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

[HEXUS]

Today sees the official launch of the Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 graphics cards. We disseminate the technology and evaluate just how hard they punch NVIDIA in the gut.

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[Nemz0r]

Hmm, strange Crysis crossfire results - all other reviews i've seen see notable increase.

[Blackmage]

Nice looks like the HD4870 is the card to get. Nvidia have nothing in that price range, i think this will work for amd.

[Jmatt110]

Hmm, strange Crysis crossfire results - all other reviews i've seen see notable increase.

Could be something with the drivers used. Hexus used the Cat 8.6 press drivers, others have used regular 8.6's. To my understanding they are slightly different, correct me if im wrong. Also there is a hotfix for the 4800 series, can't remember if it was used in this review.

Also, does anyone have an idea of how much more performance 1gb 4870's will gain, and how much more the cost will be? Thanks

[Sprite]

As someone has said before the above card is NOT A 3850, it's a 2600XT...

[kalniel]

Bye bye ringbus

As someone has said before the above card is NOT A 3850, it's a 2600XT...

Didn't someone already reply and say that early reference 3850s did infact look like that?

Shame Hexus continue to use such an odd suite of games to benchmark, great article otherwise.

[Tarinder]

Bye bye ringbus




Didn't someone already reply and say that early reference 3850s did infact look like that?

Shame Hexus continue to use such an odd suite of games to benchmark, great article otherwise.

I'm adamant that I had, at one time, a press 3850 that looked like the 2600 XT.

Which other games did you have in mind; I'm more than willing to look at a wider range of benchmarks?

[Tarinder]

Could be something with the drivers used. Hexus used the Cat 8.6 press drivers, others have used regular 8.6's. To my understanding they are slightly different, correct me if im wrong. Also there is a hotfix for the 4800 series, can't remember if it was used in this review.

Also, does anyone have an idea of how much more performance 1gb 4870's will gain, and how much more the cost will be? Thanks

We had to test at the last minute, as always, and the single-card HD 48x0 numbers were run using the original (last week) 8.6 press driver. The CrossFire numbers, run yesterday, were using the latest internal driver.

We're going back over Crysis with the latest driver, to see if there's any gain in performance. If there is, the graph and HEXUS.bang4buck will be updated.

[Jmatt110]

Which other games did you have in mind; I'm more than willing to look at a wider range of benchmarks?

Personally I'd like to see Assassins's Creed (with forced AA at higher resolutions through the config file, using the unpatched copy of the game to show off Dx10.1 [if it's not too much of a bias towards ATi]), perhaps something off the Unreal 3 engine (Bioshock, UT3) and maybe even World In Conflict

[Tarinder]

Personally I'd like to see Assassins's Creed (with forced AA at higher resolutions through the config file), perhaps something off the Unreal 3 engine (Bioshock, UT3) and maybe even World In Conflict

In fact, let's open this thread up for discussion of the cards and the games you'd like to see - we're always willing to listen and adopt new benchmarks.

[MadduckUK]

As someone has said before the above card is NOT A 3850, it's a 2600XT...

that was me!

its missing so many caps, the 6 pin connector etc. i dont see how it could actually be functional as a 3850 - and if it is why did ATI complicate the retail card so much. Tarinder must be on the hooch

there is however a difference iv noticed between the 3850 and 4850's cooler.. the fins in the 3850 are horizontal while the 4850's fan out from the... erm.. fan. and the fan has more blades. compare bottoms (ooh)

[Jmatt110]

In fact, let's open this thread up for discussion of the cards and the games you'd like to see - we're always willing to listen and adopt new benchmarks.

This is why I love HEXUS

In terms of benchmarks, basically what I posted before is what I'd like to see.

In terms of the 48x0 review, would it be possible for you guys to do some 3 and 4 way CrossFire benching? (From the review I'd gather you guys have 2 4850's and 2 4870's, so putting them together would bring it down to a 4850 CFX score, although with half the cards on GDDR5 )

[Barkotron]

I definitely agree there should be something using Unreal Engine 3, if only because of the inevitable billions of games which will use it. The various incarnations of Unreal and Quake have been the mainstay of PC gaming engines for ages, so it seems a bit of an oversight to completely ignore one of them.

Assassin's Creed with DX10.1 would be interesting, but are there not image quality issues with the implementation? I haven't seen anyone get to the bottom of that definitively.

I have never understood why Lost Planet is involved in benchmarks. For my money it's a well-below-average shooter, and is the engine used anywhere else? Big fat "meh" to that one.

How about something like Stalker? Clear Sky should be a big game and looks beautiful from the previews - does anyone have any idea whether performance in the original is going to be an indicator of performance in Clear Sky?

I don't think Oblivion's completely irrelevant yet either, running around in the forests between Skingrad and Chorrol with all the sliders whacked over to the right is still a pretty tough workout, and I believe Fallout 3 is going to be using the same engine (updated maybe?) so there's future relevance there as well.

How about Quake 3 as well, just for ****s and giggles? I want to see a graphics card review hit 5 figure frame rates

[Jmatt110]

Assassin's Creed with DX10.1 would be interesting, but are there not image quality issues with the implementation? I haven't seen anyone get to the bottom of that definitively.

Rage3D.com did a very thorough analysis of DX10.1 in AC using a 3870x2. The link escapes me atm, however it was very interesting and the results were quite stunning.

[Azza]

Is it me or is the main site being knackered at the moment.


Everythings taking ages to load / not even loading.

[Fraz]

Is it me or is the main site being knackered at the moment.


Everythings taking ages to load / not even loading.

Same.