Any news on 1GB 4870?

[Calculator83]

X2 is overkill for me I think. with the current bundle of craptastic games anyway. I just need something that'll get me over the hump.

 

[nanaki333]

what are you currently running?

 

[Sylvanas]

They are starting to go on sale around the world- there are a few places in Europe and they arrive in Stock here in Australia tomorrow so I would keep a close eye on Newegg and other sites in the coming days.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: nanaki333
what are you currently running?

opt 144 2.9ghz
2g ram

I need the card for hd decoding, cuz i just got a blu ray drive.

Gamewise:
I play
Halo PC
BF2142
WC3
TF2

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: Calculator83

Originally posted by: nanaki333
what are you currently running?

opt 144 2.9ghz
2g ram

I need the card for hd decoding, cuz i just got a blu ray drive.

Gamewise:
I play
Halo PC
BF2142
WC3
TF2

you don't need a 1GB 4870 for thoes games , a 4850 or 4870 512mb will do fine for thoes title.

 

[airhendrix13]

What is the price going to be?

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: Calculator83

Originally posted by: nanaki333
what are you currently running?

opt 144 2.9ghz
2g ram

I need the card for hd decoding, cuz i just got a blu ray drive.

Gamewise:
I play
Halo PC
BF2142
WC3
TF2

you don't need a 1GB 4870 for thoes games , a 4850 or 4870 512mb will do fine for thoes title.

3007wfp

Originally posted by: airhendrix13
What is the price going to be?

Hopefully regular drops like 20bux so we can get the new one for 330

 

[Zillatech]

I just noticed Sapphire has a new 4870 1GB Model listed on their "Driver Download Page"

Should be coming real soon now, hopefully with Cat 8.8's ~

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: Zillatech
I just noticed Sapphire has a new 4870 1GB Model listed on their "Driver Download Page"

Should be coming real soon now, hopefully with Cat 8.8's ~

Thx for the nfo,, I'm desperate to play some of my games at 25x16 hehe. so far WC3 is the only one,

 

[AzN]

1 gig of vram is only going to help a selective few games in 2560x1600 with AA. 4870 512meg is plenty. ATI manages better with lower vram than Nvidia.

 

[QuixoticOne]

1GB helps a lot for people with 24" or 30" LCDs in high resolutions when they use high detail textures and high AA settings.
There's a graph somewhere on one of the review sites that shows a bunch of games exceeding 512MB VRAM usage under these conditions, and many even somewhat exceeding the 768MB of an 8800GTX.

IMHO the current generation of games' texture usages is artificially limited mainly by the fact that a lot of people have 512MB GPUs; it is not that expensive anymore to get a 24"/30" LCD compared to 3 years ago, so it is not an uncommon case to play in 1920x1200 or 2560x1200 or whatever with AA + high detail textures on. It would be trivial to expect games to bump up the texture quality as more people get 1GB cards, or even before that just as the "very high" option for those few that can run it.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
1GB helps a lot for people with 24" or 30" LCDs in high resolutions when they use high detail textures and high AA settings.
There's a graph somewhere on one of the review sites that shows a bunch of games exceeding 512MB VRAM usage under these conditions, and many even somewhat exceeding the 768MB of an 8800GTX.

IMHO the current generation of games' texture usages is artificially limited mainly by the fact that a lot of people have 512MB GPUs; it is not that expensive anymore to get a 24"/30" LCD compared to 3 years ago, so it is not an uncommon case to play in 1920x1200 or 2560x1200 or whatever with AA + high detail textures on. It would be trivial to expect games to bump up the texture quality as more people get 1GB cards, or even before that just as the "very high" option for those few that can run it.

when they MAKE the textures, they can scan them in at w/e res they want, I don't think it's more work. Its a slight matter of space limitation "compression".

JUST making sure, the 4870 can be used to decode h264 mkv files with like MPC, or vlc right?

 

[airhendrix13]

Originally posted by: Calculator83

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
1GB helps a lot for people with 24" or 30" LCDs in high resolutions when they use high detail textures and high AA settings.
There's a graph somewhere on one of the review sites that shows a bunch of games exceeding 512MB VRAM usage under these conditions, and many even somewhat exceeding the 768MB of an 8800GTX.

IMHO the current generation of games' texture usages is artificially limited mainly by the fact that a lot of people have 512MB GPUs; it is not that expensive anymore to get a 24"/30" LCD compared to 3 years ago, so it is not an uncommon case to play in 1920x1200 or 2560x1200 or whatever with AA + high detail textures on. It would be trivial to expect games to bump up the texture quality as more people get 1GB cards, or even before that just as the "very high" option for those few that can run it.

when they MAKE the textures, they can scan them in at w/e res they want, I don't think it's more work. Its a slight matter of space limitation "compression".

JUST making sure, the 4870 can be used to decode h264 mkv files with like MPC, or vlc right?

I believe so, but not 100% sure.

 

[airhendrix13]

I think we are just hitting the beginning of a new age of VRAM usage. Although many modern games won't use more than 512MB of VRAM, I think many future games will start pushing beyond that with AA implemented and at higher resolutions. Fallout 3 sounds like it will be a shooter within an Oblivion sized world, Alan Wake will be huge as well, FarCry may push beyond that (I kinda doubt it though), and I'm sure there are more I forgot to list.

