HD 4850 Previews

[onewingedangel]

Can you tell us if there will be more than one amount of standard memory on the 4870, or if they will all either be 512 or 1GB.

The cards we've recieved for testing feature 512MB but partners are of course free to customise as they see fit.

But GDDR5 isn't cheap and there's a limited choice of modules, so personally I wouldn't expect 1GB HD4870's for a good while - 1GB HD4850's are far more likely using already avaliable high capacity GDDR3 modules.

[AliG]

hey isn't it possible to get xfire to work on an nvidia chipset with the right drivers? If that's possible then I wouldn't have to upgrade my old 590 sli setup (amd rig, lol 590 sli + conroe = epic fail)

[omega1alpha]

I recently picked two (Visiontek) of these up for some crossfire goodness. You can see my system specs below. I'm not a fan boy and both Nvidia and Ati can kiss my arse. I'll share a few observations. These cards run hot as hell. You will burn your fingers trying to touch these after running for a few minutes. Idles around 78* and loads well over 90*. I have 4 120MM fans blowing on the case side and I encountered numerous lockups at stock speeds. Default fan speeds suck and hopefully rivatuner will allow for adjustments. Crossfire doesn't scale all that well on my current motherboard. I had various lockups and performance wasn't that impressive. Other reviews seemed much better. I loaded updated 8.6 drivers and the Vista X64 hotfix, but nothing really mattered. Ati should drop the price on this thing closer to $130 for this to be a decent deal and use a better cooler. I'm sure others might have better luck with a dual x16 Pci Express board, but I still expected more out of this with my P35 chipset. I think I'm going to stepup to a GTX 260 and trade-in my G92 GTS. However, I would definitely recommend the G92 GTS over the Ati 4850 at current price levels and I would be cautious with crossfire on certain mainboards because YMMV.

Final conclusions: (1) seems slower than a G92 GTS for around the same price and (2) G92 GTS runs cooler and overclocks like a champ

[LordEC911]

Final conclusions: (1) seems slower than a G92 GTS for around the same price and (2) G92 GTS runs cooler and overclocks like a champ

1) Definitely no. I am getting about the same performance as a decently overclocked 8800GTS 512mb.
2) 4850 has a single slot cooler, at idle it is at ~10%speed and full load isn't higher than 25%. Once they get the fan speed corrected in the next driver or other utilities get support for the RV770, it will be just fine.

Putting a VF900 on my 4850, after the stock cooler was idling at 72-74C and loading at 82C, the card now idles at 35-40C depends on fan settings and loads at 50-55C.
If you don't have another cooler to put on it, at least think about replacing the stock thermal paste. A S1 would also be a nice replacement.

[Helmore]

hey isn't it possible to get xfire to work on an nvidia chipset with the right drivers? If that's possible then I wouldn't have to upgrade my old 590 sli setup (amd rig, lol 590 sli + conroe = epic fail)

Yes it is, but I don't think it will be easy to find those drivers. BTW, it's not the ATI drivers that are restricting CF on an NVIDIA chipset, it's a chipset drivers related limitation AFAIK.

[BrowncoatGR]

but I still expected more out of this with my P35 chipset.

You shouldn't have. Crossfire has been shown to perform very poorly on P35.

[flopper]

You shouldn't have. Crossfire has been shown to perform very poorly on P35.

yea, seen numbers as 40% worse than x38/p45/x48.

[omega1alpha]

Glad to see that someone is getting better results than me. I really wanted to be happy with this card. Here are some quick benches in Vista X64 with both cards at stock:

Crysis is about 5 fps slower with 4850 and Crossfire is slower than with 1 card
All other games (Devil MAy Cry 4, COD4, Mass Effect, etc) seem about the same or a few extra frames going either way.
3dmark06 I'm getting around 14K on single 4850 and about 17.5K on crossfire
GTS card is getting over 15K at stock and 16.2K overclocked to 800/2000/1100

I had poor Overclocking on these 4850 cards. One hit 700/1100 with some instability and the other won't overclock a lick. I'm sure it's because of the poor cooling and low fan speeds at the moment. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this for crossfire on the P35 chipset. A single card 4850 might be slightly faster and/or on par with a GTS G92, but the GTS might be cheaper and it will smoke the 4850 with a decent overclock. I don't like the current overclock on these 4850s with current cooling. That's just my humble opinion. Others might do better with a different mainboard. Good luck guys.

