# PowerColor Radeon HD 4850 512 MB



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

AMD has moved the launch date of the HD 4850 forward, launching it today. The cards are positioned in the $200 range and offer several new features and performance improvements. According to our benchmark results AMD has found a winner with this card that offers excellent price/performance and energy efficiency.

*Show full review*


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## oli_ramsay (Jun 19, 2008)

Great review


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## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

read the first sentence on the first page. graphs will come over the day. i'm benching as fast as i can


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## btarunr (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> read the first sentence on the first page. graphs will come over the day. i'm benching as fast as i can



Take your time 

But HD4850 has a higher memory clock than HD4870? Am I missing something?


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## tkpenalty (Jun 19, 2008)

Wow... 9.x? You mean 9.9? Its priced lower than a 9800GTX isnt it?


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## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

i still dont know what score in the 9.0 to 9.9 range to give .. depends on the final benchmark scores


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## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Take your time
> 
> But HD4850 has a higher memory clock than HD4870? Am I missing something?



yes 4870 has gddr5 which has double the bandwidth


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## newtekie1 (Jun 19, 2008)

> The final overclocks of our card are 682 MHz core (9 % overclock) and 1069 MHz Memory (8% overclock). Both overclocks are quite limited, probably AMD binned all the good overclocker GPUs away to be used on the HD 4870 cards.
> 
> When changing memory clocks I noticed that the step size (with the software I used) is 25 MHz, so you can only OC to 1000 MHz, 1025 MHz and 1050 MHz - quite a limitation.



But 1069MHz isn't a 25MHz step?


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## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

yep you are correct .. fixed


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## TUngsten (Jun 19, 2008)

damn! that runs hot indeed!


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## Mussels (Jun 19, 2008)

it sounds like ATI are having a good win this time around in the mid-high range segment.


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## yogurt_21 (Jun 19, 2008)

wow this card is asteal at 200$ it beats the 9800gtx and trails the 3870x2 by 15% not to bad for a mid-high range card. 

so no architectural info yet though? pity. guess we'll have to wait till the 4870's launch for that.


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## trt740 (Jun 19, 2008)

*humm*



yogurt_21 said:


> wow this card is asteal at 200$ it beats the 9800gtx and trails the 3870x2 by 15% not to bad for a mid-high range card.
> 
> so no architectural info yet though? pity. guess we'll have to wait till the 4870's launch for that.



I wonder how it will stack up against a 9800gtx 8800gts with the new 177 series drivers?


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## HTC (Jun 19, 2008)

trt740 said:


> I wonder how it will stack up against a 9800gtx 8800gts with the new 177 series drivers?



It will be interesting to compare those drivers with the 8.6 Cat drivers using the mentioned cards.


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## WarEagleAU (Jun 19, 2008)

Im impressed with Powercolors Memory OC and GPU OC. Compared to MSIs its a bit better. Strange.


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## yogurt_21 (Jun 19, 2008)

trt740 said:


> I wonder how it will stack up against a 9800gtx 8800gts with the new 177 series drivers?



it would definetly push ati to make better drivers faster for the 4000 series if the 9800gtx performed a bit better.


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## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

quake 4 scores in this review are correct, i benched 3 times to verify


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## JRMBelgium (Jun 19, 2008)

My opinion on the latest TPU reviews:

Company of heroes, I don't know for sure but my guess is that this game did not sell well at all. I don't know a single gamer who owns this game and I am active on game-forums all over the planet and none of my friends ( Belgium, USA, Canada ) know or own this game. I know it's a good game and everyone that did buy it enjoyed it, but come on, that game is like two years old and I really think that nobody cares about that game anymore. So for me, a useless benchmark.

Far Cry, Cryisis got released and Far Cry 2 is on the way, and you guys still waist time bencharming in Far Cry? Come on, it was released more then 4 years ago. Yes it was a good game, but who's gonna buy a new GPU for Far cry???

Prey, beatifull game, awesome gameplay, but come on, who still plays it? I am pretty sure I finished that game with my 7600GT on 1600x1200.

Quake 4, again, nice game, but it's old and for some reason the multiplayer never got the attention it deserved.

Splinter Cell 3, I enjoyed it....more then 3 years ago.

