it seems that AMD has another winner here. makes u kinda wanna reconsider spending an extra $30 on a 4890 don't u think? it wld be interesting to see what rebranded card NVIDIA comes up this time! :p: terrific value-for-money here...Quote:
Some things are better in pairs. We we were impressed by the Radeon HD 4770 as a standalone card priced at $109. However, you asked to see how it performed in CrossFire. Well, if we liked the card before, we love it now.
CF/SLI configuration - useless.
Neeext.
These cards look fun as hell. Can't wait till someone slaps LN2 pots on them :D
Egh.. you can't see past the two cards and see the awesome performance being wrung out of two $100 cards :down:Quote:
Originally Posted by Calmatory
this card makes me wish they built the bigger chips in 40nm sooner
Seriously man, times have changed CF works great. You kinda remind me of those old farts that refuse to use a computer "I dont need that new fangled crap, Its just a fad I tell ya" :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Calmatory
4770 X2 would be cool too.
Who cares about the performance when there are issues due to the nature of the CF?Quote:
Originally Posted by [XC] gomeler
Some people only care about what their FPS counter tells them, maybe they are happy with the setup.
we do need some new reviews going over micro stuttering with low to high end cards of the last and new generations, havnt seen one in months
dont be foolish, how many times do we have to go over it - micro stutter is not a problem under normal gaming circumstances - not even a hint of it on my OCed 4870x2 @ 1920x1200Quote:
Originally Posted by Calmatory
Yeah I was wondering that too. I might consider 4890 CF setup replacing my 285 (I'm on a X38 so no SLI for me).Quote:
Originally Posted by Manicdan
i dont think that is true, ive seen micro stuttering too and i have a single card. there were rumors that a quad core cpu was causing it.Quote:
Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG
theres so much speculation in this that ever individual setup may see it excessively or never depending on the one or two differences.
weve all seen micro stuttering, but what im saying is that if you dont push your card to do crysis/FC2 @ 8xaa 1920x1200 ultra high then your not gonna see stuttering. at least in my experience this is true
You might be right, as one bud told me, he didn't see it (ms) until he moved to a 24" monitor 1920 X 1200. I've never seen it at 1600 X 1050. I kind of hate it when folks who's not seen it claim it doesn't happen. Yet, next time I upgrade a 4850, I'll keep it for some crossfire action of my own LOL!Quote:
Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG
thanks for the link! :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by dr-
i wouldnt feel comfortable with just 512mb...
you know how I know microstuttering has been blown out of proportion?
When people with single cards see it
I bey most people would never have seen it until people started reading about. Then magically any frame that seems incorrect is microstrutering when it could be countless other factors
Nice.
Bleh @ mS whiners, we i play a game i concentrate on the game itself, not in the imaginary impercerptible microsecond of delay that is nothing more than subjective these days
I run two 4670's in CF and get no microstuttering there.
You are stuck in 2007. CF and CFX have advanced considerably :welcome:Quote:
Originally Posted by Calmatory
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manicdan
That's not microstuttering.
That's just your card not being able to keep up.
There's a difference.
Where's the link to that MicroStutter video some one made?Quote:
Originally Posted by cegras
When was that link dated, eehmmm..?Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
If you guys don't like the fact that you can get that kind of performance with $220 then don't buy it. Damn. How many of you who go on about this micro stuttering crap have actually seen it in person? Much less, have you even recently tried it? I had the chance to use two 4850s in CF and I didn't see any damned stuttering.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. Simple as that.
That's too bad cause the only reason I'd be willing to spend money on 2 ATI cards is the fact that I can play my games 1920x1200 with max AA+AAF. Why else anyone wanna deal with the expenses, heat and the CF driver issues?Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
Also, from what you are telling, your friend's system seems to having hard time keeping up with the performance level. I don't think what you describe here is a micro suttering issue. Micro suttering should be apparent regardless of the resolution (somebody correct me if I'm wrong).
The issue really has gone out of proportion these days. These days, we've got people crying ms over things like tearing, choppy framerates, which are entirely different issues.
