My disappointment with the 4870

Bengaboy · 28 Jan 2009 at 20:55

A while back, I had a HIS 4870 512mb and was very excited as I had never had a card as new as that before.

I couldnt wait for all games to be blown apart fps wise, and I admit a bit of wee fell out as I installed it into my case.

Bought a new game to go with it - Crysis Warhead, thought it would play the game great. Wasnt too brilliant. Kept getting fps go below 15, and was quite a terrible experience. Still completed it though!

And this trend of dropping with the card happened with most of my games.

Thats why I think this time I will be going for a card by nvidia.

Is anyone else disapointed by their 4870 experience?

FrenchTart · 28 Jan 2009 at 20:56

Clearly you just don't know what you're doing.

The 4870 is a fine card...as are several Nvidia cards. You can't expect everything/anything to run Crysis maxed however.

Duke · 28 Jan 2009 at 20:56

What is the rest of your system spec?

lunarwolf · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:01

system spec, screen size and resolution?

Kainz · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:02

How can you have issues with other games with such a powerful GPU? Granted Crysis is poorly coded title, but I've heard that Warhead is a lot better with optimisations in place.

explicit4u · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:02

4870 512MB is a good card but have you tried the 4870 1GB, also its something your doing, spec me your PC please.

Defcon5 · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:09

You fully got rid of your old drivers etc yeah?

Bengaboy · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:22

Thought I would get some of these kind of comments.

The fact of the matter is, I havnt been building pcs for long. Infact, my current one is the 1st one I have built. But I have quite a lot of knowledge on components and how good they are , etc - that is why I was quite disapointed with the card.

I used to game at 1680 x 1050 on a 22" monitor.

The rest of my spec is :

e6400 2.13ghz 4mb cache (this was quite clearly bottlenecking the card, so overclocked it to 3.3ghz)
2gb RAM

Also, the 4870 had a neo vortex 2 blue cooler thing on it. Was loud and annoyed me, but I know that was nothing to do with the card.

Heres something that might be a cause for it though....

When booted up my pc for the 1st time in months the other day, my 7900gto had problems. The nvidia control panel said it wasnt getting enough power and therefore wouldnt operate to its full potential. Swapped it with another 6 pin adapter and hey ho, it worked.... (corsair tx650w psu)

Would the ATI Control panel alert me to such a fault? Im guessing this may have been the reason for the card to drop below 15fps - because of the lack of juice going to it?

Ease · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:31

1680 x 1050 is quite a large resolution if you have it on the highest settings. My computer handles Crysis with 30 to 40ish FPS on any resolution lower than 1680 x 1050, but really gets dragged down at that resolution to ~20FPS.

There's also a chance that the RAM might be limiting you. Nowadays 2gb ain't a lot, especially if you're running Vista.

lunarwolf · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:41

650w PSu is more than enough

did you install drivers properly, it seems very low, i was getting that kind of fps in Crysis with my 88gtx @1900x1200

you should be gettin higher than this obviously no AA

(512 not gonna like that), i should think about 25fps

Bengaboy · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:48

It was getting around 25-40 fps , but would drop to about 15fps on the later levels.

Even when it was at a 1280x1024 res, it was still pretty bad.

Even though I am saying this, I wouldnt mind giving it another go with the sapphire 1gb card that has just popped up

So like I say, would an error message pop up saying the card isnt getting enough power?

lunarwolf · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:52

so how can you be dissapointed, that seems very reasonnable for Crysis, you cant expect a midrange card to play like a top of the line card esp for some of the most demanding games.

no offence, but i think your expectations are unrealistic, if you had read any reviews you would know this

Strife212 · 28 Jan 2009 at 21:53

You can't expect everything/anything to run Crysis maxed however.

Yeah you can....

nalla · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:01

when you say you booted up your pc for the first time in months your 7900 gto said not enough juice, so were talking the same pc and thats the card you upgraded from, if so did you remove all the nvidia drivers, that could easily cause you probelms, there is a utility that removes the nvidia drivers for you if your unsure.

Bradley8988 · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:07

My 4870 was a decent increase from the 8800GTS G92 i had before.

Bengaboy · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:18

nalla said:
when you say you booted up your pc for the first time in months your 7900 gto said not enough juice, so were talking the same pc and thats the card you upgraded from, if so did you remove all the nvidia drivers, that could easily cause you probelms, there is a utility that removes the nvidia drivers for you if your unsure.

Yea I did mate - I used driver cleaner pro to get rid of them.

Noto · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:20

Bengaboy said:
Thought I would get some of these kind of comments.

I used to game at 1680 x 1050 on a 22" monitor.

Stopped reading there... with only 512mb of ram your gonna really struggle in any game at that res with bells and whistles on. 1gb is the standard for high res gaming. clearly you havent done much research into ur gfx card and performance your likely to get. (echoing lunarwolf's comments)

I would suggest reading forums and reviews much more before buying any computer part . Especially with the amount of 'spin' certain companies put on (nvidia being the main culprit these days).

95thrifles · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:25

Id have to disagree, 512mb is enough for up to and including 1920*1200, check this review if you dont believe me, its only above this where the 1 gig comes into play, I dont know many people on 30" screens myself, yet, lol
It definatley souns like you didnt have something set up right, as this review shows at 1920*1200 and below a couple of these in crossfire even outperform the new 285's

Bengaboy · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:35

Noto said:
Stopped reading there... with only 512mb of ram your gonna really struggle in any game at that res with bells and whistles on. 1gb is the standard for high res gaming. clearly you havent done much research into ur gfx card and performance your likely to get. (echoing lunarwolf's comments)

I would suggest reading forums and reviews much more before buying any computer part . Especially with the amount of 'spin' certain companies put on (nvidia being the main culprit these days).

I do read the forums actually - and this was before the 1gb version was even out. Before the 1gb was out, this was hailed as the grand daddy of destruction. Then the 1gb came out and all of a sudden cant handle high res.

I get my knowledge from review sites and the forums, and sometimes it just doesnt mesh well

mame · 28 Jan 2009 at 22:43

Bengaboy said:
I wouldnt mind giving it another go with the sapphire 1gb card that has just popped up

4870 512mb to 4870 1GB isn't a very good upgrade unless it's going to cost you next to nothing and you have a 30" monitor. For an upgrade you would want a 280 GTX minimum. Even that isn't going to blow your mind from a 4870.