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4870 vs 4850 Battle!

gurusan

gurusan

gurusan

Soldato
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**** 4870 vs 4850 Battle! ****

both cards 512mb!

So I got a 4870 today....threw it under water and clocked it to 860/1000 before doing some benches.

I will keep this very short and to the point...as you can see, the 4870 is about 8% faster overall at the same clocks...possibly 9% if you clock the memory even higher to 1100 (4400). The biggest difference looks to be the maximum fps of Crysis with 4xAA. The 4870 also seems strong at 3dmark06 in comparison to the 4850 if you look at the individual sm2/sm3 scores...this shows that there's some power on tap here from the extra memory bandwidth...

Also keep in mind that the 4850 was pencil modded and needed 1.37V for 860mhz...the 4870 did it on stock voltage which was measured with a DMM to be 1.277V under load. Both cards are under water and I will be vmodding the 4870 to see if I can get some more out of it :)

I will leave you all to draw your own conclusions as to the extra price of the 4870 over the 4850...hopefully this will spark some interesting discussion :)


Notes:
  1. Settings in games are all maxed out (ultra, enthusiast..etc).
  2. Resolution is 1680x1050 except 3dmark06 is the default 1280x1024

System test setup is:

  • Server 2008 64bit
  • E8500 @ 4607mhz
  • 4x1gb OCZ SLI @ 1164mhz 5,5,5,15
  • P5Q Deluxe
  • Catalyst 8.12 BETA drivers, installed without CCC so default driver settings (balanced AFAIK)

59929033ty6.png



3dmark06 breakdown:

4850
  • 16181 3DMarks
  • SM 2.0 Score 6378
  • SM 3.0 Score 7917
  • CPU Score 4216

4870
  • 17798 3DMarks
  • SM 2.0 Score 7040
  • SM 3.0 Score 9192
  • CPU Score 4198
 
Last edited:
nice benchmarks there nice clocking. the difference its not so big just the memory but u see some people would not overclock to some extreme measures etc etc.
 
I had both cards until recently upgrading them to GTX260-216's. My thoughts are that the 4850 is a much better deal than the 512Mb 4870. Ignore the benchmark difference as real world FPS counts. Cannot vouch for a 1GB 4870 as never had one but 4850 gives amazing FPS for the price and destroys 8800GTX's. 4850 punchs above its weight and 2 of those Crossfired are very potent in most games.
 
dmxdex2020 said:
Ive read the 4870 is a better card it having GGDR5 gives it more bandwidth and it overclocks brilliantly apprently.
Click to expand...

Yes it's a better card but I think the point he is making is how much better? And at how much extra cost?
 
gareth170 said:
well my 4850 512mb performances well at 1920x1200 res.
Click to expand...

No one is saying it wont but a 4870 would be more than 10% faster at 1920x1200 and above. I have a 4850 because I'm at 1680x1050, and its actually a little slower in most titles than my previous 3870X2 (but less troublesome), but fast enough.

Until a card comes below £200 that performs at 4850X2 levels then I'm happy with a 4850.
 
This is interesting. The cards are in a situation where they shouldn't be CPU limited, and yet the 4870 is only 10% ahead with 4xAA.

How fast was the memory running on the 4850? From what I have seen, the 4850 really comes to life with extra bandwidth.

/Edit/ I need to read more. Do we reckon the difference of ~10% would in place if both cards were at, say 750/1000Mhz?
 
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as stated in the table, the 4850 memory was running at 1150mhz. However, I spotted an error...the 4870 gddr5 was running at only 1ghz, not 1150...although I have just tested it and it seems to do 1150mhz no problem. Though I doubt that would make more than a few tenths of a percent of difference TBH...
 
10% is pretty good imo considering they both are using the same core at the same speed. The only difference between the cards when running at the same core speed is one has gddr3 and the other gddr5.
 
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