[Autopsy] ATI Radeon HD 4870 Update: Review

[saaya]

how did it get to 512MB ?

well this just made my video card purchase very easy..

280GTX 1GB ordered!

why? check out the high res aa numbers, 512mb seems to be enough... for now at least

[cookerjc]

*Dreaming HD 4870 with GDDR5 1GB*

[Calmatory]

Quite a pity that people think that they need 1GB. It's like people think that 8GHz Pentium 4 is 100% faster than 4GHz Core2Duo.

Well, ignorance has it's downsides..

[twwen2]

Quite a pity that people think that they need 1GB. It's like people think that 8GHz Pentium 4 is 100% faster than 4GHz Core2Duo.

Well, ignorance has it's downsides..

I think a few games with large textures benefit (i'm thinking oblivion), but as has been noted the recent reviews see the 512MB card doing just fine against the 896MB GTX260.

[largon]

Quite a pity that people think that they need 1GB. (...)

It's very easy to exceed the milestone of >512MB VRAM usage in games these days... Even old games like STALKER - SoC takes 582.65MB (I tested it just for this). That's immediately after launching the game and loading a save. I hear Oblivion eats way, way more with high res textures. So I really don't know what you're ranting about.

It's like people think that 8GHz Pentium 4 is 100% faster than 4GHz Core2Duo.

Err... Umm...
What?

I think a few games with large textures benefit (i'm thinking oblivion), but as has been noted the recent reviews see the 512MB card doing just fine against the 896MB GTX260.

Naturally, the amount of available VRAM does not affect FPS. It eliminates video memory swapping which manifests as stuttering.

[twwen2]

Naturally, the amount of available VRAM does not affect FPS. It eliminates video memory swapping which manifests as stuttering.

Ok fair enough. But wouldn't a stutter be a pause in frames? Like 0fps momentarily?

[Hornet331]

Well, ignorance has it's downsides..

you should take your own advice.

[largon]

twwen2,
Indeed.

[Calmatory]

you should take your own advice.

ok

[Kingcarcas]

This is a subject that is hardly ever discussed, but i did notice stuttering when i had my 256mb 7950GT which i thought should have played everything great at 16*10. Low VRAM was probably why it wasn't so smooth

[STEvil]

Just check out the 8800GT 256mb vs 512mb vs 1GB review.. CookerJC did it iirc.

256mb card sucks
512mb card works great
1024mb card kicks the 512mb card to the curb when large texture amounts come into play.

[zerazax]

Just check out the 8800GT 256mb vs 512mb vs 1GB review.. CookerJC did it iirc.

256mb card sucks
512mb card works great
1024mb card kicks the 512mb card to the curb when large texture amounts come into play.

Can't really compare memory management across different brands, even architectures IMO. The 1GB versions of the 3870 didn't provide any real boost over the 512 MB whereas G92 cards seem to bite the dust with memory management and bandwidth

[NapalmV5]

why? check out the high res aa numbers, 512mb seems to be enough... for now at least

LOL


i didnt have time to go through all the reviews but the ones ive seen are fpshooter/fpstrategy and its doing awesome @ 1920..

but does it have stamina @ ~8player games ?

[Neuuubeh]

but for goodness sake.. the same 512 only has to render 50% @ dual 25% @ quad

if this wouldnt be the case than whats the point of multi gpu/card?

Every card has to load all the assets to its memory. Even if it was still using scanline, it'd still be true with todays shaders. You need to have the info for the whole scene for shaders and shadows to work properly
still I think the cards alternate in rendering whole frames these days

[adamsleath]

Can't really compare memory management across different brands, even architectures IMO. The 1GB versions of the 3870 didn't provide any real boost over the 512 MB whereas G92 cards seem to bite the dust with memory management and bandwidth

yes; it will be interesting to see.
hopefully 5 million more shaders plus some decent bandwidth will be enuf for ati to do its rap dancing with 512MB vram y waste $ on ram you dont need

but i guess someone will find the limits soon enuf.

lots of talk, no hard proof.

[jVIDIA]

ATI readies OEM special: SuperRV770 to challenge GeForce GTX 260, 280


The ATI Radeon 4870 ships with two six-pin power connectors, which support a maximum thermal design power (TDP) 225 watts (75 watts +75 watts and an additional 75 watts from the motherboard), while the board will never consume more than 160 – 170 watts at stock speed, we are told. That means that there is at least 55 watts of room for overclocking and enough space to find out what these GPUs are capable of.

AMD GPG (ex-ATI) is binning the parts to a lowest denominator required for good yields and a level of performance that reaches or sometimes overtakes Nvidia’s GTX 260. But this time around, the company developed an AIB/OEM-only product codenamed "Super RV770", which will be much more powerful.

The "Super RV770" will arrive with pre-installed water-cooling and features unlocked BIOS, which enables the GPU to be pushed all the way to 950 MHz, while the memory can be pushed to 4.8 GT/s (1.2 GHz QDR). According to our sources, you may be able to push the GPU even beyond 1 GHz, if you use TEC elements, and keep the temperature of GPU low.

At 4.8 GT/s, the "Super RV770" can achieve a bandwidth of 150 GB/s, taking the crown from the GeForce GTX 280. The RV770 chip has a 256-bit (32-byte) interface, which means we can calculate the bandwidth in the following way:

ATI RV770: 32-byte x 4.8 Billion Transfers/sec = 150 GB/s
Nvidia GT200: 64-byte x 2.2 Billion Transfers/sec = 138.37 GB/s

Not surprisingly, the first "Super RV770" product is already out. Diamond Multimedia teamed up with Danger Den and Smooth Creations to launch the "ATI Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition".

Diamond clocked the core of its Super RV770 at 800 MHz and the memory at 4.4 GT/s (1100 MHz QDR). There is some room for overclocking left, as Diamond its own version of an unlocked BIOS and the board can be propelled up to 950 MHz for the GPU and 1200 MHz for the memory.

Mario Gastelum, director of product development & engineering stated that the “The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition was clocked to kick some ass. We wanted the fastest card that could kick the living daylights and bust some performance records".

Diamond's version of the Super RV770 is available in systems from Smoothcreations. Expect more announcements from other AMD/ATI partners, including Asus, Sapphire and GeCube.

@ http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38194/135/

[halo112358]

*Dreaming HD 4870 with GDDR5 1GB*

You and me both I see texture load stuttering in a couple of games that I play, it would be really smooth without that. Oblivion and Age of Conan are the two games I'm thinking of, AoC has texture stuttering on high settings in cities (from player armor textures I think) even though the game is rendering at 30-50fps.

[krille]

Come on, 512MB frame buffer has been here for five generations now (X800XL 512MB was the first ATI gaming card I belive). Bet this will mimic 7800GTX 256. I think I'm going to get one just the same, because in contrast to the uber expensive 7800GTX 256 the 4870 is super cheap at launch!

[Bo_Fox]

So, with the fan speed increased to say, 60-100%, does that improve the overclockability of the 4870? To 850MHz on stock voltage, perhaps?