AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 4850 and 4870: bloodying NVIDIA's profits

[Jmatt110]

Good idea, however what about crossfire with different cards? Eg 3850/4850, 3850/4870, 3870/4870, etc (they all have to be the 512mb variants). I was wondering as I have a 3850 512mb and really don't want to sell, but it would be interesting to see what the performance would be like when paired up with a 4870.

Crossfire between the 3800 series and 4800 series is incompatable unfortunately.

[!TIMMY!]

Crossfire between the 3800 series and 4800 series is incompatable unfortunately.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38056/135/

Are you sure?

[Tarinder]

Crossfire between the 3800 series and 4800 series is incompatable unfortunately.

It's possible on a technical level, but the difference in architectures is such that we'd keep ones of the same family, if at all possible.

[Jmatt110]

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...=8075&Itemid=1

Yes I know it's Fud, however confirmation from W1zard seems pretty definite. Note that it says not officially supported and TG says "We will probably not qualify this interoperability, but who stops you from trying?" so I guess it's up to people to test it

Edit: I do remember reading a thread about someone running 3dMark06 with 2 4850's and a 3850 (or 70, can't remember) in CF, and from what I remember the performance increase was minimal, I'll try and find the post again.

Edit2: Here's the post of 2 4850's and a 3850 working together. No gaming benchmarks though 3dMark06 score went from 12300 (4850 CF) to 14180 (CF w/ 3850) http://en.hardspell.com/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=3601

[Biscuit]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=12

http://www.hothardware.com/articles/...0_Has_Arrived/

Here is some other reviews for anyone interested.

Beign a COD focussed gamer i had to look else where to make my decision, reckon iv done it after reading some of this(andandtech especially!), 4870 here i come

[!TIMMY!]

Its interesting that it could be done, but its not the most cost effective option is it.

[Platinum]

Overclockers have dropped there price to 199 + Vat, tempted now but will wait to see what Scans price is.

[Rosaline]

Good review, thanks guys!

I think it is a shame that the 48*0 series cards do have three real flaws.

Firstly, you can see in some of the benchmarks were the lower number of texturing units (compared to say, the 280) does hinder performance. GDDR5 offers an incredible amount of bandwidth, but it seems that the GPU simply cannot process textures fast enough to make best use of this. ATI is entirely right, the future should not be about texture processing throughput, but there is a problem with that which I shall be returning to.

Secondly, ATI's drivers have always been a little strange. I've known quite a few people who have reported issues with them of varying severity, and driver quality does make a big difference in performance. ATI really need to improve their driver team, especially with respect to multi-GPU solutions (to try and even out performance and because this is the way that they are going, and better will simply mean better).

Finally, ATI have historically had worse support for developers compared to nVidia, leading to games that do seem to run better on nVidia hardware. ATI really need to get out there and offer support to all developers, especially with respect to making sure that upcoming games all like the idea of multi-GPU rendering.

I was also considering listing the ROP count as an architectural issue, however it compares favourably with others at its price range, so I think we can let that slide for now

Issues aside, I love what this GPU has done to the market. For perhaps the first time, we have multi-GPU setups that are actually practical options. nVidia's approach to the market has been questioned, and it shall be exciting to see what they come up with to compete. Don't expect anything for another year, since they will probably want to get the most they can out of the 200 series, however we could well find that 2009 will be a very good year for the PC enthusiast. With Nehalem coming out, core 2 dropping in price, and nVidia and ATI in real and strong competition again, there should be many good choices at all price levels. The only shame will be the absence of AMD's processors from all of this (unless they can somehow pull off a coup).

As for games used in reviews, I think Kalniel covered the complete range pretty well Personally, I think a UT3 based game would be essential, since this engine is already used a fair amount.

I would also like to see an Oblivion test, however I would want it to use a few mods and tweaks to truly test the system. A tweaked Oblivion setup allows for some very intensive work, such as textures the size of which are not normally used in games yet, and polycounts when viewing landscapes that can get simply silly (with grass and tree draw distance tweaked up in the ini file, and a mod installed to make even the smallest rock have a LOD mesh so that it can be see at distance). Have an explore of The Total Oblvion Texture Overhaul project for links to QTP3 and MTAEVWD, amongst other additions.

I'm assuming that the maturity of the Source engine means that most games that use it run very well even on low level systems with high graphics settings. If that's the case, a formal pester to Valve might be needed for a new stress testing demo

[atomos]

Yea a q3 benchmark would be awesome, its been such an exciting month!

[FifthFreedom]

Overclockers have dropped there price to 199 + Vat, tempted now but will wait to see what Scans price is.

It was always on for that much.

I bought mine this morning for that price.

Comes to 235 total plus shipping.

[Bull Dog]

When the going gets tough, the Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire goes like the Duracell bunny.


Erm I thought Energizer had the bunny.

[stevie lee]

4870's now on scan website... £199 - £239..

have a looksy... http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-94-549-0

[Platinum]

Glad I got my order in when the price was low then

[badass]

You know what I'd be interested in?
2x4850's in crossfire........


On a P35 board. I doubt crossifre will work as well since one card's limited to PCI-e 1.0 at 4x.
Thats got to affect performance significantly.
That said, I think I'll just wait for a 4850 with a better cooler to come out. I dont care if its a dual slot cooler - My 8800 GTS 320 is a dual slot one. Massive idle and load temps scare me!

[DR]

I would be more interested in multiple 4870's on future tech a X58 board ....(!) see how it carries in the future

[!TIMMY!]

You know what I'd be interested in?
2x4850's in crossfire........

It is sooo tempting, but only if the driver support is there.