My experience with HD 4870

[nekrosoft13]

4. I haven't been happy with Nvidia's drivers this year. It was like 4+ months before we got new WHQL drivers and it seems that all the new drivers for the newer cards.

you do know that at this time WHQL means absolutly nothing?

[Yaboze]

I know...but it's been very hit or miss with the beta drivers and I don't really like to modifiy the .inf on those driver sets that don't include G80's. Out of all of those leaked sets, only 2-3 at the most were any good, mainly the ones that you picked, like 175.63. :)

The drivers I listed last because it was only a small gripe, but I like the idea of ATI putting out a driver every month with hotfixes in between if needed. Waiting months for an official release from Nvidia or having them just put out drivers for new cards is annoying.

[methimpikehoses]

I had some stuttering issues last night with my 8.7's, that I think I borked the installation of. Went to the 8.6 hotfix after cleaning my drives of ATi remnants, and all is well.

I was close to reformatting... but I think I was able to avoid it.

[namuk]

the HD4870 says it can do 1.3 over dvi i.e xvYCC colour how is that . and is there anyone here running a 1.3 lcd/plasma screen here??

[Kerrysucks]

So gents, would it be stupid to buy a 4870 at this point in time as I think it might, or should I take the plunge to take advantage of Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3?

I'm not doing a total system overhaul until the Nehalems come out, just so you guys know. I've held out this long, why not wait a few more months?

[LordJuanlo]

I had an 8800GTX like you, and was happy with that card, but I sold it on eBay and with that money and €100 more I got a 4870. For me it has been a great change, now I can use AA in almost all games (except Crysis) at 1920x1200.

If you can get some good money by selling the GTX, go ahead, I'm very happy with the change

[walterman]

So gents, would it be stupid to buy a 4870 at this point in time as I think it might, or should I take the plunge to take advantage of Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3?

I'm not doing a total system overhaul until the Nehalems come out, just so you guys know. I've held out this long, why not wait a few more months?

Buy your hardware when you are going to enjoy it. Nehalem will need a new mobo, DDR3 & remember what happened with the 45nm quads in the beginning.

[nekrosoft13]

The drivers I listed last because it was only a small gripe, but I like the idea of ATI putting out a driver every month with hotfixes in between if needed. Waiting months for an official release from Nvidia or having them just put out drivers for new cards is annoying.

you do know that ATI does that for no reason really? sometimes from a month to moth there is no real fixes, but they release a "new" driver just to keep people quiet.

[nekrosoft13]

So gents, would it be stupid to buy a 4870 at this point in time as I think it might, or should I take the plunge to take advantage of Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3?

I'm not doing a total system overhaul until the Nehalems come out, just so you guys know. I've held out this long, why not wait a few more months?

up to you, just keep in mind by the time Nehalem will be out, new cards will be released.

[K007]

anyone know where i can get some info on the different types of AA in the ATi?

[nekrosoft13]

anandtech review seemed to be detailed with examples

to bad they still are missing the best AA modes: SuperSampling AA

[Ninja Prime]

anandtech review seemed to be detailed with examples

to bad they still are missing the best AA modes: SuperSampling AA

How is that the best?

[Xion X2]

you do know that ATI does that for no reason really? sometimes from a month to moth there is no real fixes, but they release a "new" driver just to keep people quiet.

Got anything to back this up with? This is a pretty big assumption on your part. I would think it would be a very rare occasion where there would be no fixes in a driver in the course of a month between releases. In fact, I would venture to say that it never happens.

[mailman2]

Sorry but every month ATIs drivers have bug fixes and or performance increases. They don't just "release a set", but that was spoken like a GTX 280 owner. GRID is owned by ATI, Hell_Of_Doom I play at 1680x1050 everything maxed, 8xAA and get 100s constantly so Im not sure what you are talking about. The 4870 is just as fast if not faster in GRID. There is nothing wrong with CCC or ATIs drivers. They have so far been much more stable in Vista and no more tearing like the Nvidia drivers have given me constantly.

[namuk]

i have not had ati for years only due too there drivers were utter tosh . if they could sort there drivers out as fast as nvidia i would swap . but that 4870 looks a beast .

the only reason i not been with ati cards is as i look at that company like creative.

[mailman2]

i have not had ati for years only due too there drivers were utter tosh . if they could sort there drivers out as fast as nvidia i would swap . .

Really? Cause I got sick of installing half baked leaked "fix for one specific issue" vendor drivers every other day that caused strange issues with other applications and some games. I quit doing that and starting sticking with Nvidia drivers and with an 8800 it became few and far between driver releases. Its time to try ATI cause their drivers and top notch now and my 4870 is screaming fast, water cooled and waiting for Riva Tuner Support.

