ATI HD4800 Review Thread

[ceevee]

IDK if you're clearly biased or such a huge Nvidia fanboy or an uber rich dude who only care about performance and demand the best but your statements don't make any sense at all. First you compare the GTX 280 which is a high end video card to a performance HD4870 then you start making assumption about Nvidia next card like the GTX280GX2 (I got one for you right below, maybe you're the only one who can afford that) and blah blah blah
Pls keep in mind that not everybody here have the money to spend like you, yeh sure you can get 2xGTX 280 and pwns the HD4870 in CF but considering the GTX 280 is about 13% faster than the HD4870 but with more than twice the price, is it really worth it?

Dunno if it's legit or not but it seems 2xHD4870X2 can beat GTX 280 in Tri-SLI.
http://en.hardspell.com/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=3605

I think the 4870 is an amzing card and AMD deserves .

However I do not understand people saying it has the performance crown when it clearly does not, not to mention you are saying this about a card that may not even be released for 2 MONTHS.

Anyway here is GTX280 in tri-SLI so you can see that it handily beats your x12000 score from 2xHD4870x2:

[adamsleath]

quite a level playing field at the moment.
it's a far tougher choice betwen ati and nv for me right now.
bang for buck must go to ati....surely?

and as far as i'm concerned g92 is toast.

[grimREEFER]

i would imagine that 3x factory overclocked gtx 280's would generally beat 2x 4870x2's, losing in maybe some of the games that play really well with amd cards, like cod 4. the price difference is pretty massive as well, the amd cards being much cheaper.
well, when you're dealing with multiple cards of that caliber, i would feel weird with just a 512mb buffer anyway.

[zerazax]

Here's the deal: No one is saying the GTX280 doesn't have the performance crown right now. Most people agree that it clearly does. But, most people are also saying that the 4870 matches the GTX260 (and beats it with price) and gets close to the GTX280 even in certain games and settings. One on one, no one in their right mind is going to say that the GTX280 is slower than the 4870. If the single card performance crown is going to be lost to an ATI offering, it will have to come from the 4870X2 or whatever they call it.

And the biggest issue I see echoed is that the GTX280 is just too damn expensive compared to what ATI is offering. If the GTX280 were $450 it'd be a great price. But as of right now, when the 4870 is offering 80-90% of the performance at 1/2 the cost, you have to want absolute performance despite cost to want the GTX280 at this moment.

PS - those cards are overclocked so at least compare scores w/ non-OC'd cards..

[Solus Corvus]

However I do not understand people saying it has the performance crown when it clearly does not, not to mention you are saying this about a card that may not even be released for 2 MONTHS.

It certainly has the performance/$ crown. I don't see anyone saying that it has the absolute performance crown. Do you?

And you started this ride on the speculation train about a card that isn't released yet when you said:

Actually last I checked 2x GTX280 in SLI pretty much owns 2x 4870 in crossfire and will own 4870x2, so where do you get:

Do you actually know how it will perform any better then the rest of us? My guess is...no.

Anyway here is GTX280 in tri-SLI so you can see that it handily beats your x12000 score from 2xHD4870x2:

And what about at stock clocks?

[iTravis]

I think the 4870 is an amzing card and AMD deserves .

However I do not understand people saying it has the performance crown when it clearly does not, not to mention you are saying this about a card that may not even be released for 2 MONTHS.

Anyway here is GTX280 in tri-SLI so you can see that it handily beats your x12000 score from 2xHD4870x2:

Are you talking about the HD4870X2 or HD4870 that has the performance crown? Maybe you just misunderstood the point, HD4870 offers the best performance in term of the price you pay for and by judging from the GTX 280 is 13% faster than the HD4870, people have high hope for the HD4870X2 will take the performance crown. Once again, it's just speculation so nobody knows for sure.
And btw, if you look at the site, they say "Though 3-way GeForce GTX 280 got X14717 but it matched Core 2 Extreme QX9650 4.5GHz, the clocks are 710/1528/1196MHz" and 2xHD4870X2 was running at default clock and lower specs. Your score is probably come from a ridiculously high OC on both CPU and GPU so it's understandable.

[Metroid]

Actually last I checked 2x GTX280 in SLI pretty much owns 2x 4870 in crossfire and will own 4870x2, so where do you get:

It does, 2x GTX280 is the best of all, however some things we have to consider before we reach that conclusion, first you have to use a Nvidia chipset to get SLI and that is a negative feedback because Nvidia chipset does not work well with Intel processors unless you go to AMD territory and pick up a Phenom or the previous cheap versions +6000 so that you would eliminate the chipset drawbacks as Nvidia chipset works quite good once running AMD processors.

Second you need to have a powerful power supply to manage its power, third you know that 2x GTX280 = $1300, now tell me is that really necessary?

I would recommend a single HD4850 or a HD4700 as both of them contains what most of us need. I still think a 8800GT is just enough to handle the majority of games at full speed 60 FPS, the HD4850 is amazing and the HD4780 is just the right option for anyone who wants or needs to upgrade.

Metroid.

