HD 4000 vs GTX 200 - Die Shrink Telegrams
Added 2021-11-16 20:16:22 +0000 UTCNvidia launched their biggest graphics card ever at a correspondingly high price point…and then AMD launched a more efficient and similarly performing flagship at a lower price weeks later. Am I talking about RDNA 2 vs Ampere? Nope! It’s GTX 280 vs HD 4870!
You guys voted - you want more discussions on historic gaming hardware products - this is the first such episode of the "season." Write in below with your questions, memories, and comments on these products...you have 24 hours to submit questions.
Nvidia Launched a Titan long before the Titan: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2222
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_200_series
https://www.anandtech.com/show/2549
https://www.anandtech.com/show/2556
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-hd-4890/
Comments
Hi Tom. Back in September 2008 I bought an ATI Radeon HD 4670 for a whopping £54.99 with taxes ($100 at 2008's rate) because my monitor was a 5:4 19" CRT running at 1280x1024@85Hz, and that card was enough to play Mass Effect and other recent games at that resolution. Imagine still having a $100 card today that runs all games at 1920x1080! Oh wait, we did, it was the AMD RX 570! And this is what upsets me, that the new generation of nearly-broke newly-wedded PC Gamers isn't getting the lucky break that I did in 2008. Something's got to give, young adults have bills to pay like always, but gaming hardware now cost a fortune. Is there nothing we can do for them?
Eleriam
2021-11-18 02:40:26 +0000 UTCTom looking back at this era you have to say this was a time where PC gaming was vastly superior to console gaming. However those GPU'S were not a thousand dollars plus and we weren't selling organs or blood to get something great. The PC renaissance era is over. Nostalgia like this puts things in perspective. Hoping for better days, Tom
Dr Forbin
2021-11-17 04:39:23 +0000 UTCI used to play games on laptops, and my first desktop purchase was an Alienware Aurora with an AMD Phenom quad core CPU and a Radeon 4000 series GPU. It was a great PC for the price, but my time with it was short because my interest in this hobby kind of took off from there. Before you know it I had built 3 PCs for friends and couldn’t wait to build one from scratch for myself. The PC went to my mother, who had never used one so powerful. There it lived a long and happy life.
DeadOfKnight
2021-11-16 23:56:00 +0000 UTCHow did this situation even happen? How did AMD manage to surprise Nvidia so much and can it happen in the future again with maybe RDNA4/5?
QuickJumper
2021-11-16 22:41:40 +0000 UTCThe 4870 was ATI's first real win after the amazing X1900XTX. The 2900XT underperformed, and the 3870, although not bad was merely what the 2900XT should have been. I have very fond memories of the HD 4870. I had just graduated high school and splurged on a desktop for college. In a time when mGPU was absolutely viable, I bought two for a cheaper than a single GTX 280 and the performance was by all metrics overkill (remember virtually no one was gaming above 60 Hz or 1080p). It served me with maxed out gaming for years (Crysis ran great!), and ATI's follow up with the 5000 series was arguably their peak. This was the only time in my life where almost all of my gaming peers had Radeon in their systems, whether it was 4000 or 5000 and 6000 in following years. Value from both Radeon and GeForce was at an all time high, competition was healthy. I think mGPU is something younger generations can't really relate to. Driver support was rarely day one but scaling was often 90%+ and seldom worse than 80%, two mid-high tier cards were often cheaper and better than a flagship, or it offered a cheap upgrade path down the line from the secondhand market.
shredbird
2021-11-16 22:37:09 +0000 UTCDo you recall what was the climate in the forums before the HD4870 with ATI/AMD having supposedly abandoned the high end market and left Nvidia uncontested in the high end?
Rootknight
2021-11-16 20:42:08 +0000 UTCNot a question but the 4870 was such an amazing card. My first major GPU purchase. Served me many years before I eventually bought the GTX 780 and then later the 980. Those were some of AMD/ATI's heydays.
Robojim
2021-11-16 20:40:01 +0000 UTC