Like QuixoticOne said, bigger LCD monitors are getting less expensive, so higher VRAM usage will become more common. Faster VRAM definitely helps, but according to reviews, the GTX 260's extra memory helps more than the 4870's faster VRAM in many cases at high resolutions (19x12 and higher).

I don't think anyone denies the fact that as we head into the future more VRAM will be needed, but I think that future is coming sooner than many think.

 

[QuixoticOne]

This might be the good review article on VRAM usage demand vs game / resolution / AA that I read a while back. Unfortunately the site isn't coming up for me at the moment, maybe that is a problem of my system only, or maybe the site is having problems of its own. Hopefully it is the same informative article with oodles of graphs and details and it'll be visible to some of the rest of you. If not, maybe google cache / internet archive can help.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14230

How much graphics memory do you really need? - The Tech Report ...

"How much graphics memory do you really need? We test with a GeForce 8800 GT to find out by Geoff Gasior ? 5:42 PM on February 27, 2008 ..."

 

[QuixoticOne]

Here's the article I was looking for; as you can see, even at 1600x1200 resolution with a meager 4xAA (which is nothing for a 4850x4870) many of the better IQ games of even 2 years ago were exceeding 512MB VRAM usage with the graph of resolution vs. VRAM needed being quite sharply upward. IMHO 1GBy VRAM is very relevant today for a 4870 or similar power GPU.
http://www.yougamers.com/artic...ch_do_you_really_need/

Also good info:
http://en.expreview.com/2007/1...-do-you-need%EF%BC%9F/
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/07/15/1359216.shtml
http://forums.legitreviews.com/about8247.html
http://forum.beyond3d.com/show...dd7c840070a382&t=47721

 

[Sylvanas]

The HIS, Sapphire and Powercolor 1gb 4870s are on sale here now- I should think there would be some more reviews popping up around the place very soon.

 

[MarcVenice]

I suggest you get a new CPU and some more RAM while your at it.

 

[fakester01]

I'm will be buying a HD4870 1GB this week. Will be ordering it on Thursday. I could get it now but I'm ordering all my PC upgrades in one day so I can get a VIP discount and combo deals to get everything cheaper.

The 1GB HD4870 has been in Australia for a few days now. But they are selling for $370. I might contact them tomorrow and see how much they are selling the Ge Cube HD4870 1GB as they have just arrived in store and Ge Cube seem to be cheaper than the rest of the brands.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: fakester01
I'm will be buying a HD4870 1GB this week. Will be ordering it on Thursday. I could get it now but I'm ordering all my PC upgrades in one day so I can get a VIP discount and combo deals to get everything cheaper.

The 1GB HD4870 has been in Australia for a few days now. But they are selling for $370. I might contact them tomorrow and see how much they are selling the Ge Cube HD4870 1GB as they have just arrived in store and Ge Cube seem to be cheaper than the rest of the brands.

As long as the warrenty is the same length and quality,, 20mhz is not going to make the difference.

 

[fakester01]

Originally posted by: Calculator83As long as the warrenty is the same length and quality,, 20mhz is not going to make the difference.

Sorry but what has that got to do with my post?

 

[Aikouka]

I wonder if it might be better if I buy a 1G HD4870 and "discard" (not literally) my current 512MB HD4870. I used to run an 8800GTX which has more RAM and never really had an issue with multiple things at once. But yesterday, I was playing two WoWs at once (like usual) and was doing quite a bit of AoE tanking (which causes a ton of text to fly up on my screen of damage being done, damage being taken, blocks, etc). Well, I hit ALT+TAB to switch to my Trillian window and everything just bogged down to hell. Both WoWs were crawling at 3FPS and trying to use the PC was almost fruitless for about 20 seconds.

I also noticed that my WoW instances take up about 700-800MB of RAM each where with my old 8800GTX, they only took 500-600MB of RAM each. It's not a big deal that they take up more RAM (I have 4GB anyway), but I wonder if it's indicative of the video card running out of VRAM? I don't think I really need an X2 as I don't think this is a processing issue, but I could see some switching of data between locations causing that horrible slowdown.

Oh and here's one at NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102759

EDIT:

That's actually a 4850 1GB model.

 

[BlazinTy]

Thats a 4850 there on newegg I am still waiting for the 4870 1gig variants to start showing up on places like mwave and newegg. Also would like to see some reviews before I pull the trigger.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: BlazinTy
Thats a 4850 there on newegg I am still waiting for the 4870 1gig variants to start showing up on places like mwave and newegg. Also would like to see some reviews before I pull the trigger.

Doh, you're right... thanks . I thought it looked a little funny not having the same cooling design as my 4870 .

EDIT:

And it cost less... I thought it was a great deal at first haha.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: fakester01

Originally posted by: Calculator83As long as the warrenty is the same length and quality,, 20mhz is not going to make the difference.

Sorry but what has that got to do with my post?

my friend has a Gecube x1900xtx and I have a Sapphire, mine clocked higher. his top oc 710, I'm still playing on 735 since the day i got it.