3DMark03, 3dMark05, why?

Why don't I say anything about F.E.A.R, simply because the multiplayer is free ( and not dead yet ) and the game is one of the first multi-GPU optimized games.

Don't get me rong, I love the TPU reviews, I just wish that you guys tested in more games that are usefull for more gamers.

Couple suggestions
- World of Warcraft ( IT IS the most popular MMORPG on the planet and running it on 2560x1600 with high AA and AF settings is still not possible on all areas )
- Replace Far Cry with Far Cry 2 as soon as it gets released
- Stop running 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 and start running 3DMark Vantage ( better, stop running 3DMark  )
- Trackmania Nations Forever, it's free, it's new, it's becoming more popular every day and you need powerfull hardware to run it maxed out
- America's Army 3.0 as soon as its out ( free online UnrealEngine-3 FPS-game )
- Age of Conan, this game is selling like crazy in Europe, better then GTA4
- Team Fortress 2
- Mass effect

I have only played Trackmania Nations Forever, so don't think I mention these games for my personal intrest.

Replacing old, dead games by new and/or popular games would only improve the TPU reviews that are already really great. And please don't start bitching at me just because I think it's better, it's just my opinion, just one guy's opinion. ( I got banned for posts like this one on Guru3D )

One more thing, about the overclocking part. I would love to see one more 3DMark chart where the OC results are included, just so that gamers know what performance impact to expect once overclocked. Pretty sure everyone would love to know if an overclocked 4850 can beat the 3870X2.


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## suraswami (Jun 19, 2008)

Good review W1z.  Good that I waited for the new 4x series.  I am going to return the 38x and buy this one.  Woo hoo.  Go AMD Go.


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## snuif09 (Jun 19, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> My opinion on the latest TPU reviews:
> 
> Company of heroes, I don't know for sure but my guess is that this game did not sell well at all. I don't know a single gamer who owns this game and I am active on game-forums all over the planet and none of my friends ( Belgium, USA, Canada ) know or own this game. I know it's a good game and everyone that did buy it enjoyed it, but come on, that game is like two years old and I really think that nobody cares about that game anymore. So for me, a useless benchmark.
> 
> ...



exactly, i also play track mania and i played AA there good games and i love to see benchies of it

@ATI4850


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## cdawall (Jun 19, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> My opinion on the latest TPU reviews:
> 
> Company of heroes, I don't know for sure but my guess is that this game did not sell well at all. I don't know a single gamer who owns this game and I am active on game-forums all over the planet and none of my friends ( Belgium, USA, Canada ) know or own this game. I know it's a good game and everyone that did buy it enjoyed it, but come on, that game is like two years old and I really think that nobody cares about that game anymore. So for me, a useless benchmark.
> 
> ...




really want to sink it to its knees run warmonger on it maxed out


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## JRMBelgium (Jun 19, 2008)

cdawall said:


> really want to sink it to its knees run warmonger on it maxed out



It's not about high-demanding games. So many reviewers think that they need to test games that are high-demanding, others think they need to test games on very high resolutions with unplayable AA and AF settings, and most of them think both.

It's about good games, popular games, new games. Nobody cares how Far Cry runs on a 4850HD when you can run the game just fine with a card that is two years old. Nobody wants to know about 3DMark on 2560x1600 with AA enabled but I see so many websites using those kinds of benchmarks for their review-conclusions. 

Look at the Top3 resolutions on the Valve survey ( 1.776.835 Submissions, last updated on 3:53am PST (11:53 GMT), June 19 2008 ):
1. 1280x1024, 1280x800, 1280x768
2. 1024x768
3. 1680x1050

Only 2.29% players higher then 1680x1050. 

It's not just TPU, every hardware-review websites should look at the trends. To bad none of them do...


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## Ripper3 (Jun 19, 2008)

Brilliant reviewing as usual, Wiz. 
Those Q4 results are peculiar, but I noticed them in another review you did, the GTX280 ones I believe.
Speaking of the 280, I really can't see Nvidia selling many of these, especially if the die shrink in a few months is true, and considering the performance-per-$ compared to the 4850. Glad to see ATi fighting back.
I've been thinking of buying a gaming laptop for Uni, if I go, but at this rate, I'll just build a semi-portable PC, with a 4850 or 4870 inside.