[omega1alpha]

You shouldn't have. Crossfire has been shown to perform very poorly on P35.

You guys are dead on right. I just expected it to be a lot better even on the P35. I would clearly warn others with a P35 to not even bother with crossfire.

[wideband]

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this for crossfire on the P35 chipset.

The P5K DLX pcie runs at 16x/4x I think, therefore xfire would be very poor as you have stated. Not all P35 mobos do though.

Nice info btw.

[Zytek_Fan]

Glad to see that someone is getting better results than me. I really wanted to be happy with this card. Here are some quick benches in Vista X64 with both cards at stock:

Crysis is about 5 fps slower with 4850 and Crossfire is slower than with 1 card
All other games (Devil MAy Cry 4, COD4, Mass Effect, etc) seem about the same or a few extra frames going either way.
3dmark06 I'm getting around 14K on single 4850 and about 17.5K on crossfire
GTS card is getting over 15K at stock and 16.2K overclocked to 800/2000/1100

I had poor Overclocking on these 4850 cards. One hit 700/1100 with some instability and the other won't overclock a lick. I'm sure it's because of the poor cooling and low fan speeds at the moment. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this for crossfire on the P35 chipset. A single card 4850 might be slightly faster and/or on par with a GTS G92, but the GTS might be cheaper and it will smoke the 4850 with a decent overclock. I don't like the current overclock on these 4850s with current cooling. That's just my humble opinion. Others might do better with a different mainboard. Good luck guys.

VR-Zone reported issues with Crysis as well, but that was the only game they mentioned had problems.

[omega1alpha]

Just a couple of final thoughts before I repackage these cards and hopefully return them in a few days. I could not maintain a stable system with the current 8.6 drivers with most games. I'm not sure if it's the drivers or just the fact that these 4850s just run so damn hot. I won't repeat my previous posts, but I'm not impressed with these cards. That's just my opinion and I hope others have better luck. I know that most reviews have been positive, so I'm not sure what's going on with my rig. My X64 Vista is fully updated and my rig was rock solid with my G92 GTS. Also, I used driver cleaner before I installed the 4850s. I would recommend that you guys make sure that you purchase from vendors that have a flexible return policy. I'm not happy with the heat generated by these things and the drivers seem unstable in my rig.

Good luck to others who venture down the 4850 path.....

[y2kbos]

Good luck to others who venture down the 4850 path.....

Your being much too hasty mate.

I had similar issues with the 9800gx2.

[omega1alpha]

Your being much too hasty mate.

I had similar issues with the 9800gx2.

I'm sure you are right, but my biggest concern with these cards is the heat. I'm telling you these things run hot as hell. The crossfire performance is horrible on my mainboard, so these cards aren't for me. I'm sure others might be happy, but keep an eye on the gpu temps. I'm not knocking the product, but just sharing some honest thoughts.

[AriciU]

The temps will get fixed when either Ati tool or rivatuner get updated so that you can control the fan speed of the card. No big deal IMO.

[GAR]

I ebayed my 9800GTX for $275, right before the price drop, and i picked up 2 4850's for $300, i think i got a good deal for $25 bucks more.

[AriciU]

I ebayed my 9800GTX for $275, right before the price drop, and i picked up 2 4850's for $300, i think i got a good deal for $25 bucks more.

Heh. That was an awesome move on your part

[perkam]

I ebayed my 9800GTX for $275, right before the price drop, and i picked up 2 4850's for $300, i think i got a good deal for $25 bucks more.

Buy low sell high is the name of the game

Thing is though, with the prices in uk and Europe with VAT, the sucker that bought it prolly saved some money too

Perkam

[Motiv]

Buy low sell high is the name of the game

Thing is though, with the prices in uk and Europe with VAT, the sucker that bought it prolly saved some money too

Perkam

hey Perkam, dabs are doing a great deal on the 4850

[ToTTenTranz]

I recently picked two (Visiontek) of these up for some crossfire goodness. You can see my system specs below. I'm not a fan boy and both Nvidia and Ati can kiss my arse. I'll share a few observations. These cards run hot as hell. You will burn your fingers trying to touch these after running for a few minutes. Idles around 78* and loads well over 90*. I have 4 120MM fans blowing on the case side and I encountered numerous lockups at stock speeds. Default fan speeds suck and hopefully rivatuner will allow for adjustments. Crossfire doesn't scale all that well on my current motherboard. I had various lockups and performance wasn't that impressive. Other reviews seemed much better. I loaded updated 8.6 drivers and the Vista X64 hotfix, but nothing really mattered. Ati should drop the price on this thing closer to $130 for this to be a decent deal and use a better cooler. I'm sure others might have better luck with a dual x16 Pci Express board, but I still expected more out of this with my P35 chipset. I think I'm going to stepup to a GTX 260 and trade-in my G92 GTS. However, I would definitely recommend the G92 GTS over the Ati 4850 at current price levels and I would be cautious with crossfire on certain mainboards because YMMV.

