ATi always busts out some drivers after a new card release that give it a big performance boost (supposedly the 8.8 drivers coming up give the 4000 series a nice bump). Unlike nvidia where either their drivers work or they don't. Never see much of an improvement with new driver updates, just **** breaking or **** staying the same.
BTW I'm considering getting a 4870 to replace my 8800GTS 320MB (which I will then pass down to my bro). Best deal I can find is a Powercolor one for $254 after MIR and comes with GRID ($60 value?). I'm debating on whether I should get that or wait for the 4870x2 to come out, perhaps drop the 4870 prices a wee bit, or wait for a 1GB 4870 to come out. Need to figure out before august 20th, as that's when I venture back to school.
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CPU: E7200 @ 3.8GHz (400x9.5)
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS2 5-5-3-15 @ 1000MHz
GPU: eVGA 9800GTX+ 512MB
SC: Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music
HDD: 300GB WD Raptor + 1TB WD Black
OS: Windows 7 RC x64