Yeah, that's a render card (a non-official term I use, lol).

whats the difference between nvidia geforce and quaddro, and ati radeon and firegl?

Quadro and FireGL cards are render cards, specifically designed for CAD applications, and not as good for gaming. They generally use the same technology as the current gaming cards, but in a different way. They also cost a lot more.

Usually they have a bigger memory bus width. I think that's about it.
Oh and they cost far too much for no good reason.

I think it's for higher quality control and more warranties. If you're buying one of these cards, you probably don't want it to go wrong at all, as it may be for a task that is critical for your business.

that explains why it is used in business computers, ppl at my dads workplace have dell precisions

Here's a picture of that Diamond Multimedia XOC card, the extreme overclocked version of the 4870...

sweet.

I wonder if those fire effects are for a reason xP

omg its overheating noooo........ any1 notice the AMD logo at the side?

Heh, apparently the cooler does a good job but it can get quite loud.

Strider, the AMD logo will be because AMD own ATI (since mid last year, I think it was). In fact, we should be calling the cards AMD HD4870s, but we call them ATI out of habit.

From the reviews I read of the HD4s, they have a tendancy to get very hot, even when idle. However, their change in idle to load temp is fairly low, so it might be a bios/driver problem for fan control.

Yeah, although the difference in temperature between idle and full load is very low, the difference in power consumption is huge, and this matters more.

Yeah, I was more on about the fact they run incredibly hot, even when idle, but not much hotter when under load. It makes me thing the fans are spinning at the right speed.

ahh yes... i heard ati slowed down in their technological jumps after amd aqcuired them

Not particularly, just nVidia were doing better (ATI had been doing bad before AMD bought them).

I think there was a bit of a pause in the graphics side of the business when AMD bought out ATI but I think that AMD has brought a positive direction to the relatively small Canadian company. For instance - an easy to understand naming convention, a regular release schedule, the 'small-chip' design etc.

Small update:
4850 and 4870 continue to be praised...

Big power shifts are good. Makes all companies get ultra competitive again, which means we get better hardware cheaper and sooner.

Hello.

I'm in Corfu at an Internet Cafe...

Just thought that this would be relevant to your interests!!





Release date: 12th August 2008

Sweeeeet. 4870X2, I'm guessing. Me wants!

I'm not buying anything for the new computer until 26th August... So I'll definitely have the money for 2 of these and whatever else I want in my computer (45nm Core 2 Quad, 4GB DDR3, etc.)

Wow, that will be impressive!

nVidia have been responding quite well to these cards, they have had massive price cuts on their GTX cards. THe 260 is now only slightly more expensive than the 4870 and gives similar performance, and the 280 is now only ~£330, which is a lot better value than it was.

I don't think I'd buy the GTX260 or 280 chips knowing just how bad it is for Nvidia to be selling them. Surely they are just making a bad situation even worse? I'm pretty much convinced that they are selling the chips for less than it costs to make them.

Massive bump to say;

Finally!

Oh thats good, after so long we've needed that At least I'm less likely to break my card with dodgy XML files