HD4850 vs. HD4870

[fierydemise]

I've been looking at a lot of benchmarks and have been unable to come to come to a firm conclusion about whether a HD4870 is worth it at 1680x1050. Would it be limited at that resolution or would it have a significant advantage over the HD4850?

 

[RallyMaster]

Not sure it's worth the 100 dollar price difference especially since you can get sometimes get a HD4850 sub $150 after rebates and promo codes

 

[SlowSpyder]

I run a 22" monitor, same res as you OP. I think the 4850 is fast enough for that res. But, I am probably going to pick up a 4870 if/when they drop a bit in price, I like dual slot coolers and my guess is that the 4870 will last me a few years if I want it to.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: fierydemise
I've been looking at a lot of benchmarks and have been unable to come to come to a firm conclusion about whether a HD4870 is worth it at 1680x1050. Would it be limited at that resolution or would it have a significant advantage over the HD4850?

I just installed a Gigabyte 4870 card and I run at 1680x1050 res,the way I see it is I don't change video cards that often so it'll have bit of longer life span then a 4850 card,plus if I decide to buy a 24" LCD screen later it'll be able to handle that res with no problem.


You can always max out AA/AF at 1680x1050 with the 4870 card in most games so its worth buying .

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: RallyMaster
Not sure it's worth the 100 dollar price difference especially since you can get sometimes get a HD4850 sub $150 after rebates and promo codes

I think the price delta between the two cards just isn't worth it. If you have a Crossfire motherboard, 2x4850s will kill a single 4870 for nearly the same money. Irregardless, you can run games perfectly fine with high AA and AF with a single 4850 at 1680x1050.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

put it this way, if you don't get the 4870, you'll be asking the same question later

 

[Makaveli]

I agree with MEM, the 4870 will last you longer than the 4850. I would go with it.

 

[sticks435]

I bought a 4850 from BB a couple of weeks ago. After having played Lost Planet, Crysis, and Mass Effect, I think I"m going to return it and get a 4870. I can't stand not having any AA at all, and the 4850 struggles with games that take a massive hit with even 2xAA on, like Crysis and ME. Though ME may be to due to poor 4800 drivers.

My original plan was to upgrade the mobo to Crossfire later on, but it doesn't seem to scale well from what I've read. I might as well get a more powerful single card, and hope scaling is fixed by the time I need to upgrade again.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: sticks435
I bought a 4850 from BB a couple of weeks ago. After having played Lost Planet, Crysis, and Mass Effect, I think I"m going to return it and get a 4870. I can't stand not having any AA at all, and the 4850 struggles with games that take a massive hit with even 2xAA on, like Crysis and ME. Though ME may be to due to poor 4800 drivers.

My original plan was to upgrade the mobo to Crossfire later on, but it doesn't seem to scale well from what I've read. I might as well get a more powerful single card, and hope scaling is fixed by the time I need to upgrade again.

Not 1 single-gpu ocard plays Crysis Smoothly

Mass Effect is a best case scenario NV scaling game
So no ATI card is fast for it regardless.

To answer the question, NO 4870 is not worth spending almost double on for 1680x1050 gaming. In fact you can almost get 2 4850s for the price of 1 4870.

 

[sticks435]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: sticks435
I bought a 4850 from BB a couple of weeks ago. After having played Lost Planet, Crysis, and Mass Effect, I think I"m going to return it and get a 4870. I can't stand not having any AA at all, and the 4850 struggles with games that take a massive hit with even 2xAA on, like Crysis and ME. Though ME may be to due to poor 4800 drivers.

My original plan was to upgrade the mobo to Crossfire later on, but it doesn't seem to scale well from what I've read. I might as well get a more powerful single card, and hope scaling is fixed by the time I need to upgrade again.

Not 1 single-gpu ocard plays Crysis Smoothly

Mass Effect is a best case scenario NV scaling game
So no ATI card is fast for it regardless.


To answer the question, NO 4870 is not worth spending almost double on for 1680x1050 gaming. In fact you can almost get 2 4850s for the price of 1 4870.

Those numbers are for 4xAA. I'm using 2x and I still only get about 25fps. Plus, Crysis is supposed to be alot smoother at 25~30fps then most other games, so lower number's aren't nearly as bad as they look.

ATI cards are fast in ME if your not using AA. I hit the framerate limiter when I don't force AA on in the driver, but since ME has no built in AA support, it's the only choice, and it runs like crap on the 4850.

I have until the end of July before my 30 days are up, so maybe the final 8.7 drivers will change my mind. If not, I may take it back and put my 8800 back in until things settle down.

