15 Year Anniversary of the HD 4800 series launch. One of the greatest GPUs of all time.

It’s been 15 years since one of the greatest (if not the greatest) price/performance GPU was launched. I am talking about the legendary HD 4870/HD 4850. For just $200 the HD 4850 was faster than the previous generation top end nvidia GPU, the 8800 GTX which cost $600. That’s like the current RX 7600 beating the last gen RX 6900 XT or at the very least 3080/3080 Ti. Leaving the 3090 out since I am comparing it to the XX80 series equivalent to what the 8800 GTX was. For me it was my first ATI/AMD GPU with the HD 4870. Couldn’t justify getting a GTX 280 since it cost $650 and the HD 4870 would have gotten 70% – 75% performance of it and over half the price at $300. And it was $100 cheaper than it’s direct competitor the GTX 260. You would have to be an idiot to buy nVidia at the time.

But alas, those days are gone. It’s sad to see than we leave an era of $1000 and $1500+ high end graphics card where 15 years ago we could have gotten “close” to high end graphics performance at $300.

Heck not even too long ago back in 2016/2017 you could have gotten a GTX 1060 6GB and get the performance of GTX 980 at half the price that the GTX 980 launched and it had 2GB more!

So, what do you guys think, it was the greatest price/performance graphics card in history? Anyone of guys owned It back in the day? Was it the turning point for you to switch to AMD/ATI like it was in my case after over half-decade of nVidia use.

Share your thoughts.

FYI, here's a retro review of the HD 4850 (which I still have as one of HTPC and to play older games).

I remember I got a HD4670 for something like $70. $70! Now I'm glad if I can max out new games at 1080p with a $500 GPU.

Competition and reasonable prices. Wasn’t Nvidia GTX 460 also somewhat in the same spot? Just years later…

Still rocking two 970s in SLI. I rule.

I don't remember what it was, but back in 2004 I got some low end Nvidia gpu that was $50 msrp and came with a $45 mail-in rebate. $5 turned my college computer into an okay gaming rig. Not much, but it could run Unreal Tournament 2004 well enough.

GTX 460 was good but the HD 5850/HD 5870 was the better overall GPUs since you could get good performance with good power consumption and ran cooler. HD GTX 400 series was notorious for their heat and power. It became a meme on the web with people calling it Thermi which was poking fun at the codename of GTX 400 series which was called "Fermi".

i was a rare and elusive 4830 boi at the time