ATI HD4800 Review Thread

[XCheater]

google id yout friend@

most of her pics are slutty

hey I wonder about your rig
Is your 4870 bottlenecked with your processor?
Mine is too much bottlenecking
4850 CF

[iTravis]

hey I wonder about your rig
Is your 4870 bottlenecked with your processor?
Mine is too much bottlenecking
4850 CF

He has the same CPU as mine OC to 3.6Ghz, if that bottleneck the HD4870 then I would have a serious problem with my rig.

[Mumid]

He has the same CPU as mine OC to 3.6Ghz, if that bottleneck the HD4870 then I would have a serious problem with my rig.

Mine keeps scaling with more CPU power especially with crossfire, can see loads of difference between 4ghz and 4.25ghz.

[jpcastro]

hy to everyone

just mounted a Zalman VF1000 on the Shappire 4850







temps idle 32\33º more tests to come soon

regards

[iTravis]

Mine keeps scaling with more CPU power especially with crossfire, can see loads of difference between 4ghz and 4.25ghz.

I did see a noticeable difference going from 3.4Ghz to 3.6Ghz but I'm just wondering this only applies to benching or in gaming performance as well.
I just got the E8400 and I don't know if I should swap with my Q6600 in my 1st rig or use it for my 2nd rig just died week ago.

[Mumid]

I did see a noticeable difference going from 3.4Ghz to 3.6Ghz but I'm just wondering this only applies to benching or in gaming performance as well.
I just got the E8400 and I don't know if I should swap with my Q6600 in my 1st rig or use it for my 2nd rig just died week ago.

For me theres a noticeable difference in 3dmark and in Crysis, talking around 1000 3dmarks + going from 4 to 4.25 ghz and round 3-4 frames higher in Crysis.

[strange|ife]

of course runing 4GHZ+ will net you better performance. Although i doubt there is much of a bottleneck running 3.6ghz on a quad with a single 4870..maybe in crossfire. But i dont have the proper board for crossfire. Holding out for the next years procs and mobos.
I havent ran 3dmark yet

[Hornet331]

For me theres a noticeable difference in 3dmark and in Crysis, talking around 1000 3dmarks + going from 4 to 4.25 ghz and round 3-4 frames higher in Crysis.

crysis is cpu limited, even at high reses -> look the the pcgh test.

and that are the only 2 things that are cpu limited. :p

[Papu]

crysis is cpu limited, even at high reses -> look the the pcgh test.

and that are the only 2 things that are cpu limited. :p

valve games scale better with higher cpu , tf2 , halflife 2 , css. :P

[Hornet331]

valve games scale better with higher cpu , tf2 , halflife 2 , css. :P

how much fps you want, 300?

[RaZz!]

computerbase also has good reviews about the 4800 series which aren't in the OP:

ATi Radeon HD 4850 (CF) und HD 4870: http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...50_cf_hd_4870/
Radeon HD 4870 (CF) vs. GeForce GTX 260 (SLI): http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...e_gtx_260_sli/

they're in german though.

[overclock]

computerbase also has good reviews about the 4800 series which aren't in the OP:

ATi Radeon HD 4850 (CF) und HD 4870: http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...50_cf_hd_4870/
Radeon HD 4870 (CF) vs. GeForce GTX 260 (SLI): http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...e_gtx_260_sli/

they're in german though.

It is one of the best review : so many games are tested.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

how much fps you want, 300?

I intend to play my CS:S at no less than 600 FPS, otherwise I would get screen lag and i wouldn't be leet pwnzors anymore

[JohnZS]

I am not sure if anyone is interested but the 1024MB version of the HD4870 will be out in the UK on the 31/7/08 and is currently priced at £234 ($400ish).
John

[cantankerous]

Thanks for the info. July 31st is a bit later than I thought though. What brand exactly?

[Lightman]

Thanks for the info. July 31st is a bit later than I thought though. What brand exactly?

+1

I might jump on 4870 512MB for now then! Besides I can get this card for under £170.00 next week . Decision decisions

[Calmatory]

valve games scale better with higher cpu , tf2 , halflife 2 , css. :P

Yeah, and so do the rest of the games which are using an engine introduced in 2004.

Seriously, you can play CS:S with GeForce 2.

[Papu]

Yeah, and so do the rest of the games which are using an engine introduced in 2004.

