PowerColor PCS+ HD4870 1GB reviewed...

[fellix_bg]

HardwareZone took on the test rig the 1GB GDDR5 flavour of the HD4870. Check it here!

[vengance_01]

Meh to much money plus not much headroom without a volt mod.

[ahmad]

Nice cooler. Although it shows that there is no advantage to having the extra 512MB there, it could be driver related or maybe they did not test it in situations that need that much.. I wish they had done grid.

[screwtech02]

Man, they coulda tested it on a newer chipset board.......

[mascaras]

Hi

i also received today the powercolor HD4870 PCS+ Edition but the 512Mb version !


i will start testing the card maybe tomorow !


regards

[Hornet331]

i have this card on pre order since 2 weeks now...

[Cooper]

Still 1GB has no advantage over 512MB cards.
Here's another 1GB Vs 512MB comparison on German website

[Xcel]

Still 1GB has no advantage over 512MB cards.
[

GRID would surely benefit from 1GB at 2560 4xaa, with 2xx it uses 500mb @ 50fps but runs like crap at 15fps 4xaa when it goes over the limit.

OK it's in extreme situations GRID is the only game I've noticed it going over 500mb @ 2560

[Shocker003]

I ordered the 512mb flavour and will be putting it under water. If i can pull off 900mhz core with modded bios , that will be sweet.

[Mumid]

Still 1GB has no advantage over 512MB cards.
Here's another 1GB Vs 512MB comparison on German website

Dont think that is the case mate, when running high res with AA the 1GB card has a clear advantage

[BossBorot]

http://en.expreview.com/2008/08/23/p...-issues-check/

the cooling they put on the vrms of these cards seems to be severly lacking. If you plan on getting this card give the vrms some additional airflow at the very least

[BrowncoatGR]

Different drivers, different harwre between platforms, bad game choice(both WiC and Crysis have performance idiosyncrasies that make the poor at representing general performance and FEAR is just to easy for today's hardware) useless "review"

[GAR]

I agree, 512 vs 1GB makes no difference for now.

[initialised]

Nice to see this beast finally see the light of day but what I really want to know is how 4870 1GB (and Crossfire) compares to 4870x2 in games that don't scale well. While it's nice to see ATi own the Crysis benches a broader pallet of tests and cards would give a better picture of the card's relative performance.

If there are any reviewers out there please could you do a comparison of:
4870x2 (and CrossFire)
4850x2 (and CrossFire)
4870 1GB (and CrossFire)
4870 512MB (and CrossFire)
4850 1GB (and CrossFire)
4850 512MB (and CrossFire)
with matched GPU/Mem clocks
on x48 with 4.0GHz (400x10) QX9770 & 4GB DDR3 at 1.6GHz 8-8-8-24-1T
vs.
GTX260 (plus SLi and Tri-Sli)
GTX280 (plus SLi and Tri-Sli)
9800GX2 (and Quad-Sli)
on 790i with 4.0GHz (400x10) QX9770 & 4GB DDR3 at 1.6GHz 8-8-8-24-1T

I have a theory that this SKU was held back to ensure that the 4870x2 looked considerably better than the 4870 512MB, the above tests would confirm this.

[demonkevy666]

still why not just give it 2gbs for extreme measures and yes a 4gb 4870 x2.

[BossBorot]

why not put a spoiler on the heatsink while your at it, the results from doing either would be about the same.

[eXa]

meh... its doesnt have the same clock speeds on the 1gb vs the 512 card.. i didnt bother reading to the end of the test.

[@@@@]

a bit expensive but it will go down when the competition starts to kick in

[Bo_Fox]

Wow, both ATI and Nvidia are so damn lucky that you guys do not really care about 1GB of memory. They might just as well make a 256 MB version and sell it for only $5 less, so that all of you suckers would buy it while they rake their profits in, thanks to your opinions that games do not need "that much memory, to boot."

Because of you guys, we're still not seeing 1GB on cards yet after having 512MB as something common for over 2 years. I've already experienced quite a handful of games that use over 600-700MB of memory on my 8800GTX, and that's at 1920x1200 resolution. Say, Bioshock, UT3, Crysis, Test Drive Unlimited, CoD4, the Witcher, etc.. etc..


EDIT---another thing about the video memory is that it also reduces the hitches/stutters. Most benchmarks out there do not show the minimum fps--it only shows the average, so the hitches/stutters would not show up in those graphs. Ignorance is bliss, eh? I think not!

[Xcel]

I've already experienced quite a handful of games that use over 600-700MB of memory on my 8800GTX, and that's at 1920x1200 resolution. I think not!