That said, ms isn't the only kind of grief multi-GPU solutions are able to provide, and some of us have genuinely had bad experiences in the past with it. If the companies want us to buy more than one card, it's up to them to make sure the experience is good the first time.
This is technology, not home design. If want to live on the bleeding edge of consumer gear, your wallet and your patience is going to bleed. Very few things are "good" first time around. I can agree that they should work more on providing a good experience initially, but that's not really a business option, except for the largest of the large. If all technology was perfected before consumers could get their hands on it, odds are we'd be running Radeon 7500s and GeForce 2s. In short, it's a lot more cost effective to release products before they're 100% done, as then you can troubleshoot the issues as they happen. When a programmer writes a code to the best of their abilities, odds are heavily against it being bug-free.Quote:
Originally Posted by MpG
Maybe! He said it and I trust his views first of all. It's something I looked before buying another 4850. From what I read during my quest for info is that higher settings causes it more. I've NOT experienced it with one card @1600X1050.Quote:
Originally Posted by SamHughe
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...0-X2/Practice/
Quote:
Since we've tested many games, we can say that micro stuttering occurs in Half-Life 2, Crysis, Race Driver Grid, Need for Speed Carbon, TES4: Oblivion and 3D Mark Vantage. To be fair, we have to admit, it takes such demanding settings to bring the HD 4870 X2 to her knees. But in the future, with new games, the fps will decrease. Not later than that time the problem will rise again, while those who use big screens or those fans of FSAA will have to deal with the problem all the time.
no worries! cheers mate!Quote:
Originally Posted by tenebre
Why do you attack something which you have no experience with. Or do you expect someone to believe your argument vs someone who actually ones a dual-gpu setup?
Wow! I guess that link answers many of my questions. I wonder if micro suttering is less apparent in two single cards in CF than one 48x0 X2?Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
that is the site that invented the term microstuttering
I love the concept behind CF/SLI, but most games that I own show very little difference between single/dual configurations.
What do you mean? CF sees real world efficiency near 90% frequently.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadwing
i read the title, and just knew this would be a CF & CFx debate. :p:
the 4770 seems to be a real winner, ATi/AMD are really getting their act together it would appear. i could even see myself buying an AMD processor based system in the future at their current rate.
From the review, this thing is barely beating the 4890, which can be found for about the same price. It makes more sense to get a 4890 when you consider a few things.
Microstuttering or not, you can almost guarantee that this thing is going to have lower minimum frame rates. Also once you turn on the eye candy and add AA, you can be certain 512 MB of videocard ram is going to be felt.
CF scaling improves with higher resolution which unfortunately is where this solution will not do as well because of the lack of videomemory. Sure its ok with 4x with some of the less strenous games which already have more than playable framerates, but boom when you put in a game like crysis, your getting worse framerates than a single card solution by a significant margin.
Add in that this solution takes four slots up and its simply impractical. Most of these cards have the cheap cooler too, that dumps heat in the case.
Once I went xfire(two double slot cards), I lost my ability to use my dedicated soundcard.
This article comes to a terrible conclusion. The 4890 is a much better product for the above reasons.
The 4770 to me is a half failure. The 4770 had the chance to be the ultimate HTPC single slot card, but this never came to be. It consumes way more power than it should.
Before someone brings up the price to performance ratio, of course it should have a good price to performance ratio. Its 40nm, anything at 40nm should have a great price to performance ratio. Who cares if it beats a 8800gt by 20%, the 8800gt is more than a year old.
To be honest, i much prefer my gtx260 over my old 4870x2. No driver issues, less heat, more consistent performance.
If you want to see micro stuttering, try playing flatout: ultimate carnage. Even with a very decent frame rate, it's still very noticable.
(That said, im still getting 1 or 2 of these to play with)
call my ignorant but i had no problem at all with my 3870 CF setup
crysis, farcry2, NFS; C&C, CSS all played fine without any problems
the only games where i see a real difference between my new 4870 and the 3870s in CF are Crysis or farcry with AA/AF
CF is great by now, and with enough lanes (x16/x16 2.0) microstuttering isn't a big problem (i have to admit that switching from x38 to P45 made gameplay worse and i had to lower quality on the 3870s with p45)
You tested two Intel systems, Nawwwwwwww!:rofl:Quote:
Originally Posted by generics_user
Anyway, I agree with the other guy, I'd much rather have ONE 4890 than two 4770s or even over adding another power ungrey 4850! My one slot solution does dump heat in the case but I got two 120 sucking air out so that's not a problem.
