I would have loved to download and write up some impressions on the newly released Red Faction: Guerilla demo, however I’m currently breaching 90% of the bandwidth limit. So instead, I’ll be talking about my Mini 9 and my impressions of it after five months of use.

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AMD and Nvidia decided to refresh their top end lineups today with two new video cards:

• AMD Radeon HD 4890
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 275

Both video cards will debut at around $250 USD. Nothing particularly surprising from either one of them. They average 10%-15% increase in performance compared to their predecessors which means owners of the predecessors may not want to shell out the money for the minimal upgrade.

As for the winner between the two of them? It’s a tough call. AnandTech has the review for those who wish to know more.

I’m not discounting my current Dell Mini 9’s performance. It is fine for what I need to do, but that’s not to say that it couldn’t be better. For example, it struggles to decode compressed high definition video content. To be frank, the Intel GMA 950 is a poor excuse for a graphics chip.

To save the ultra portable and bite sized computing market from a future of limited video processing is the NVIDIA Ion platform which was unveiled at CES 2009. It’s powered by an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M — the exact same GPU chipset that powers the new Apple MacBooks. This little puppy includes not only a beefy GPU and Intel Atom compatibility, but also other noteworthy features such as:

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This piece of news is pretty big. If you purchase an Intel X58 based motherboard for your Intel Core i7 you will be able to use both AMD/ATI’s Crossfire and Nvidia’s SLI capabilities with the appropriate video cards. Intel chipsets tend to be the best of the bunch and with this solution, you aren’t forced to make that decision of red team or green team; now you can choose the blue team and get both!

There are many hoops for motherboard manufacturers to jump through and since they are part of the Intel “X” chipsets, they will be expensive motherboards, but this is the step in the right direction.

I wonder how long it will be until we see this capability trickle down to the more mainstream chipset offerings.

So after seeing how competitive the Radeon HD 4870 was, I bet it was getting awfully difficult for NVIDIA to price their new video cards at $649.99 USD and $399.99 USD respectively. NVIDIA’s only course of action was a hefty price cut. NVIDIA cut the Geforce GTX 280’s price down to $499.99 USD and the 260’s price to around $329.99 USD.

In other news, Intel is apparently planning to cut prices on its processors as well. The details of the cuts are non-existent, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re shopping for a new PC in the near future.

Nvidia’s Geforce 9800 GTX+ for $229 is no match for the overall buffness of the ATI Radeon HD 4850. Not really surprising since Nvidia didn’t even believe the speed bump warranted a full numerical upgrade.

Interestingly, AnandTech pointed out how the Geforce 8800 GTS 512MB and the Geforce 8800 GT are at a disadvantage when it comes to pricing. They will need to either lower price or axe one of the cards from retail shelves.

Since Nvidia has no real answer to the AMD Radeon HD 4850, I guess we have new mid-range king.

The Geforce 8800 GT is a fine card at approximately $199 USD, but that’s months ago and we’re now looking ahead to the new “hotness”. The new AMD Radeon HD 4850 looks to be the next great card for that mid-range price point. The Tech Report has a great first look with AMD’s new card and I am impressed. It outpaces the newly priced Geforce 9800 GTX.

It’s a single slot and as much as I enjoy single slot cards, the high temperatures worry me a bit. Regardless, it looks like it’s our new mid-range king. Nvidia is trying to fight back with a overclocked and refined Geforce 9800 GTX+, but until we have numbers from that card and a competitive price: they’ve got nothing.