Noticed the Performance-per-$ chart though, somewhat confused as to how the 3850 managed to get to the top, before I checked prices. Some American retailers seem to have them around the $130 mark, we have them at, the cheapest, between £75-80. I can see how it topped the chart there.

This is all good news for ATi. A card that is already kicking ass and taking names, without needing another driver set to get to full speed, but here's hoping 8.7s eek out something extra either way.

Edit:
Jelle Mees, I do kind of agree with you, but the point of reviews has always been to compare performance in demanding games. If it can play the demanding games, it's basically inevitable that it will perform everywhere.
Still, I do wish they used 1680x1050 in testing, but 1600x1200 should give very good indication of performance at the widescreen version.
What I really want to see is testing LOW resolutions with HIGH AA/AF, and overall high settings. Some people take advantage, lower the res to get higher settings, and AA allows them to counter the jaggies that appear more with lower resolutions. Although it doesn't happen as much with LCDs, since the LCD will generally display images a little rougher at non-native resolutions, and people want to avoid that happenning.

Boy, I need to pick a side and stick to it.


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## cdawall (Jun 19, 2008)

thing is people buy based on what the card can do even if they aren't going to use that potential its the fact that the card can


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## btarunr (Jun 19, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> It's not about high-demanding games. So many reviewers think that they need to test games that are high-demanding, others think they need to test games on very high resolutions with unplayable AA and AF settings, and most of them think both.
> 
> It's about good games, popular games, new games. Nobody cares how Far Cry runs on a 4850HD when you can run the game just fine with a card that is two years old. Nobody wants to know about 3DMark on 2560x1600 with AA enabled but I see so many websites using those kinds of benchmarks for their review-conclusions.
> 
> ...



That very same survey also states things such as >40% use AMD processors, >78% use XP, etc. I don't doubt the results of the survey but the fact that VALVe and its games are all about mid-lower mid systems, and users with such systems how many people still use Intel onboard graphics and play Counter Strike 1? Every second street in my city has a gaming shack with PC-2004 systems running CS.


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## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

jelle why dont you start writing vga reviews for a website?


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## XodiloS (Jun 19, 2008)

Will there be a 4850 with gddr4 ?


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## holy_ (Jun 19, 2008)

Same with MSI. Why not give it 10.0? =)


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## JRMBelgium (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> jelle why dont you start writing vga reviews for a website?



No connections and my English isn't good enough. 
Like I sad, love the TPU reviews but a few new games and overclock performance results would make them a lot better, I doubt that you disagree with this.


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## lemonadesoda (Jun 19, 2008)

I think it's great to see a variety of benchmarks. TBH, I dont want a card just benchmarked on the most popular games, or the most popular resolutions. Why? Because MY favourite game, or a game I haven bought yet, is more likely to play like the blended average of all tests, than any one specific driver-optimised "favourite".

And popular resolutions are limited to the consumer sized TFTs. Mines bigger than yours  so I want to know how it performs!

But I do have a couple of requests:

1./ Always have a legacy LAST GENERATION card in there. Why? Because which card is 5% or 10% better than the other is interesting, but the comparative against an older e.g. x800 or x1950 helps people see how much the GPUs have improved over the last years. And MOST people upgrading dont upgrade a "tick"... they upgrade a "tock".  Using a benchmark not only to identify the best cards today, but to decide, OK, NOW is the time to upgrade my card, I will gain 150%. etc.

2./ A couple of other synthetic benchmarks are popular here on TPU. And TPU members all have scores of their own rigs on them, like: Aquamark, Lightsmark2007, Furmark.

Otherwise, great reviews, and thanks for all the time and effort putting them together! :cheers:

(And I am amazed the GTX280 is 70% faster than the 4850 at 2560x1600. That's obvioulsy the RIGHT card for the cinema 30).


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## Gam'ster (Jun 19, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> 1./ Always have a legacy LAST GENERATION card in there. Why? Because which card is 5% or 10% better than the other is interesting, but the comparative against an older e.g. x800 or x1950 helps people see how much the GPUs have improved over the last years. And MOST people upgrading dont upgrade a "tick"... they upgrade a "tock".  Using a benchmark not only to identify the best cards today, but to decide, OK, NOW is the time to upgrade my card, I will gain 150%. etc..



