Quote Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle View Post
Will the 4800 series actually beat the GTX260/280? It's really hard to say right now. But I have to ask something? Are we still living in a day/age where we must OC our top end video cards to get acceptable frame rates in current games? I honestly believe we are in such a day/age were OC'ing high end video cards appear to be more of luxury not a necessity when playing games. Therefore, what are you really gaining as a customer if you don't have to OC to play your games? Yes, there will be 3DMark and Vantage it's fun to benchmark IMO. But if you are a gamer at heart (and some of you are) knowing that this gen of video cards will only increase the standard of performance. There is little incentive to upgrade from a performance POV.
if your taking that view on things why overclock at all?
its the bang for buck factor of buying a less powerful graphics card and pushing it to beat somthing costing allot more.

cards like the 9800 and 3870(x2)? will handle anything you throw at it today except maybe for crysis at crazy settings or games with 4X+ AA?