Will Radeon HD 4870 turn up the heat on the GTX 280?

[Toss3]

poor little kid got lost ;)

Heh I think this whole thread is a little bit lost... ;)

Btw. is it just me or does that spider in that radeon pic above just look a bit "out-of-place"? :D

[Zapablast05]

Heh I think this whole thread is a little bit lost... ;)

Btw. is it just me or does that spider in that radeon pic above just look a bit "out-of-place"? :D

Yeah, it does. It just looks stupid in that spot. Looks like it doesn't even belong there.

[Slappi]

gotta love fanbois :) or fangirls in Slappe case

That's Slappi to you!

You have to learn to embrace your fanboyism!

I embraced mine a long time ago.

Just breathe! AHHHHHH, yes let it in!! Baske in all that ATI redness!

You are like the gay guy at work who has a lot of "girlfriends", listens to a lot of Mariah, talks with a lisp and makes a lot of penis jokes but swears he's straight as an arrow.

Time for you, G-Man, to come out of the ATI Fanboy closet and embrace your true self.

Thank me later.

[walterman]

are you skipping GT200 for now?

Well, i do not want to buy another gfx card to run 1280x1024. :)

I need a card to upgrade to 1920x1200, but the actual GTX280 isn't still enough for my personal needs, so, i'm not buying it.

I'm not sure if the current memory controler in the GT200 supports GDDR 5 though,but even then,using a 512 bit bus and GDDR 5 is beyond overkill,and the card would have more memory bandwith than the core could use (250GB/sec +),Not to mention that GDDR5 memory production is still ramping up and carries a premium over GDDR3.

A higher clocked 55nm version,running at 750 to 800Mhz,using the same power as the current version and clocking it's GDDR 3 memory as fast as it can,would likely make the fight a lot closer realtive to the HD4870 X2,and it's something that Nvidia can do in the next few months.

The GTX280 has 3x times more ALU power than the 8800GTX, but only a 45% higher bandwidth, so, it really needs the extra bandwidth to shine as i would like to see.

I need something in the range of 200GB/s. Impossible with GDDR3.

And i cannot jump to ATi, cause they do not support the SSAA modes that i need.

So, i'm doomed to 1280x1024 again.

[shadow001]

The GTX280 has 3x times more ALU power than the 8800GTX, but only a 45% higher bandwidth, so, it really needs the extra bandwidth to shine as i would like to see.

I need something in the range of 200GB/s. Impossible with GDDR3.

And i cannot jump to ATi, cause they do not support the SSAA modes that i need.

So, i'm doomed to 1280x1024 again.


True,there is a lot more shader power in the GTX280,but shader operations as a general rule aren't really memory bandwith intensive operations anyhow....

32bit floating point blending operations do eat a ton of memory bandwith,but i'm not sure if the GT200 supports that or still sticks with 16bit for blending ops.

[hell_of_doom227]

http://www.expreview.com/img/topic/hd4800/rv770_coredesign_spec02.png

They forgot one line there...GTX280 is fast and our card sucks in games. :p

[hell_of_doom227]

Well,keep in mind a few things though:


1:The performance gap between an HD4870 and the GTX280 is only about 15%.
2:Crossfire scaling from 1 to 2 GPU's is anyhwere from 50 to to 70%.(on supported games)
3:A single HD4870 easily beats a 9800GTX by a good 30~35%.
4:A 9800GX2 is basically 2 9800GTX's bolted together,but running at lower clocks.
5:An HD4870 X2 is basically 2 HD4870's bolted together too,but without clocks being lowered


So in all likelyhood,the HD4870X2 will not only outrun a GTX280 by a large amount,but even beat an 9800GX2 by a decent amount too,maybe even 30~35% there,since scaling on SLI and crossfire is pretty similar in terms of percentage gain overall.

Where the hell you got those numbers?

HD4850 is choking against 8800GTX. HD4870 is what overclocked version of HD4850? Give me a break. It's not even close to GTX260.

[G-Man]

That's Slappi to you!

You have to learn to embrace your fanboyism!

I embraced mine a long time ago.

Just breathe! AHHHHHH, yes let it in!! Baske in all that ATI redness!

You are like the gay guy at work who has a lot of "girlfriends", listens to a lot of Mariah, talks with a lisp and makes a lot of penis jokes but swears he's straight as an arrow.

Time for you, G-Man, to come out of the ATI Fanboy closet and embrace your true self.

Thank me later.

If you want to come out of the closet that's fine, i don't discriminate against gays :) but I do discriminate against idiots :)

[hell_of_doom227]

First 4870 (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.expreview.com%2Ftopic %2F2008-06-24%2F1214282167d9273.html&hl=zh-CN&ie=UTF8&sl=zh-CN&tl=en]ATI%204870%20512MB%20DDR5) review by the chinese.Its seems to be beating the GTX260 most of the times by 5-30%.