[Bo_Fox]

I wonder how much closer the 4870 will get to the 280 once it's slapped with 1GB of memory instead of 512mb.

[ceevee]

And what about at stock clocks?

Those are basically stock clocks for the EVGA card in question. (FTW edition)

[Solus Corvus]

Those are basically stock clocks for the EVGA card in question. (FTW edition)

It would be foolish to think that none of the ATI partners are going to release overclocked versions of their respective cards. You missed the point.

Are 2 of the topend cards from Nvidia going to beat 2 of the topend cards from ATI? I don't know, and I am willing to bet that you don't either.

But I do know that when a low lag 30" monitor comes out I am going to want the absolute fastest graphics card solution available at the time - whichever company that comes from. But in the mean time, a 4870 should work wonders on my 24" and it happens to be in my budget.

[Syn.]

For everyone intreasted in R700 you might want to look at this:

The CrossFire Sideport

Although AMD isn't talking about it now, the CrossFire Sideport is a new feature of the RV770 architecture that isn't in use on the RV770 at all. In future, single-card, multi-GPU solutions (*cough* R700) this interface will be used to communicate between adjacent GPUs - in theory allowing for better scaling with CrossFire. We'll be able to test this shortly as AMD is quickly readying its dual-GPU RV770 card under the R700 codename.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=9

[grimREEFER]

anand has the now $425 9800gx2 beating the 4870 and gtx 280 basically universally, and by some very large margins in some cases.
so, imo, nvidia should just focus on that card more, cause the gtx260 is kinda bs now that the 4870 is out, and the gtx 260 hasnt actually launched yet.

[AbelJemka]

I think the 4870 is an amzing card and AMD deserves .

However I do not understand people saying it has the performance crown when it clearly does not, not to mention you are saying this about a card that may not even be released for 2 MONTHS.

Anyway here is GTX280 in tri-SLI so you can see that it handily beats your x12000 score from 2xHD4870x2:

50000 CPU Score
PhysX...

[ceevee]

50000 CPU Score
PhysX...

It seems AMD has had a panic attack because they cannot do physics yet, so they are trying to play dirty and have physics removed from Vantage.

Hopefully we will not have to gimp our systems and remove PhysX support to run the benchmark.

[AriciU]

Seriously dude. I don't see you setting any record in Vantage, PhysX or no PhysX. Why do you care so much about a benchmark if you're not trying to get top10 in ORB? I don't think AMD has any power over Futuremark.

[Solus Corvus]

Will Nvidia cards be able to do Havoc on the GPU? Probably not. Will Nvidia fans cry red herring for benches that support Havoc when ATI can do them on GPU? Definitely. That's the nature of a fanboy.

To me, the only thing that will matter is FPS in actual games, everything else is cute, but irrelevant.

[AbelJemka]

It seems AMD has had a panic attack because they cannot do physics yet, so they are trying to play dirty and have physics removed from Vantage.

Hopefully we will not have to gimp our systems and remove PhysX support to run the benchmark.

Lol.
Futuremark drivers rules specified this. Nvidia knows it.

[AriciU]

Lol.
Futuremark drivers rules specified this. Nvidia knows it.

Nah man, AMD bribed Futuremark so they chopped off 2" of Nvidia's e-penis

[Motiv]

It seems AMD has had a panic attack because they cannot do physics yet, so they are trying to play dirty and have physics removed from Vantage.

Hopefully we will not have to gimp our systems and remove PhysX support to run the benchmark.

Until you stated this, I was on your side. That really is a terrible response. yes, you want the best card you can buy as of now but to say AMD are panicking, is crazy talk.

As the other poster has pointed out AMD can use physx if they want but they have jumped aboard the industry leader in Havok (intel).

Having Physx in Vantage is stupid as it has no relevance on actual games at the moment and distorts the entire benchmark. It should be removed.

[Insanity]

Having Physx in Vantage is stupid as it has no relevance on actual games at the moment and distorts the entire benchmark. It should be removed.

Furthermore, it was designed to bench on dedicated PhysX cards and CPUs, not on GPUs.

As the PhysX bench running on the PPU/GPU is not very graphic intensive, it has NO sense at all. It practicaly makes the GPU as a dedicated PPU, but in actual games, the GPU will be busy rendering graphics and won't have that much power for physic processing.

[Buck47]

Thanks for the compliment. This is what we get for 24 hours of reviewing since I went to AMD personally yesterday to pick up the card or it would have never got to me in time....

Thanks for all the hard work Sky. Excellent job on the review.

[roadie]

Here is ours, erally complete and compared to HD4850,GTX 260 and 9800GTX
http://www.chw.net/Revisiones/Tarjet...806252037.html

This is a great review. Thanks for focusing on minimum fps. All reviews should do this.

On a separate note, the idle power consumption of the 4870 is a little worrying. Hopefully a driver fix can drop the ~40W extra it seems to be using over competing cards.

[jcool]

Great - now where are these 1GB Vram cards, I want two

[JohnJohn]

Who said RV770 consumed like a GTX280????????????????????????????

[AriciU]

Here's another review. Crossfire included Looks great.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990