Final conclusions: (1) seems slower than a G92 GTS for around the same price and (2) G92 GTS runs cooler and overclocks like a champ

You should have spent 5 minutes googling about your board+Crossfire before spending ~400$ on graphics cards..
Don't.. ever.. do.. Crossfire.. on.. P35s..


Anyway, just take off your second 4850 (the one in the 4x slot) and you'll see that a single 4850 beats your "old" G92 GTS.

And don't worry about the temps, these new GPUs are ready for that (8800GTs used to do 105º with the old cooler). The lockups aren't temperature-related, that's for sure.

[perkam]

hey Perkam, dabs are doing a great deal on the 4850

Really? It's prolly only temporary tough, and prices will go back up

Perkam

[generics_user]

Glad to see that someone is getting better results than me. I really wanted to be happy with this card. Here are some quick benches in Vista X64 with both cards at stock:

Crysis is about 5 fps slower with 4850 and Crossfire is slower than with 1 card
All other games (Devil MAy Cry 4, COD4, Mass Effect, etc) seem about the same or a few extra frames going either way.
3dmark06 I'm getting around 14K on single 4850 and about 17.5K on crossfire
GTS card is getting over 15K at stock and 16.2K overclocked to 800/2000/1100

I had poor Overclocking on these 4850 cards. One hit 700/1100 with some instability and the other won't overclock a lick. I'm sure it's because of the poor cooling and low fan speeds at the moment. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this for crossfire on the P35 chipset. A single card 4850 might be slightly faster and/or on par with a GTS G92, but the GTS might be cheaper and it will smoke the 4850 with a decent overclock. I don't like the current overclock on these 4850s with current cooling. That's just my humble opinion. Others might do better with a different mainboard. Good luck guys.

i nearly made the same mistake as you did, luckily i spent some time googling before buying cards + mobo so i went for the cheapest x38

[omega1alpha]

You should have spent 5 minutes googling about your board+Crossfire before spending ~400$ on graphics cards..
Don't.. ever.. do.. Crossfire.. on.. P35s..


Anyway, just take off your second 4850 (the one in the 4x slot) and you'll see that a single 4850 beats your "old" G92 GTS.

And don't worry about the temps, these new GPUs are ready for that (8800GTs used to do 105º with the old cooler). The lockups aren't temperature-related, that's for sure.

My intention was to keep these in crossfire until I could complete a stepup to a GTX 260 and then return them. Unfortunately, they do not run stable on my rig and they are going back sooner than expected. Yes, I was an idiot for not researching the crossfire performance on the P35, but I knew I was going to return the cards. I never really had any intention on keeping these for longer than a month. A part of me was hoping the crossfire performance would awe me to death and that I might sell my GTS and keep the 4850s. 4850s no go for me. GTX 260 stepup here I come....

[Dragy2k]

The cards we've recieved for testing feature 512MB but partners are of course free to customise as they see fit.

But GDDR5 isn't cheap and there's a limited choice of modules, so personally I wouldn't expect 1GB HD4870's for a good while - 1GB HD4850's are far more likely using already avaliable high capacity GDDR3 modules.

will the extra 512 on the 1gb models(4870's) make much difference.....or should we hold on till theres enough stock of 1gb models......

[onewingedangel]

The temps will get fixed when either Ati tool or rivatuner get updated so that you can control the fan speed of the card. No big deal IMO.

According to an email I recieved from Sapphire today there's a new bios that fixes the issue - didn't have a chance to try it out though as we're really pushed for time testing the HD4870's (You'll see tommorrow, but they're pretty special).

will the extra 512 on the 1gb models(4870's) make much difference.....or should we hold on till theres enough stock of 1gb models......

Until they're avaliable it's only speculation, and certainly it all depends on what price they come in at, but I doubt your going to see a massive difference in most games.