HD4870 just sucks in DX10 games. Look at Lost Planet for example...heck even 8800GTS is hell of fast for half life 2 engine.

[G-Man]

HD4870 just sucks in DX10 games. Look at Lost Planet for example...heck even 8800GTS is hell of fast for half life 2 engine.

"Before you begin testing, there are a few points I want to convey about “Lost Planet”. “Lost Planet” is an Nvidia-sponsored title, and one that Nvidia has had a chance to look at and optimize their drivers for. The developer has not made us aware of this new benchmark, and as such the ATI Radeon driver team has not had the opportunity explore how the benchmark uses our hardware and optimize in a similar fashion. Over the next little while AMD will be looking at this, but in the meantime, please note that whatever performance you see will not be reflective of what gamers will experience in the final build of the game."

[walterman]

True,there is a lot more shader power in the GTX280,but shader operations as a general rule aren't really memory bandwith intensive operations anyhow....

32bit floating point blending operations do eat a ton of memory bandwith,but i'm not sure if the GT200 supports that or still sticks with 16bit for blending ops.

Depends of the sort of game. New games are generally bounded by the shading power, but, when you raise the AF or AA, you need to read more texels from the textures, and combine more fragments in your ROPs, thus increasing the need for bandwidth.

Just check the performance of the GTX280. In some tests, it ends 2-3x times faster than the 8800GTX, but in others, only a 40-60% faster.

Personally, i need a lot of bandwidth to run my fav game at 1920x1200 with SSAA 2x and my framerate needs.

And yes, there is support for fp32 blending since the G80. On the G80, fp16 blending was half speed, and now it is full. So, i think that that fp32 should be half speed on the GT200.

[G-Man]

http://www.ibuypower.com/dri/ThreadDisplay.aspx?FID=2&QID=161 is the original thread

iBuyPower Testing and Overclock Team Presents:
ATI HD4870 Early Benchmarks

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2897/hd4870sdh5.png

We here at iBuyPower got a hold of a few HD4870 engineering samples from the generous fellas at AMD, so we wasted no time and started to test them! :D

System Specifications:
CPU - Intel Yorkfield QX9770 @ 4.0 GHz
RAM - 2 x 1GB Mushkin DDR3-1800 PC3-12800 @ 7-7-6-18
Graphics - ATI HD4870 (Crossfire when specified)
Motherboard - Asus P5E3 Premium WiFi-AP @n Edition
HDD - 160GB Hitachi Deskstar
PSU - 1250W Cooler Master Real Power Pro
OS - Windows Vista 32bit

Stock ATI HD4870 Clocks: 750 core/900 memory

Single Card Benchmarks:
Temperatures:
Idle: 72-74C
Load: 80-83C

3DMark Vantage:
P9006
GPU: 7855
CPU: 16064

3DMark '06:
15994
GPU SM2.0: 5811
GPU SM3.0: 7271
CPU: 5689

Crysis Benchmark:
1280 x 1024 (No AA) @ High: 50.94
1600 x 1200 (No AA) @ High: 38.915
1600 x 1200 (2x AA) @ High: 35.185
1600 x 1200 (4x AA) @ High: 29.865
1280 x 1024 (No AA) @ Very High: 30.21
1600 x 1200 (No AA) @ Very High: 22.53
1600 x 1200 (2x AA) @ Very High: 19.505
1600 x 1200 (4x AA) @ Very High: 16.855

World In Conflict Benchmark:
1280 x 1024 (4x AA, 4x AF) @ Very High: 46.6 avg, 27.6 min, 78.6 max
1600 x 1200 (4x AA, 4x AF) @ Very High: 40.6 avg, 23.6 min, 69.3 max

Crossfire Benchmarks
Temperatures:
Idle: 68-70C
Load: 79-81C
(The slightly lower temperatures can be explained that we mounted more fans in the overall setup, while the single card only had one fan blowing into it)

3DMark Vantage:
P12261
GPU: 11390
CPU: 15913

3DMark '06:
21684
GPU SM2.0: 8070
GPU SM3.0: 10846
CPU: 5900

Crysis Benchmark:
1280 x 1024 (No AA) @ High: 53.205
1600 x 1200 (No AA) @ High: 48.35
1600 x 1200 (2x AA) @ High: 41.385
1600 x 1200 (4x AA) @ High: 34.01
1280 x 1024 (No AA) @ Very High: 38.63
1600 x 1200 (No AA) @ Very High: 32.085
1600 x 1200 (2x AA) @ Very High: 27.35
1600 x 1200 (4x AA) @ Very High: 24.16

World In Conflict Benchmark:
1280 x 1024 (4x AA, 4x AF) @ Very High: 51 avg, 26.3 min, 118.3 max
1600 x 1200 (4x AA, 4x AF) @ Very High: 48 avg, 26 min, 112 max

Other Notes:
The fan seems to run pretty slowly as well, which would explain the higher temperatures, even with a dual slot cooler. Taking out the PWM fan control blue pin from the fan connector lets the fan run at 100%, which is very loud but also takes a lot of the temperature off.

