Sheep in line or lambs to the slaughter?

[Touchy]

What possible advantage could the 4850 have over the 130 that (people?) are willing to wait 4-6 weeks for delivery?

 

[lordsion]

yeah can somebody just easily summarize it please?

 

[NRose8989]

We really won't know until people start getting them and true benchmarks come out.

There is quite a bit of fuzzy information out there. At one point ATI GPU's had better performance in "core image" apps over their (higher end) nVidia counter parts, while the nVidia's had better gaming performance.. (Specifically the ATI 2600 pro vs. 8800GT)

Now a recent post on Barefeats (post 1) shows that now the nVidia 8800GT performs better with core image apps, while the new ATI 4870 performs better at games. (post 2)

So the real question is how is the new 4850 going to perform against the GT130?

Only time will tell once people start getting their units in and getting officail benchmarks.

EDIT: from what I understand is that the GT130 is a rebranded 9800 series GPU, and the 9800 series is the predecessor of the 8800 (but not much of a performance gain).

 

[Touchy]

Thanks for the reply. I guess that is the case for now. I am really leaning toward an iMac but don't need to do it right now. So I will wait for the information to come out.
As a related question: Once they are released will the 4850 be available on a shorter time frame than presently or will they still be a special build and require a 4-6 week wait no matter when you order it?

 

[brad.c]

Maybe some of the bad press of the 8600M GT (if not personal experiences) has motivated people to choose ATI over nVidia.

 

[NRose8989]

Thanks for the reply. I guess that is the case for now. I am really leaning toward an iMac but don't need to do it right now. So I will wait for the information to come out.
As a related question: Once they are released will the 4850 be available on a shorter time frame than presently or will they still be a special build and require a 4-6 week wait no matter when you order it?

No once Apple starts shipping the iMacs with the 4850, the shipping time will change to either 24 hrs to at most 7-10 business days etc.

 

[Bad Paper]

What possible advantage could the 4850 have over the 130 that (people?) are willing to wait 4-6 weeks for delivery?

All of them. heck, I'm paying for the wait.

<sigh>
better: performance, heat dissipation, performance, support, and performance

I hear it's also faster, with better performance, and possibly performs quite well.

If you don't intend to replace this machine for six years (as I do), the extra 1% wait time (of product life) is negligible. The future-proofing inherent in the noticeably better hardware is worth it.

 

[Touchy]

????? I don't understand what you are saying. Please help me understand your comments.

 

[NRose8989]

better: performance, heat dissipation, performance, support, and performance

You don't know any of this because they are not even out yet.

You think that it's better because you spent an extra $50 for it.

Seriously look at the ATI 2600 vs. 8800GS benchmarks. In some cases the 2600 beats it and in others the 8800 was comparable to it's performance. Look at this, in this case it's more interesting because the 2600 was thought as a mediocre card from the start of it's life, and the 8800 series was a high end card plus costing $200(i think?) more. Now looking at the current line up, With the upgrade only being $50, I'm willing to bet the difference will be negligible if not worst in some cases and that each card is going to have a advantage over the other, maybe one will be better at gaming, while the other is better at core image stuff (i.e. Motion, FCP, Aperture, even rendering thumbnails in iMovie). it's all about finding what most important to you, then picking a card.

My point being is that you WILL NOT be able to tell if it's going to be better until real benchmarks start surfacing.