*** Official 4870 reviews thread ***

[nalla]

well i read the tweaktown review and was impressed with the gtx 280 review, due to the fact of the high res scores, as i do have a 30" monitor and at 2560x1600 the crossfire 4870s didnt even get a score in some games, so for me wanting to use my monitor at optimium res the gtx 280 looks far better than the atis unless of course the tweaktown review is biased towards nvidia and bending the truth a little

 

[ten80p]

well i read the tweaktown review and was impressed with the gtx 280 review, due to the fact of the high res scores, as i do have a 30" monitor and at 2560x1600 the crossfire 4870s didnt even get a score in some games, so for me wanting to use my monitor at optimium res the gtx 280 looks far better than the atis unless of course the tweaktown review is biased towards nvidia and bending the truth a little

I'd checkout some of the others as well to see if they all have the same results

 

[Squink]

Anyone got an idea why these cards don't seem to be choking on some of the ultra-high settings used here? For example, CoD4 at 25x16 with 4xAA shows no signs of being anything other than brute-force limited, rather than limited by having only 512Mb RAM. I thought it was a widely-held belief (not without some justification) that 512Mb is a little bit low for some of these resolutions.

 

[ten80p]

Anyone got an idea why these cards don't seem to be choking on some of the ultra-high settings used here? For example, CoD4 at 25x16 with 4xAA shows no signs of being anything other than brute-force limited, rather than limited by having only 512Mb RAM. I thought it was a widely-held belief (not without some justification) that 512Mb is a little bit low for some of these resolutions.

Maybe new cards are more efficient or something, also 4870 has good memory bandwidth

 

[wolvers]

Yeah that and poor thermal paster. Some reviews show a 15C drop after applying AS5 which is poor on ATI tbh.

Plus fans seem to be stuck on 14% until temps hit 100 degrees.

So reseat cooler with AS5 and manually up fan speed and they seem fine.

Or fit aftermarket cooler or water.

Crikey! That's a bit bizarre. Can you set up fan profiles in Rivatuner like i have with my GTS?

 

[nalla]

well i read a review posted here about 1gb crads and 2560x1600 and its totally due to the 512bit bus and the 1 gig dedicated ram whereas sli/cf using 2x512 meg cards theoretically still only uses 512 meg memory, so i believe anyway someone on here actually did a review on this.

 

[psychas]

Crikey! That's a bit bizarre. Can you set up fan profiles in Rivatuner like i have with my GTS?

i think no till new till they make new rivatuner

 

[ten80p]

well i read a review posted here about 1gb crads and 2560x1600 and its totally due to the 512bit bus and the 1 gig dedicated ram whereas sli/cf using 2x512 meg cards theoretically still only uses 512 meg memory, so i believe anyway someone on here actually did a review on this.

Think this is the one you refer to
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17888181

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Firingsquad review http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_4850_4870_performance/

Beat of the 260 in this one.

 

[straxusii]

Added Hardocp: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUyNCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[ten80p]

Added Hardocp: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUyNCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Good to see Hardocp overclock to 780 core and 4360 memory, memory bandwidth up from 115 to 139 (+21%) which is same thereabouts as the GTX260 - need some benchies now with this o/c

 

[Greebo]

Anyone got an idea why these cards don't seem to be choking on some of the ultra-high settings used here? For example, CoD4 at 25x16 with 4xAA shows no signs of being anything other than brute-force limited, rather than limited by having only 512Mb RAM. I thought it was a widely-held belief (not without some justification) that 512Mb is a little bit low for some of these resolutions.

More efficient texture processing and the different way ATI do it. ATi have always been better than Nvidia historically.

Hence you may need more 512Mb with a Nvidia card but not with an ATI 4870 card.

 

[Monkeynut]

Is this to do with a software patent ATi hold perhaps?

 

[Rew-UK]

HIS Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire Video Card Review

Apologies in advance if this link already posted
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/734/1/

 

[milkinc13]

what's the betting custom PC won't like these cards, and they'll probably say that Nvidia's new offerings are a lot better in performance

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Too right, but still... Their reviews are always questionable at best.

 

[HighlandeR]

Far too impressive, no more Nvidia for anyone I think... 4870 clearly close to GT280 levels and @ less then half the cost.

Definatly gonna put on the thermal HR passive heatsink with a silent 120mm fan on it though..... Just to solve the heat/noise soloution

Welcome back ATI we missed you

 

[Big.Wayne]

The only question is 4870 or 4850 CF

The single HD4870 will have cheaper running costs and won't turn your case into an oven!

o well...dont like the idea of going from 768Mb GTX to the 512mb 4870....

I think the benchmarks speak for themselves and remember things like memory controller efficiency, texture compression and pure GDDR5 speed work wonders!

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?

 

[Stu]

As anticipated by many, the new 4800 series cards are sweet, especially at the price. Before today, I had in my head that I was getting a 4870 for my new build... however...

After first seeing the prices, I was thinking that 4850 CF was a fair option versus a 4870...

Then, after reading the reviews, I'm starting to think that it's hard to justify a 4860 over a 4850 given that I have a 22" WS monitor...

Though I think that I'll still get a 4870 At least 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 )

 

[Lightnix]

An interesting tidbit from the AnandTech review:

Although AMD isn't talking about it now, the CrossFire Sideport is a new feature of the RV770 architecture that isn't in use on the RV770 at all. In future, single-card, multi-GPU solutions (*cough* R700) this interface will be used to communicate between adjacent GPUs

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=9

Sounds like the pci-e bridge is a thing of the past, then.