The Radeon HD 4870 1GB sure dropped to $150 pretty quickly, didn’t it? The Radeon HD 4890 really isn’t all that far behind at $190 (as low as $170 with mail-in rebates). So, for the Radeon HD 5850 to be a success at $259, it’d better be appreciably quicker, right?

Nvidia has its own high-end bruisers around the same price range, too. A GeForce GTX 275 at $210 is mighty tasty. And a GTX 285—the company’s fastest single-GPU board available—isn’t bad at $330 or so given its single-GPU flagship status (less than $300, after some of those rebates).

If you haven’t yet checked out our review of the Radeon HD 5870, you might want to give it a quick peek. After all, the Radeon HD 5850 under our microscope today centers on the same fundamental architecture as that board (and I don’t think I can swing another 10,000 word story this week, so this piece isn't going to cover all of the GPU nuances).