*** Official 4870 reviews thread ***

[Big.Wayne]

I've decided that 4850 CF is more than I need despite only being £30 more expensive. (I can use the £30 for a nice cooler for the 4870 )

Have you looked into how much electricity two HD4850 would use compared to a single HD4870?

You may think we are talking pennies here but once you get in energy efficiency and understanding how many KwH you are using and start to make adjustments your leccy bills starts to drop quite a bit.

I've personally knocked £30 of my quarterly bill and reduced my carbon footprint lol!

Crossfire and SLI is a selling gimmick methinks, who the heck has a two card setup anyway?

 

[pugheaven]

Me & more on this forum

Yeah around 1%

 

[Kalpsn2000]

Originally Posted by ffallic
Am thinking dual 1GB 4850's might be the thing to get.

I am thinking 2GB of GDDR5 will cost a huge sum of money! Also doesn't crossfire only use the memory from one card? If so seems a pity to have a dormant 1GB of GDDR5?

Just a reminder to ppl thinking of 4850 CF the the 4850's have GDDR3 not GDDR5. Not sure how much of a difference this would make.

 

[Big.Wayne]

the 4850's have GDDR3 not GDDR5

Yup your quite correct!

 

[chaosophy]

I wonder what a 4870+4850 CF set-up would be like? A nice sweat spot between the two price/performance wise? Surprised no reviews have tried it, or would the 4850 bring the 4870 down so it just ended up the same as 4850 CF? Your single card performance would be good though in games that don't support CF.

 

[Final8y]

Yeah around 1%

Threads: 381,850, Posts: 5,974,165, Members: 34,814, *Active Members: 7,667 *in the last 30 days

Quite a few possibly

 

[straxusii]

I wonder what a 4870+4850 CF set-up would be like? A nice sweat spot between the two price/performance wise? Surprised no reviews have tried it, or would the 4850 bring the 4870 down so it just ended up the same as 4850 CF? Your single card performance would be good though in games that don't support CF.

+1, Ive been thinking about this combo, I guess it will be possible and am interested to see a review.

 

[chaosophy]

Maybe if the OcUK guys aren't too busy shipping them out and rolling in their cash they could bench it?

 

[FlippinEck]

Im worried about the power consumption of these things, i have a corsair 750w and plan on having two of these running CF (one for a while until i get the second), should I be ok ?

 

[Defiance_co]

You will be fine with that psu

Ciao

Def

 

[FlippinEck]

thank you

 

[Stu]

Im worried about the power consumption of these things, i have a corsair 750w and plan on having two of these running CF (one for a while until i get the second), should I be ok ?

Answer...

There is an ATI presentation floating around that states:

-ATI Radeon HD 4850 system requirements
450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended (550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFreX technology in dual mode)

-ATI Radeon HD 4870 system requirements
500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFreX technology in dual mode)

 

[Kraven]

Is that 600watt it uses in crossfire or that a 600 watt powersupply will be enough? Ive got corsair hx620. Also dont think i will have enough cables for the cards

If these are dual slot cards and have 2x 4870 and a x-fi soundcard i fear that things will get cramped and may even have 1 card touching the soundcard. What do you guys reckon?

 

[Defiance_co]

Kraven,

I've got the same Corsair Modular HX620 and should be ample so don't worry

I have the cheap x-fi xtremegamer, Maybe cramped but i don't foresee any major probs myself

(ohh ordered asus x48 mobo, so i hope i don't run into CF problems lol)

Ciao

Def

 

[domyboy]

Please... no more "It doesn't run Crysis fast" posts... each time someone makes on a fairy dies. Please save the fairies. Sigh.

ROFLMAO

 

[eyetrip]

Did not want to create a new thread, so here goes...

As my PC is now likely to be running constantly, I am thinking of moving completely away from any overclocking and looking to get power consumption at idle to a bare minimum, while having a pc that is still powerful when needed.

I currently have a 3870, which has brilliant power consumption, but can be a bit lacking in the performance department. So was thinking of a 4870, but the power consumption is looking awful at idle! Is this likely to get fixed with a GPU BIOS update? Bearing in mind that I would probably get the Powercolor version.

I was also thinking of replacing 3GHz Oced E4300 with stock e4300, plus other stuff but will make thread on gen hardware for that....

 

[gurusan]

I don't have a power meter but I am using the latest bios which comes on MSI cards, powerplay is all the way down to 160core/500mem

 

[eyetrip]

I don't have a power meter but I am using the latest bios which comes on MSI cards, powerplay is all the way down to 160core/500mem

Do you think the BIOS update is likely to now be implemented on all brands cards?

I remeber reading about the MSI update, but if other brands aren't going to issue a similar update it willb e a pain.

 

[Jakus]

I don't have a power meter but I am using the latest bios which comes on MSI cards, powerplay is all the way down to 160core/500mem

Voltage is far more effective in reducing power/heat than clockspeed, I got a pair of HD3870's really down in the power/temp department with the computerbase bios editor But I can't get a handle on the RBE editor, I don't understand all the power modes...any ideas or a good guide ?

 

[sunderland]

just got a HIS4870 and do you apply the 8.6 cat drivers then the hotfix for these cards and also never used the CCC before do i just leave all AA/AF at aplication controlled cheers,my temp is showing at 76 in CCC but 61 in everest