ATi 4870/4850 Review Thread

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: hooflung
nRolo needs to pretty much apologize to the forum for the FUD he was trying to spread about the 48x0 cards and trying to position the 280 as something to behold. The Rv770 is stunning and hits the perfect price points all around.

Don't count on it ..he'd probably tell us to buy GTX 260 because of PhysX support. It's always a known fact that NV over-abuses the architecture to make high performance cards, that doesn't necessarily mean it is a *intelligent design*. G80 was a great design, it went down the hill since then, they made extremely limited progress while ATI was working hard to stay in competition. NV is definitely going out of options, the biggest proof of this is the Ageia PhysX deal - this deal will calm the market while they busy themselves designing a new architecture. It is NV spreading FUD claiming they are in the boundaries of technical limitations, first of all there is no real boundary, there is only intellectual boundary. ATI is capable of beating NV but their main goal is the mainstream market where profit really is.

 

[chizow]

Well, I'd say its a bit premature to say GT200 is a flop, if you look at this latest round of reviews I think you'll see that there's quite a bit of CPU bottlenecking and frame capping going on, even at higher resolutions like 16x12 and 19x12. That's not to say 4870 isn't a great part, it is, but clearly a large part of the reason its so close to GTX 280 is because of CPU bottlenecking.

For example, quoted from the AT article:

Performance of the Radeon HD 4870 continues to be strong, but because of the frame rate cap we're not able to see if the GTX 280 could stretch its legs further and eventually outperform the 4870. In actual gameplay, the 4870 and GTX 280 appear to be equals.

Most readers will not notice this, they'll just see the 4870 tying the GTX 280 and move on. But the 4870 even falls victim in some titles and clearly does in CF as it doesn't scale nearly as well as the 4850 in CF and caps out about the same frame rates, which is also very similar to the NV SLI solutions. This is further emphasized with Tri/Quad configs where there is almost no gain from the 3rd card (see Hothardware review).

Like some others, I'd be interested to see if frame buffer size has an impact on performance. Unfortunately Vista doesn't allow you to monitor frame buffer usage with RivaTuner so its hard to know for sure.

 

[Compddd]

Since when has nRollo been reliable about anything? He's a sponsored hack plain and simple.

 

[MarcVenice]

This framerate cap is, if you ask me, a load of bull. I´ve been staring at the crossfire and SLI benchmarks for a while now, and only in Assassins creeds do the framerates not budge when they go from 16*10, to 19*12 to 25*16. And perhaps you could add Crysis, but only for the HD4870 in CF. In all other games they lose framerates when they go up in resolution. So framerate cap my ass. One thing goes to show though, with some games running in the 120fps + it's obvious we need devs to push the graphics envelope, with a better optimized engine then the Cryengine though. CoD4 looks good, and runs like a charm.

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: chizow
Well, I'd say its a bit premature to say GT200 is a flop, if you look at this latest round of reviews I think you'll see that there's quite a bit of CPU bottlenecking and frame capping going on, even at higher resolutions like 16x12 and 19x12. That's not to say 4870 isn't a great part, it is, but clearly a large part of the reason its so close to GTX 280 is because of CPU bottlenecking.

...

It seems you are right but that's the NV's biggest problem. The market for >19x12 is very very small. At 19x12 and down 4870 can keep up with 280. AT review shows 4870 wins 4 to 3 at 1680x1050.
260 will have to come down to $299. I doubt they can sell them at $399.

 

[HOOfan 1]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
There is one thing that troubles me about the 4870: It's only a 512MB part. 512MB is getting pretty long in the tooth when 768MB+ has been the high-end standard for over a year and a half now. I know ATI has certain margins to hit, but something that fast and that pricey should be backed by more RAM. At some point games are going to push past 512MB of data and it's going to get clobbered.

Another thing that troubles me is the power consumption. All the talk was about how cool and efficient it would be, but it uses almost as much power as the GTX 280 and 9800GX2.....I was thinking of getting 2 for Crossfire, even as much as I dislike multi-GPU setups. I already bought a Corsair HX620 for $100, and there is no way I would run dual HD4870 with that, and I am not sure I want to shelve my HX620 and buy something beefier.

