HD 4850 Previews

[zerazax]

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).

Can't wait! So June 25th morning it is huh?

[twwen2]

Can't wait! So June 25th morning it is huh?

Cmon, just one more day! I can't wait, the anticipation. it's killing me

[Eastcoasthandle]

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

I just read your post and I believe part of your problem is that your motherboard (P5K DLX) is a P35 chipset which uses a PCI Express x16 + PCI Express x4 when CF is used. It's better to get a x38 chipset board or other motherboard that supports full x16/x16 PCIe if you want to do CF. Having a x16/x4 PCIe setup can hinder performance and in some cases make things worse performance wise. As far as the heat goes the thermal compound needs to be replaced using either AS5 ceramic or MX5 (or something better then the OEM thermal compound). Hopefully, this will reduce your temps. Personally, I've always lapped the heatsink as I've always found milling grooves in the past (not sure about this one you will have to check yourself).

[omega1alpha]

I just read your post and I believe part of your problem is that your motherboard (P5K DLX) is a P35 chipset which uses a PCI Express x16 + PCI Express x4 when CF is used. It's better to get a x38 chipset board or other motherboard that supports full x16/x16 PCIe if you want to do CF. Having a x16/x4 PCIe setup can hinder performance and in some cases make things worse performance wise. As far as the heat goes the thermal compound needs to be replaced using either AS5 ceramic or MX5 (or something better then the OEM thermal compound). Hopefully, this will reduce your temps. Personally, I've always lapped the heatsink as I've always found milling grooves in the past (not sure about this one you will have to check yourself).

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, my motherboard and the P35 chipset are the main reasons crossfire sucked on my rig. The 4850s are great cards, but higher fan speed and/or better cooling is a must in my opinion. Single card performance at 1600x1200 seemed on par or better than a stock 9800 GTX. However, Crysis ran far worse on my rig. Hopefully an aftermarket cooler can help with the heat and people can overclock these a lot better than I did. I had horrible overclocks with the 4850 and an overclocked G92 GTS or 9800 GTX is a better alternative at the moment. I'm sure people will get better cooling and better overclocking with time, but I hope potential buyers are aware of the heat and poor overclocking at the moment. Other than that, these cards would have been absolute great bang'for'the'buck a few months ago. With the recent Nvidia price drops....I'm not so sure....

[JohnZS]

Wicked the HD4870 reviews are out on the 25th?

[biohead]

great. graduation day and 4870 day for me

jejejejejeje

[GAR]

I re-ran crossfire on my P45 (p5q3 deluxe) cu at 3.8ghz 475fsb, i got 20,600, so crossfire does need a powerfull cpu, and i dont think P45 is holding back these cards

[omega1alpha]

I re-ran crossfire on my P45 (p5q3 deluxe) cu at 3.8ghz 475fsb, i got 20,600, so crossfire does need a powerfull cpu, and i dont think P45 is holding back these cards

Sounds good. I could only get a tad higher than 17K on my rig under Vista X64. My overclocked GTS scores a 16,210. So, the P35 was really holding me back and the cards were not completely stable. Are yours completely stable? How are the temps?

[waver_01]

hmmmm.. correct working powerplay?




http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/...ssage/30312532

[hstuehmeyer2000]

hmmmm.. correct working powerplay?

yea, you need to download the newest msi bios from techpowerup to get the 160mhz clocks

[Hornet331]

are there still only 2 stats?

can someone try to show idle, video playback (UVD) and gaming clocks?

[GAR]

I ran crossfire on my P45, 3dmark 06 @ 1920x1200 resolution, i got 19,400 3dmarks, cpu at 3.8ghz, memory at very low 1140mhz ddr3 cas7, new memory coming tommorow, and this is with single channel 1 dimm, p45 crossfire is amazing..........played some TF2, frames went well into 150-250 area 1920x1200 8xaa 16xaf..........all i can say is ATI is back!!!!!

[Shadout]

So, the consensus is becoming no difference between P45 and X38/X48 for crossfire setup?
Going to build a new pc in the coming weeks, and it would be damn nice to see some definitive answers on this issue, as it will greatly influence my motherboard choices (even though Ill only get one 4870 now, I want crossfire as an option later on).

[GAR]

So, the consensus is becoming no difference between P45 and X38/X48 for crossfire setup?
Going to build a new pc in the coming weeks, and it would be damn nice to see some definitive answers on this issue, as it will greatly influence my motherboard choices (even though Ill only get one 4870 now, I want crossfire as an option later on).

So far so good, with p45 crossfire, i will have more answers tommorow.

[Enoc]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4850,1957.html

The Asus model we tested turned out to be overclocked, with a GPU frequency of 680 MHz (8.8% more than the reference clock frequency) and a memory frequency of 1050 MHz (+5%).

driver tested for the hd4850 Catalyst 8.22 beta (HD 4850)

[biohead]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4850,1957.html

The Asus model we tested turned out to be overclocked, with a GPU frequency of 680 MHz (8.8% more than the reference clock frequency) and a memory frequency of 1050 MHz (+5%).

driver tested for the hd4850 Catalyst 8.22 beta (HD 4850)

yeah.

Test configuration:

* Asus P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38)
* Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850 (3 GHz)
* Crucial 2 x 1 GB DDR3 1333 MHz 7-7-7-20
* Western Digital WD5000AAKS
* Asus 12x DVD player
* Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W

o Windows XP, Vista, Vista SP1
o ForceWare 177.39 beta (9800 GTX +)
o ForceWare 177.34 beta (260 GTX and 280 GTX under Vista)
o ForceWare 177.26 beta (280 GTX under XP)
o ForceWare 175.16 WHQL (9800 GTX, 9800 GX2, 8800 Ultra)
o Catalyst 8.22 beta (HD 4850)
o Catalyst 8.6 WHQL (HD 3870)
o Catalyst 8.5 WHQL (HD 3870 X2)

They can't be serious?

[annihilat0r]

Why is this thread still alive :S

[Hornet331]

Why is this thread still alive :S

cause you just bumped it... noob.

[annihilat0r]

Ouch. Didn't notice I was bumping it, since its stickied

[kromosto]

cause you just bumped it... noob.

one month noob

annihilat0r
Join Date: Aug 2007

Hornet331
Join Date: Jul 2007

[annihilat0r]

kes lan