ATi 4870X2(R700) PCB Debut

[biohead]

Yes, this will be my next test (tomorrow), see if 4870 CF is still affected by microstuttering. I would assume this is the case since R700 features next generation GPU interconnect.

I just got home from beach soccer tournament and need to relax this evening in sauna with couple of beers

I'll make a better report about this issue during the weekend since I'm preparing my R700 preview to be published.

glad to see someone that knows what he's doing.

but being the sceptic that i am, when doing the microstuttering fps-log tests, could you run the tests with CPU-bound settings (800x600 low) and GPU-bound settings (crazy high eyecandy)?

i read a post somewhere on these forums with a diagram. it said that, in CPU bound configs, there can't be stuttering because the CPU (driver) takes longer to execute command (that are sent to the GPU) than it takes the GPU to render them. and that in GPU bound situations, the CPU sends commands too quickly for the GPU to handle immediately, creating a delay, resulting in microstuttering.

as these cards are to crazy fast, the CPU becomes the bottleneck very quickly. see my point? so i'd appreciate as much angles to this subject as possible. greatly appreciated!

[shiznit93]

Great news Sampsa, thanks for taking the time to investigate microstutter. I am eagerly awaiting further results.

[Sampsa]

Ok, I finished testing with R700, 4870 CF, 3870 X2 and GeForce 9800 GX2 (Single and SLI mode) and recorded frametimes in Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 demo:

The worst case scenario happened with 3870 X2 in Crysis when every other frame was rendered after ~21,5 ms and every other after ~49,5 ms. However in UT3 demo 3870 X2 provided stable ~11,5 - 12,6 ms rendering times between the frames.

R700 seems to be very strong and it rendered every frame after ~21,6 - 22,1 ms in Crysis and ~11,5 - 11,9 ms in UT3.

Also 4870 CF provided equally good results compared to R700 and rendered every frame after ~21,3 - 21,7 ms in Crysis and ~11,2 - 12,1 ms in UT3.

GeForce 9800 GX2 showed alot more variation in rendering times and frames were rendered after ~21,9 - 25,1 ms in Crysis and ~7,4 - 11,5 ms in UT3.

PLEASE NOTE!

These results are measured and analyzed with simple tools including Fraps and Excel. In my own conclusion, it seems that microstuttering depends on game engine and if we leave 3870 X2 in Crysis out from the results it looks like NVIDIA's SLI (9800 GX2) is suffering more from microstuttering than AMD's CrossFire.

[Hornet331]

Ok, I finished testing with R700, 4870 CF, 3870 X2 and GeForce 9800 GX2 (Single and SLI mode) and recorded frametimes in Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 demo:

The worst case scenario happened with 3870 X2 in Crysis when every other frame was rendered after ~21,5 ms and every other after ~49,5 ms. However in UT3 demo 3870 X2 provided stable ~11,5 - 12,6 ms rendering times between the frames.

R700 seems to be very strong and it rendered every frame after ~21,6 - 22,1 ms in Crysis and 11,5 - 11,9 ms in UT3.

Also 4870 CF provided equally good results compared to R700 and rendered every frame after ~21,3 - 21,7 ms in Crysis and ~11,2 - 12,1 ms in UT3.

GeForce 9800 GX2 showed alot more variation in rendering times and frames were rendered after ~21,9 - 25,1 ms in Crysis and ~7,4 - 11,5 ms in UT3.

PLEASE NOTE!

These results are measured and analyzed with simple tools including Fraps and Excel. In my own conclusion, it seems that microstuttering depends on game engine and if we leave 3870 X2 in Crysis out from the results it looks like NVIDIA's SLI (9800 GX2) is suffering more from microstuttering than AMD's CrossFire.

nice

[Swatrecon_]

NVIDIA's SLI (9800 GX2) is suffering more from microstuttering than AMD's CrossFire.

Very Nice!

[Caveman787]

Well considering there boasting there multi gpu technology and makeing drivers much better for it I would have assumed that they'd do this good.

Now to see if the 4870x2 will need crossfire activated in games to run at full power or if some it'll only run at 4780 speed. Which would kinda defeat the purpose.

[Chickenfeed]

Those results are comforting, at least as far as those 2 titles are concerned. It appears the issue has been reduced in severity substantially so that is a good sign of things to come. Now if only dual card crossfire and sli behaved similarly...

@Caveman

The card still is crossfire so the game must be scalable and supported for the card to use both GPUs and to show gains so that hasn't changed. There will still be titles where it will fall behind the 280 in light of this.

[Dark-Energy]

Ok, I finished testing with R700, 4870 CF, 3870 X2 and GeForce 9800 GX2 (Single and SLI mode) and recorded frametimes in Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 demo:

The worst case scenario happened with 3870 X2 in Crysis when every other frame was rendered after ~21,5 ms and every other after ~49,5 ms. However in UT3 demo 3870 X2 provided stable ~11,5 - 12,6 ms rendering times between the frames.

R700 seems to be very strong and it rendered every frame after ~21,6 - 22,1 ms in Crysis and ~11,5 - 11,9 ms in UT3.

Also 4870 CF provided equally good results compared to R700 and rendered every frame after ~21,3 - 21,7 ms in Crysis and ~11,2 - 12,1 ms in UT3.

