil may cry demo.

In wow, the only difference is really that i can turn the ground clutter a little higher.

So, my question is, should i keep it? Should i return it and wait for a larger improvement?
I was thinking along the lines of a 4870 with the 1gb of GDDR5.

Your thoughts are appreciated but please keep fanboyism and other such nonsense out of the post.

Thanks in advance.

Wow is CPU-bound with anything faster than a 7600GT, IIRC. You need to test your cards with a more modern, GPU-demanding game. Like Crysis.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: generaltao
While i can still get it at this price, do you think it would be worth getting a second one? It's a few hours until the bestbuys around me close and they all have stock.

$149 x 2 for CF 4850's is nice since it beats a $650 GTX 280 in crossfire scaling games. Nvidia new GPU prices are going to fall and ATI's will rise...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=14

 

[nitromullet]

I just got one of these as well (well two, but I need a CF compatible mobo). In WoW, I run 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF. I turn on Adaptive Anti-Aliasing in the CCC at Quality, Method:Super-sampling, but set Anti-Aliasing to use application. Set Anisotropic Filtering to 16X and untick Use application settings. Then in game, I crank everything up and set it to 4x multisampling. Runs great. Occasional dips into the 20s flying around outside of Shat, but otherwise I'm 40-60fps solid.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: generaltao
While i can still get it at this price, do you think it would be worth getting a second one? It's a few hours until the bestbuys around me close and they all have stock.

$149 x 2 for CF 4850's is nice since it beats a $650 GTX 280 in crossfire scaling games. Nvidia new GPU prices are going to fall and ATI's will rise...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=14

Yeah, I guess this is the first release of high end gpus from Nvidia that nobody cares about.

 

[lopri]

I've predicted in the past that starting this generation (GT200/RV770), the first generatin PCIe will hit the limit. But I don't think that applies to an upgrade like 1900XT -> HD 3450..? It's probably your games are not pushing the new card hard enough.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: zod96
Can't use vantage if your on XP and alot of people including myself wouldn't touch vista with a 10ft pole

Couldn't agree more, no Vista for me too!

 

[ChronoReverse]

Try running with AA and AF.

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: zod96
Can't use vantage if your on XP and alot of people including myself wouldn't touch vista with a 10ft pole

Couldn't agree more, no Vista for me too!

I don't understand this anti-vista elitism... it's a great system, much much better than XP from my personal experience.

Even if it's not a much much greater system... what makes it so undesirable?

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: child of wonder
You know, I went from an 8800GT to a 4850 and haven't had a chance to game yet, but my 3dMark06 score did drop quite a bit. Went from 13k to 11k. Even my CPU score was down 700 points.

I installed the latest hotfix but does it require one to install 8.6 first and then the hotfix?

3DMark does not mean a damn anymore and hardly ever translates into real world performance.

Also it would seem to make more sense to install drivers first then the hotfix. Think about it, if you install the hotfix before drivers, what is there for the hotfix to 'fix'.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: zod96
Can't use vantage if your on XP and alot of people including myself wouldn't touch vista with a 10ft pole

Couldn't agree more, no Vista for me too!

I don't understand this anti-vista elitism... it's a great system, much much better than XP from my personal experience.

Even if it's not a much much greater system... what makes it so undesirable?

Higher memory requirements, less stability, application incompatibility, and terrible driver support for a huge number of legacy products (particularly for the 64-bit version).