I agree, my 7900gs has around the same performance as an 8600gt/gts give or take, and i like that fact the i can look at the chart and then decide what card would give me a good performance jump over what i have now, but as Jelle Mees was saying maybe 1-2 new ones wouldn't go amiss or an sli/crossfire once in a while..
But that said im very happy with TPU's reviews as there very easy to read, digest and take in for those of us less well informed than others .

Gam


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## imperialreign (Jun 20, 2008)

awesome review, w1z!

I'm quite surprised by what these mid-range cards are pulling out! It's really impressive to see ATI stepping back up to the plate, and I'm thoroughly hoping that trend continues with the 4870s!

A couple of thoughts I had going over the reviews, though, but would it be safe to assume that extremelly low performance in some games at some settings could very well just be lack of driver optimization at this point (i.e. UT3)?  Don't get me wrong, though, it appears these cards are blazing fast across the board.

Either way, though, excellent to see this new hardware competition going full-steam!


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## yogurt_21 (Jun 20, 2008)

lemonadesoda said:


> (And I am amazed the GTX280 is 70% faster than the 4850 at 2560x1600. That's obvioulsy the RIGHT card for the cinema 30).



those 32 rops and 240 shaders aren't there for nothing. as I've said before spec wise the gtx280 is exactly the card we wanted it to be. now if the 4870x2 could do the same, then we'll be seing an ati/nvidia battle as good as the old days.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 20, 2008)

I thought I was not going to be impressed- but I was wrong. AMD/ATI have really pulled this one out of the bag. It's always the silent ones you have to be careful of!


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## HAL7000 (Jun 20, 2008)

Wizzard, these 4850 reviews *were just a work of art*......THANK YOU for the hard work that answers many of the questions out there. I was very impressed with the overall performance of this card. I look forward to your 4870 reviews.    Kudos


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## HAL7000 (Jun 20, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> It's not about high-demanding games. So many reviewers think that they need to test games that are high-demanding, others think they need to test games on very high resolutions with unplayable AA and AF settings, and most of them think both.
> 
> It's about good games, popular games, new games. Nobody cares how Far Cry runs on a 4850HD when you can run the game just fine with a card that is two years old. Nobody wants to know about 3DMark on 2560x1600 with AA enabled but I see so many websites using those kinds of benchmarks for their review-conclusions.
> 
> ...




Are you for real ......???????   There are plenty of people that care. Valve surveys are not the fact but for their population that frequent their surveys.....its an average.

What Wizzard did is enlighten those that want to be informed prior to making a purchase the basic facts about a product and where is falls within the competition. Enthusiast want to know ......*just because it is in their blood to know*


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## Mussels (Jun 20, 2008)

Jelle Mee's: wizzard has said before, that if he uses all new benchmarks every review they become useless. If you cant compare it to previous cards, its useless.

In my opinion, resolutions should be more important.

1280x1024
1680x1050
1600x1200
1920x1080

Four common resolutions, and test each one with 4xaa 8x AF and 8xAA 16xAF. that covers just about everyones interests... but again, it means wizz needs to re-bench hardware to make the graphs useful.


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## Blacklash (Jun 20, 2008)

Hmm I wonder how much faster the HD 4870 will be...


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## Nitro-Max (Jun 20, 2008)

Looks like AMD ATI just unleashed some awsome beasts!! bring a whole new meaning to price v's preformance.


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## RyoBerlin (Jun 20, 2008)

Hmm in Crysis not much faster then the 8800GS.
(1280x1024 ... i use 1360x768 wich should be nearly)

Some sites show more fps as others.. terrible..whats true 

I think it's better to wait for a final Driver and then Bench again


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## arkadij (Jun 20, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> My opinion on the latest TPU reviews:
> 
> Company of heroes, I don't know for sure but my guess is that this game did not sell well at all. I don't know a single gamer who owns this game and I am active on game-forums all over the planet and none of my friends ( Belgium, USA, Canada ) know or own this game. I know it's a good game and everyone that did buy it enjoyed it, but come on, that game is like two years old and I really think that nobody cares about that game anymore. So for me, a useless benchmark.