GeForce 9800 GX2 showed alot more variation in rendering times and frames were rendered after ~21,9 - 25,1 ms in Crysis and ~7,4 - 11,5 ms in UT3.

PLEASE NOTE!

These results are measured and analyzed with simple tools including Fraps and Excel. In my own conclusion, it seems that microstuttering depends on game engine and if we leave 3870 X2 in Crysis out from the results it looks like NVIDIA's SLI (9800 GX2) is suffering more from microstuttering than AMD's CrossFire.

[Caveman787]

Well that suck's I was thinking since it's 2 gpu core's on one die it may be regarded as a single card.

What current games don't utilize crossfire or don't well?

[Aberration]

Those results are comforting, at least as far as those 2 titles are concerned. It appears the issue has been reduced in severity substantially so that is a good sign of things to come. Now if only dual card crossfire and sli behaved similarly...

@Caveman

The card still is crossfire so the game must be scalable and supported for the card to use both GPUs and to show gains so that hasn't changed. There will still be titles where it will fall behind the 280 in light of this.

IMO, 1 4870 is so close to the 280 that even with titles that dont support SLI/CF, it is gonna spank the 280 in games that do. And for the same price, thats a winner for me.

[ToTTenTranz]

Well that suck's I was thinking since it's 2 gpu core's on one die it may be regarded as a single card.

What current games don't utilize crossfire or don't well?

Lost Planet.

It's the Geforce game.. Weird, since it was originally made for the ATi GPU on X360.

[F.stop]

nice results
looks good enough for me
now wait for those in game frame rates...mmmm

[Hornet331]

Well that suck's I was thinking since it's 2 gpu core's on one die it may be regarded as a single card.

What current games don't utilize crossfire or don't well?

lol wut?

since when the X2 is MCM?

its still same old X2 concept (aka 2 RV770 on one card).


most new released games lack out fo the box support CF/SLI support, and then you have to rely on beta drivers or in the case of NV you can make your own profiles.

[neverwouldof]

Outside of 2560x1600, 2 X2s would be complete overkill 99% of the time. Sure if you want to use maximum amounts of anti aliasing at lower resolutions, you could still leverage some of this extra horse power but it would come at a high price of course. I doubt gains would be that substantial even at 1920x1200. Then again most people who'd spend $1400 or so on gpus and a power supply alone probably can manage to afford a 30" LCD.

I finally have given up gaming on LCD's and have gone back to CRT's for FPS Games like COD4. I have 30" Dell 3007 and 20" Samsung 2ms LCD. My 22" CRT at 85hz is so much better in response and no input lag. I kept thinking it was graphics setup and microstutter. But in the end the Monitor made bigger difference. I have a new 24" FW900 CRT coming and will run with my one GTX280 watercooled for best of both worlds and hope to have great results. Maybe try the 4870x2 2GB when it hits newegg ! The new LCD's coming out say they have lower ms response, problem is they have increasing input lag. We're getting faster vid cards but slower more complicated LCD's !

[Logos]

how do you manage to get a CRT nowadays they've been removed from the market a while ago in Europe...

[Caveman787]

Eh lost planet I have no interest in.

Why can't you create your on profile's for ATI card's aswell?

It's true it's close to the gtx280 in performance but if your gonna pay for a $500 card your gonna have that feeling that you want the best performance all the time.

[Hornet331]

Why can't you create your on profile's for ATI card's aswell?

Cause theres no tool that allowes you to do so....

[Caveman787]

And this is only XtremeSystems I'm sure someone can figure something out just like they did with 4870 fan speed/overclocking

[v_rr]

most new released games lack out fo the box support CF/SLI support, and then you have to rely on beta drivers or in the case of NV you can make your own profiles.

You can make your own micro-slutering

[shiznit93]

how do you manage to get a CRT nowadays they've been removed from the market a while ago in Europe...

used of course, ebay or craigslist are good places. I will use my FW900 til the day it dies, and unless OLED, SED, or FED are ready by then, I will buy another one immediately.

[Caveman787]

micro slutering lol didn't know we had those that small

[neverwouldof]

how do you manage to get a CRT nowadays they've been removed from the market a while ago in Europe...

Accurateit.com sells CRT's new and refurbished...

http://www.accurateit.com/home.asp

[RPGWiZaRD]

Accurateit.com sells CRT's new and refurbished...

http://www.accurateit.com/home.asp

Too bad there's no such service to find over here in Finland, would have picked up the Dell P1130 Trinitron 21" CRT immediatly which I'm still looking for.

[BluePilot]

CRT monitors are not good for your eyes. I am working as a pilot and our Aeromedical examiner told us to avoid them because they cause eye strain and can lead to myopia.

[cegras]

Outside of 2560x1600, 2 X2s would be complete overkill 99% of the time. Sure if you want to use maximum amounts of anti aliasing at lower resolutions, you could still leverage some of this extra horse power but it would come at a high price of course. I doubt gains would be that substantial even at 1920x1200. Then again most people who'd spend $1400 or so on gpus and a power supply alone probably can manage to afford a 30" LCD.

Overkill?

OVERKILL?

I .. I .. I'm at a loss for words. Overkill and an ATI product paired together in one sentence!