Crysis is a bad choice to base anything on since its code sucks a big one. Yes I have Both C and CW, Plus both Farcries, Stalkers, Brothers in Arms and etc.....................the only time I've seen stuttering is during Throttling.
I don't think Video card are stressing two eight X PCI-E slots yet so the 16 X 16 argument is moot! Intel processors on Intel P35/38/43/45/48 have shown themselves being faster on Intel chipsets with only 16 X 4 and 8 X 8 than nVidia's 16 X 16!
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3506&p=7
Quote:
We did not notice any difference in game play quality at either resolution between the platforms after playing through several of the levels. Each platform offered a very smooth and fluid gaming experience. We thought the higher minimum frame rates on the Intel systems would be noticeable during the action scenes in the jungle, but we honestly could not tell the systems apart during testing. ............
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 13% and minimum frame rates by 42% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 24% in average frame rates and 40% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 24% and minimum rates increase 48%. Overclocking our processors resulted in a 16%~34% average improvement in average frame rates with the Core i7 benefiting the greatest.
Ewiz got it for $90!!!
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-4770_51
Well i've used a 4870 512mb and a 3870x2 (currently using). And i can notice microstuttering in certain games - Left4dead, Warsow (a quake derrivative) and mirrors edge. Also minfps is a pain CF it's much more problematic with CF to get a "smoother" framerate then with a single card. CF profiles are a hit and miss, most of the time your downloading hotfix's/betas which sorta work/don't work. There are "hacks" for non CF profiled games which can work fairly well.
End of the day if you don't want to worry about the above then get a single GPU solution. Multi GPU is fine, just don't expect it to work how you want it all the time/off the block
If I was in the market for a card, or if I just wanted to switch my cards out 2x 4770's is where I'd go. Since now they are starting to sell for $90 after rebates. Pretty hard to compete with that for the performance it gives out.
So, would one 4770 and one 4850 at least run as fast as two 4770's?Quote:
Originally Posted by deathman20
The 4850 is a little faster in some aspects from what I've seen but for the most part they are equal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
I'd do it just for the fact that it uses less power than anything else out there and yet it is very damn fast for the price.
I use to have 2x 4850's and those cards where wonderful, since then as you can see im running a GTX285, mainly to help keep the noise down for me, and heat output of the 2x 4850's are greater than my single GTX285. 2x 4770's would be equal or less than the GTX285's power consumption, cooler (in terms of heat output) yet still have the horse poewr that the 2x 4850's had.
Have you noticed any microstuttering issue with your 2x4850 setup?Quote:
Originally Posted by deathman20
If you want to call driver glitches microstuttering then yes. But if new drivers came out to fix it, I don't call that a ms issue. So in that case no there was no ms issues that I had.Quote:
Originally Posted by SamHughe
So in other words, no ms issues that I had on my E8400 @ 4.05Ghz with 2x 4850's.
k thanks. That's what I wanted to hear.Quote:
Originally Posted by deathman20
Yeah man, thanks for the info #2!:up:Quote:
Originally Posted by deathman20
Guys, as long as SLI and CFX are still using Alternate Frame Rendering, then micro stuttering will never go away completely. It is inherent with AFR, there isn't anything you can do to fix it at a driver level, other than switching to a different multi GPU rendering mode, most of which perform considerably worse. MS never went away with driver updates. People just got used to it. If you gave them a single GPU that was as fast as their multi GPU setup, the difference would be night and day. And micro stuttering is not subjective. You can measure the latency between frames using Fraps.
There was an article on Anandtech (I think that's where it was) a while back that compared single GPU to 2-way, 3-way and 4-way AFR configurations and measured the latency between frames with Fraps. There was a very stark difference in latency with single GPU vs multi GPU, but for some reason, 4-way AFR by far was the worst, considerably more latency than 2-way and 3-way. I can attest to that having previously owned 2x 4870X2.