Coming Soon:
Quad Hybrid Crossfires with 2x HD4850s and 2x HD4870s with a Phenom 9950. :)
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5042/quadhybridcrossfireho7.png

[Viral]

Where the hell you got those numbers?

HD4850 is choking against 8800GTX. HD4870 is what overclocked version of HD4850? Give me a break. It's not even close to GTX260.

Wrong. It's around 5-10% faster on average.

Now say sorry for spreading lies.

[Blacklash]

The early results are looking good for the price and I'm not a fan of Crossfire or the Catamite Software Suite.

[Toss3]

No quad or triple CF benches yet? :( And Viral no need to feed the troll.

[KasuCode]

a repost of some benches

4870 is a very solid card.

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/9786/17131yk9.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/2078/17132yk2.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/5577/17134un5.png


Strong Crossfire scaling

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/414/17137hb3.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/3843/17140ir5.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/7825/17141qi8.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/7782/17142kq4.png

from http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=1


Thats allot of almost 100% Crossfire Scaling.

[cvearl]

I guess the short answer is...

BURNED THAT MOTHA DOWN!

But honestly, the 4800's don't make GTX260 and 280 and less of cards. They just need dramatic price adjustments to remain vailable.

nVidia is huge and have very deep pockets.

You know they have something up their sleeve. ATI deserves the spotlight now though for bringing it at the $200 and $300 price points.

Good work ATI and welcome back.

C.

[mailman2]

Outstanding - HD 4870 FTW!

[shadow001]

Look at the tech reports review,since they test an HD4850 and an HD4870 crossfire setup in quite a lot of games and that the most demaining settings(2560*1600 4XAA/16X AF),the HD4870 crossfire leads a single GTX280(costing 50$ more),by anywhere from 25 to 50 FPS....It's also humiliating a 9800GX2 as well.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14990/9


It's a given that the HD4870 X2 will be just as fast as that for sure,and with the addition of that crossfire sideport feature,it might not even need a PCI-e bridge chip so that the GPU's can communicate together,potentially leading to better scaling overall.

[Blacklash]

I have yet to see any meaningful reviews with GTX 260 SLi. If the price falls on that card it should make solid price vs performance competition for the 4870.

Currently, nVidia have two methods of AFR in addition to their others, while ATi has one AFR method. It's more likely SLi will actually work.

I'd be curious to see how TheWitcher actually plays on the new ATi cards in Crossfire. I got horrid stutter on HD 3850 Crossfire in that title, so much that I would disable it.

[shadow001]

I have yet to see any meaningful reviews with GTX 260 SLi. If the price falls on that card it should make solid price vs performance competition for the 4870.

Currently, nVidia have two methods of AFR in addition to their others, while ATi has one AFR method. It's more likely SLi will actually work.

I'd be curious to see how TheWitcher actually plays on the new ATi cards in Crossfire. I got horrid stutter on HD 3850 Crossfire in that title, so much that I would disable it.


Ask and ye shall find;)...you'll have to scroll a bit,but the results speak for themselves....An HD4870 crossfire is matching an Nvidia GTX280 SLI in that particular game.


http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=21

[E30325i 2.7]

Why is ATI cards always so ugly screaming red??
I wood like to se a review of every day use not only numbers, numbers is not everything (9800GX2 vs 280GTX the 280 is mush better in real life games) and how stable they are after hours of gaming.

[LordJuanlo]

Why is ATI cards always so ugly screaming red??

4870x2 will have full black PCB

[Uberpwnage]

It's a given that the HD4870 X2 will be just as fast as that for sure,and with the addition of that crossfire sideport feature,it might not even need a PCI-e bridge chip so that the GPU's can communicate together,potentially leading to better scaling overall.
It's really not a given, the 4870X2 is thought to actually be using two 4850 cores, only they have GDDR5. 4870X2 is only a working title that the industry has sprung upon, for all we know, it could very well be a 4850X2 or 4950X2 etc. Its possible the results could be the same, but I doubt we'll be seeing scores higher then 4870 Crossfire regardless of how the cores communicate. The RV770 core is efficient, but that doesn't mean ATI can simply paste two of them together and expect it to be acceptable with heat and power consumption, they already have heat problems as it is. They will need to cut corners somewhere, maybe even lowering the memory clock.

[Blacklash]

If I were running things, and I am not :p, I would reduce the price of the GTX 260 while bumping it's clock up to 620-640. I'd raise the GTX 280 to 670-690 and slightly reduce it's price.

[H]ard was only able to raise the core clock on the HD 4870 30MHz which leads me to believe they are flirting with max more than nVidia at this time. There are some factory overclocked GTX 280 cards that are 68-98MHz over default clock right now. I am currently testing 700MHz on mine.

It will be interesting to see how nVidia responds to the HD 4870.