 

[bob4432]

how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

 

[sticks435]

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

that sucks

 

[sticks435]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

that sucks

Yea. Tho Artic cooling is coming out with thier offical 4800 series cooler for around $30, so that should help a ton.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

that sucks

Yea. Tho Artic cooling is coming out with thier offical 4800 series cooler for around $30, so that should help a ton.

too bad companies like asus won't put a cooler on the 48xx line like they do w/ the 38xx line....works wonders.

 

[sticks435]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

that sucks

Yea. Tho Artic cooling is coming out with thier offical 4800 series cooler for around $30, so that should help a ton.

too bad companies like asus won't put a cooler on the 48xx line like they do w/ the 38xx line....works wonders.

Yea. Asus did include a fan speed program with the 4850, and as far as I can tell, they haven't released the 4870 yet, so maybe they are working on a cooler for it.

 

[vgkarthik88]

they will. rite now ati is just trying to go thru all the reference boards. once they're all sold partners will start coming out with nice coolers. << http://www.fudzilla.com/index....=view&id=8339&Itemid=1 >>. you can change the cooler for better OC even later. as for my 2 cents worth, go for the 4870. with higher textures, the GDDR5 really starts getting ahead of GDDR3. rem they're both 256-bit so the speed of the 5 makes up for it. but the 4850 gets a bit limited with ultra high textures. im sure you will want to move to higher res soon, since 19x12 and higher is all the rage now!

 

[AzN]

Considering they have the same core and same amount of SP and TMU I doubt 4870 will last longer. 4870 is about 20-30% faster either way. Then again 4850 is very capable card at 1680x1050.

 

[biostud]

ATM you can only o/c 4850 to 700Mhz core, but using RBE you can go faster.

 

[Makaveli]

Originally posted by: Azn
Considering they have the same core and same amount of SP and TMU I doubt 4870 will last longer. 4870 is about 20-30% faster either way. Then again 4850 is very capable card at 1680x1050.

You would be surprised at how much of a difference 20-30% faster will do. If you have a 4850 and a game is just borderline playable. it will be playable on the 4870. And as for its not worth the cost I also disagree. going with 4850 x2 for Xfire will cost you $400. And the amount of games that get a big boost are still small. I think faster single cards are always a better solution than Xfire of SLI. One exception tho would be the 4850x2 vs 1 GTX 280 at its release price.

I myself am holding out to see if there will be a difference in speed with the 1GB 4870's that will be coming out. If there is a nice difference in performance it will replace my 3870. if not then a 512mb 4870 will do.

 

[RallyMaster]

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

Well considering an AC Accelero S1 Rev 2 costs a good $30 shipped on some sites, I'm not sure that's much to spend for a $200 card.

 

[sticks435]

Originally posted by: RallyMaster

Originally posted by: sticks435

Originally posted by: bob4432
how do the 4850s o/c when using ccc? my 3850 will do very, very close to 3870 speeds from the ccc with no other mods or tweaking on my part.

With stock cooling, they barely do. They just run so hot that you either have to turn the fan up so high it's unbearable, or set it to a resonable speed and get very little OC.

Well considering an AC Accelero S1 Rev 2 costs a good $30 shipped on some sites, I'm not sure that's much to spend for a $200 card.

I agree, but since I wasn't sure of the poster's intentions, I used the stock cooling as reference.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Makaveli

Originally posted by: Azn
Considering they have the same core and same amount of SP and TMU I doubt 4870 will last longer. 4870 is about 20-30% faster either way. Then again 4850 is very capable card at 1680x1050.

You would be surprised at how much of a difference 20-30% faster will do. If you have a 4850 and a game is just borderline playable. it will be playable on the 4870. And as for its not worth the cost I also disagree.

With graphics card advancements, saving $100 now and adding another $100 to get a $200 card in 1 year will net you double the increase over 4850.

I bought my 8800GTS 320 for $280 in March of 07 and now you can get 8800GS for $80 that has same performance or HD4870 for $300 that has at least double the performance. From that perspective, 20-30% is nothing.

By the time 4850 is slow, chances are 4870's 30% increase still wont be enough to play a game smoothly. Look at it from a historical perspective -- at the end of the generation there is little difference between 6800GT vs. 6800U, X850Pro vs. X850XT, 7900GT vs. 7900GTX, 8800GT vs. 8800GTX. The cards just get overwhelmed by complex shaders and textures. You should never buy to futureproof I've learned. So saying 4870 will "last" longer is unjustified when every year performance doubles (except cases of 8600GTS) or the price falls in half for same performance.

 

[lopri]

Check this review out. If there are too many games, at least the summary page I linked. It's a very comprehensive review and you can just read the games of your interest.

Unfortunately it's in German