[LordJuanlo]

Sorry but every month ATIs drivers have bug fixes and or performance increases. They don't just "release a set", but that was spoken like a GTX 280 owner. GRID is owned by ATI, Hell_Of_Doom I play at 1680x1050 everything maxed, 8xAA and get 100s constantly so Im not sure what you are talking about. The 4870 is just as fast if not faster in GRID. There is nothing wrong with CCC or ATIs drivers. They have so far been much more stable in Vista and no more tearing like the Nvidia drivers have given me constantly.

Grid is INCREDIBLE on the 4870, that game really shines on ATI 4000 series, it just flies no matter what amount of AA I throw at it on 1920x1200

[bman87]

the HD4870 says it can do 1.3 over dvi i.e xvYCC colour how is that . and is there anyone here running a 1.3 lcd/plasma screen here??

I have a 4850 on order and should be here today. I can try to see if this works over a DVI -> HDMI cable. But I have no idea how to make sure it is doing the extended color. Is there a option in the ATI panel? My Sony 46" XBR4 wont tell me anything besides the resolution. I know 1.3 xvYCC works and makes a difference, I can see the colors pop on the PS3 when I turn on extended color and super-white.

[namuk]

I have a 4850 on order and should be here today. I can try to see if this works over a DVI -> HDMI cable. But I have no idea how to make sure it is doing the extended color. Is there a option in the ATI panel? My Sony 46" XBR4 wont tell me anything besides the resolution. I know 1.3 xvYCC works and makes a difference, I can see the colors pop on the PS3 when I turn on extended color and super-white.

thats it there is no way of nowing if your running 1.3 deep coulor .. unless everest can detect it ..

check this out for us mate also the ati driver may detect it and show in the ati settings .

i did notice deep coulor when i swapped panel on my xe1 and BD30 players .. very thick coulors mad:)

[namuk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmxOWJuzlYI

looks good

[K007]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmxOWJuzlYI

looks good

that douche bag is making fun of CRT....
and that cod4 video looks like its from a console...pc version dosen't have those 3 buttons near the middle/bottom O.O?

[Heinz68]

I have a 4850 on order and should be here today. I can try to see if this works over a DVI -> HDMI cable. But I have no idea how to make sure it is doing the extended color. Is there a option in the ATI panel? My Sony 46" XBR4 wont tell me anything besides the resolution. I know 1.3 xvYCC works and makes a difference, I can see the colors pop on the PS3 when I turn on extended color and super-white.
The card has two Dual Link DVI-I, HDCP, HDTV Video outputs.
Dual link doubles the the Single Link DVI max bandwidth of 165 MHz (4.95 Gbps)
to 330 MHZ (9.9Gbps). The card has also on board audio chip and Dual Link DVI/HDMI adapter is included.

Main diference between HDMI and DVI is that HDMI can also carry audio signal.
HDMI 1.1 single link bandwidth is 165 MHz (4.9 Gbit/s), HDMI 1.3- Increases single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbit/s)

The fact is, the card will display anything your monitor is able to display.

Partial Product specifications from PowerColor (http://www.powercolor.com/eng/products_features.asp?ProductID=2201) HD 4870, for complete description see the link.
# Two integrated dual-link DVI display outputs

* Each supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)2
* Each includes a dual-link HDCP encoder with on-chip key storage for high resolution playback of protected content3

# Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs

* Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all resolutions up to 2048x15362

# DisplayPortoutput support

* 24- and 30-bit displays at all resolutions up to 2560x16002

# HDMI output support

* All display resolutions up to 1920x10802
* Integrated HD audio controller with support for stereo and multi-channel (up to 7.1) audio formats, including AC-3, AAC, DTS, DTS-HD & Dolby True- HD4, enabling a plug-and-play audio solution over HDMI

# Integrated AMD XilleonTM HDTV encoder

* Provides high quality analog TV output (component/S- video/composite)
* Supports SDTV and HDTV resolutions
* Underscan and overscan compensation

[UberRN69]

I'm just going to buy a HD 4870 to give ATI/AMD a little boost to stay in the game. Even if GTX260's drop well below HD 4870 prices (which I don't think they will, because 4780's will drop to match).

Plus I always like to favour the underdog, it's always good to see the big players get humbled a little and be reminded that price gouging their customers will just come back to bite them in the ass.

[mcbacker]

Joined the club! =]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0042.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0042.jpg) http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0043.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0043.jpg)

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0044.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0044.jpg) http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0045.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0045.jpg)

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0047.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0047.jpg) http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0048.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0048.jpg)

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0050.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0050.jpg) http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0051.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0051.jpg)

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/th_IMG_0052.jpg (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/mcbacker/ATIHD4870/IMG_0052.jpg)

First impressions: fast, heavy and noisy piece of hardware!

MC

[namuk]

noisy?? how noisy