All and all this card performed VERY well, It is in everyway a cut-above the competition in terms of performance. I can say though (and I'll probably get beat down for it) that its not as fast as I thought it would be. I guess some of the consumer hype (fanboys...) and the way I precived the initial anand benchmarks had me thinking it was even faster then it is. I mean when I seen that it was 250% faster then a 4600, it really only ment that the 4600 scored say 40fps and it scored 100, this only happend under the Absolute most intensive tests done, and wasnt NEARLY as large of a gap at normal resolutions and settings (say, 1024/768 2x AA) I know that 40 to 100 is a 250% increase but its just that I precive there to be more difference because the way its displayed and worded. when I see the actual framerates it doesnt look as impressive.
Its all purely subjective though, no one can deny that it is by far the fastest card out there, But I guess I started to expect the fanboy drivel, for months I've heard nothing but, "R300, sLaY's j00r nEwB nViDsH*t pOs!!!" I guess some of it rubbed off hehe.
While it does beat the 4600 handily in basically everything but price. we would be fooling ourselves to think that nvidia doesnt have a trump card waiting to pounce with the NV30. Wich is good because I want the price of this card to come down. and vice versa. Overall I'm overjoyed with this card. It might not live up to the godlike hype its recieved all over the net (to ME!) but its clearly head and shoulders above nvidias current offerings and will only help this market get higher quality products cheaper and quicker then ever before
thank you ATI! get your fab's in gear and make sure your engineers are well paid I'll be looking for your next card in 6-8 months! and it better be better then the NV30 when it comes out!