That is some inefficient memory usage then. UT3 uses 350-400mb @ 2560*1600 for me

[adamsleath]

some games will be more memory intensive, i bet.


looks like a significant difference to me.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...light=4870+1gb

different games different effects; some (games) dont benefit from the extra ram and some will....but based on what little info at hand, maybe most games will not benefit from the extra 512 of gddr5.

a handful of games that use over 600-700MB of memory on my 8800GTX

with respect, an 8800gtx is not a 4870 512MB or 1GB.

[Bo_Fox]

That is some inefficient memory usage then. UT3 uses 350-400mb @ 2560*1600 for me

Well, I usually play with 4x FSAA on, and that significantly increases the amount of video RAM used. Most of the time, it's 16x CSAA with TR SSAA. TR SSAA increases it *a lot*, much more than just simple 2560x1600.

My condolences for you gaming at that rez with only 512MB.. I feel ya!

some games will be more memory intensive, i bet.


looks like a significant difference to me.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...light=4870+1gb

different games different effects; some (games) dont benefit from the extra ram and some will....but based on what little info at hand, maybe most games will not benefit from the extra 512 of gddr5.


with respect, an 8800gtx is not a 4870 512MB or 1GB.

Yeah, thank God my 8800GTX has just enough (768MB) for most games released within the last 18 months! Using Rivatuner's monitoring, it's passed 700MB with 3-4 games but the memory usage kept on dropping after peaking somewhere so close to 768MB. It seems that the texture buffers were being "re-cached" or something like that, and I could notice some hitching in the game as confirmed with the graphs.

It is a big factor of stability in some certain resolutions with some level of AA. Some cards will simply refuse to let you play a game at a high rez+high AA. Some games just crash due to poor texture management at a limited buffer, or due to poor drivers. I'd just rather have more than enough memory and not worry about it.

Sometimes, if our hardware does not advance for a while, the software development also stays stagnant. More often than not, software development usually follows hardware development. If Nvidia and ATI went ahead and marketed 1GB flavors of the 9800GTX, 3870/4870 right from the beginning, many of us would have already bought it, and more game developers would be encouraged to use higher-rez textures. We've been stuck at 512MB for like 2 years and then the "half-step" to 768MB for another 1.5 years. Remember Doom 3 released in 2004 "requiring" 512MB for Ultra quality graphics? That was 4 damn years ago!! Seriously guys, do you really want hardware tech to be that stagnant, unlike the past when we went from 16MB to 128MB (8x the amount) within 2 years between 2000 and 2002?

[Hell Hound]

Well, I usually play with 4x FSAA on, and that significantly increases the amount of video RAM used. Most of the time, it's 16x CSAA with TR SSAA. TR SSAA increases it *a lot*, much more than just simple 2560x1600.

My condolences for you gaming at that rez with only 512MB.. I feel ya!



Yeah, thank God my 8800GTX has just enough (768MB) for most games released within the last 18 months! Using Rivatuner's monitoring, it's passed 700MB with 3-4 games but the memory usage kept on dropping after peaking somewhere so close to 768MB. It seems that the texture buffers were being "re-cached" or something like that, and I could notice some hitching in the game as confirmed with the graphs.

It is a big factor of stability in some certain resolutions with some level of AA. Some cards will simply refuse to let you play a game at a high rez+high AA. Some games just crash due to poor texture management at a limited buffer, or due to poor drivers. I'd just rather have more than enough memory and not worry about it.

Sometimes, if our hardware does not advance for a while, the software development also stays stagnant. More often than not, software development usually follows hardware development. If Nvidia and ATI went ahead and marketed 1GB flavors of the 9800GTX, 3870/4870 right from the beginning, many of us would have already bought it, and more game developers would be encouraged to use higher-rez textures. We've been stuck at 512MB for like 2 years and then the "half-step" to 768MB for another 1.5 years. Remember Doom 3 released in 2004 "requiring" 512MB for Ultra quality graphics? That was 4 damn years ago!! Seriously guys, do you really want hardware tech to be that stagnant, unlike the past when we went from 16MB to 128MB (8x the amount) within 2 years between 2000 and 2002?

You can force it to use way more than 512 mb of gpu memory.512mb should be the min for Doom3,at least for Ati hardware.

[Shocker003]

I agree, 512 vs 1GB makes no difference for now.

+1
You are right, i have been waiting for the 1Gb HD 4870s but when i saw the reviews i had a change of mind cos it will be a waste of money with less gain. I don´t have a monitor that can handel very high res. Does someone know where this card will max out when the core and mem is overclocked.

[overclock]

Bad review : no games tested in 2560x1600, AF limited to 4X instead of 16X, too few games tested.

Today, with my 9800GTX, I sometimes encounter stutters when graphic memory is far above 512 MB : I play in 2560x1600, AA 0X, AF 16X, everything on max and on Obivion modded (QTP3), Stalker, Crysis, GRAW 2, Lock On, about 700 MB is used. And without AA 4X (Oblivion : around 1 GB : normal and BTQ maps 4096x4096, QTP3).