So you are saying your current setup (4890 CF) runs smoother than your previous setting (2x 4870X2), right?Quote:
Originally Posted by 003
Honestly, with my current setup, I can play most current games with decent frames @ 1920x1200. I can't add much to this system except a CF since I can't go SLI. I am just debating if it is worth getting two 4890's over a single 285. I like to play my games @ higher res. with AA, AAF on.
I actually don't have the cards yet. They will be here Thursday. But, I previously owned GTX280 SLI, and it was much smoother than 2x 4870X2. Compared to a single GTX280, the framerate did feel a bit lower than what was reported by Fraps, but it was nothing like the stuttering I experienced with 2x 4870X2, particularly in UT3 with high levels of AA.Quote:
Originally Posted by SamHughe
the fact of the matter is anytime a single gpu from a CF setup would have dropped below ~15fps on its own the game starts to see major stutter. Personally I'm not sure if its micro stutter or not but it is a result of pushing the card too far. (frame data too large, so and so)
this is why 4770 CF ≠ 4890 among other reasons.
As CF gets better we may see that minimum frame rate of >15 fps per gpu get lower but i dont think this will happen until GPU arch evolves and we begin to see "dual core" gpus
Will we ever see "Dual-Core" Gpus?Quote:
Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG
I made a thread about it on another forum and I became a laughstock since GPUs have been "multi-core" forever, RV770 = 800 Shader Processors.
Or am I very-very off here?:shrug:
Two GPUs integrated on the same chip is basically what the RV670->RV770 transisiton was, from 320 to 800 stream processors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smartidiot89
We may see MCM GPUs which have two chips on the same package connected via PCI-E, though.
Fixed. :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by tajoh111
there's already been a dual core gpu. the 7950x2 from the past, but that was a failure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smartidiot89
Huh I don't get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by KoHaN69
was that 2 chips in one die though? iirc it wasnt:confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteFireDragon
-checked- Its dual PCB which isn't what he was getting at,
what the person meant is like intels C2Q in that it's 2 C2D chips "stuck" together in one die..
the industry has found its sweet spot between price, yield rates, and scalability. ATI wasnt about being the fastest, but the fastest per dollar. look back at the massive 2900xt which was pretty powerful compared to a 1900 series, but consumed way to much power, and probably had crappy yield rates. while making a C2D style chip is surly possible, im thinking they dont need it in their market.
however it would be sweet for them to make a duel 4870 and compare it to a 4870x2, given it will have 2 chips and share 1GB, vs having separated chips and needing to double the memory, i think we would love to see the performance and power differences. if they found out it was 10% faster and used 10% less energy, and was even able to fit on a pcb 2-3" shorter than an X2, id think they should try it out. the only question left would be, what number would they call it? a 4970 or a 4875 or something else?
But then wouldn't they be forced to use more memory and a larger bit-width? Also even something like a MCM version of the 4770 would then need a CPU cooler, right, I'm not sure, just asking here? I think they would go back to the 9xxx's for the name like V9540 or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manicdan
the 4870: 800 stream processors, 256 bit GDDR5 and 512MB (i think i have the specs right)
chip #1 has 1600 SPs, 512 bit of 1GB (this would be the duel chip combined)
chip #2 has 2x 800 SPs, 2x 256 bit of 1GB each (this would be the X2)
technical specs look the same with the exception of the difference in ram size. but in theory id think the first one would perform better since the 2 chips would talk to each other at much better speeds and lower latency (i guess) and would probably be more versatile since it wouldnt have to worry about xfire scalability, it would just be 100% more powerful in any situation, instead of up to 90% in alot.
Makes sense to me, but like the guys above, I talked about MCM and adding another 256bit memory and got flamed and laughed at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manicdan
yeah, cpus and gpus are totally different, for all we know it may not be physically possible to have C2D type gpu
The higher resolution tests with filters on show how much of a short-lived "price/performance king" this CF HD4770 system is.
Lack of RAM is a problem that just gets exponentially worse with time, and several developers have said that RAM amount will play an increasingly important role in upcoming games.
The lack of memory is pushing back these GPUs a lot, Unless it's a system to use with a 720p LCD TV/projector.