 

[sourthings]

What is nvidia going to do now with their prices, with the 4870x2 looming, and it's performance going to negate the GTX 280. Will they be able to drop the 280 to $450-$500 or so ? The 260 as it stands now with the 4870 being available is worth $275 at best, I doubt they can sell them that cheap.

If the 280 comes down to $450, it would be worth buying again as 2x4870 outperforms the 280 at $600, and 4870x2 will as well. If they drop the 280 down to $450, the 280 will be a half decent option as a card to purchase.

What will be interesting is if this talk of improving the technology on the 4870x2 yields better performance than 2 4870s in CF. NV isn't going to be able to put out a 280GX2, so will find themselves in even more trouble.

 

[GoodToGo]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Originally posted by: GoodToGo
Umm how does Nvidia win the $200 market?

They don't and I've clearly stated this twice...

There are yet no reviews of this "9800GTX+-+".

Yes there are, many of the 4870/4850 reviews include 9800GTX+ results including the one here on Anandtech.

It is not 10.1 compatible. With AA turned on, the 4850 beats the 9800GTX hands down. Plus the 9800 does not pass audio over HDMI.

Yes these are some of the reasons why I consider the 4850 to maintain an edge over the 9800. However it isn't as clear cut as your generalization that turning AA on is automatically going to make the 4850 faster in all games.

If you dont know the facts, that's fine. Dont call others fanboys or proclaim yourself not to be one....:roll:

You've clearly gone awry somewhere, but you should probably take your own advice...

I also never flat out call him a fanboy, however his his lumping of the $200 4850 and $300 4870 to somehow include their success in niches they simply do not exist are certainly actions of a fanboy - how is AMD the all encompassing, hands down, undisputed winner of everything when they don't command the top performing product and they have yet to do anything to change the lower end of the mid range? Last I checked, AMD was playing second fiddle with their 3800 series to the G92/G94 based GeForce products in the same price range. Do the 4800 cards have some sort of magic that lets them somehow directly change things for their last generation ancestors?

The difference between a fanboy and an objective consumer is that the fanboys will see what they want to see and not necessarily what is actually there (much like how you're bizarrely going after me as if I'm an enemy to your precious AMD when I make it quite clear that I'm thrilled with what they're doing and have even purchased a 4850...).

Your comments are going round and round. AMD does command the lower end market with the 4850. Anyone looking to buy a new vid card on a budget will most probably go for 4850 because that is the latest brand new spanking hardware with tons of performance. Only a small percentage of people will buy something like the 8800 GTX or 3870 to replace their graphics card. That is last generation, why would anyone be interested now (unless they are on a serious budget)? If the 9800 GTX+ was lower than $200, then NV would be the clear winner. However that is clearly not the case. Even in the higher end, 2 AMD card's in crossfire beat out anything else...Plus as been said before, the GX2 has yet to come out...

Edit: BTW, the 9800GTX+ doesnt beat the 4850 with AA on, the only game it does is the witcher. In bioshock with no AA, the 4850 wins out and in crysis the 9800GTX+ wins out...hardly any conclusive evidence that the 9800GTX+ is better...

 

[Denithor]

Some edits are needed and possible problem with one data point.

Page 14:

Call of Duty 4 shows the Radeon HD 4870 outperforming the Geforce GTX 260, despite being priced $100 more than AMD's offering.

This would read a lot better if you said despite being priced $100 less than nVidia's offering.

Page 15:

Quake Wars once again shows the 4870 outperforming the GTX 280, but this time it offers essentially the same performance as the GTX 280 - but at half the price.

I think you meant GTX 260.

Page 19:

Which just goes to show you that game performance will vary greatly depending on the time of code these GPUs are running.

I think you meant type.

Page 21:
The Bioshock multiGPU chart shows the 9800GTX+ performing waaay lower than I would expect, everywhere else it dominates the GTX 280 but here it's significantly lower (while even the SLI 8800GT beats the GTX 280). Can we get a recheck?

