ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series discussion

[adpr_02]

WOW, I did not know that about the memory. Hm... any word on how much more expensive this will be than the 4850?

Good cooler or bad cooler, it comes off for the water, and the card gets vmodded either way, but still. That ram speed sounds nice.

[Jowy Atreides]

WOW, I did not know that about the memory. Hm... any word on how much more expensive this will be than the 4850?

Good cooler or bad cooler, it comes off for the water, and the card gets vmodded either way, but still. That ram speed sounds nice.

it's rrp is $300

[emoners]

just occured to me, what PSU can handle 4870 CF? coz i usually only see PSU's with 2x 6-pin connectors

[zerazax]

Most "good" 550+ watt ones have 4 x 6-pins... heck my Corsair HX620 has 2 x 6-pin and 2 x 8-pin

[LordEC911]

@LordEC911, i don't think the reference HD 4870 PCB is designed to accommodate 16 GDDR5 chip on it.

@Helmore, thx for the kind explanation mate, appreciated.

Supposedly it does, front and back with 8 on each side.
Qimonda is also "launching" their 1Gbit IC's on July 8th.

[rockqc]

http://translate.google.com/translat...sl=zh-CN&tl=en

Great success! 4870 CF here i come Little less performance then GTX 280 at almost half the price I'm surprised it even beat the 280 at 1900 res with AA turned to the max

Hopefully this is an accurate reflection of what most reviews will conclude, 4870>GTX260

So far it's looking very promising. ^^

[biohead]

We were arguing over this a page or so back...

ah thanks, missed that. checked the p45 bit-tech review. indeed tweaktown's crysis results are off; the other results seem plausible.

[SuporterPoli]

just occured to me, what PSU can handle 4870 CF? coz i usually only see PSU's with 2x 6-pin connectors

My 1000HX has 2x8pin PCIE and 2x6+2pin PCIE. Guess i'm valid for CF .

[biohead]

just occured to me, what PSU can handle 4870 CF? coz i usually only see PSU's with 2x 6-pin connectors

my seasonic m12 700W has 4 6-pin pci-e connectors.

[Akane]

Still using my enermax noisetaker 495P, I'm gonna adapter that shiet. She'll be fine gov'na!

[Chickenfeed]

Very impressive if that review is accurate. I am somewhat concerned about their power usage figures however. For a card with a TDP of 160W when you see it load around the same mark as the GTX 280 it makes you wonder.

Hopefully with the fan at 50% the 4870 will load in the 80s at the very least. Seeing the 4850 at 97C with 70% fan speed is not impressive. They did mention that the cards have the same heatsink mounting holes as the HD3800s so at least that would mean many current aftermarket sinks would work with the 4800s. I'm not to keen on putting the fans on these things above 50% ( and even then they'd be too loud for me if they are anything like the 3870 fans )

As long as they don't choke in a few keys games (mainly WiC and AoC, two games which prove to rape the G92 at 19x12 with AA ), It looks like I'll be passing on the 280. Still remains to be seen whether or not the 4870x2 will be more impressive than CF4870s but its hard to say at this point. The 4870x2 will be clocked lower and won't clock as high I'm sure so 2 individual 4870s should technically do better but that all rests upon the interconnect on the new board. Either way I'll probably try the 4870s for a month and if the X2 is notably better I can just take them back. Its been a good 2 and a half years since I had my x1900xt so hopefully going from 8800s in sli to 4870s will be a pleasant change.

[Kai Robinson]

I'll be fine for either 2x4850's, or 1x4870....decisions, decisions....

I has this: http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=17481

[STaRGaZeR]

1x4870, end of story. Skip CF of you can.

[natty]

Everyone was complaining about the GTX 280 power consumption. According to that review, the 4870 consumes more at idle, and almost as much at load.

[Chickenfeed]

I just noticed this now but these cards seem to be anti aliasing monsters. What ever ATI did, it did the trick. Matching the 280 at 1920x1200 8xAA is damn impressive. As long as VRAM isn't a bottle neck, these should be awesome cards for high IQ gaming.

As far as skipping CF, its either 2 Ati cards or 1 280 for me. I'd sooner have nearly as good performance in non supported games and noticeably better performance in supported games considering this is the same price we are talking. That may change though as I can't see Nvidia staying competitive with the 4870x2 ( or even the 4870 for that matter ) with their current prices.

As far as power consumption goes though all the cards of this performance level have basically used alot of power. Considering the dual gpu cards use just as much if not more than a 280, its nothing to complain about really. Less would still be better but I still find it weird that a 4870 which has roughly 400 million less transistors, runs lower voltage and uses half as much vram ( which is more efficient as well ) as the 280 yet still peaks around the same amount? Something has to be wrong there.

[LowRun]

For those interested, in this review they broke the NDA and exposed the rv770 architecture. It's in French tho'.

http://www.presence-pc.com/tests/Radeon-4850-22794/

[perkam]

Everyone was complaining about the GTX 280 power consumption. According to that review, the 4870 consumes more at idle, and almost as much at load.

Well, considering the amount of money you save, you can buy 2 1000W power supplies

Nvidia needs to get the GTX 260 down to $349 before ATI gets their 1GB cards to that price point and make it completely useless.

Perkam

[iTravis]

1x4870, end of story. Skip CF of you can.

I'm so in for a 4870 now but I don't know if I should go for a 512MB or a 1GB version. I really wanna do CF so let's just wait for some more benchies and better driver from ATI.

[waver_01]

Everyone was complaining about the GTX 280 power consumption. According to that review, the 4870 consumes more at idle, and almost as much at load.

powerplay isn't working correctly yet

it will with C 8.7

[Kai Robinson]

Tempting though it is, surely a pair of 4850's would give better performance? Microstuttering is one thing i've never noticed, i already wear glasses, so my eyesight isn't great.

[Chickenfeed]

When you look at their comparison charts they average out with the 4870 being 10% slower than a GTX 280 in both no AA / AA. When you think about that, the current MSRPs seem even more absurd (350vs650). AMDs own slide claimed "performance within 20% of the GTX280 but at half the price" and its looking like it is true and then some. Sure it is still only one review but its extremely promising non the less.

[adamsleath]

i'm going to watch everyone else take the plunge and then decide

meantime i have my gardening hobby...brachyscome multifida, dianella longifolia....

[Mad1723]

For those interested, in this review they broke the NDA and exposed the rv770 architecture. It's in French tho'.

http://www.presence-pc.com/tests/Radeon-4850-22794/

Cool, since I'm french, I'll be able to understand the meaning of such a change in performance

maybe the R600 wasn't so bad, it was just probably missing a few things that they integrated into the R700

[STaRGaZeR]

I'm so in for a 4870 now but I don't know if I should go for a 512MB or a 1GB version. I really wanna do CF so let's just wait for some more benchies and better driver from ATI.

If you're gonna wait for the 1GB version wait until the 4870X2. But if it's CF on a card nope. ATI will never do a good driver for CF, at least in my life. So I wouldn't put too much faith in that

[Unbornchild]

For those interested, in this review they broke the NDA and exposed the rv770 architecture. It's in French tho'.

http://www.presence-pc.com/tests/Radeon-4850-22794/

"L’architecture en détail [MAJ]
[MAJ 24/06/2008 16 H] Suite à une incompréhension et diverses irrégularités dans le lancement de la Radeon HD 4850, nous retirons très temporairement cette page 4 ainsi que les schémas de l’architecture jusqu’à demain matin. Le reste de l’article reste accessible. "