said by Somnambul33t 
:said by Cthen :Is the performance that much better on the Radeon 4870 to justify it being almost $100 more than the 4850? In some cases I have seen the 4870 a little over $100 more than the 4850.
depends on the situation. if you:
game @ 1920x1080 or higher
expect the highest quality settings
play newer games
have an adequate CPU (X2 5400+ or higher , Core2Duo 6xxx or higher)
then yes you'll benefit from going with the pricier HD4870. if you play at 1600x1200 or lower (with no plans to upgrade monitor) or play older games then i'd see no reason spending extra.
the difference is noticeable in most currently and commonly benchmarked games. there's a real-world advantage to the 4870 (or GTX260) over the 4850 at higher resolutions in games ranging from Assassin's Creed, Crysis, World in Conflict, Age of Conan, and others.
That's the only difference from what you mentioned. I run a lower resolution (1280x768) than that on a 22" widescreen. However I do play the newer games (currently TF2 being my fav.) in 1280x768 as well. The rest of the system is up to par but with the new cards out for a bit it's finally time to replace this x800 gto2. 
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