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4650/512M ddr2 is $30. Must be ddr2/GDDR4 difference makes up much more than the 4650/3850 difference.

I'm not sure if this is a good deal. The 4850 was a better card at a similar price when it was a deal.

This is also worse than the 9600GSO 384, which is half the price.

#1 - Yes, they're much different. You can never go by series numbers as determining performance placement, as neither manufacture keeps to any long term uniformity.
A 4650 isn't better than the 3850, heck it not even in the same league when considering 3D performance.
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=580&card2=546

While, at this price this isn't even worthy of consideration. Makes you wonder is Sapphire still assembling these, or if these are old stock? If moving old stock they'd need to be $35, then they'd get nudged out of the product stream...
Consider this or a 4770 for $40 more when that makes it back into the product stream.

#3, long for the days when higher numbers meant higher performance. Thanks.

#3: well, I think that the main problem is that this deal isn't very good. Newegg has had these cards on sale for around $40 before, at which price they're a pretty good deal.

Yes... #5 I believe I indicated that a good half-hour before you said it? While I don't see a $40 price from Ben's History.
http://bensbargains.net/history/105880

I got this card almost a year ago for this price. Its a good card and I have had no problems with it.

It's fairly irrelevant what it's performance is, at this price point someone should only expect feature sets like the outputs they need. Spend enough to game or don't bother if that is the intent of the purchase.

Haha, dave_c are you serious? You're that snooty when it comes to video cards? You can expect a whole lot more than just the outputs you need from this card. If you just need outputs, I believe a 10$ card will do that even. While this card may be dated, it's still a very capable card. I got this for my roommate about a month ago, and he can run Call of Duty 4 on fairly high settings just fine. Not everyone needs and uses HD4890's for their computers. This card can run most modern games, just not at max settings.

no rebates

is this a good choice for a media center PC?

If this "fairly irrelevant", whats' that makes a 9800GT at $90 even after a $20 rebate? While it doesn't stop them from offering a bunch more of those on Egg at elavated prices.
A 18-22% performace increase at 50% more money.

#11 - will you require a half-height card?

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Greenchunks wrote:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">Haha, dave_c are you serious? You're that snooty when it comes to video cards? You can expect a whole lot more than just the outputs you need from this card. If you just need outputs, I believe a 10$ card will do that even. While this card may be dated, it's still a very capable card. I got this for my roommate about a month ago, and he can run Call of Duty 4 on fairly high settings just fine. Not everyone needs and uses HD4890's for their computers. This card can run most modern games, just not at max settings.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody">

What you can run today is fairly irrelevant, a video card is bought for what it can do not only today, but every day you own it till it is replaced!

It's not snotty to accept that a video card is a GPU, a PCB, memory, voltage regulation and cooling. Given all this, it should cost at least as much as the CPU and motherboard combined if one is even remotely serious about whether it has gaming potential.

Nobody said you have to buy two high end cards, but let's face it there is a large difference between low end junk and a card at least capable of playing all of today's games, let alone tomorrow's.

Max settings aren't so important, I mean today, but do you buy a video card to assume that a game released a mere 3 months from now won't even play unless the eyecandy is reduced so much it looks no better than a 3 year old game?

Like any other computer hardware purchase, a video card should be selected to not only meet a narrow definition of what you play now, but to also play anything you might want to in the near future.

If you don't plan for this you waste money, end up paying over and over for new cards that are barely capable a... [Truncated]