Seriously, you can play CS:S with GeForce 2.

doesnt dispute the fact that the engine scales better with a higher Cpu , i was just making a point.

and no you cant , an fx5200 gets <20 fps on very lowest settings 800x600.

also just got one of these

[JohnZS]

+1

I might jump on 4870 512MB for now then! Besides I can get this card for under £170.00 next week . Decision decisions

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5

That is the link from the e-tailer selling the card (I really should have posted that earlier..sorry)

John

[Akabeth]

AMD surprise many people with 800 sp, many said "no it has 480sp" and it turned out to be false. I wouldnt be surprise if R700 has 2GB ...
(nordic hwardware was the only site suggest that it has 800sp since like May 15th or something)


but with all that 2GB GDDR5 i hope its not going to be over $550USD, $600 is my limit (499 just sounds a bit too good to be true, sure the lower the better heh) ... i was gonna drop that $650 on GTX 280 .. whew dodged that bullet, and bought a X38 DQ6 for R700 with PCI-E 2.0 slot (vs my old 680i )

I ordered the evga 790i Ultra and 2x gtx 280's the day after they were in newegg; canceled the order right after I heard about 4870x2 and gtx 280 sub-par price/performance.

Glad I waited and got what I have below to serve the R700.

[postumus]

I kinda hope the 4870x2 kills the gtx 280 so i can pick 1 up cheap for sli

[gosh]

For the record, the QX9770 is specced for 400FSB to begin with. Also, you might be surprised at how little a 400FSB will bottleneck a single Quad-core processor, even at the 4.0GHz mark. I remember back when the QX6800 first came out, and people were wondering about the 266FSB being an issue.

more threads, faster video cards, more memory use and it will be a big problem.

here is one that tested som interesting OC

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=2740928

I think I have found the culprit: It's the FSB!

I did the following:
- changed my CPU clock from 2400 (9*266) to 1600 (6*266) - no change, 27 FPS
- changed my memory clock from 400 to 266 - no change, 27 FPS
- changed my FSB from 266 to 333 - success, 34 FPS

The FPS actually changed exactly according to my FSB change - a 25% increase in both cases.
It might still be memory bandwidth though, since with Intel CPUs the FSB is the limiting factor.
I have never actually seen any game that is limited by FSB or memory bandwidth nor any mention of such behaviour. I think we have found a new type of bottleneck here.

EDIT: I just ran another test: I decreased the memory clock to 266 while keeping the FSB at 333: Still 34 FPS. So it actually is the FSB.
Time for Nehalem, I'd say.

[fornowagain]

Did he say what card that was tested on? Gotta be careful now with the some of the nvidia cards overclocking based on the PCI-e frequency.

[gosh]

Did he say what card that was tested on? Gotta be careful now with the some of the nvidia cards overclocking based on the PCI-e frequency.

Ok
Here is another hint about these fast cards will be bottlenecked buy the FSB
Firingsquad did a review on HD4850 and HD4870 and one strange thing is that they differ more in performance when they are alone compared to running them in crossfire on the C2Q used in the test.
In this test (CoH) they hardly see any difference
http://news.firingsquad.com/hardware...ance/page9.asp

Compare that test with this where a slow Phenom 9600 is much faster than a C2Q (3,2 GHz) which indicate that CoH is very heavy on I/O
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...l_q9450/14.htm

AMD is has much better I/O performance and that game may need a lot of I/O. HD4850 and HD4870 can handle huge amount of I/O and that has to go through the FSB. It could be that these cards can't perform at 100&#37; on Intel

[Cooper]

Ok
Here is another hint about these fast cards will be bottlenecked buy the FSB
Firingsquad did a review on HD4850 and HD4870 and one strange thing is that they differ more in performance when they are alone compared to running them in crossfire on the C2Q used in the test.
In this test (CoH) they hardly see any difference
http://news.firingsquad.com/hardware...ance/page9.asp

Compare that test with this where a slow Phenom 9600 is much faster than a C2Q (3,2 GHz) which indicate that CoH is very heavy on I/O
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...l_q9450/14.htm

AMD is has much better I/O performance and that game may need a lot of I/O. HD4850 and HD4870 can handle huge amount of I/O and that has to go through the FSB. It could be that these cards can't perform at 100% on Intel

It seems Phenom rig performance get's better with high resolution. Really weird