How dare you!   check gamereplays.org to find out which RTS king of the hill for today.
  Company Of Heroes 

You're actually right about that COH isn't good benchmark anymore,  game that gets 90-200 FPS won't show any bottlenecks of graphics card but.... COH isn't dead and won't be until
StarcraftII or DawnOfWarII relase


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## PhiloShock (Jun 20, 2008)

*Excellent Review...!*

Excellent job!!! 

This could be the benchmark for all sites - how to review a video card.

Thank You!!!


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## W1zzard (Jun 20, 2008)

RyoBerlin said:


> Hmm in Crysis not much faster then the 8800GS.
> (1280x1024 ... i use 1360x768 wich should be nearly)
> 
> Some sites show more fps as others.. terrible..whats true
> ...



all our older crysis scores were conducted at the wrong resolution and can not be compared. only gtx 280 and newer has correct crysis scores


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## RyoBerlin (Jun 20, 2008)

Wrong resolution?..... oh... thats really bad...

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2008/kurztest_ati_radeon_hd_4850_rv770/19/

Here the 4850 looks great 
World in Conflict 105,5fps where the 9800GTX just get 89,2fps


But Crysis and WiC are the only games i have because this are the games with the best grapic @ the moment 
The other games are too old to use it for benching... 50fps and more....not very usefoul..


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## Mussels (Jun 20, 2008)

RyoBerlin said:


> Wrong resolution?..... oh... thats really bad...
> 
> http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2008/kurztest_ati_radeon_hd_4850_rv770/19/
> 
> ...



well i cant stand gaming below 60FPS, so they are useful to me. What aboout lost planet, mass effect, Call of duty 4? they all have excellent graphics too.


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## niko084 (Jun 20, 2008)

HAL7000 said:


> Are you for real ......???????   There are plenty of people that care. Valve surveys are not the fact but for their population that frequent their surveys.....its an average.
> 
> What Wizzard did is enlighten those that want to be informed prior to making a purchase the basic facts about a product and where is falls within the competition. Enthusiast want to know ......*just because it is in their blood to know*



TBH, I know TONS of people that own 9800Gx2s and 3870x2s and guess what resolution they play most games at 1024x768... Very few people actually run their computers in the native resolution of their lcd, and less have something larger than a 17-19" screen to start with.

Yes there are some, there always are, but it doesn't matter, you can sell 5 9800GTX's or 100 HD4850s that perform better for the average customer. Thats the key supply/demand performance per dollar for the specific user, in which case the choice is more than obvious.


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## crazyelmo (Jun 20, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> jelle why dont you start writing vga reviews for a website?



Yo, Oh great wise admin/editor. Can you please a do benchmarking for 8xMSAA please. 

http://www.computerbase.de/art...tt_unreal_tournament_3

Unreal Tournament 3 1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 145
HD4850 : 65
9800GTX : 81

Unreal Tournament 3 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 72
HD4850 : 63
9800GTX : 34

---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.computerbase.de/art..._clive_barkers_jericho

Clive Barker's Jericho 1600x12004xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 53
HD4850 : 29
9800GTX : 25

Clive Barker's Jericho 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 26
HD4850 : 28
9800GTX : 7


---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.computerbase.de/art...v770/8/#abschnitt_fear

FEAR 1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 147
HD4850 : 92
9800GTX : 83

FEAR 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 93
HD4850 : 60
9800GTX : 49


---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.computerbase.de/art...schnitt_call_of_juarez

Call of Juarez 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF
GTX 280 : 30
HD4850 : 21
9800GTX : 20

Call of Juarez 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF
GTX 280 : 24
HD4850 : 17
9800GTX : 6


---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.computerbase.de/art...nitt_company_of_heroes

Company of heroes 1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF
GTX 280 : 84
HD4850 : 46
9800GTX : 47

Company of heroes 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF
GTX 280 : 66
HD4850 : 42
9800GTX : 35

---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.computerbase.de/art...#abschnitt_lost_planet

Lost planet 1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 58
HD4850 : 31
9800GTX : 34

Lost planet 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF:
GTX 280 : 45
HD4850 : 29
9800GTX : 24

As you can see ATI 4850 is a monster with when using 8xAA, it only looses few FPS. 9800GTX is no match for ATI when it comes to 8xAA. 



