ATI RADEON X1650PRO vs HD4850, willing to explain how much of a difference?

[Fraaaa]

Hi,

I know that for most of you this is a very stupid comparison, but I need to be explained some key thing.

I haven't use my desktop PC since 2007(when I moved to London) at the time I decide to buy a graphic card to play some games, and actually I never use.
This is the graphic card I bought: ATI X1650 PRO.

I don't know anything about graphic cards and I don't play at all on my MacBook that I bought in 2008.

I would like to play Diablo III when it will come out and I'm planning on buy an iMac 27" Quad which has an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB.

- I know that 3 years is quite a long time but can you tell me how different will be the gaming experience with one or the other card?

- Can my old graphic card still enough good to play modern games or is totally rubbish?

- By the way have you ever owned it or see on some other PCs?

- I'm going back to Italy in the summer and I would like to play some games during my holiday, will I be disappointed? (Mostly I would like to play AION).

Thanks.

Quick look:

X1650PRO
8X AGP version
Pixel Shaders 12
Vertex Pipes 5
ROPs 6
Memory Size 256
Memory Type DDR3
Core Clock 600 MHz
Memory Clock 700 MHz

HD4850
Stream Processor 800
ROPs 16
Pixel filtrate 19.3Gpixel/sec
Core Clock 625MHz
Shader Clock 625MHz
Memory Clock 2,000MHz
Memory interface 256-bit
Frame buffer 1GB GDDR3

 

[JackAxe]

Your old card will do Ok with some games, it's right on the border of being obsolete, but I'm thinking if that's the GPU in your PC, it's probably time to build a new rig.

The 1650 is quite a bit faster than the AION's minimum support card, which is a 5600. If anything, you'll just need to bring the detail down, no big deal if the game is fun.

The 4850 on the other hand will do just fine, just don't expect to run Dialbo 3 at the iMac's native rez on higher detail smoothly. It's a lower mid-range card by todays standards, but it's still a substantial upgrade over the 1650.

Anyways, I had a 1600 in my previous MacBook, but on my PC I stick with nVidia.

 

[cluthz]

The 4850 is a lot faster than the 1650.
The 4850 has a 3DMark06 score at about 10000, where as the 1650 did about 2500.

The iMac will have a lot more CPU power and better HD, faster chipset and more RAM.
In total this will probably make heaps of difference.

The iMac was updated about 5 months ago, and apple usually upgrade iMacs every 7-8 months. You'll never know tho, MacBook Pro updates had been rumored as "just around the corner" since before xmas and they was just released last week.

If you want/need a new machine now, just go ahead and buy now, possibly there will be a new iMac in 3 months, but it might take another half year before it's out.

If you have time to wait, wait and buy just after next refresh, it always feels nice to have the latest and greatest (although there will always be something new around the corner)