woah, 100 fps, how much better is the 6800gt over the 8400 gs, of course i cant afford any of these graphics cards, i dont get pocket money

The 6800GT is a lot older than the 8400 (2 generations), but was a high end desktop card with pretty amazing performance. I doubt you'd be able to compare them now, and you certainly wouldn't be able to buy a 6800GT new.

i want to compare the generations of graphics card so i have a clearer picture

nvidia:ati

6 series:Xxxx series
7 series:X1xxx series
8 series:HD 2xxx series
9 series:HD 3xxx series
GTX series:HD 4xxx series

Yup, that's pretty accurate, though the 8 series lasted a lot longer than the HD2 series, so competes with the HD3 series aswell, and the 9 series competes with the HD4 and HD4 series. the GTXes are currently insanely expensive, so don't particulary compete with the HD4 series, but are on the same timescale.

There are rumours of a 4890 from ATI to challenge the GTX260 (maybe this is just another way of saying Diamond Multimedia 4870 XOC ), and the 4870X2 will be directly competing against the GTX280. The 4870 is the competitor to the 9800GTX.

4890? Sweet, that should be interesting!

will the gtx 280 be small enough to fit in the dell xps 730?

It should fit. I think it's a 9.5 incher.

I thought it was bigger than that

Sorry, 10.5 but that's not too bad.

Which is a couple of centres off the edge of a motherboard, so that's what you need to check.

I guess if you have a silly small case then yeah

It'd fit in a Lian-Li V1x or V2x due to the hard drive cages being underneath the motherboard compartment. I'll be fine with even a full length video card as I'll be the proud owner of the PC-P80 in about a months time.

why dont you just put it in a big caravan?

rofl

Nice, portable super server.

Most standard cases have the HDD cages quite close to the motherboard, Aaron, simply due to standard layout and the size of the various items.

id love to play crysis with 4 gtx 280s in quad sli and have a core3octo with 8 gb ram, then ill laugh in crysis's face and excrete on its game engine

Most new cases are putting them under the motherboard cage, or have them rotated 90 degrees on a Z axis so you'd insert them in to your case sideways. In modern cases, ATX or full size, it wouldn't be a problem.

Also, Engadget are slow at reporting HD 4870X2 news...

Turns out R700 is now officially called HD4870X2. We knew it all along!

It is codenamed "Spartan" and will come with either 1GB or 2GB of GDDR5 at RV770XT clocks, as far as we know.

R700 is Radeon HD 4870 X2
R700 also to come with 1GB GDDR3
R700 Spartan has 2GB of memory

Sweet. Does it have a release date yet?

woah 2gb! biggest memory in 1 graphics card ever

Heh, yeah, I think ATi are going to go for all the insane but awesome awards, lol.

But at the same time providing very high performance at a very competitive price
2GiB on a card has been done before though but not GDDR5

Which card had that? Was it a render card, not a gaming card?

It was for CAD. It was an ATI FireGL card.