ATi 4870 X2 (R700) previews thread

[jALLAD]

can anyone tell me what are the dimensions. cant wait to get one. already saving up.

 

[bryanW1995]

10.5" card, same size as 3870x2 and 8800gtx iirc.

 

[jALLAD]

thanks bryan. now i can choose a fitting case.
btw how is the driver support from ATi for linux? (i'm an id fan)
I currently game on XP x64 but was intending to shift to Gentoo or Fedora Core 8.
this would be my first ATi card so have no idea hence all the questions

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: jALLAD
thanks bryan. now i can choose a fitting case.
btw how is the driver support from ATi for linux? (i'm an id fan)
I currently game on XP x64 but was intending to shift to Gentoo or Fedora Core 8.
this would be my first ATi card so have no idea hence all the questions

Good and getting better . ATI have recently gone Open source with their drivers and these Open source variants are developing at a rapid pace. ATI also has it's proprietary fglrx driver (Catalyst for Linux) that launches the same day every month as their windows drivers. Phoronix, the site I linked is a good source for lots of info on this subject have a look around .

 

[jALLAD]

thats gr8 sylvanas thanx for the link
so far my linux experience have been goin thru ups and downs mostly because of the shoddy driver support from Nvidia. for some reason the livna drivers although seemingly fine have been unable to work well with my games, namely ETQW. this forces me to go for the official drivers. to top it off the driver releases are at least 3 or 4 release behind windows. and recompiling after every kernel update is definitely annoying.

i had heard about AMD goin for open source drivers, but dint realise the project was advanced enough for the latest 3D games. looking forward to building my new rig with the 4870x2 and linux.

Edit:

AMD is in the process of pushing new high-end features into their Linux driver -- such as Multi-GPU CrossFire support -- and with the ATI Radeon HD 4850 they have even begun showing off Tux, the Linux mascot, on their product packaging and providing Linux drivers on their product CDs!

this had me all smiles

 

[Nathelion]

It's really nice seeing linux support at long last becoming a selling point. Now if developers would just start using OpenGL...

 

[Dkcode]

We need developers to start programming proper PC games. Never mind coding for a niche API.

 

[btdvox]

Heres my issue:
Most of the benchmarks I see give framerates for games like crysis and on Very high quality and 1920X1200 I get pretty much a 27-35 FPS Avg on my 8800 ultra SLI (QX9650 clocked to 4.2)

And all these guys are getting pretty much the same results,

There are only a few games that really push cards imo. Games like HL2 are useless to me because Im running over 120 FPS at MAX anyways, Who cares if i get to run it at 144!!!

I feel that alot of people should probably just keep the cards they have.
this card does seem awesome- but for what?

 

[natty1]

do we have an official release date yet?

 

[BRDiger]

Well, ego and then ofcourse there are still guys like me, who have some kind of a longer upgrade cycle...still sitting on my ati 9800pro and figuring that the next rig might have to last another 5 years...
When your mainstreamlaptop outperformes your gameing rig, you know its time to spend your cash

 

[SSChevy2001]

@btdvox - Depends on what you have and what resolution your going to run. Honestly your right most games aren't really demanding enough right now. People are going crazy trying get crysis running maxed out ( very high / avg 60FPS / AA ) and truth is it's the most unoptimized POS out there. Even crytek said that warhead would be more optimized. So you'll might get 37-45 FPS with warhead, wouldn't that be nice?

Either way it's a nice card and it's going to push Nvidia off their a$$ finally to get 55nm out.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Dkcode
We need developers to start programming proper PC games. Never mind coding for a niche API.

Agreed. With proper multi-core/SMP support FTW!

Now, there's no doubt in my mind that if my games ran as well on Linux as they did on XP that I'd be on Linux. But fact is that they don't run at ALL on Linux. And I mean natively, not with some Windows emulation program. Linux is the better OS but Windows is ubiquitous.

AFA a release date goes; I'm waiting with my fingers and toes crossed like the rest of you. The sooner the 4870X2 comes out, the sooner the big etailers can get the intitial price gouging out of the way, then the sooner the price comes down to something reasonable and I can afford one.

 

[dasracht]

Originally posted by: natty1
do we have an official release date yet?

I second this question. Is there an official release date?

 

[SSChevy2001]

August 12th is the launch date. Still wouldn't jump on it right away until I start seeing some rebates or price drops. If the GTX+ performs nice enough you can expect to see some price drops, and just in time for Far Cry 2.

I'll be so glad to get rid of this 8800, as the stuttering it has with older games is driving me nuts.

 

[dasracht]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001
August 12th is the launch date.

Thanks for the news. Happen to have a link to launch news?

I'm wondering about which brands will appear on launch.

Thanks!

 

[SSChevy2001]

Guys selling PCs on ebay already have them.

"Although we have the cards in stock already, because of NDA we are not able to ship this unit until then."

 

[dasracht]

A week from Tuesday! Great gods, it can't come fast enough!

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001
Guys selling PCs on ebay already have them.

"Although we have the cards in stock already, because of NDA we are not able to ship this unit until then."

Somehow I sincerely doubt they actually have them in stock. More than likely they're simply attempting to get people to pre-order from them. NDA's are normally for reviewers/developers, not small-time ebay sellers.

 

[SSChevy2001]

@Creig - Your more than likely right, but it still doesn't change the fact that aug 12th is the expected launch date.

 

[btdvox]

^^ Yeah your right it depends, I mean for me I had dual 8800 ultras, And i was looking into selling them and getting either Dual 280's or 2 of these 4870's but I ended up buying another 8800 ultra for less than 200 bucks CDN!
At a LAN party 3 of these 8800 ultras matched 2 280's scores in Call of duty 4 and Crysis. In fact the 3 8800 ultras did a bit better. Obviously 3 280's will beat 3 8800 ultras lol.

All these sli, Tri Sli and Quad CF etc is getting confusing.

 

[MichaelD]

I should start a poll to guess the Newegg "Gouge-Your-Wallet-To-Pieces" Price upon launch.

I say $625.00 (plus $14.95 3-day shipping) :roll:. How about you guys?

By mid September (but I really don't want to wait that long!) It should be down to the $500 mark after MIRs.

Hopefully, there's a bit of a selection b/t card partners at launch. Visiontek, Sapphire, etc.

 

[dasracht]

I'd rather bet it'll be retail price at launch then go up very shortly after, like the 4780. That was blamed on gddr5 shortages, and this card has 4x the amount, so...

 

[unr3al]

8800 stuttering in older games?? I assume that you have a 320MB 8800GTS...

Where the 120fps vs 144fps is concerned, not everyone has two 8800U's in SLi in the first and in the second place, if you want your graphics card to keep up with times (many games being released in the near future are sure to kill Joe Public's GPU, like Far Cry 2 and similar titles, not to mention highly anticipated titles like NFS:Undercover) you can't just stick to the same stuff for half a decade.

I'm all for holding on until a decent upgrade is available at a decent price but to say you have a pair of 8800U's in SLi (the scaling in many games leave much to be desired anyway) is completely beside the point. With that, I'm also certain that the HD4870X2 will launch at a much lower MSRP than the 8800U did (wasn't that 650USD or something?), nevermind that insane GTX280...

 

[bryanW1995]

with gtx 280 below $400 I don't think that ati or newegg or anyone else will be able to get away with charging much over $500.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
with gtx 280 below $400 I don't think that ati or newegg or anyone else will be able to get away with charging much over $500.

Oh, how I hope you're right. It's just that whole "supply and demand thing" that's got me worried.