ATI HD4800 Review Thread

[whocaresbg]

Catalyst 8.7 Released .

[zerazax]

Who is to say that the non-reference BIOS's dont have fixed powerplay and fan speed? The stock cooler is actually pretty decent on the 4870's when fan speeds are turned up as people often find a sweet spot of good cooling + low noise. The problem is that current 4870's are set way too low so they're overly quiet and not dissipating enough heat. AIB BIOS's will surely fix such problems, as the MSI bios already did.

[laragirl83]

I have just installed Catalyst 8.7 on Vista and for some reason ATI Overdrive does not work. It says:

ATI Overdrive capabilities have not been properly initialized yet. Please try again later.

Could this be because of the modified BIOS i am using...?
Or somtin' else?

[Eastcoasthandle]

I have just installed Catalyst 8.7 on Vista and for some reason ATI Overdrive does not work. It says:

ATI Overdrive capabilities have not been properly initialized yet. Please try again later.

Could this be because of the modified BIOS i am using...?
Or somtin' else?

Downclock your card to 750/900 and CCC's overclocker should work.

[revenant]

[snip]
ATI Overdrive capabilities have not been properly initialized yet. Please try again later.
[snip]

that's a kind of hillarious message... like, uhm, how much later? like time for a smoke and a cup of coffee later?

[Heretic]

I have just installed Catalyst 8.7 on Vista and for some reason ATI Overdrive does not work. It says:

ATI Overdrive capabilities have not been properly initialized yet. Please try again later.

Could this be because of the modified BIOS i am using...?
Or somtin' else?

Probably because of the modded BIOS. I couldn't turn off overdrive with the modded bios (had it on before I modded). Once I flashed to the stock bios, I could.

[fireice2]

Matt, you getting the X2?

It depends on how much money I'll still have by the time I return to Davao, after taking the BAR.

Blast this exam, costs too much to take. Hinders my upgrade.

[james111]

Anyone know if Power play is working on the official 8.7 catalyst's?

[cantankerous]

as far as I heard no. I believe it is a bios issue and not a driver issue.

[KoHaN69]

The Sapphire 4850 is already available in the states for ~$240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102759

What's the estimated price on the 4870 1gb? $320?

I'm dying ot seem some 1gb 4850 vs 4870 comparisons

Us 1920x1200-ers need the extra ram!

[initialised]

I want to see some data comparing 4850 1GB to 4870

[ihatbs]

I've a Crossfire question.
If I would run HD4870X2 + HD4870 together in CF, will they perform like 3 HD4870 in CF ?
or is it like HD4870 + HD4850 in cf ?

[KoHaN69]

like 2.5-3, but i dont know if the drivers are up to date on that configuation yet

[ihatbs]

So hd4870 will slow down the hd4870x2 to run like hd4870.
but isn't the hd4870x2 suppose to be hd4870 (factory crossfired ) in one card ?
I guess cf both of them means running tri-cf mode ?

[JH_man]

One HUGE problem with the custom coolers that dont vent the air out of the case; its going to become VERY varm inside the case. I have a 4870 in testing right now, and if the hot air werent vented out, I am afraid it would become dangerously warm in there. My case has good cooling, better then most cases.

It is not a problem keeping the 4870 cards at a good temp with the stock cooler, the problem is at about 45% fan speed, its too noisy for some ppl. At that speed the gpu temp reaches about 70 degrees C in a hot summer room playing games. Idles at about 50+ degress C.

So in short I am very sceptical to cutsom coolers that dont vent the air, same goes for any other latest gen gfx cards.

JH_man

[annihilat0r]

Case? What case? Cases are for pussies I haven't had a case for something like one year, the motherboard just sits there by itself.

[Unbornchild]

It is not a problem keeping the 4870 cards at a good temp with the stock cooler, the problem is at about 45% fan speed, its too noisy for some ppl. At that speed the gpu temp reaches about 70 degrees C in a hot summer room playing games. Idles at about 50+ degress C.

But that's not stock. You have put a fan profile onto it. I didn't, and my card idles at 71 C, full load = 82 ~ 83. and the fan is comfortably quiet in both cases.
What you did makes the hardware less hot but you have more noise.

[highspeed]

dont see a problem with heat in case or atleast i dont have problem with it using a custom cooler. my case is though fully open, no sides are there yada yada.. really ugly but then i dont need any fans either(one cpu fan, 2 fans on the accelero for the 4870, thats it) :P

[Kallenator]

Bjorn3D small review on the 4870 X2.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1317

CONCLUSION

While we still want to wait with our final judgement on the HD4870X2 until we got a production board in our hands our initial impression is that this seems to be the card that finally lets AMD compete directly with NVIDIA for the performance crown. As far as we can see from these first tests the HD4870X2 easily will be able to hold its own against the GTX280, in some cases even beating it by a large margin. It is no wonder that NVIDIA got worried and, almost in panic, had to dump the prices of the GTX260 and GTX280 so quick after its launch. It will be interesting to see how AMD prices the card compared to the GeForce GTX280. Competition is great, isn't it?

If there is something we did not like it was the fact that the card ran really really hot (you could not touch the backplate as it was so hot), something probably in part due to the fact that powersaving through Powerplay was not working and thus the card could not throttle down when in idle mode. This is something we also see in the HD4870 so AMD definitely has some work to do if they do not want the HD4870X2 to become a money and energywaster when you are not playing games.

The card is expected to be released in August and we will certainly be back then with a full review of the card. For those of you who cannot wait you already can get near-HD4870X2 performance by combining HD4850 and/or HD4870 in CrossfireX-configurations but then of course you loose the ability to combine two HD4870X2 boards in CrossfireX in the future.

I don't know about you, but I want one ^^
After I have seen what the 4870 1GB can do of course.

[Hornet331]

Bjorn3D small review on the 4870 X2.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1317









I don't know about you, but I want one ^^
After I have seen what the 4870 1GB can do of course.

real review needs faster cpu, 2,7ghz is a joke..

[Kallenator]

Definitely, but it's more realistic since most of the people of buy this card wont OC, don't you agree?

*btw, try not to quote pictures

[fireice2]

Definitely, but it's more realistic since most of the people of buy this card wont OC, don't you agree?

*btw, try not to quote pictures

I second that. Most of the people I know, do not overclock their systems even if their hardware is overclocking friendly. Most of them are even afraid to give their systems a measly 5% boost.

[perkam]

real review needs faster cpu, 2,7ghz is a joke..

Ditto. They should call the Bjorn3D review the "4870X2 Bottleneck Review"

Perkam

[emoners]

so the powerplay issue is just a driver thing right?
& regarding bottlenecks, would you be able to feel the performance boost at non-OCed settings?

[STaRGaZeR]

so the powerplay issue is just a driver thing right?

No.