 

[BassBomb]

Are these new cards considered R700?

 

[450R]

Let me know when someone's selling a 4850 with a decent dual-slot cooler.

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Are these new cards considered R700?

No, R700 is coming in August.

 

[nyker96]

lovely, both are winners! finally AMD bounced back in something!

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: 450R
Let me know when someone's selling a 4850 with a decent dual-slot cooler.

http://www.nxsource.com/produc...6/Diamond/3850PE3512O/

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: Aberforth

Originally posted by: 450R
Let me know when someone's selling a 4850 with a decent dual-slot cooler.

http://www.nxsource.com/produc...6/Diamond/3850PE3512O/

That's a 3850 . Unless you were implying that he should buy that card and remove the cooler and put it on the 4850...

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: chizow
Well, I'd say its a bit premature to say GT200 is a flop

I definitely agree with this, nVidia still has the performance crown here. However, I doubt they'll enjoy it very much, as expensive as their top card is to produce and what they will probably be forced to sell it for due to the now intense competition from AMD.

I got in on the BB deal on a 4850 and now, after seeing this review, I think I'll just stick with it for now. I currently run most games at 16x12 and it's more than adequate for that. I will probably be upgrading shortly to 19x12 but even at that resolution the 4850 is fairly strong.

One final comment. I think the best price/performance point right now would be 2x9800GT in SLI for $400 (especially if you snag a pair of the factory overclocked cards). If you look at the multiGPU charts this combo OWNS almost everything tested and consistently beats card(s) priced hundreds of dollars more. Add to that the fact that these cards support PhysX + CUDA and I think you have a win for nVidia.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
This framerate cap is, if you ask me, a load of bull.

Well, when games actually have things like "Frame Rate Smoothing" and employ various methods of deferred rendering that you can't turn on and off, I think there is some merit to it. All UE3.0 games have Frame Rate Smoothing btw, remember the whole UT3 being stuck at 62 FPS when it first came out for benching? You can turn it off in the .ini but that's only if you're aware of it and what it does.

And yes, while there is some scaling between resolutions, the overall results are very flat even at 16x12 and 19x12. I think its most obvious when few cards/solutions are breaking 60 FPS average even at 16x12 and 19x12, with a few multi-GPU averaging higher mostly due to timing/sync issues.

Originally posted by: sourthings
What is nvidia going to do now with their prices, with the 4870x2 looming, and it's performance going to negate the GTX 280. Will they be able to drop the 280 to $450-$500 or so ? The 260 as it stands now with the 4870 being available is worth $275 at best, I doubt they can sell them that cheap.

From what I saw with the 4870 in CF the GTX 280 holds up quite well, again testament to high-end being bottlenecked by current CPUs. In situations where there's a significant edge with CF FPS is high enough as it is (COD4 for instance). It will be interesting to see if the CF sideport helps speed things up on an X2, but there's also concerns about heat and clockspeed with 2 chips on a single board.

 

[batmang]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: chizow
Well, I'd say its a bit premature to say GT200 is a flop

I definitely agree with this, nVidia still has the performance crown here. However, I doubt they'll enjoy it very much, as expensive as their top card is to produce and what they will probably be forced to sell it for due to the now intense competition from AMD.

I got in on the BB deal on a 4850 and now, after seeing this review, I think I'll just stick with it for now. I currently run most games at 16x12 and it's more than adequate for that. I will probably be upgrading shortly to 19x12 but even at that resolution the 4850 is fairly strong.

One final comment. I think the best price/performance point right now would be 2x9800GT in SLI for $400 (especially if you snag a pair of the factory overclocked cards). If you look at the multiGPU charts this combo OWNS almost everything tested and consistently beats card(s) priced hundreds of dollars more. Add to that the fact that these cards support PhysX + CUDA and I think you have a win for nVidia.

Eh, 4870x2 will change that. And will still be cheaper then NVidia's offerings. If someone actually bought a GTX280 over a 4870 they are mad.