2*HD4770 1GB would make sense but then again, higher-density GDDR5 is very expensive (not to mention almost unexistent). It would make the whole bang-for-the-buck theme of this GPU a bit pointless.
The current ATI line-up is quite good as it is:
- $100: get the HD4770
- $150: get the HD4870 512MB
- $220: get the HD4890 1GB
If some retailer comes out with cheap (>$120) 1GB HD4770s, then Crossfiring them would be a good idea. But remember we would be already limiting our system's upgradeability by putting two graphics cards in it right from the start.
:yepp: But nothing wrong with dreaming!Quote:
Originally Posted by Manicdan
Yes but you can do much better shopping than that. The economy is still sucking very badly. Pricewatch and PriceGrabber have High-end video cards at all time lows!Quote:
Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz
4890 for $235 with a $20 MIR for a final cost of $215.
4870 512MB $175 and 1GB for $186.
4850 going for 1GB for $156 and
even a 4850 for X2 for $237.
$189 for the 260/216 GF as well.
The only reason I haven't upgraded is I can't make up my mind which on to get:D I don't think 4770 X 2 is that great of deal except for power savings.
Another thing I don't get. How can some folks complain about 8 X 8 for Crossfire while we know X2 versions of the cards rock. An X2 Card would have the same effective bandwidth as PCI-E 8 X 8 on many Intel chipsets, right?
i think we need a site that compares all cards with their typical OC to each other. so many choices/configurations in the 200-300$ range and a deal breaker might be quite clear if we showed price/performance ratios after their OC.
I wouldn't take it too seriously bro. People get flamed and laughed at for many reasons here at XS. There are a lot of 13 years old 1337 haxors lurking here thinking they know everthing and the only way to show this is by ridiculing the others.Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
True story. CF works really well on nearly every game now a days. Sounds like someone has e-penis envy.Quote:
Originally Posted by G0ldBr1ck
So you're processor bottlenecked maybe? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadwing
True... 8x isn't really a problem yet regardless of what some people claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
There are some interesting discussion and debates in this thread. I'm suprised that nobody mentioned the worst part of this article, it's on Tom's Hardware. Any shred of quality on that site was lost 10 years ago. My best advice would be to do the exact opposite of anything that's suggested on Tom's Hardware.
Yeah I know, I just feel sorry for the threads their lurking in:yepp:Quote:
Originally Posted by SamHughe
That's what I thought, thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Vinas
8x does have minor drops in performance. 5-10% at most if not mistaken at the 1920x1200 res depending on the game. Course those tests where done a while back and with 4850's. Not nearly as bad as a 8x 4x or 16x 4x setup which can have drops much much higher.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vinas
5 to 10%, that much, really?Quote:
Originally Posted by deathman20
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...crossfire.html
Crossfire on P45 isn't the same as asking about Crossfire on X58 or etc.....
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/15...45/index5.html
That's the board I'm using. That's why I'd rather go with X2 but want something that's cooler and draws less power than 2 4850's or X2 4850!
The comparison was done on a X38 board if not mistaken. If I can find the test results I'll post the link, was sometime mid last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie27
I'm not opposed to CF/SLI builds but I will always take a single card setup if there is one in the same price/performance ballpark. Two 4770 cards seems like extra hassle for performance that comes so close to the 4890 for similar money.
same
I've used 4 CF and SLI setups over the last 3 years and I'd have to agree. I tried a GTX 260 216 for a short time and was actually more happy with it all around than my 4870x2... ( ie things were still playable with respectable IQ, better drivers, more quiet ; and as not to sound bias I'll mention I've experimented with 4870s in single / cf configs as well )
One thing I've personally found is SLI / CF in your average chasis is a poor idea when it comes to single slot coolers. Now sure you can mod in more fans ect but I've had the best experiances when using cards with dual slot coolers ( less noise and heatbuild up internally ; and yes I know you can go water / aftermarket with single slot cards but at this price point its kinda bleh )
I still won't deny the potential value to be found with these cards though, I'd just personally go for a single 4870 1GB at that point. 512 Vram may become a little tight soon.