Now i am looking for more review that has done 8xAA to confirm these sort of result. Since your the very few editors that actually corresponds with its forum member, is the reason i registered. I shall leave the other website's forum to become a full time forum member here.:

Thanks in advance  ... even if you reply saying NO


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## echo75 (Jun 21, 2008)

umm guys is it just me or are we looking at different charts??

i am out to upgrade my 8800gt so i really would like to understand which card will give me the better  results.

From the review , lets take the 3 things i have on my current PC now so i can better compare them to W1zzards review and relate em to my current card.
1Crysis
2.Farcry
3.3Dmark06

unless i am blind the 9800GTX beats it in almost all the charts in those 3 categories and i look at the other games too , its not like the card it on standing out.

Someone please explain to me why i should get this card over the 9800gtx for my next graphic update soon.

TBH i am actually thinking of getting the 9800GTX x2 which  is bold enough to compete with the GTX 280 without costing an arm or leg.


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## HAL7000 (Jun 21, 2008)

niko084 said:


> TBH, I know TONS of people that own 9800Gx2s and 3870x2s and guess what resolution they play most games at 1024x768... Very few people actually run their computers in the native resolution of their lcd, and less have something larger than a 17-19" screen to start with.
> 
> Yes there are some, there always are, but it doesn't matter, you can sell 5 9800GTX's or 100 HD4850s that perform better for the average customer. Thats the key supply/demand performance per dollar for the specific user, in which case the choice is more than obvious.



ahhhhhhh...........your point is ? I wasn't making any claims to resolutions....you need to read the post a little closer please


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## wolf2009 (Jun 23, 2008)

nice card .


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## wolf2009 (Jun 23, 2008)

sorry, done .


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## achilleask (Aug 7, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> My opinion on the latest TPU reviews:
> 
> Company of heroes, I don't know for sure but my guess is that this game did not sell well at all. I don't know a single gamer who owns this game and I am active on game-forums all over the planet and none of my friends ( Belgium, USA, Canada ) know or own this game. I know it's a good game and everyone that did buy it enjoyed it, but come on, that game is like two years old and I really think that nobody cares about that game anymore. So for me, a useless benchmark.
> 
> ...



I think most people misunderstand the point of a benchmark. Benchmarking isn't a "promise" of how good a game will run on your VGA. It's a means for comparison. A quantification of performance. 
If game A runs at 60fps on VGA X, and with the same settings at 100fps on VGA Y, then Y > X.

If we followed your reasoning, of testing VGAs on new games every time, then we would have VGA X running at 60fps on game A and VGA Y running at 50fps on game B. However Y might still be better than X, only B is a more demanding game than A, hence the performance drop. Changing games all the time doesn't help benchmarking. The applications displayed in the review are run for many VGAs, I agree, however using standard applications across multiple reviews provides a consistency in the process making results reusable and comparable between them.

Most games that are used for benchmarking are games that are very demanding upon their time of launch and can stress out a VGA with "cool features and graphical effects". Additionally, these games use a lot of the features we pay for on VGAs. The reason they remain as benchmarks for a year or two is to have a solid base of comparison between VGAs of a generation period of 1-2 years.

I repeat, benchmarking is for COMPARISON, not to tell you which card is best for which game. This is why 3Dmark is used. Following your logic, yes, 3Dmark is useless. I wouldn't care how high my VGA scores on 3Dmark. It's not like I'm going to be running it and looking at the "pritti piksharz". However I can see, for instance, that the VGA I intend to buy scores 3000 points, while an alternative scores 2800 points, helping me decide what the best VGA to buy is.

Running a benchmark on World of Warcraft is not only pointless but stupid. First of all, the graphics are not impressive (I agree it has some nice spell and environmental effects but nothing that will hog a good gaming PC's resources). Secondly, I have rarely seen a benchmark run on WoW. If I tell you WoW runs at 100fps on this VGA... so what? I'm pretty sure all VGAs that cost more than $60 can hit 100fps on WoW. It can not be used as a means for comparison, so it is not.


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