 

[scapino]

I'm looking for a graphics card for a new build (<$2,000). Would you all recommend two 4850's or a single 4870? I can squeeze either into my budget if necessary. This system would have to last me for a while, so I was thinking a 4870, then I can grab another 4870 later if my system starts to fall behind.

 

[fliguy84]

Agreed, if I'm buying one I'll wait for the custom cooler version. Most probably from Galaxy.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: Aberforth

Originally posted by: 450R
Let me know when someone's selling a 4850 with a decent dual-slot cooler.

http://www.nxsource.com/produc...6/Diamond/3850PE3512O/

That's a 3850 . Unless you were implying that he should buy that card and remove the cooler and put it on the 4850...

ouch...I thought I saw 4850...my mistake

 

[Griswold]

With this performance and price, AMD/ATI has become the people's champion. I tip my hat to the red team.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Finally! Some competition! It looks like my next upgrade will be the 4870 with 1GB of vram. Shame on nVidia for price gouging...

 

[BFG10K]

if you look at this latest round of reviews I think you'll see that there's quite a bit of CPU bottlenecking and frame capping going on, even at higher resolutions like 16x12 and 19x12.

This might be a valid point were it not for the situations where CF/SLI is faster. In situations where the 9800 GX2 is significantly faster than the GTX280 (for example) you can't really claim the GTX280 is CPU bottlenecked.

Well, when games actually have things like "Frame Rate Smoothing" and employ various methods of deferred rendering that you can't turn on and off, I think there is some merit to it.

Deferred rendering doesn?t cap the framerate. In fact it has no effect on timing whatsoever.

?Frame rate smoothing? might impact the average framerate to a degree but again if CF/SLI provides significant gains you can't really say it?s a prime bottleneck.

I think its most obvious when few cards/solutions are breaking 60 FPS average even at 16x12 and 19x12,

In those situations I would agree there are other limitations at play but only if multi-GPU isn't providing a significant performance gain in said situations.

with a few multi-GPU averaging higher mostly due to timing/sync issues.

How do ?timing/sync issues? eliminate CPU bottlenecks or framerate caps?

All UE3.0 games have Frame Rate Smoothing btw, remember the whole UT3 being stuck at 62 FPS when it first came out for benching?

http://en.expreview.com/2008/0...d-4870-and-hd-4850/14/

Not a single bench on that graph is below 74 FPS. In fact I've never seen a set of recent UT3 benchmarks that were capped at 62 FPS, in UT3 or UT3 engine games.

Would you care to list examples of UT3 and/or UT3 based games used in the current round of 4xxx benchmarks that are capped at 62 FPS?

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: GoodToGo

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Originally posted by: nkdesistyle

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Then there's the lower end which you seem to completely neglect, or perhaps not understand at all. AMD only released two new products - for two specific price points. If I have only $150 to spend I cannot get anything better than an 8800GT from AMD (yet) at that price point - yes, the 3870 is an acceptable alternative, but it isn't truly on par. nVidia also has more choices meaning they'll be more likely have a product that offers a price or price/performance that trumps an AMD alternative. Two things can change that, and that's price drops on the 3800s and the introduction of the 4600s. But until either or both of those things happen it is nVidia that has the advantage in this segment [a close/contested win for nVidia]

I don't have to give AMD any more credit than they deserve, I'm not a blind fanboy like you are coming across as. I make my judgments objectively and pick the parts that best fit my requisites. Tomorrow (or later today rather) I hope to receive my own 4850, UPS man missed me the first attempt because I was not here...unfortunately it looks like they intend to make the 2nd attempt at the same time (when I'm not home )

Umm how does Nvidia win the $200 market? There are yet no reviews of this "9800GTX+-+". It is not 10.1 compatible. With AA turned on, the 4850 beats the 9800GTX hands down. Plus the 9800 does not pass audio over HDMI. If you dont know the facts, that's fine. Dont call others fanboys or proclaim yourself not to be one....:roll:

I think that he called it correctly. AMD has the advantage at $199, but nvidia at least has a viable alternative that is relatively close in performance (10-20%, similar to 3870vs 8800gt reversed). At $299 - $399 AMD has all the cards and nvidia just plain sucks.